Workshop Session III: 3:00-4:15

Replace the Vermont Yankee Nuclear Reactor Part Three: Grassroots Advocacy Skills
Green 116
For persons who have developed a community-specific plan to convince their legislators to replace Vermont Yankee, or who are from a district that already has a plan in motion, this workshop will help you develop specific knowledge and skills needed to effectively influence your legislator. Depending on your situation, these may include doing outreach to other citizens, working with the local media, meeting with your legislators, and so forth.

WORKSHOP LEADERS:

Emily Maxwell has over 10 years of experience coordinating outreach, education, and mobilization. She is the Field Director for VPIRG where she leads grassroots efforts to strategically leverage the voice of the general public to advance policy initiatives statewide.

Jeff Unsicker is a professor at the SIT Graduate Institute in Brattleboro, where he teaches courses in Policy Analysis and Advocacy for sustainable development. He is also a core group member of

Nuclear Free Vermont, an activist association of citizens living in the shadow of the Vermont Yankee nuclear reactor.

Deb Katz is the executive director of CAN. She is a mother, social worker and community organizer. She has been cited for her outstanding leadership and service in the public health field, and in 2000 she won the Giraffe Award for sticking her neck out to protect reactor communities. She organized three Action Camps to train organizers to advocate in their communities with over 1,000 people participating; and she traveled the country participating in nuclear waste tours to Utah, Nevada, and South Carolina with grassroots organizers.

A Breakup Worth Having: Getting Reproductive Toxins Out of Your Life Once and For All
Green 124
Almost weekly news about reproductive toxins in our environment hits the main stream. We’ve learned that reproductive toxins can leach from our Tupperware and Nalgene bottles, or be embedded in our carpeting, mattresses, computers and even our clothing. We see children reaching puberty earlier and earlier, endometriosis is on the rise, and so is sterility. This workshop provides you an opportunity to kick these toxins out of your home, your life, and our state. Come learn how.

WORKSHOP LEADERS:

Charity Carbine is VPIRG's Environmental Health Advocate where she leads efforts to reduce toxins in the environment and promote the precautionary approach to chemical exposure. She also coordinates field organizing efforts to close down the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant. Charity has much organizing experience including four years as an organizer for the New York PIRG

Steve Dickens is the Director of the Healthy Waters, Healthy Communities Program at River Network, a national organization that provides technical and organizational assistance to watershed groups, communities and tribes throughout the U.S. The Healthy Waters, Healthy Communities Program has been helping communities investigate and understand connections between pollution and human health issues for almost a decade. In conjunction with this work, Steve holds an appointment as a Visiting Scholar at the Harvard School of Public Health.

Dr. Sandra Steingraber Ecologist, author, and cancer survivor, Sandra Steingraber, Ph.D. is an inter nationally recognized expert on the environmental links to cancer and human health Please see “keynote speaker” on p.4 for an in-depth bio of Dr. Steingraber.

Environment in the Legislature
Green 128
Every year the Vermont Environmental Collaborative gathers to develop the Environment and Conservation Legislative Platform.  Twenty statewide environmental, conservation, and business groups develop a plan for passing the highest priorities for the environmental community.  Come hear about the 2009 priorities and how we plan to WIN in the Vermont State House!

WORKSHOP LEADER:

Todd Bailey has been the Executive Director of Vermont League of Conservation Voters since January of 2008. Todd has been actively involved and committed to protecting the environment by sitting on the Conservation Commission in Hinesburg, VT. He is also a former member of Burlington’s Conservation Board. Todd earned his B.S. in Environmental Science, Natural resources from Johnson State College in Vermont and is a graduate of the Environment Leadership Institute.

Renewable Energy at the Statehouse This Year
Green 216
Do you want your community to rely on clean, renewable energy? Do you need help understanding some of the options available, and how to make that happen? This workshop will focus on what we can do across that state to make it easier for all communities to realize their dreams and plans for a safe, clean, renewable energy future. Furthermore, it will cover potential state policy solutions to our energy challenges and how you can make sure these solutions are enacted soon!

WORKSHOP LEADER:

James Moore is the Clean Energy Advocate for VPIRG. He leads energy-related advocacy efforts in the State House and represents VPIRG on a number of state and regional leadership committees. He has an extensive background of field organizing and environmental advocacy, including two years as a campaigner with Greenpeace USA focusing on global warming and clean energy issues.

Gasification: a Green Technology or an Incinerator in Disguise?
Room TBA
The new word in solid waste technology is gasification. The industry heralds it as a bright, new breakthrough to waste management, a solution that will disappear our trash. What’s the truth about this new technology? As Vermont’s waste managers begin to consider gasification for our state, hear from an international zero waste expert on the technology’s economic and environmental costs, and the threat it poses to the state’s current waste reduction efforts.

WORKSHOP LEADER:

Dave Ciplet coordinates the U.S. and Canada network and campaigns for the Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives.  He is a coauthor of the new report Stop Trashing the Climate.  Through GAIA, Dave supports communities in their efforts to achieve sustainable solutions to waste, climate change, and employment.  In the past he has directed campaigns for affordable and environmentally sustainable energy, worked for immigrant and tenant rights, and served as an elementary and middle school teacher.  Dave is based in GAIA's Berkeley, U.S. office.

Powering through Peak Oil
Morrill 130
The urgency of climate change means that rapid changes in how we use energy are necessary, but peak oil constrains what changes are possible. The Transition Town movement is showing how to strengthen communities and improve quality of life while reducing energy use. Key tools are the relocalization of food, energy, and the economy. This rapidly growing and evolving international movement has found many ways to engage people to grapple with coming changes, to change their own lives proactively, to change their community, and to celebrate.

WORKSHOP LEADER:

Carl Etnier is director of Peak Oil Awareness in Montpelier, Vermont. He has worked with sustainability issues since the 1980s, with much of that time in sustainable water and wastewater treatment. In 2006, he turned his attention full time to educating people to prepare for peak oil. A founding member of the Vermont Peak Oil Network and Washington County's Post-Carbon Sustainability Network, he hosts two radio shows and writes a newspaper column and a blog related to peak oil.

Keeping Neighborhoods Quarry-Free: an open conversation about effective strategy
Morrill 132
Poorly sited surface mines threaten the air, water, and quality of life of communities across the state. Quarries bring parades of trucks through neighborhoods, send silica dust and flyrock into the air, and disrupt the groundwater supply. Local and state permitting processes, though, provide citizens an opportunity to make a stand against dangerous, industrial development. Communities facing the threat of an industrial quarry in their neighborhood are invited to share their experiences, trouble shoot challenges, and walk away with some fresh ideas to make their local campaigns more effective.

Facilitated by a local quarry-free community activist.