Bill McKibben on Burlington's Letter on Understanding with Lockheed

by: Jonathan Leavitt

Green Mountain Daily

Sun Mar 06, 2011 at 12:11:07 PM EST

(Jonathan writes, "Using the very real climate crisis as a fig leaf for getting in bed with Lockheed to deal with his leading political liability is beyond the pale." I agree. - promoted by Maggie Gundersen)

Noted environmental author and founder of 350.org Bill McKibben on Burlington's Letter on Understanding with Lockheed:
"As someone who thinks a lot about local economies, one of the things we're really good in Vermont at, better than Lockheed are these kind of solutions. [...] We probably don't have to go to find that outside help. I take seriously the idea that people can change, it's harder to see how corporations as deeply enmeshed in one way of doing business and looking at the world as Lockheed is can change. [...] Some of the stuff Lockheed or anyone else would advise us to do would happen automatically if we did the necessary political work at the national level that we need to do. If Lockheed was willing to pull out of the US Chamber of Commerce and say 'they don't speak for us, we don't like the way they deal with climate energy,' then that strikes me, then I'd be willing to give them a look at what they wanted to do here in Burlington. I don't think that's going to happen and until it does I would be disinclined to get too deeply in bed with them."

Jonathan Leavitt :: Bill McKibben on Burlington's Letter on Understanding with Lockheed

McKibben's 350.org just launched a new campaign 'The US Chamber Doesn't Speak For Me' to "show that when it comes to climate and energy, the US Chamber of Commerce represents the interests of big polluters, not everyday American business." According to a recent New York Times article, ("Justices Offer Receptive Ear to Business Interests" 12/18/10) "[The Chamber of Commerce] board includes executives from some of the nation's biggest companies, including Lockheed Martin." The Chamber of Commerce filed a brief in a Supreme Court Case stating, "a suit by eight states against power companies over carbon dioxide emissions, 'has potentially disastrous implications for the U.S. business community.'"

The New York Times article links to the Supreme Court brief which illuminates the lengths the Chamber of Commerce and its corporate partners including Lockheed will go to, to block carbon reductions:
"The Chamber works to discourage ill-conceived policies and measures which could damage the economic security of the United States and instead encourages long term technological innovation and long term clean technology development. The Chamber believes that nuisance suits such as this one which seeks to impose caps and reductions on carbon dioxide emissions in piecemeal fashion on an arbitrary subset of U.S. industry are an especially ill-conceived and constitutionally illegitimate response."
For Burlington to work with a corporation which According to William Hartung's Prophets of War performs drone bombing in Pakistan, buys scandal plagued companies interrogating prisoners in Abu Ghraib, lobbies against nuclear weapons treaties and performs warrantless wiretapping on Americans is bad enough. Discovering Lockheed via its seat on the Chamber pushes the Supreme Court to not regulate carbon emissions on a state and Federal level begs serious questions about the Kiss administration's commitment to addressing climate change.

In Seven Days recent cover story ("Up In Arms" 2/9/11), Mayor Kiss invokes crisis and urgency saying "There's enough urgency to this issue of climate change that we need to look for all the partners that are out there." So it's deeply disappointing that according to its website Mayor Kiss hasn't convened his Mayoral Task Force on Climate Change (E2C2) full of award winning local climate change talent since November 14, 2007.

Now that City Council has overwhelmingly passed a resolution rebuking the lack of transparency and public comment which Mayor Kiss would attach Burlington's sterling reputation to Lockheed; now that Burlingtonians have spoken out unanimously at City Council in overwhelming number, including green engineers and sustainability leaders; now that UVM Student Government has overwhelmingly passed a similar resolution critiquing this most unlikely of bedfellows; one would hope Mayor Kiss would listen. One would hope Mayor Kiss would do the moral, just and right thing and end this corporate PR job of a deal, quickly re-convene his long dormant Mayoral Task Force on Climate Change, and find more appropriate and just ways to incentivize Burlington's already award-winning responses climate change.

When discussing the Lockheed Letter of Understanding Mayor Kiss mentions potential Burlington Telecom financing from Lockheed. Using the very real climate crisis as a fig leaf for getting in bed with Lockheed to deal with his leading political liability is beyond the pale. When I supported Mayor Kiss on the re-election trail in 2008, he invoked in debates the words of former Burlington Mayor Bernie Sanders': "Burlington is open for business but not for sale." If Burlingtonians keep organizing and speaking out against the Lockheed Letter of Understanding, hopefully we can help Mayor Kiss live up to those words.

Writing by Jonathan Leavitt

Tuesday, March 22, 2011