What the World Can Learn From Burlington and Bernie Sanders

[Donkees]

Sanders changed the climate debate this year—but first, Burlington changed him. Now, the city has become a model that should inspire world leaders during the COP22 climate talks.

Excerpt:

You don’t get very far in Burlington, Vermont, without noticing that people there do things a bit differently. If you miss the yoga room in the airport, maybe you’ll notice the giant solar panels atop the parking garage outside. In town, the handmade wooden furniture is all locally sourced; the maple syrup on your pancakes comes from a nearby farm. The lakefront aquarium is free to the public, and fairly impossible to leave without becoming an advocate for protecting the ecosystem of Lake Champlain.

This is the city that elected Bernie Sanders its socialist mayor during the Cold War, and the largest city in a state that made him the most popular senator in the country, a title he still enjoys. In May of last year he chose the Burlington waterfront—a waterfront he fought to protect from development—as the backdrop in launching his historic bid for the presidency. While the lake and rolling mountains made for a pretty picture, the city’s values — like those of its policy-obsessed progressive crusader — are less conspicuous but more central to its true identity.

Of course, Sanders didn’t ultimately win the nomination, but an unexpected groundswell of support for his candidacy allowed him to help shape the what is universally regarded as the most progressive national Democratic platform in history. And the radical brand of environmentalism he espoused throughout the campaign — refusing all donations from the fossil-fuel industry; linking climate change directly with terrorism; proclaiming, as climate negotiators celebrated, that the Paris Agreement went “nowhere near far enough” — all that helped propel the global climate debate forward in ways that are still tangible, even after Sanders’ presidential star has dimmed.

Sanders was supposed to be a fringe candidate from a place few average Americans would identify with. In fact, his candidacy — like Burlington itself — has tapped into something surprisingly mainstream: the yearning for politics that go beyond partisan gridlock to realize basic social goods, like protecting the planet we all live on and that our children will live on. It’s politics that operates with a future in mind. It’s being responsible.

We tend to think of Burlington, with its lake-meets-mountain beauty, as the place Sanders made — it’s not. Though he was born in
New York and schooled in Chicago, it’s Burlington that made Sanders.

https://psmag.com/what-the-world-can-learn-from-burlington-and-bernie-sanders-bebc534a786e#.izkcaxgmy