By Aidan Doherty, Vermont Sierra Club Transportation Team Member.
Last month, the Vermont Sierra Club was able to participate in SunCarnival 2021 and I was one of our volunteers helping out! Hosted by SunCommon, The Vermont Sierra Club, and Drive Electric Vermont the mission of the event was to inform, connect, and encourage Vermonters who are considering the transition to electric vehicles. It wasn’t the first time this annual event occurred, and I hope it isn’t the last. It was a lot of fun, and very informative! This year’s SunCarnival was great!
Hundreds of Vermonters were able to make it, and dozens even brought their personal electric vehicles (EVs) along with them. Partner organizations had stations with different activities and services available: including Beta Technologies, which let visitors try out their full-scale electric plane simulator. However, the best part of the event (in my opinion) was the community members. Listening in on conversations between EV owners and potential buyers was really refreshing; both the curiosity of the buyers and the enthusiasm of the owners were great displays of the Vermont commitment to community. Many owners were generous enough to let others get behind the wheel of their personal EVs, so that the potential buyers could get a firsthand perspective! It’s one thing to hear about how owners manage to charge on road trips or how they made use of EV rebates, but it’s a whole other experience to get behind the wheel of a Tesla Model S and drive down Shelburne Road for yourself.
Our transportation team has already heard of a couple of EV purchases made by potential buyers that are a direct result of the event. For many, transitioning to electric cars can be intimidating. We read about them in the news, know how important they are to reduce our carbon emissions, and hear friends, family, and coworkers talk about how great they are, yet very few actually make that leap to becoming EV owners. Events like the SunCarnival demystify the leap by hosting fostering connections with a community member, not a salesman. Before I close, I wanted to share a little story of an interaction I had across town that day. To spread the word and get a couple more folks interested in the SunCarnival, myself and a Sierra Club member set up a small tent at the Burlington Farmers Market before our event started.
We had a ton of great interactions with folks; one gentleman signed up to be a contributing member of Sierra Club after chatting with us! The best interaction, however, was close to the end of our time at the Farmers Market...A young family walked by us, and the other Sierra Club member asked if they are interested in EVs. The mother stopped for a moment but quickly lost interest. As she began to walk away, we realized her youngest daughter was lingering behind and staring at our tent. Before we could say anything, she looked up at us and asked “What is an electric car?”. We gave a short explanation and, without skipping a beat, she responded: ‘So they don’t create pollution? That’s really cool!”. She immediately ran up to her mother and pleaded to attend the event on their way home! That moment has stuck in my head for a couple of reasons. First, it was really adorable to see her eyes light up at the thought of a couple of Teslas in a Hannafords parking lot. Second, it broke my heart. It broke my heart because the next generation, especially folks at her young age, are so tuned into these climate issues, not by curiosity but because of necessity. For folks like her, for myself, and for the billions of other young people across the world, the impacts of climate change will worsen exponentially in the next decades. Knowing about environmental policy is a given for anyone under 25: for us, it really is life or death. The third reason is a lot more positive: this interaction reminded me of the impact Sierra Club has and it highlights the good work we do across Vermont and across the country, connecting people to the issues.