Hinesburg, VT-- An estimated six hundred people gathered at NRG System’s green manufacturing building throughout the day to tour the building’s energy efficient and environment-friendly features, learn about climate change and what can be done to help in individual’s everyday lives, and to send messages of thanks to the Vermont congressional delegation for their stellar efforts while urging the Vermont legislature and governor to move forward much more aggressively.

Folks walked, biked, and drove – many in hybrids – to spend the day. (Preferred parking set aside for hybrids needed to be expanded after 30 cars arrived.) Attendees flocked to the Prius Hybrids for sale to the public at the special NRG employee rate offered by Heritage Toyota.

The presentation by Don Hooper and his son Miles of selected cuts from an “Inconvenient Truth” was a provocative and sobering view of global warming that re-affirmed the need to take action now. The session afterwards for sharing ideas for what can be done created a renewed feeling of commitment and hope. Many stimulating ideas were shared:

• "We need to stop thinking someone else will stop global warming." 
• "We need to do it now and we need to do it together."
• "If everyone here today wrote individually to their legislators, it would have a huge impact."
• "The new home wood-burning furnaces burn so efficiently they release fewer particulates into the air in 8 hours than one cigarette does."

The Carbon-Diet Fair included displays where attendees could learn about eating locally grown food, energy efficiency, home wind turbines, low-carbon modes of transportation, green home design and construction, and more. A special thank you to: Local Vore; MacClay Architects; builder Chuck Reese; Efficiency Vermont; Hinesburg Bulb Exchange; Greg Pahl, author of The Citizen-Powered Energy Handbook; Interfaith Power and Light; Earth Turbines; and Heritage Toyota.

Added together, tours of the gold LEED-certified building, browsing the displays at the Carbon-Diet Fair, local apples and cheeses, the selected cuts from an “Inconvenient Truth” and Q&A session afterwards, popcorn and face painting, made the day a great demonstration of what needs to be done and how we can work together to make change happen.

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