In this Issue
- Save the Date!
- "Invest in Our Planet" this Earth Day
- Legislative Team Update: Learning, Connecting, Teaching
- Videos and photos from the 3.21.23 Bank Day of Action
- Biodiversity and Climate Change
- Recommended Climate Podcasts
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TUESDAY, APRIL 11, Noon-2 PM ET, Zoom
ECA Massachusetts Monthly Chapter Meeting
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Our guests will be Lisa Cunningham, who will tell us about the ZeroCarbonMA organization, and Logan Malik, Massachusetts Climate Action Network (MCAN), who will discuss Zero Carbon Renovation Fund legislation.
Lisa, one of the founders of ZeroCarbonMA, is the co-petitioner of Brookline's electric construction and a co-founder of the state-wide Massachusetts Building Electrification Accelerator. Logan has been a part of MCAN since December 2020, serving as the Clean Energy Director until transitioning into the role of Interim Executive Director in August 2022. He also served as Advocacy Director for the Berkshire Environmental Action Team and Deputy Director of No Fracked Gas in Mass.
After their presentation, Roger Luckmann of our Legislative Team will update us on the work ahead for this legislative session. And Seth Evans will highlight the new Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report.
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MONDAY, APRIL 17, 4-5:30 PM ET, Zoom
Deep Dialogue, ECA Mass Conversation Series
Making Offshore Wind Power Happen
in New England
Massachusetts has mandated that we have 5.6 GW of offshore wind power under contract by mid-2027. Does this mean we can now move on to the next challenge? Commitments to offshore wind up and down the eastern seaboard herald the beginning of the offshore wind industry in the US, but do we have the manufacturing plants, the supply chain, the workforce, the installation vessels and the transmission lines that we will need? This presentation will provide insights into these questions. It will cover the basics of why offshore wind power is so important, what it takes to get an offshore wind power project permitted and built, and the challenges facing the state and project developers that need to be addressed to translate our offshore wind power commitments into power flowing into the New England grid.
Tony Rogers was a researcher in the UMass Wind Energy Center for many years, co-wrote a book on wind turbine design and engineering, was the lead technical author of the state’s successful proposal for the Wind Technology Testing Center in Charlestown MA, and worked for an international wind energy consulting firm for seven years.
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APRIL 22 is EARTH DAY!
See article below, "Invest in Our Planet" this Earth Day, for MANY ways to celebrate and take action all month.
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FIRST THURSDAYS of each month: "What Can I Do?"
ECA Mass Education Team Series
Next: Gardening to slow climate change
and reverse biodiversity loss
MAY 4, 7-8:15 PM ET, Zoom
Registration is required. Please register here.
Amy Meltzer will show how to grow native plants and use ecological landscape practices to reverse biodiversity loss, increase resilience in our landscapes, and slow climate change - all while creating a beautiful garden!
Her talk touches on the current biodiversity crisis, the evolutionary history among native plants, insects, birds and fungi, and how these interdependent relationships among diverse species are necessary for their survival.
There will be plenty of time for questions and answers - just in time for you to plan to introduce native plants into your garden this Spring!
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STAY CURRENT! As always, find more climate events and updates at the ECA Mass event calendar on our website or visit our Facebook page. Do you want to get more active in ECA Mass and learn more about what YOU can do? Sign up here for the ECA Mass Newsletter plus Chapter Action Alerts, or ask Dawn Edell, dawnedell1017@gmail.com, to add you to our “Activist” list for all our Action Alerts and meeting announcements.
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"Invest in Our Planet" this Earth Day |
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Earth Day - April 22 - is just around the corner, and as usual, people in Massachusetts and all over the world will be participating in a day of activities with the goal of encouraging everyone to celebrate our beautiful planet, reflect on the impact of human activity on it, and take action to preserve it. To learn more about Earth Day and its history, click here.
“Invest in Our Planet” is this year’s Earth Day theme. The combined climate crisis and biodiversity crisis make the urgency of this theme self-evident. Fortunately, both the federal and state government have begun to make critical investments. Witness the Bipartisan Infrastructure Bill, Inflation Reduction Act, Next-Generation Roadmap Act, and Act Driving Clean Energy and Offshore Wind. Yet, as the latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report warns, we need to accelerate our efforts to decarbonize our economy and preserve natural areas to avoid devastating effects from these twin crises.
There are many opportunities to participate in person and online, ranging from concerts to lectures to marches to fairs. For a comprehensive list of Boston area events, click here.
If you wish to celebrate Earth Day in Love and Rage, consider joining Extinction Rebellion (XR), and other activists for a RALLY, MARCH, and PARTY on Friday, April 21. The rally and march begin at City Hall Plaza at 3:30 PM, and the party moves to the State House at 4:30. The focus of the rage: No More Fossil Fuel Infrastructure. For more information, click here.
Happy Earth Day to all!
Seth Evans
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Legislative Team Update
Learning, Connecting, Teaching
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Until later in May, the House will be focused on budget issues, digesting the Healey budget, and then hammering out their own. The budget process wraps up in July when the governor gets to exercise her line-item veto on a budget bill worked out by a House/Senate conference committee.
Our budget working group will be testifying on our behalf at upcoming hearings on climate-related funding issues. Down the road, the Legislative Team is looking to do a deep dive into the pros and cons of all the financing/funding options available for state climate programs and other community decarbonization efforts.
Our team will have its recommendations for ECA Mass policy and legislative priorities ready when committee hearings begin later next month and will present priorities beginning at the May chapter meeting. Among those priorities: decarbonizing residential and large buildings; establishing a climate bank; electrifying trains, buses, and vehicle fleets; protecting our forests; and fixing the grid.
In the meantime, team members have been busy connecting with key legislators and their staff, our allies, and Healey administration leaders at meetings with climate chief Melissa Hoffer, the new climate legislative caucus and the Roadmap Coalition. At a recent Legislative Team meeting, Senator Creem’s climate staffer Garrett Casey talked about climate bills the senator is sponsoring on promoting low-carbon construction materials, assuring that new buildings are all electric, municipal reforestation, and climate resilience.
Representative Meschino reviewed her priorities (climate bank, electrification of school buses and vehicle fleets, building decarbonization, solar for low-income residents) with the Roadmap Coalition, which includes many of our allies. The coalition originally came together to support Meschino's Roadmap bill and will continue to meet regularly.
Our Legislative Team members produced a presentation on the Massachusetts legislative process that was previewed at a recent ECA Mass new members meeting. One message is that getting impactful climate legislation passed can be fun. However, it can also be frustrating if you don’t know the milestones, the hurdles, and the pitfalls. Since this information will be useful to all ECA Mass members, we have posted the video of the 101-level presentation at https://youtu.be/Bi2Art7RVFs.
The NYU master students we are sponsoring in their capstone project have completed interviews with Massachusetts legislators and climate movement leaders and will present their findings on Thursday, May 4 at 6 PM (see Zoom link and report outline here). All are welcome. Come hear what some up-and-coming advocacy experts have to tell us about improving our advocacy efforts.
Jeff Clark and Roger Luckmann
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Videos and Photos
BANK DAY OF ACTION 3.21.23
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On March 21, our partners at Third Act organized nationwide protests demanding that banks – particularly Chase, Bank of America, Citibank and Wells Fargo – stop funding fossil fuels. ECA Mass, 350 MA and other Massachusetts climate allies partnered with Third Act on actions around the state – urging local activists to close their bank accounts and cut up their credit cards. The Boston Action, attended by many ECA Mass members, targeted Chase Bank with a protest at Downtown Crossing, followed by a rally march to New England Bank of America headquarters.
Watch videos of the Massachusetts actions, here, and national protests, here.
And these are a few of the MANY photos contributed by ECA Mass members who attended protests. (Thanks to all ECA Mass members who participated – too many to acknowledge you all by name or to share all your photos in this newsletter!) Top row: Boston, Pittsfield, Bedford. And more scenes from the action, including Seth Evans (who highlighted our group, cutting up his credit card in front of the Boston rally crowd), and also with Jim Campen, Tina Grosowsky, and Allan Fierce.
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Biodiversity and Climate Change
Three new reports and a missing piece
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Importance of biodiversity
From the IPCC, the unsurprising report on the condition of the world is that climate change is an existential threat to the planet and to human health, and that we have a very short window of time in which to take action that will secure a sustainable future. The report describes biodiversity as the essential source of our "food, medicine, energy, clean air and water… and it supports all systems of life on earth.” It warns that biodiversity is declining faster than at any time in human history.
From a local perspective, Biodiversity in Focus, based on 50 years of data collected by a thousand North American scientists, reveals that 34% of plant species and 40% of animal species across the United States are at risk of extinction and 41% of U.S. ecosystems are at risk of collapse. The report warns that we need to understand and mitigate these risks for the survival of the biodiverse systems that we ourselves depend on.
Conserving nature
A major goal cited in the IPCC report (in addition to rapidly reducing the use of fossil fuels) is to conserve and restore natural ecosystems, and to reverse the risks of species extinctions. This requires conservation of an estimated 30–50% of the planet’s land, freshwater and oceans.
Here in Massachusetts, the Healthy Soils Action Plan (HSAP) was cited in our Clean Energy Climate Plan as a pathway for reducing carbon emissions. The plan recognizes that “intact and thriving ecosystems are essential for clean air and water, biodiversity, food security, public health, and adaptation to a warming planet.”
Healthy soils absorb significant amounts of carbon from the atmosphere. They slow climate change and increase resilience to its impacts. The HSAP offers best practices to protect soil health in forests, wetlands, and agriculture, and to restore it on developed lands, which are identified as recreational/ornamental and impervious/urban. The goal of the HSAP, in alignment with the Commonwealth’s net zero goals for 2050, is to achieve no net loss of soil organic carbon between 2021 and 2050. One of the primary strategies of the plan, consistent with the goals of the IPCC and the biodiversity report, is to protect and restore natural ecosystems, such as forests and wetlands.
Native flora only
While the HSAP is invaluable in its detailed guidance for protecting soil health in multiple circumstances (uniquely, including at construction sites) this plan neglects to describe a crucial means of reversing biodiversity loss while restoring healthy soils: using the native trees and plants which have coevolved with other local species over millions of years. These interdependent relationships are necessary for the health and survival of ecosystems. Tree and plant species introduced from other ecoregions are functionally incapable of supporting the life cycles of local insects and other species that are declining in numbers and are at risk of extinction.
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What can we do?
Support legislation that protects and restores natural ecosystems. Educate the public and policymakers on the critical use of native plants and trees in restoration projects, climate mitigation projects, and when landscaping private and public lands. Follow the advice in the HSAP to maintain and restore soil health in all regions, including cities, so the plants and trees we grow can form essential connections with the microorganisms that exist in healthy soil. These underground connections not only help flora thrive, but store carbon in the soil. Consult with ecologists when making policies that involve nature, in order to best support the life-giving qualities of nature that we depend on for the well-being and survival of all species, including our own.
Amy Meltzer
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Recommended Climate Podcasts |
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We all read lots of climate articles. Sometimes it’s good to get our news in another way, as podcasts. Here are two podcasts I listen to every week and find helpful – and occasionally even enjoyable! |
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The three hosts of this podcast have a great exchange of comments and insights with their guests. At times, the hosts also are quite funny. Christiana Figueres was Executive Secretary of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, leading the process that secured the landmark Paris Agreement. She also co-wrote one of my favorite books on negotiating the crisis: The Future We Choose: The Stubborn Optimist's Guide to the Climate Crisis, with Tom Rivett-Carnac. And Paul Dickinson is an entrepreneur focused on creating a global economic system that operates within sustainable environmental boundaries and prevents dangerous climate change.
Their guests come from a wide range of backgrounds and each show has a unique focus. There is a lively exchange of views and frequently the podcast lives up to both parts of its title. But it is usually hopeful and hence, optimistic. On the first podcast of this year, Christiana pointed out that we are 1/3rd of the way through the decade that really counts…we will make it or really break it. “Everything counts, but it is not enough. Not enough, but everything counts.”
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This podcast lives up to its billing as public radio’s environmental news magazine. Each week it may feature a well-known guest like Jane Goodall, but it also covers breaking stories, like President Biden’s authorization of the new oil drilling project in the Arctic. For that segment, environmental law expert Pat Parenteau explained the climate contradictions within the White House and what could happen next. Each week’s show also contains a segment called “Beyond the Headlines,” which includes some historical perspectives on our current predicament.
Rick Lent
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WHAT ARE YOU READING?
Would you like to review a book for our newsletter? Contact Newsletter Editor Diane Rapaport.
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This Newsletter is Published for Members and Friends of the
Elders Climate Action - Massachusetts Chapter
ECA Massachusetts is a chapter of the national Elders Climate Action. We are a movement of elders committed to making our voices heard... to change our nation's policies while there is still time to avoid catastrophic changes in the Earth's climate. Visit the ECA Massachusetts website, event calendar, and Facebook page to learn more about our chapter's activities and climate news. JOIN ECA MASSACHUSETTS AND STAY CONNECTED! Subscribe to our monthly newsletter, and for more active participation, sign up to receive Action Alerts and meeting announcements. Fill out our subscription form.
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