Beverly Craig, Program Director at the Mass Clean Energy Center

DEEP DIALOGUE

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 27

4-5:30 PM, on Zoom

Zoom link: https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83538742353?pwd=YUU5QU16VVlDMExOMmlPSWVwTG9xUT09

After Death Care and Carbon Recycling

If you live your life as an activist concerned about the Climate Emergency and what sort of world we're leaving for our children and grandchildren, then thinking about how we leave the Earth is an important consideration. The most common ways to handle one's dead body are burial in a graveyard or cremation. Cemetery burial is a form of landfilling, and as currently practiced using embalming fluids, cement vaults, and various metals and plastics, the process leaves behind a mini toxic waste dump. Cremation is typically done by high-temperature fossil fuel burning which creates significant air pollution.

Our speakers will be:

• Glen Ayers, Soil Scientist and retired Public Health Professional, advocate of protecting groundwater and recycling human nutrients
• State Representatives Natalie Higgins and Jack Patrick Lewis, sponsors of H.2193, An Act Expanding After Death Care Options
• Laura Cassidy from Recompose, the first operating Natural Organic Reduction facility in the country (Seattle, WA)

This Deep Dialogue will introduce our community to familiar concepts such as green burial and less known options such as conservation burial, alkaline hydrolysis, and natural organic reduction (human composting). We will discuss the opportunity for advocacy to promote alternatives to landfilling and cremation through the passage of proposed legislation to legalize additional options with a lower carbon footprint, so that our passing will enhance the Earth instead of increasing the cumulative burden. 

Feel free to forward this invitation to your friends, relatives, neighbors and everyone you want to talk with about the Climate Crisis NOW! Talking with the people around us is one of the most effective things we can do every day to raise awareness of the crisis.

YES! We do record our meetings and they’re usually posted on our website within a few days here.

Glen Ayers

Committee Hearings and Beyond

October and November were very active months for legislative hearings, and many ECA Mass members stepped up to advocate for our legislative priorities. The Joint Committee on Financial Services received testimony on the climate bank bill from Sherry Morgan that focused on the need to go beyond Healey’s affordable housing green bank to provide low cost loans for more types of climate-related projects.

The Joint Committee on Transportation heard testimony from Rashid Shaihk on a bill setting deadlines to electrify school buses and public fleets, emphasizing the public health aspects of transitioning our public transport to EVs. Members of our Natural Solutions working group testified at the Environment and Natural Resources (ENR) Committee hearing in support of several of their priority bills. Roger Luckmann testified before Telecommunications, Utility and Energy (TUE) Committee on building decarbonization proposals for both large buildings and smaller residential buildings (Zero Carbon Renovation Fund (ZCRF)).

We anticipate that an omnibus climate bill will be coming from House and/or Senate halves of the TUE Committee early next year. It could include components of climate bills before TUE that address building and transportation decarbonization efforts and funding, a climate bank, energy infrastructure siting, permitting reform, and gas system phase out.

To plan our advocacy strategy for the next 3 months, our Legislative Team working groups are identifying the components of our priority bills we would like to see included in an omnibus bill, as well as identifying bills in ENR and Transportation that we will focus on as committee leadership and members make decisions before the deadline for reporting out bills in March.

Important Bond Bills to be Passed this Session

David Melly, the Legislative Director of the Environmental League of Massachusetts (ELM), recently gave us his take on two bond bills that the legislature will take up this session. Through the Economic Development Bond Bill, the Healey administration will likely promote incentives for green workforce development and for the cleantech industry, including support for start-ups to stay in the Commonwealth and for new cleantech labs, such as Greentown Labs in Somerville. The governor’s draft of the Environmental Bond Bill will land in ENR early next year. It will likely include recommendations to increase funding for the Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness and Green Communities grant programs and for investments in new, innovative proposals for climate change resiliency, ecological restoration, and greening gateway cities.

Recommendations of the Climate Chief

The Legislative Team was encouraged by the breadth of the recommendations issued by Melissa Hoffer in her recent report (see related article). Hoffer recently addressed a meeting of the Roadmap Coalition where she elaborated on the urgent need to estimate climate funding requirements and sources, the increasing importance of planning for community resilience in the face of already existing and imminent threats of climate change, decommissioning the gas system, the critical need for a decarbonization clearing house to make it easy for residents to plan and finance projects, and reform of the Mass Save program. She acknowledged the essential role that advocates play in keeping the legislature and the administration on track to meet climate goals.

Mass Save Reform

Legislative Team members are working closely with other housing decarbonization advocates in developing a proposal for reforming Mass Save to equitably accelerate electrification of residential buildings through targeting high emitting homes, providing more customer support and personalized energy coaching, improving data systems and access, and offering “one-stop-shopping” for home electrification. The group is also taking a close look at all options for increasing funding for building decarbonization and reforming electric rates to more effectively incentivize installation of heat pumps.

Jeff Clark & Roger Luckmann

39 Recommendations for

Cutting Our GHG Emissions

Melissa Hoffer, our State Climate Chief, released her long-awaited climate report on October 25 with recommendations to Governor Healey on priority actions to continue to address the climate crisis. The report provides 39 specific recommendations for a whole-of-government approach that will help Massachusetts meet emissions reductions goals that are mandated in the Clean Energy and Climate Plan. Agencies are required to work with Hoffer’s office on how to implement the recommendations.

The report tasks all state agencies with viewing their spending through a climate lens, while leveraging their funds to advance the state’s climate agenda to the greatest extent possible. It also calls on agencies to collaborate with each other on climate-related challenges and lead on climate by example.

Funding is Key

Hoffer’s top recommendation is for the state to estimate the funding required to meet our greenhouse gas reduction goals and to implement statewide climate change resilience plans. Potential sources of funding will also be identified. The report catalogs federal funding that the state is already pursuing. It also includes a focus on environmental justice.

The Legislative Team is reviewing the report, focusing on sections that address our highest priorities. Items of interest include electrifying state vehicles and installation of charging stations, workforce development, reform of Mass Save, launch of a statewide multi-media campaign, improving regional transmission infrastructure, requiring the Massachusetts School Building Authority to include decarbonization and resilient designs for new schools and major renovations, a decarbonization plan for state buildings, and the need for new regulations to support climate objectives. 

What will we see next? 

Hoffer requests key state agencies to collaborate on an annual climate report card and calls for the first one to be released this year, on December 1. It will track progress on goals articulated in the Clean Energy and Climate Plan. Read more about the report in Governor Healey’s press release and WBUR’s summary.



Sherry Morgan

Communicating the threat and necessary actions to address climate change can be one of the biggest challenges we face. The Potential Energy Coalition recently shared the results of a three-year study they conducted, during which they did extensive message testing and compiled some specific recommendations for all of us working in this area.

Here are some particularly useful findings for our messaging: 

• Humanize the message. Instead of planetary impact, speak in terms of impact to the community, the state, your kids and neighbors.
• Ditch the temperatures. Speaking in terms of Celsius or global temperatures doesn’t work. People don’t understand or relate to these numbers.
• Don’t avoid naming the problem. Instead of focusing on a side benefit of changing to a greener economy, like “clean energy jobs,” just say, “stop overheating the planet by polluting less.”
• Name the problem. The use of dirty energy has been emitting heat-trapping pollution into the atmosphere, forming a thick blanket around the Earth and causing our planet to overheat and creating irreversible damage.
• Talk about the recent climate law (hint: don’t say “Inflation Reduction Act”). Experts expect this plan to cause a 40% reduction in toxic air and carbon pollution in the next ten years. This is the biggest carbon pollution reduction plan in American history.
• Use meaningful targets. Year-based targets don’t work; people don’t think like that. Instead of referring to a net zero target by 2040, say “by reducing pollution 10% each year we can stop climate change before its too late for our children.”

Do we always have to monitor our language like this? Maybe not. If it’s a research conversation, for instance, or testimony on legislation, the language could be more technical. But we have to watch that the technical/scientific language we use in some situations doesn’t become our default language in all situations.

For more on this research and recommendations, see Talk Like a Human: Lessons on how to communicate climate change by John Marshall of Potential Energy.

Rick Lent

The Mass Youth Climate Coalition held its annual statewide in-person Climate Summit in late October at MIT. Tina Grosowsky helped with logistics, registration, and overall management. Youth attended on a Sunday to join with fellow climate activists from across the Commonwealth to share their local activities, participate in workshops, and discuss the climate legislation advocacy they're working on. The new Climate Resilient Schools Coalition was a sponsor.

Tina Grosowsky

What’s Democracy Got to Do With Climate Action?

A Conversation with Bill McKibben

November 15, 1 PM

Join Elders Action Network fo their next Town Hall meeting in conversation with Bill McKibben, familiar to many of us and one the most respected and influential environmental activists. His first book about climate change, The End of Nature, was published in 1989. Nineteen books followed, with 12 focused on the environment. His latest book is The Flag, the Cross, and the Station Wagon: A Graying American Looks Back at His Suburban Boyhood and Wonders What the Hell Happened. He is a frequent contributor to numerous publications ranging from The New Yorker to Rolling Stone.

Bill is the Schumann Distinguished Scholar in Environmental Studies at Middlebury College and a fellow of the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He received the Gandhi Peace Prize, the Right Livelihood Award and many other distinguished awards.

McKibben was instrumental in founding 350.org, which organized protests on every continent and spearheaded international divestment out of fossil fuels. In September 2021, he launched Third Act and is mobilizing climate change activists, who are “experienced Americans” over sixty to protect the climate and strengthen democracy.

We will ask Bill to address:

• the essential connection between climate action and working for a strong democracy, and
• priority actions we can take to protect our democracy, empower voters, and effect legislation and policies to save our planet.

After registering, you'll receive a confirmation email containing the link to join the meeting. You will receive a resend of this confirmation email from Zoom on Wednesday morning as a reminder and so that you have your unique link handy.