Larry Chretien

DEEP DIALOGUE

MONDAY, OCTOBER 28

4 - 5:30 PM On Zoom

Zoom link: https://bit.ly/3XoMOc8

Make Polluters Pay

We'll hear reports from Massachusetts and Vermont legislative work by the group, Make Polluters Pay Massachusetts.

Aaron Regunberg, senior policy advisor with Public Citizen's Climate Program, will join us to discuss legal strategies and the national perspective on this HUGE issue.

Here's the national Make Polluters Pay site.

This fall, do something easy for the environment. Rather than raking and bagging leaves or burning them or putting them in the trash for some landfill, the best way to reduce greenhouse gases and benefit your garden is to leave the leaves! Leaves create a natural mulch that helps to suppress weeds while fertilizing the soil as it breaks down. Among ecologically minded gardeners, raking is out. Leaves provide overwintering habitat for pollinators and amphibians. And you avoid the pollution of a gas powered leaf blower!

If you want to conserve some green lawn that’s not covered in leaves, find a location in your yard to leave the leaves until spring. This could be in a border bed, flower beds, or a mulch pile on your property. You can also simply mow your lawn with the leaves still on it, chopping them up into small pieces to break down in place.

In your flower garden, leave flower stalks or at least leave them 12-15 inches tall. These provide nesting cavities for larvae in the winter. Our pollinator population is in decline. We need to do all we can to help them. . 

Rick Lent

Did you miss our September Deep Dialogue? We hosted Lynne Man and Dr. Bill Stubblefield to talk about the Sierra Club MA Chapter Forest Protection team’s campaign to end logging on public lands of the Quabbin, Wachusett, and Ware Watersheds.

Lynne framed the team's focus on this campaign in the context of support for preserving all state-owned forests as wildlands, but wanting to focus in on a specific highly valuable target. The Quabbin, Wachusett, and Ware watersheds contain among the most carbon-dense, biodiverse, and connected forests in Massachusetts, but they are also some of the most heavily logged state lands.

Bill emphasized the unparalleled opportunity preservation of these forests represents and he laid out how the Division of Water Supply Protection’s (DWSP) “Watershed Protection Forest” hypothesis is lacking substantial scientific evidence. Some might say the argument doesn’t hold water.

Many people who get Massachusetts Water Resources Authority water likely do not realize that the state manages - meaning they conduct logging - in the forests that filter water into the reservoirs. In the 2024 report of the state’s Climate Forest Committee, DWSP acknowledged that “active forest management is not necessary to maintain an abundant and clean water supply.”

Sierra Club MA believes that there are enough private forests to supply the wood product needs that local processing capacity can support, so these public watershed lands should be left to become old growth for the greatest public good. Forests are the only large-scale means to reduce carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, which they do for free!

Sign our petition here or reach out to celeste.venolia@sierraclub.org with any questions or interest in taking further action.

See the video of this Deep Dialogue here.

Celeste Venolia 

Progress? Who Knows

Despite demonstrations, press critical of the legislature, advocates’ outcries, and a report that Senator Barrett and Representative Roy have started talking, the climate bill remains bogged down in its conference committee. Could some promising negotiations be happening? Maybe, but the veil of secrecy over conference committee deliberations means we can only speculate.

We heard from Senator Barrett that he believes we must link gas system reforms with the siting and permitting legislation everyone wants or the gas reforms will not see the light of day for years to come. The Senator said that while siting and permitting are important, he thinks they can wait if need be until the next session. In the meantime Governor Healey has attached her version of a narrow siting and permitting bill to a must-pass supplemental budget bill, likely signaling her support for the House version of the climate bill.

Our Position and Actions

ECA Mass is united with our many allies in support of Barrett's position: No gas reform, no siting and permitting. You received an action alert last week asking for emails and calls to your local representatives to pressure House leaders to get a bill to the floor for a vote that includes gas reform. We are also considering organizing a State House visit by elders to highlight our generation’s insistence on getting a robust climate bill done before January 1. Stay tuned for more details.

Roadmap Coalition Meets

Representative Meschino called together the coalition of allies that has been meeting periodically since they worked on the first roadmap climate bill. She reported that she proposes filing three climate related bills next session on building decarbonization, natural solutions, and financing clean energy projects.

Mass Save Plan Nears Finish Line

On another front, the utilities have submitted their final version of the next three-year plan, and the Department of Public Utilities will be reviewing and possibly revising it soon. It includes many progressive proposals for addressing equity issues, improving support for customers interested in decarbonizing, and making it easier for many residents to install heat pumps. However, the $5 billion budget is not nearly enough to ensure we can install the number of heat pumps annually required to meet our climate goals. There is a call for pursuing discussions with multiple stakeholders about how to fill the gap, but no specific recommendations for raising the funds needed.

We are expecting a report from Climate Chief Hoffer before the end of the year that puts price tags on everything we need to do to meet our climate goals, including decarbonizing buildings. The Zero Carbon Renovation Fund coalition is exploring options for raising funds to address the shortage of funds in the building sector. Our Legislative Team will be monitoring all these developments and identifying actions needed to increase investments in electrifying buildings.

If you would like to learn more about what the Legislative Team is doing, or offer some of your time and talents to our effort, contact Roger Luckmann (roger.luckmann@umassmed.edu) or Tina Grosowsky (tgrosowsky@gmail.com).

Roger Luckmann

ECAer Maiyim Baron with seniors at her Center Communities of Brookline residence, writing postcards with the EVP.

During this all-important election season, ECA is continuing its strong partnerships with the Environmental Voter Project (EVP), Elders for Sound Democracy (ESD) and Th!rd Act to encourage millions of underrepresented voters to vote and have their votes counted.

Many studies have shown postcarding to be a very effective way of turning out voters, increasing turnout by over 1 percent in some instances. As we know, that 1 percent can spell the difference between victory and loss in swing states in November. ECA Mass members have already written or committed to writing over 2,000 postcards through EVP this fall.

Interested in helping out? Contact Meg Clough, meclough60@gmail.com of Th!rd Act  to learn about postcarding and get a list to work on with friends and neighbors. Postcards need to be completed and mailed by October 20.

Or, you can donate by check to Environmental Voter Project, PO Box 962002, Boston, MA 02196, or by credit card here. 

Maiyim Baron

Get Out The Vote (GOTV) Town Hall Meeting

Wednesday, October 16, 1:00 – 2:30 pm ET

With only days before the November election, join us to hear about the critical GOTV actions we can engage in to DO SOMETHING! Let’s come together and give it our all to make an impact in the final stretch up to the election. We will highlight partner-organized actions for multiple states and discuss how you can consider engaging locally.

Promote the Youth Vote: Options for Action

Mondays in October, 4:00 – 5:00 pm ET

Join our new project with The Civics Center to encourage high school voter registration and turnout. We will write postcards to parents of teens in Pennsylvania, Arizona, and Ohio. Plan and learn about action options for us to make a difference in this Election.

Reclaim Our Vote

Reclaim Our Vote campaign, a program of the Center for Common Ground, reaches out to Black voters in states that have least 20 percent Black population and a history of race-based voter suppression. EAN/ECA volunteers have written thousands of postcards to targeted voters in Florida, and now we are supporting phone banking to Georgia, Florida, North Carolina, South Carolina, Texas, and Virginia. We know many volunteers are uncomfortable with phone banking, but Center for Common Ground has research that confirms this particular phone bank campaign does indeed increase voter turnout. For more info, contact Paul Dryfoos at pauld@eldersclimateaction.org.

ECA Mass is looking for help with some specific roles. Are you in?

Publicity/Events Coordinator: Do you have experience doing publicity for events and creating engaging media? ECA needs your help to get more publicity for our events. Put your experience and expertise to good use to forward our cause!

New Member Outreach: Do you love connecting with people? Our Membership Team needs help with small finite tasks like calling new members to encourage them to become more involved. This role can be as big - or as little - as you want.

Respond to MaiyimBaron@gmail.com for both opportunities.

Maiyim Baron

We send announcements of our meetings and Action Alerts to eca-mass@googlegroups.com, which includes all those on our active list. 

Please contact Dawn Edell if you want to confirm you are on our active list.

Maiyim Baron