Hi Friend,
Happy World Wetlands Day! If it weren't for wetlands, we would be swamped - literally and figuratively. Wetlands are crucial to all life on our planet, and they're disappearing three times faster than forest ecosystems.(1)
An acre of wetland can store 1-1.5 million gallons of floodwater,(2) and they're also one of the most productive ecosystems in the world - comparable to rainforest and coral reefs!(3) Wetlands also help mitigate climate change and are essentially Earth's kidneys.(4) Learn more about the ways we all can support wetlands and help them survive in our rapidly changing climate.
On a different note, February is Black History Month. Each week, BEAT will be celebrating Black environmentalists, spotlighting environmental inequalities, and honoring the contributions of Black folks to the environmental justice movement.
Thanks for all you do to protect the environment,
Jane, Rose, Jake, Noah, and Chelsey
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The Environmental Justice Movement is rooted in Black history and was shaped by the Civil Rights Movement.
The environmental justice movement addresses a statistical fact: people who live, work, and play in the United States' most polluted environments are commonly people of color and the poor. Communities of color are repeatedly targeted to host facilities that have a negative environmental impact and health effects. And vulnerable communities - especially Black and Indigenous populations - have been fighting environmental racism and for the basic rights to clean, safe, healthy environments for decades.
The initial spark that ignited the environmental justice movement came from Warren County, North Carolina, a poor and rural community with a predominantly Black population. In 1982, residents became alarmed when they learned that the state government sought to deposit 6,000 truckloads of soil laced with PCBs in the town of Afton. Six weeks of nonviolent protests ensued and ultimately resulted in about 500 arrests and unsuccessful results - the government ignored the residents' concerns and dumped the toxic soil anyway - but the protests attracted many prominent civil rights leaders that went to Warren County's aid. And with the efforts of protesters and their allies in the Civil Rights movement, the American public became more aware of the environmental injustice that communities of color face.
In the broadest sense, environmental justice argues that communities of color have taken on an unequal share of environmental risks and that this inequality should be fixed.
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Acorn Plum Galls (and friends)
Charley Eiseman | BugTracks
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"One of the nice things about scrub oak (Fagaceae: Quercus ilicifolia) is that all the acorns are down low, providing opportunities to see “plum galls” of Amphibolips quercusjuglans (Cynipidae) while they’re still attached. I normally only see these galls on the forest floor, after they’ve dropped from canopy red or black oaks, and I’d been noticing them for several years before I learned that they grow out of the sides of acorn caps. Here are some of the ones I saw at Jug End that day..." See Photos & Read More
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Activists Urge Massachusetts to take Another Look at Need for Peaking Plants
Sarah Shemkus | Energy News Network
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"Massachusetts is home to 23 [peaker] plants, according to nonprofit research institute Physicians, Scientists, and Engineers for Healthy Energy. Roughly two-thirds of them burn oil; the remaining plants run on natural gas. More than 90% of the plants are more than 30 years old, and thus more likely to run inefficiently and have higher greenhouse gas emissions, contributing to climate change. Some are so old they are not required to comply with the standards of the 1970 federal Clean Air Act. [...] In western Massachusetts, activists are concerned about three facilities: two smaller, oil-burning plants, each more than 50 years old; and a larger, natural gas plant that has been in operation for 31 years. This last plant, which is located adjacent to designated environmental justice areas, is the main target of activists’ efforts. Though it only runs for a few hours at a time, these stints generally occur on the hottest days and do affect the air quality in the city, said Rosemary Wessel, program director of No Fracked Gas in Mass, a program of the Berkshire group." Read More
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Eastern Bluebirds - Partial Migrants
Mary Holland | Naturally Curious
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"Some Northeastern nesting birds, such as hummingbirds and warblers, are strictly migrators. If they were to remain, they would not find enough food to sustain themselves over the winter months. Nut and seed-eating birds, including jays and chickadees, don’t have quite the challenge as insect and nectar feeders. Food is continually present (along with some caching strategy in the fall) making a perilous migration unnecessary. There are still other birds, including the Eastern Bluebird, that are known as 'partial migrants.'" Read More
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Your Gas Stove is Always Polluting, Even When It's Turned Off
Rebecca Leber | Vox
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"...the gas stove, a feature of 40 million American homes, is likely always releasing a greenhouse gas. Gas stoves are still a relatively small source of methane compared to pipelines and refineries, and they aren’t even the biggest gas-guzzling appliance in buildings — gas furnaces and water heaters use much more of the fuel through the day and night. But the methane emissions from stoves are roughly equivalent to the carbon dioxide released by half a million gas-powered cars in a year, the researchers found." Read More
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Hydrogen: Future of Clean Energy or a False Solution?
Cara Bottorff | Sierra Club
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"The fossil fuel industry is hyping hydrogen of all kinds as a low-carbon replacement for all sorts of uses of fossil fuels—from powering vehicles and heavy industry to heating buildings. In reality, many hydrogen projects will only lock us in to continued fossil fuel use and additional investments in fossil fuel infrastructure. [...] Currently, more than 99 percent of the United States’s annual supply of hydrogen, about 10 million metric tons, comes almost entirely from fossil fuels through “steam methane reforming” (SMR), an energy-intensive process in which methane gas is broken down into hydrogen and carbon dioxide. Hydrogen produced through SMR is a high-emissions product given the name “gray hydrogen.” In contrast, “green” hydrogen is produced by splitting water into its constituent hydrogen and oxygen components through electrolysis, which is powered by renewable energy. While industry touts hydrogen as a “clean” solution, globally only 0.02 percent of current hydrogen production is green. “Blue” hydrogen production uses carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) to removecarbon dioxide (CO2) that is emitted during hydrogen production." Look at Infographics & Read More
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What Happens to Products You Return to Amazon
Katie Schoolov | CNBC
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"Online shopping has caused a huge returns problem. UPS predicts a 10% rise in holiday returns this year, and sellers tell us they throw away about a third of returned items. Returns generate 5.8 billion pounds of landfill waste each year and 16 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions. Now, Amazon has committed to zero product disposal, adding new options for sellers to refurbish, resell and liquidate returns instead of disposing of them." Watch the Video Deep Dive
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The U.S. Military Emits More Carbon Dioxide Into the Atmosphere Than Entire Countries Like Denmark or Portugal
Sonner Kehrt | Inside Climate News
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"...In 1997, the Kyoto Protocol [...] created a reporting loophole for militaries, exempting many of the greenhouse gases emitted during military operations from counting against a country’s emissions totals. While the 2015 Paris Accords did away with this exemption, they didn’t replace it with an obligation. Rather, the decision of whether to report military emissions—and how to calculate them—was left up to individual countries. The result is a gap in our understanding of the United States’ climate footprint. [...] The vast majority of military emissions come from operations—moving people and things around. The workhorse equipment needed to accomplish this task, particularly when it’s built to withstand combat, can be notoriously inefficient, Crawford’s report notes. Even nonarmored vehicles guzzle gas: A Humvee gets between four and eight miles per gallon. But by far, the most fuel-thirsty equipment in the military is aircraft. In fact, of the 100 million gallons of fuel the Defense Logistics Agency bought in 2018, about 70 million gallons were jet fuel." Read More
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Beavers Are Flooding the Warming Alaskan Arctic, Threatening Fish, Water and Indigenous Traditions
David Hasemyer | Inside Climate News
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"...Over the last several decades, people in remote Alaska communities have observed an influx of beavers as the warming climate has fostered the growth and expansion of woody vegetation, providing more forage and dam construction materials for the eager engineers. Recent studies have highlighted a vicious circle of expanding Arctic beaver populations and global warming. As climate change creates new habitats for beavers in the High North, their dams can cause more permafrost to thaw, releasing huge stores of greenhouse gases to further warm the atmosphere. [...] The effects of beavers expanding their range illustrates how interlinked Arctic impacts have rippling consequences on people, ecosystems and food sources...'Beavers are not simply furry rodents moving their way across the Arctic, but one of the cogs in a complex mechanism shifting the landscape from the familiar Arctic we have known.' [...] 'Beavers are simultaneously the result of climate change and one of the factors amplifying climate change. Their impact does not occur in isolation.'" Read More
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The Ecological Restoration Project that Exceeded Expectations
Steve Dundas and Graham Shaw | The Jefferson Exchange Team
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"The main point was to reduce the chance of flooding. But the effort produced other benefits as well, when Oregon's Tillamook Bay got a tidal wetland habitat restoration. The project treated 443 acres of land (some of it quite watery) to improve salmon habitat and reduce flooding risk. There were many additional effects, including a rise in real estate values. A recent report shows how the benefits went beyond the original scope of the work." Listen to the Audio
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COMMUNITY CALENDAR
We list events from a variety of local and regional organizations and individuals.
Events with BEAT:
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9
Community Calendar:
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 2
THURSDAY, FEBRUARY 3
FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 4
SATURDAY,FEBRUARY 5
SUNDAY, FEBRUARY 6
MONDAY, FEBRUARY 7
TUESDAY, FEBRUARY 8
WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 9
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JOBS
We list jobs related to the environment from a variety of organizations.
***Are you a non-profit environmental organization looking for willing, capable, and *free* summer interns?
The Center for Environmental Studies at Williams College provides funding to students to pursue unpaid environmental summer internships with non-profit organizations and governmental agencies, supervised research, and creative endeavors. Learn more about this summer program and how you can get involved here.
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Environmental Monitor
January 26, 2022
The Environmental Monitor provides information on projects under review by the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act (MEPA) office, recent MEPA decisions of the Secretary of Energy & Environmental Affairs, and public notices from environmental agencies.
Berkshire Index:
Pioneer Valley Index:
Statewide Index:
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Public Notices
Public Notices listed here are from a variety of sources, from town conservation commissions and select boards to state and federal agencies. These listings are for Berkshire, Hampshire, Hampden, and Franklin counties. Listings are only posted if they are environmental in nature. You can find all public notices for Massachusetts here.
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Berkshire Environmental Action Team
20 Chapel St., Pittsfield, MA 01201
(413) 464-9402
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