A regional resource for Cape & Islands climate advocates
October 13, 2021
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The climate crisis is spawning weird ideas to fix it. They might be all we have.
Woolly mammoths and cow toilets: Desperate times can make even the longest shots seem worth a try
By David Appell, The Washington Post, October12, 2021
A new company called Colossal Laboratories & Biosciences recently announced plans to “de-extinct” woolly mammoths through genetic recombination with Asian elephants. Part of the rationale for this kooky experiment is to address climate change. Permafrost — frozen soil rich in organic carbon — is melting in the north, releasing carbon into the atmosphere and threatening to liberate up to twice as much carbon as is already present. Colossal says it wants to halt that process by unleashing beasts to uproot trees and stomp down grass to expose more permafrost to the cold Arctic air. Read more.
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An energy crisis is gripping the world, with potentially grave consequences
How China and Europe are catching the brunt of it
By Will Englund, The Washington Post, Oct. 9, 2021
Energy is so hard to come by right now that some provinces in China are rationing electricity, Europeans are paying sky-high prices for liquefied natural gas, power plants in India are on the verge of running out of coal, and the average price of a gallon of regular gasoline in the United States stood at $3.25 on Friday — up from $1.72 in April.
As the global economy recovers and global leaders prepare to gather for a landmark conference on climate change, the sudden energy crunch hitting the world is threatening already stressed supply chains, stirring geo-political tensions and raising questions about whether the world is ready for the green energy revolution when it’s having trouble powering itself right now. Read more.
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Climate Collaborative welcomes AmeriCorps member
The Cape Cod Climate Change Collaborative is pleased to welcome Hannah Crosby to serve as AmeriCorps Cape Cod service member with our organization for the next 10 months.
A New Hamshire native (with a resonant Cape Cod name!), Hannah will serve with the Collaborative in environmental education, communications, and volunteer engagement capacities for one day per week, whle performing group field work in natural resources management and disaster preparedness on her "days off."
Hannah is a graduate of The Ohio State University with a degree in Public Affairs and English and plans to pursue a career in environmental public policy.
Climate Collaborative board president Rich Delaney said, "We couldn't be more pleased to have Hannah join us, particularly at this critical juncture for community engagement in net zero work as well as in the life of our growing, all-volunteer organization. Public service-minded young people like Hannah offer hope for our region, and the planet."
Welcome, Hannah, and thank you, AmeriCorps Cape Cod, for awarding the Collaborative this inaugural AmeriCorps service placement!
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Northeast U.S. coast warming faster than rest
of continent
By Valerie Yurk, E&E News, Sept. 24, 2021
Summers on the northeast coast of the United States have heated up by 2 degrees Celsius over the past 100 years — making it the fastest-warming region in North America — and new research points to two likely explanations.
Climatologists suspect it has something to do with the slowdown of a powerful system in Atlantic Ocean as well as changing air circulation patterns, according to findings published yesterday in Nature Climate Change.
The warming from Maine to Delaware has been “exceptional,” said Ambarish Karmalkar, the study’s lead author and a professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. Read more.
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Friday, October 29, 2021
8:30am - 4:30pm
Virtual/Free of charge*
*Thanks to the generosity of our sponsors
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Join the Climate Conversation with leaders
from around the country, state, region....
and your community!
- Ed Markey, U.S. Senator for Massachusetts
- Massachusetts Secretary of Energy & Environmental Affairs Katie Theoharides
- Cape Cod Commission Executive Director Kristy Senatori
- Your Cape & Islands Delegation*
- Maggie Downey, Cape Light Compact Administrator
- Science, environment and business leaders working in climate mitigation, sustainability and renewable energy spaces
*State senators Julian Cyr and Susan Moran and state representatives Kip Diggs, Dylan Fernandes, Sarah Peake, David Vieira, and Tim Whelan
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BCG strengthens carbon pledges on lessons learned through CV-19
Boston Consulting Group has strengthened pledges made last year to achieve net zero by 2030 and from then to become climate positive. BCG is also expanding its dedicated climate and sustainability client support capabilities and investments.
Environment Analyst | Global, October 5 2021
The management consultancy is now committed to cut its emissions intensity in half by 2025. The goal has been validated as aligned with the aim of the Paris Agreement to limit a global temperature rise to 1.5°C above pre-industrial levels.
Christoph Schweizer, CEO-elect, said that although COVID-19 had been devastating, it also provided BCG with a unique opportunity to pilot some new approaches it had already been considering with regards to travel, "including next-generation virtual and hybrid case-team models". Read more.
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BCG’s Net-Zero Pledge, One Year Later
The climate actions we’ve taken so far, the lessons we’ve learned—and a new target aimed at cutting our emissions intensity in half by 2025.
BCG, September 21, 2021
One year ago, in a landmark moment in BCG’s history, we announced a bold new commitment to achieve net-zero climate impact by 2030 and, from there, to become climate positive, removing more carbon from the atmosphere than we emit each year. See the report.
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Destination: Net Zero - Six Steps To Address Climate Protection Goals For The Decisive Decade
A free white-paper outlining a step-by-step process for corporate leaders responding to climate change
White Paper prepared by Ameresco, Inc.
Increasingly companies around the world are under pressure to respond to global climate change. These pressures from stakeholders and corporate best practice sharing has culminated in a turning point. This white paper outlines a step‑by‑step process for corporate leaders to address growing concerns from the investment community, broader society, and other stakeholders. The time is now to establish your path to Destination: Net Zero and CFOs are recognizing the near-term need to address global climate change. The paper highlights how energy solutions with creative financing business models -- like Energy as a Service -- can address many of the all-too-common internal obstacles to planning and implementing net zero programs. Read more. Download the document.
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Energy & The Built Environment |
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Boston just enacted its ‘single most impactful initiative’ to curb greenhouse gas emissions
The new measure, dubbed BERDO 2.0, requires large buildings to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050.
By Nik DeCosta-Klipa, Boston.com, October 5, 2021
Acting Mayor Kim Janey signed an ordinance Tuesday that will require existing large buildings in Boston to achieve net-zero emissions by 2050. Read more.
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Mass Save® issues new Path
to Carbon Neutral report
Report highlights carbon-reduction and cost-saving benefits delivered to customers over the past decade, charts path to help Massachusetts remain a leader in sustainability and energy efficiency
Mass Save®
Carbon neutrality is the future, and the Sponsors of Mass Save®* are all in, announcing the release of a brand new Path to Carbon Neutral report highlighting sustainability milestones achieved so far and offering a look at the road ahead to achieve ambitious cost-saving and environmental goals for all customers.
Over the past 10 years, the Sponsors of Mass Save have helped Massachusetts lead the way in sustainability and carbon reduction through energy efficiency initiatives, laying the foundation to successfully implement programs in the coming years that will further reduce carbon emissions and allow for truly equitable access to energy-saving resources and technology. Read more.
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Fighting Climate Change on the Home Front
New Products and New Policy Can Make Decarbonizing Home Energy Use Easy
By Lauren Shwisberg Mark Dyson , RMI, October 6, 2021
What if you could help combat climate change from your home without lifting a finger?
Imagine if you could ask your utility, with the click of a button, to supply your home with 100 percent carbon-free energy. Imagine if the appliances in your home could automatically reduce the emissions from the electricity that powered them, without you even noticing. Imagine if you could safely ride out extreme weather in your home without extreme energy use. And finally, imagine if you could do all this affordably and easily.
If everyone could do this, it would go a long way toward meeting the United States’ climate policy targets. And importantly, it would improve health, especially in communities hardest hit by fossil fuel pollution. Committing to a transition in our homes at this scale could also open up widespread availability of key technologies and programs, unlocking equitable access to clean energy for all communities. Read more.
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‘Blah, blah, blah’: Greta Thunberg lambasts leaders over climate crisis
Exclusive: Activist says there are many fine words but the science does not lie – CO2 emissions are still rising
By Damian Carrington, The Guardian, September 25, 2021
Greta Thunberg has excoriated global leaders over their promises to address the climate emergency, dismissing them as “blah, blah, blah”...
“ Build back better. Blah, blah, blah. Green economy. Blah blah blah. Net zero by 2050. Blah, blah, blah,” she said in a speech to the Youth4Climate summit in Milan, Italy, on Tuesday. |
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If climate change threatens us all, shouldn't everyone be talking about it? "That's the only way revolutions ever start"
CBS News, October 5, 2021
Climate change is a major global threat, but not yet a major topic of kitchen table conversation. At the Dallas World Aquarium, CBS News found most people just don't usually get into the conversa-tion.
"How often do you talk about climate change?" "CBS Mornings" co-host Tony Dokoupil asked some visitors.
"Have we once talked about climate? Maybe once or twice in our, you know, seven-year relationship," Chris Glenn replied. Read more.
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Google bans ads on content, including YouTube videos, with false claims about climate change.
By Daisuke Wakabayashi and
Tiffany Hsu, The New York Times, October 7, 2021
Google said it will no longer display advertisements on YouTube videos and other content that promote inaccurate claims about climate change.
T he decision, by the company’s ads team, means that it will no longer permit websites or YouTube creators to earn advertising money via Google for content that “contradicts well-established scientific consensus around the existence and causes of climate change.” Read more.
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The cities reinventing public transit
By Somini Sengupta, The New York Times, October 5, 2021
We’ve been reading a lot about electric cars lately, for good reason. But that made me wonder: What does the future look like for billions of people around the world who can’t afford to buy an electric car — or a car period?
I started making calls. I learned that cities on every continent are wrestling with this question. Some of them are even wrestling with the tough political question of whether so much of their public space should be devoted to cars at all. Read more.
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Food, Health & Agriculture |
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Passing State-Level Food Policy
ClimateXChange Deep Dive webinar focuses on food practices and climate
Thursday, October 14, 2021
3:00 pm
Food production uses up half of the Earth’s habitable land, and is responsible for nearly a third of global heat-trapping emissions.
These emissions come from the growing, processing, transporting, storing, cooking, and disposing of the foods we eat every day, and in the wake of a climate crisis that requires a breadth of boldsolutions, emissions from the food cannot be ignored. About 6% - 8% of human-caused emissions could be elimin- ted if we stopped wasting food, and plenty of other agricultural changes could significantly reduce the carbon footprint of our food.
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Climate crisis: 233 journals ‘call for emergency action’ to limit global heating
By Robby Berman, Medical News Today, September 14, 2021
- More than 200 health journals have banded together to urge world leaders to adopt a more aggressive response to climate change.
- As health journalists, the authors of the editorial cite the damage to human health already resulting from global warming.
- The editorial is directed at global leaders attending several major climate summits this fall.
In September 2021, the United Nations General Assembly will meet to address the worldwide climate crisis. Later this fall, two other major summits — a biodiversity conference in Kunming, China, and the COP26 climate conference in Glasgow, United Kingdom — will convene.
Ahead of these important gatherings, an international coalition of more than 200 health journals has published an editorial urging a more aggressive and equitable response to the threat of climate change. Read more.
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Faith Communities Organizing
for Climate Action
Yale Program on Climate Change Communication presents timely webinar
Friday, October 15, 2021
12:00 - 1:00 PM (ET)
Faith communities are building power for climate action. Join in a conversation on how faith communities organize around environmental concerns, including helping launch the environment justice movement. Local and national faith leaders will discuss what is working in faith organizing and what lessons faith communities can teach the broader climate movement. Moderator and presenters include:
- Dr. Willie James Jennings, Yale Divinity School Professor and prominent theologian
- Rev. Dr. Ambrose Carroll, Sr., CEO of Green the Church
- Rev. Meyaard-Schaap, Vice President of the Evangelical Environmental Network
- Gabby Trejo, Executive Director, Sacramento ACT (Area Congregations Together)
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We are an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to reach carbon neutrality — or net zero — on Cape Cod and the Islands of Massachusetts by enhancing communication, collaboration, and activism among organizations, programs, and individuals committed to mitigating the climate crisis. We depend upon the generosity of our stakeholders to conduct our work. All donations are tax deductible as allowed by law.
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The Climate Action Alerts newsletter is curated and crafted by Fran Schofield. If you've got a climate story from your home, school, workplace, town or organization, please be in touch! And don't forget to share this action alert with your friends and suggest they subscribe here.
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