[ Seminar
Series - Schedule | Archive of 2000-2001
Seminars | Archive of 1999-2000
Seminars | Archive of 1998-1999
Seminars
"Climate Protection from the Grassroots:
Massachusetts’ Prodigal Case"A Teleconference Seminar Session
Led byDr. Michael L. Charney
Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Massachusetts Climate Action Network (MCAN)
Co-Founder and Co-Chair of the Green Building Coalition
Publisher, The Cambridge Climate CalendarBackground Material for Seminar Session
[ Biographical Background ]
How does and how shall the "climate climate" change in Massachusetts? An organizing directory and cautionary tale, may explain.Despite self-important tendencies, Cambridge, Boston and Massachusetts are not national, let alone global leaders in urban sustainability and climate protection. Indeed, a decade ago Jeb Brugmann abandoned Massachusetts to find a willing city for his inspirations, Local Agenda 21, ICLEI and the global Cities for Climate Protection campaign. Little in the Commonwealth changed audibly until recently. Perhaps California’s failure to conserve, or the Bush rejection of Kyoto, or some partial recognition of local and national insecurity costs of dirty power, is fertilizing green consciousness in America.
For the zeitgeist is now brightening here for climate action. The most noted change was Acting Governor Jane Swift’s landmark inclusion of President Bush’s non-existent "fourth pollutant" – CO2 – in the final Filthy Five regulations in April 2001. It was a major victory particularly won by MassPIRG and Massachusetts Clean Water Action, which organized a massive and sustained citizen campaign to counter the electrically connected malfeasors. It was all the more significant as Republican Swift parted company with GWB who previously reneged on his campaign promise to cap power plant CO2 , and had just rejected Kyoto weeks earlier .
The Bay State holds a spot dear in hearts of environmentalists. Here private land trusts, public parks for wilderness, and Audubon Society originated, the Clamshell Alliance and the Nuclear Freeze took hold. While climate protection has been low on the agenda of most of our environmental groups, there have been exceptions. And priorities are now changing. The Filthy Five campaign hangs in to assure a sound CO2 trading scheme, and will increasingly focus on clean, renewable energy and climate.
Over the past three years, priority for climate has advanced among our environmental organizations and aware individuals. These include the Environmental League of Massachusetts, Green Decade/Newton, Boston Area Sustainable Energy Association, the Green Roundtable, the Committee on the Environment of the Boston Society of Architects, Conservation Law Foundation, Massachusetts Sierra Club, Tufts Climate Initiative (TCE), the Harvard University Center for the Environment (HUCE), Second Nature, the Coalition for Environmentally Responsible Economics (CERES), the Harvard Square Branch of the Union of Concerned Scientists, Self-Reliance on Cape Cod, and a stalwart from 70’s solar days, the Northeast Sustainable Energy Association.
New to the fray and largely committed to climate protection and clean renewable energy, are Salem Power Plant HealthLink, Episcopal Power & Light, Mass Energy Consumers Alliance, Massachusetts Climate Action Network, Clean-Air Cool-Planet, Religious Witness for the Earth, Boston Area Student Environmental Coalition and its affiliated campus groups, the Greater Boston Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life and the Green Building Coalition.
A dozen plus municipalities now pursue climate protection, most now enrolled in Jeb Brugmann’s Cities for Climate Protection (CCP) campaign. These include Newton, Medford, Cambridge, Arlington, Brookline, Somerville, Boston, New Bedford, Springfield, Amherst, Northampton, Gloucester, Worcester and Watertown, as well as new citizen groups in Salem and Concord. Various state and federal agencies have of course been providing valuable expertise, leadership and support for climate protection such as the Massachusetts Executive Office of Environmental Affairs (MA EOEA), US. Environmental Protection Agency (USEPA Region I), and promisingly, the Massachusetts Renewable Energy Trust.
Other major contributors the Massachusetts’ rising climate profile inclue Harvards’ Center for Health and the Global Environment under the leadership of Dr. Eric Chivian and Dr Paul Epstein. Elsewhere in academe individual scholars including Professors William Moomaw and Paul Kirshen (Tufts), Michael McElroy, James McCarthy, Robert Stavins (Harvard), Mario Molina , Ronald Prinn , Henry Jacoby and David Marks (MIT), Cutler Cleveland (BU), George Woodwell of the Wood's Hole Research Center (WHRC) and MIT’s Laboratory for Energy & the Environment have each contributed by their teaching, research, example and active presence. In addition, the Harvard Seminar on Environmental Values has recently launched The Climate Talks Project. This forum has developed a website to provide the public with continuously updated information on climate issues and international negotiation news, and its Seminar sessions have served to bring academic researchers, concerned citizens and environmental activists together for helpful discussions of the issues.
We are also privileged to have in the greater Boston area, Ross Gelbspan who deserves particular recognition for raising the climate issue eloquently in book, speech, web, manifesto and press. Also contributing to climate and energy awareness, Steve Bernow of the Tellus Institute, Steve Cowell and the Conservation Services Group, the Henry P. Kendall Foundation and the Northeast Grassroots Environmental Fund Lastly, the New England Aquarium which has just constructed a green built addition, has assumed the docents role with programs for teachers and nature interpreters to explain the impacts of climate change upon coastal waters and marine habitat to visitors and students. Massachusetts Audubon Society’s new Boston Nature Center, now under construction is also of advanced green design and will be a portal to climate wise behavior change.
In 2000, Massachusetts ex-pate and Torontonian Brugmann received the Millennium Award for best sustainable initiative in recognition for organizing the International Council for Local Environmental Initiatives, the award Maurice Strong earned for the Earth Summit. May we confess our prodigality.
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