Deep Dialogues and Expert Series

At a time when electricity prices in New England are high and rising, a new study by Synapse finds residential basic service ratepayers throughout New England have paid $66 million per month, on average, in hidden fees on their electric bill. Synapse’s report, Overcharged in New England, digs into the details of how these costs differ across states. It also discusses how these fees can be addressed with commonsense, achievable regulatory reforms.

Pat Knight is a vice president at Synapse Energy Economics, a research and consulting firm in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Synapse’s staff of 50 work on issues at the intersection of energy, affordability, and the environment for public interest clients across North America. Pat’s recent work includes examining the costs and benefits of distributed solar in New England and New York, analyzing trajectories for phasing out Massachusetts’ gas peaker plants, and quantifying the impact on grid reliability related to data center deployment in the mid-Atlantic states.

Slides from this presentation are available here.

Dr. Brita Lundberg presented a review of the health risks related to nuclear power. She believes that proponents of nuclear energy generally portray it as “safe, clean, and affordable” and describe its health risks as “remote” or “trivial.” She examined the ways in which she believes this benign characterization is inaccurate. 

She explained why the assessment of nuclear energy’s harms to health must examine these harms across the entire nuclear fuel cycle – from mining of uranium, the fuel of nuclear power, through to disposal of radioactive waste and the potential for rare but catastrophic events. She also examined the excess fossil fuel emissions created all along the nuclear fuel cycle.

Dr. Brita Lundberg is Chair of the Environmental and Occupational Health Committee at the Massachusetts Medical Society, a member of the Board of Directors at Greater Boston Physicians for Social Responsibility, and an active member of Climate Code Blue, a physician-led advocacy group dedicated to raising public awareness around the health effects of climate change. She is the current CEO and founder of Lundberg Health Advocates, LLC, a patient advocacy group and a former Assistant Professor in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Emory University.

You may view Dr Lundberg’s slides here. A video of the session is posted below, and additional references are available here.

In 2021, with ECA’s essential advocacy, the state adopted the “Roadmap” legislation which set ambitious GHG emissions targets for 2030 and beyond.  At the time, we had the wind at our backs. Climate change ranked near the top of public issues, the federal government adopted laws and regulations to promote clean energy, businesses set their own “net-zero” targets, and our country was a leader in international efforts to combat climate change.  

Five years later there has been a dramatic change in public perception, federal support, and international cooperation.  We are facing a growing set of challenges.  With the current conditions, what opportunities are there to continue and accelerate movement towards the state’s climate targets?  Do we need to revisit the roadmap set out in the state’s Clean Energy and Climate Plan (CECP)?

Our own Leadership Team member and Research Group facilitator Arnie Epstein led a discussion of this crucial topic at our April Deep Dialogue.   Arnie lives in Stow MA where he is Chair of the town’s Green Advisory Committee.  Last year, Stow was one of the first communities in the state to be designated a Climate Leader and was presented with the state’s Leading By Example award.

The slides from the session are available here.

You can view the video of the meeting below:

Climate change is not a hoax.  Offshore wind [OSW] consists of clean energy technologies that can address climate change and keep the lights on.  In spite of the Trump administration’s irrational hostility toward offshore wind, OSW is expanding rapidly worldwide.  Massachusetts needs OSW to get to net zero by 2050 or whenever it happens. Every community in the State can benefit from OSW, even the poorest and toughest, like Holyoke.

With ECA-MA’s backing, Michael Sales spent six months studying awareness of and enthusiasm for OSW in Holyoke. What he found is that there is a tremendous amount of leadership energy ready to get behind OSW, if and when it becomes a developed reality.

This Deep Dialog explored the challenges climate activists face in supporting OSW in places like Holyoke. More importantly, it shows how vibrant talent thirsting for climate sanity can be found and mobilized in even the unlikeliest of places!

View the video of the session below:

Michael’s slides are here.

Michael’s full report is here.

This month’s discussion focused on electric rates in Massachusetts – a key area for both energy affordability and the state’s greenhouse gas emissions targets. We were pleased to have Senator William Brownsberger, President Pro Tempore of the MA State Senate, as our presenter. 

Senator Brownsberger has been deeply engaged in the state’s efforts to transition away from fossil fuels. His presentation included a discussion of the components of our electric rates and how electric rates have changed over the last decade.  For more detail on some of the areas covered, refer to Senator Brownsberger’s post on electric rates here.

Here’s the video of the Deep Dialogue:

Tom Ferguson, PhD is Energy Storage Programs Manager at the Massachusetts Department of Energy Resources (DOER). In this role, Tom is responsible for developing and implementing new policies and programs to spur the deployment of energy storage throughout the Commonwealth.

Here is a current article about his work for your background reading.

You can view the meeting video below:

We invited Dr Richard Birdsey back to explore more of the many questions we didn’t get to discuss when he presented to us in our October 14th chapter meeting on The Potential of Forests in Massachusetts to Address Climate Change

 Here is a link to that October 14th chapter meeting if you missed it or would like to review his slides.

Here is some background reading material Dr. Birdsey has shared:

Birdsey, Richard, Andrea Castanho, Richard Houghton, Kathleen Savage (2023).Middle-aged forests in the Eastern U.S. have significant climate mitigation potential. Forest Ecology and Management 548 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2023.121373

Mildrexler, D. J., Berner, L. T., Law, B. E., Birdsey, R. A., & Moomaw, W. R. (2023). Protect large trees for climate mitigation, biodiversity, and forest resilience. Conservation Science and Practice,e12944.  https://doi.org/10.1111/csp2.12944

Thompson, J. R., Laflower, D. M., Plisinski, J. S., MacLean, M. G., Chu, H., Carpenter, D., Antos, K., Cooper, S., Gaertner, K., Judge, M., Mittelman, M., Ryor, J., Van Doren, W. 2025.   Forest Carbon Study: The Impact of Alternative Land-use Scenarios on Terrestrial Carbon Storage and Sequestration in Massachusetts.

 “US communities ‘LEARN’ the carbon value of their trees” https://www.woodwellclimate.org/us-communities-learn-the-carbon-value-of-their-trees/

Dr. Birdsey’s slides may be viewed here.

The video from Dr. Birdsey’s return visit may be viewed below:

If you’d like to check out some of our past DeepDialogues, you will find them here, and past Chapter Meetings here.

We enjoyed learning more about Chris Ives’ newly published book Zen Ecology: Green and Engaged Living in Response to the Climate Crisis at our Deep Dialogue on October 27th. Chris Ives mentions his membership to our chapter of ECA a few times in his book, and his connection to Massachusetts places and history.  His brand-new book was reviewed in our October newsletter.

After presenting a variety of key points from his book, Chris asked attendees for their thoughts:

• How do Buddhist concepts support YOUR activism?
• How do YOU look at your activism?
• How YOU motivate people to become activists?

The slides from Chris Ives’ Deep Dialogue are here

The video may be viewed below