Monthly Chapter Meetings

Dr. Richard Birdsey, Senior Scientist at the Woodwell Climate Research Center in Falmouth, Massachusetts, shared with us the capacity of forests in Massachusetts to help achieve “net zero” greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, considering those potential future threats. He delved into Massachusetts forest resources’ technical and biological capacity to protect carbon stocks and increase carbon accumulation rates. His comments on proposed legislation in Massachusetts were very helpful when we got into our ActionAr to support our priority bills on Forest Protection.

Dr. Richard Birdsey is a specialist in forest inventories who pioneered methods to estimate carbon budgets for forest lands from forest inventory data, and was a lead author on two Special Reports for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (the IPCC).  

Dr. Birdsey contributed to assessments of climate change in the U.S. and served as the forestry expert on the National Academy of Sciences report “Negative Emissions Technologies and Reliable Sequestration: A Research Agenda” (2018). With 3 years as Chair of the U.S. Government Carbon Cycle Science Steering Group, he published extensively on forest management and strategies to increase carbon sequestration, and facilitated the development of decision-support tools for policy and management. 

Recognized by the U.S. Department of Agriculture as a major contributor to creating a new agricultural commodity – carbon – Dr. Birdsey is currently helping U.S. communities and U.S. National Forests include forests as part of their greenhouse gas inventories, climate change mitigation strategies, forest plans and projects.  Closer to home, Dr. Birdsey was appointed by the MA Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs to the Climate Forestry Committee and participated in developing recommendations for climate-oriented forest management guidelines in the Commonwealth. 

The slides from Dr. Birdsey’s presentation can be found here

Stipend Reform with Brian Muldoon

Brian informed us about the ballot question to reform legislative stipends, and encouraged us to support his effort by collecting signatures and seeking needed funds.

A Boston native, Brian has amassed two decades of experience in the political, government, and non-profit sectors. Brian has served as Vice President at Erikson Communication Group since 2020, serving dozens of candidates, nonprofits, and ballot questions. Before joining Erikson Communications, Brian served as Data and Information Systems Director for American Promise, a national cross-partisan organization with the goal of ending big money 

To support this effort, particularly by becoming a signature gatherer, go to StipendReform.com

The slides from Brian’s presentation will be posted here soon

Our September chapter meeting was focused on Public Health & Plastics: Reduce Impacts Now! Coordinator of ECA’s Plastics Working Group, Dave Damm-Luhr, gave an overview of the problem and motivation to address it before introducing our speaker, Dr. Phillip Landrigan, MD.  Dr. Landrigan is a pediatrician and epidemiologist, and Director at Boston College of the Program for Global Public Health and the Common Good as well as the Global Observatory on Planetary Health. [more info here].

Dr. Landrigan shared insights and recommendations from his groundbreaking collaboration with scientists focused on the widespread health impacts of plastics throughout their lifecycles and the urgency of taking bold steps now to reduce them. Here is an article by Dr. Landrigan about the impacts of plastics and the outlook for the Global Plastics Treaty.  After Q&A with Dr. Landrigan, Jeanne Krieger of ECA’s Plastics Working Group, offered information on ECA’s priority plastics bills (i.e., updating the bottle bill, banning single-use plastic bags and banning polystyrene).  She then led us in emailing our state House representatives to ask for their strong support of these plastics-reduction bills now before them, so we can begin to slow their both health and climate impacts

The slides from the presentation by the ECA Plastics Working Group are here.  The slides from Dr. Landrigan presentation are here.

Roger Luckmann, an ECA MA member, a physician and preventive medicine specialist, has been visiting senior centers to provide folks with practical tips on avoiding heat illness based on the latest science on how our bodies respond to heat, humidity and sunlight. He brought that messaging to the chapter meeting and offered the following information:

• How to find and use the heat index to determine how we can be active outside safely even during a heat wave
• How to identify our personal risk factors for heat illness and use them to adjust our exposure to heat to stay safe
• How to stay cool indoors when there is no AC or the power is out
• What communities can do to keep everyone safe in the heat and more.

Keep Cool Everyone.

The slides from Roger’s presentation are here.

Michael Judge (Undersecretary for Energy) and Katharine Antos (Undersecretary of Decarbonization and Resilience) met with us at the July chapter meeting.  They spoke about.

1. What the state is thinking about the current situation of meeting the greenhouse gas emissions goals and targets and effect on the federal administration’s lack of funding going forward, especially for wind energy.
2. The provisions in the Mass Ready Act and the Energy Affordability, Independence and Innovation Act.

Michael Judge was the speaker for our chapter meeting a little over a year ago and headed up the commission on siting and permitting.  

Before they spoke, Arnie Epstein and the ECA Research Team brought us up to date with:

• A little bit of history going back to the 2008 Global Warming Solutions Act and the GWSA Implementation “Roadmap” ( “An Act Creating a Next-Generation Roadmap for Massachusetts Climate Policy”) ECA Mass helped pass in 2021.
• A review of where we’ve made progress to date.
• The 2025 and 2030 targets.
• Brief discussion of the challenges in each sector.

The slides for Arnie’s presentation are here.

Kyle Murray, Director, State Program Implementation and Massachusetts Program Director at www.acadiacenter.org updated us on Governor Healey’s Energy Affordability Bill, the MA Energy Affordability, Independence & Innovation Act.

Kyle leads Acadia Center’s Massachusetts advocacy efforts including coalitions, outreach and agency work at the Dept. of Public Utilities. He serves as the environmental communities’ representative on the Massachusetts Grid Modernization Advisory Council and represents Acadia Center on the Zero Emission Vehicle Commission. Kyle also co-leads the Alliance for Clean Energy Solutions coalition and leads the Beyond Gas coalition.

Then we prepared to LOBBY at the Statehouse on June 18!  Policy and Bill Priorities 2025 details the bills we are lobbying for, by our Working Groups.

Our Legislative Team updated us on the plans and we will fine tune the logistics for this exciting and FUN day together in person, raising our voices to speak out for what is important to us with our legislators. If you haven’t had the pleasure of meeting with yours yet, or it’s been a while, this is the day to make that connection, and to make it count!

The video is below:

After a short time to socialize and connect with other members, the meeting began by prepping ourselves for our in-person Lobby Day coming up in mid-June. We went over basic lobbying for the priority bills we support and what to do in meetings with our legislators—in person at the Statehouse and in district meetings.

INew comers to Lobby Day learned that we all need to be in closer contact with our legislators and build those connections. They were walked through what to expect and what to do, and that when we go, we pair newbies with more experienced people. And were told that the legislators and their staff trust ECA for the good information they need and want from us, and welcome us when we come!

The slides from the chapter meeting are here.

And the video is below.

This month’s chapter meeting was held at the Robbins Library in Arlington, MA and on ZOOM.

We began the meeting with a look at the impact severe weather-exacerbated changes has had on the insurance industry, both residential and commercial, with Chris Stark, the Ex Director of the Massachusetts Insurance Federation trade group.

The second half of our meeting, we investigated how we can advocate more effectively. Geoffrey Henderson, Assistant Professor, Environmental Policy and Planning at the University of Michigan explained his research on how to make democracy work better in the context of large-scale environmental problems. His work considers how civic organizations and social movements stimulate political participation and form coalitions. Prof. Henderson studied efforts to engage people in environmental activism, how environmental attitudes affect behavior and how members of Congress learn their constituents’ opinions. We learned from his presentation:about Activating Activism: “What works and why? “

Geoffrey Henderson’s presentation is here.

And here is the video of the meeting:

This month, we heard from Melissa Lavinson who serves as the Executive Director of the Office of Energy Transformation for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. She is charged with the hands-on execution of the clean energy transition, including ensuring the availability and readiness of electrical infrastructure, electric and gas transition coordination, and a just and equitable transition for impacted workers, communities, and businesses.

Lavinson also convenes an Energy Transformation Advisory Board comprised of industry, labor, environmental justice, technology, consumer, and supply chain representatives, among others, to accelerate cooperation, understanding, and action.

Prior to joining the Healey-Driscoll Administration, she served as Head of Corporate Affairs for National Grid, New England, leading state and municipal government relations, community and stakeholder engagement, media relations, municipal customer management, strategic communications, and the company’s philanthropic program in New England.

During the second part of our meeting, we learned about “529 plans” run by Fidelity—savings/ investment plans for our grandchildren’s education run by MEFA (Massachusetts Educational Financing Agency). We can use our money NOW to invest in good things, and for our families’ future benefit!

We learned from Jessica Bryant, a member of Mothers Out Front, who has been advocating for climate friendly college savings plans for nearly 3 years alongside a coalition of partners from climate groups across the state and country.

• State-sponsored 529 plans: what they are and why they pose a problem for climate (hint: no fossil free option!)
• A Coalition has formed and is addressing the problem: 
• Good news, partial success:  a fossil free static fund now offered by Fidelity, with relatively high fees
• Not so good news:  we want a low fee, fossil free age-based fund
• Opportunity to pitch in
  • Sign a petition and share it with others
  • Ask your legislators to co-sponsor a bill filed by Rep Steve Owens related to this issue.  
    

The presentation on 529 plans is here.

The presentation on where you get valid climate information is here.

And here is the video of the meeting:

This month, a panel of our friends in Gas Transition Allies spoke with us about getting off gas and what’s happening with geothermal. Mark Dyen and Marilyn Ray Smith shared information about the organization and their current legislative agenda. Mark Dyen is a long time energy policy activist as a policy advocate at Massachusetts Fair Share and as a designer and implementer of energy efficiency programs at Conservation Services Group. Garrett Casey, who also presented, has served since 2021 as policy director and counsel to Senator Cindy Creem, who is the longtime champion of several bills related to the gas system and the transition to clean thermal energy. He has also been the lead staffer to the Senate Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change during Senator Creem’s chairmanship.

In the second half of our meeting we heard from our Legislative Team with their updates, and broke into groups to focus on our involvement in possible actions.

The presentation on legislative priorities is here.

You can watch the video of the February 11th meeting below.