Summer & Low Carbon Living is Easy!

Low Carbon Living groups are free, fun and happening in Fields Corner, Mattapan and Roxbury this summer.

People who have joined Low Carbon Living groups in the past are now saving between 5 and 25 percent on their utility bills. You can too! People who join the groups get a free copy of an energy saving workbook called The Low Carbon Diet. The leaders of the groups are folks from the neighborhood who have already gone through the workbook and made changes in how their household uses energy. Bring your utility bills and see how your home compares to others in the neighborhood! Come check us out:

Monday evenings in Fields Corner, Dorchester — 7/13, 7/27, 8/10 & 8/24 @ 6:30 pm
at Cleveland Community Center, 11 Charles St., Fields Corner

Saturday mornings in Roxbury – 7/18, 8/1, 8/15 & 8/29 @ 10:30 am
at Twelfth Baptist Church, 160 Warren Street, Roxbury

Thursday evenings in Mattapan – 8/6, 8/13, 8/20 & 8/27 @ 6:30 pm
at Church of the Holy Spirit, 525 River St., Mattapan Square

The meetings go till 8pm. Light snacks are served. Everyone is welcome to participate.

For more information, you can call Owen at 617 427-6293.
Co-sponsored by ACORN and BostonCAN

How Climate Change Will Affect Massachusetts…And How Our State is Stepping Up to the Challenge

The United States Global Change Research Program, a collaborative effort between the White House and federal agencies, just released its report on the current and future effects of climate change in the United States. While the results shouldn’t be surprising to those of us paying close attention to this issue, the “great unknown” of just how severe the future shocks of climate change will be should give us all pause. The report underscores the fact that the health of our planet depends on what do today to reduce our greenhouse gas emissions and mitigate global warming and climate change.

To learn more about rising sea levels in New England, check out the recent Washington Post article warning that “sea levels could rise faster along the U.S. East Coast than in any other densely populated part of the world”. Of course, curbing our carbon emissions now can keep the glaciers from melting, and keep Bay State residents on dry land.

To meet the challenges of global warming on the Bay State, Massachusetts’ Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs (EEA) is thinking proactively and studying the likely effects of climate change on the state’s natural environment and economic viability, including rising sea levels and increased incidence of floods and droughts. The Climate Change Adaptation Advisory Committee expects to issue a report to the state legislature by December of this year outlining strategies for adapting to the expected climate change effects.

How You Can Help

The Advisory Committee, comprised of representatives from the business, academic and non-profit sectors, invites the public to attend its meetings. The next event is scheduled for Thursday, July 30th at 100 Cambridge Street in Boston, with details and the full schedule of meetings available on the Advisory Committee’s web site.

You can also get involved with the City of Boston’s year-long Community Advisory Committee as part of the Renew Boston Climate Action planning process. You don’t have to be a climate change expert to be on the committee, but you do need to be a Boston resident who cares about taking action to mitigate and adapt to climate change. Anyone can nominate themselves before the deadline this Friday, June 26th. A Spanish-language version of the nomination form is available.

Teens and Teachers for climate literacy

Bill Moomaw will deliver the keynote address at the third annual Youth Climate Action Network Global Climate Change Summit on Saturday, May 9th at MIT.

Students in grades 7-12 as well as to the educators of students in grades 7-12 are invited to attend the Summit for free. The Summit is organized and hosted by the Boston Latin School Youth CAN in partnership with the Technology and Culture Forum at MIT.

The Summit provides a full day of workshops, speakers, and activites focused on global climate change and sustainable living. All students who register (online) will be entered into a drawing for great door prizes such as iPods, gift certificates, and more. Breakfast and Lunch are also provided free.

When/Where: Saturday, May 9th at MIT in the Stata Center (32 Vassar Street, Cambridge, MA – Kendall Square T stop on the Red Line) Summit runs from 8:30am – 4:30pm.

Space at the 2009 Summit is limited, so register online early, and make sure to sign up soon for the particular workshops that you hope to attend!

The exceptional list of presenters includes City Councillor John Connolly, Boston Latin School Headmaster Lynne Mooney-Teta, Patricia Weinmann of the Technology and Culture Forum at MIT, Andrew Schuyler of Northeast Biofuels Collaborative, Jen Filiault of Clean Power Now, Liz Soper of the National Wildlife Federation, Lilah Glick of Cambridge Energy Alliance, Mary Essary of the Foresight Project, Liz Duff of Mass Audubon, Paul Shoemaker of the Boston Public Health Commission, and many more. Workshops include topics such as Green Jobs, Green Design, Climate Change and the Food We Eat, The Science of Climate Change, Sustainability in Our Everyday Lives, Filming a Climate Change PSA and many more. The summit will also offer workshops specifically aimed at educators who want to teach about climate change in their classroom.

Enjoy activities such as: street theater, film screenings, decorating climate T-shirts, making climate art with a local artist, sculpting with sudsy putty, making an event mural, filming participant pledges at the You Tube booth, and participating in the 2009 Summit 350 action!

“Weatherization Party” Cuts Carbon and Shares Skills

Celebrating 15% cut in air leakage

On Saturday, March 28, at 9am, a dedicated group of 15 experienced weatherizers and 40 people eager to learn new money-saving skills swarmed the Jamaica Plain home of Judy Kolligian for a “Neighborhood Weatherization Party” sponsored by Boston Climate Action Network (BostonCAN). By the end of the morning they had weatherized her mansard-roofed home, connecting the dots between global climate change and local action to save energy and dollars. An air infiltration test at 8am and a second one at 12:30 proved the effectiveness of the morning’s work. Paul Eldrenkamp, the contractor who provided the blower-door tests, declared, “The team was able to reduce the air leakage in the house by about 15 percent – from 7700 cfm to 6600 cfm – which is a terrific accomplishment for a group of volunteers giving up a beautiful Saturday morning for the effort.”

Volunteer Ninya Loeppky talked about the importance of having a practical way to do something about climate change, “Instead of laying in bed at night worrying about polar bears and melting ice caps, I got out of the house and did something practical to solve the problem, and I met a bunch of great people while doing it. And it’s great knowing that we cut Judy’s energy use by about 5 percent.”

Neighbors helping neighbors cut carbon

Like a barn-raising in pioneer days, a “weatherization party” is a time for neighbors to step out of their usual routines and come together for hands-on, meaningful work. Energy conservation is job number one in ending our dependence of foreign energy and a big part of President Obama’s “green collar” jobs program. Stopping energy waste is also key to stopping global warming but residents often don’t know what actions will make a difference. A weatherization party is an opportunity to learn money-saving strategies from energy experts like Paul Marquis, the Green House Doctor at Boston’s Green Roundtable. Marquis noted that, “Considering the real change that’s needed to stop global climate change and prepare for the changes we can’t avoid, it’s both necessary and exciting to arm the average person with the knowledge about how to improve their home’s comfort and affordability. Events like this help to ‘advance the cause’ by altering the general mindset and making energy and resource efficiency principles part of the common vernacular.”

Tim, Becky, and Veronica glaze a new pane of glass

Many of the weatherization party organizers are excited about the inclusion of green jobs in the recently passed stimulus bill. Two students in Roxbury Community College’s Green Technology program, were among the volunteers getting hands-on experience during the weatherization party. Loie Hayes, coordinator of BostonCAN told the volunteers, “The green-collar job trainings funded through the stimulus plan will make it a lot easier to find qualified people to do the energy conservation renovations that we need in so many of our older homes in Boston. We hope this party gives some of you the confidence to consider becoming a professional weatherizer and others the experience you need to do simple things for yourselves.”
We’d like to extend a special thanks to HEET, Home Energy Efficiency Team, for all their help and their leadership in creating the “barnraising” model for this weatherization party.
See more photos at informmotion.

Neighborhood Weatherization Party!

Hope you’ll join us for a Neighborhood Weatherization Party
Saturday, March 28, from 9am till noon, followed by food and networking
79 Sheridan St., Jamaica Plain
Organized by BostonCAN with support from Boston Workers Alliance and the Nexus Center

Learn home weatherization skills while making new friends. Volunteer tradespeople will lead teams of neighbors doing hands-on work to seal air leaks and insulate. You’ll be helping to stop global warming too.

Free and open to the public but sadly not wheelchair accessible. Please pre-register by emailing bostonclimateaction@gmail.com or calling Loie at 617-278-1885, so we can make sure we have enough tradespeople to train everyone. Kids are welcome too but we need to know their names and ages so we can arrange childcare on site or near by.

Climate Action Planning in Chicago

On January 26th, the Barr Foundation sponsored a presentation by Julia Parzen, a consultant who had helped the City of Chicago create and manage a comprehensive, data-driven climate action planning process. BCAN members attended, along with dozens of others from a range of public agencies and non-profit organizations. The talk was fascinating, with numerous ideas for Boston and other Massachusetts communities to create more ambitious climate action plans.

The Chicago process began with a thorough analysis of greenhouse gas emissions for Chicago and the surrounding counties. Chicago’s overall carbon footprint was calculated in 2005 to be 36.2 million metric tons of carbon equivalent, or 12.7 tons for every Chicago resident (by contrast, the figure for Boston in 2005 was a slightly higher 14.2 tons per person). The local utilities volunteered building-level energy use data, allowing planners to map energy use across the city and identify geographic usage patterns, thereby enabling more effective strategic planning to reduce energy use.

The research team identified dozens of possible “mitigation strategies” and evaluated each for the size of its realistic potential to reduce emissions. Out of this analysis emerged a prioritized list of 35 actions, or as the report put it, “35 ways to ensure a resilient city” (including 9 actions for adapting to a changing climate). These actions included energy retrofits in existing buildings, building renewable electricity generation, updating and improving enforcement of the City’s energy code, and implementing a carbon tax. Each mitigation action corresponded to a projected carbon reduction with full implementation enabling Chicago to meet its goals of bringing emissions 7% below 1990 levels by 2012, 25% by 2020, and 80% by 2050. Each recommended action also included specific performance measures, such as retrofitting 400,000 residential units by 2020, with a 30% reduction in energy use/unit.

Chicago’s climate action planning process was overwhelmingly collaborative. While initiated by the City’s Environment Department, the process involved a wide variety of other City departments, local philanthropies, businesses, universities, community groups and residents through a series of committees, task forces, summits and individual interviews. A crucial bit of data–building energy use data–was supplied by local utilities, allowing planners to map energy use across the city and identify geographic usage patterns, thereby anebling more effective strategic planning to recude energy use. The planners estimate that they involved more than 500 local leaders and held more than 50 meetings, with 10 committees managing each segment of the process. Four research teams worked for aover 8 months at a cost of $500,000. (Parzen noted that other cities would likely be able to do similar work for much less, perhaps $200,000, now that the model has been established.)

The entire Chicago planning process was well-documented so that it might serve as a model for other communities. The final plan and additional details are posted at www.chicagoclimateaction.org.

by Viki Bok

New Events Page!

Check out our new Events page for upcoming climate-related presentations and happenings in and around Boston.

To get the latest updates sent to your inbox, just click on the subscribe button to the right. And stay tuned for more news about how you can help stop global warming….because yes, we can!

Join a Low Carbon Living group

Low Carbon Living group starting in Dorchester

2nd and 4th Mondays in Jan. & Feb., 6:30pm

Harbor School, 11 Charles Street, across the street from the Fields Corner T-station.

Join a small group for a series of 4 meetings focused on measuring and reducing your “carbon footprint.” Use the Low Carbon Diet workbook to learn tips and tricks for saving money while you help save the world. See the power of your actions at home magnified as you connect with others doing the same in Boston and elsewhere. And if you’ve already done what you can at home to conserve energy and reduce your “carbon footprint,” learn how to teach your family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors how to save energy too. Info: Chris at ACORN at (617) 436-7100

New video resources

There’s a wonderful Home Energy Efficiency Team that’s been leading energy conservation “barnraisings” in Cambridge. They gather volunteers, both skilled and novice, and implement low-tech strategies to stop air leaks around basement sills and doors and windows. Check out this video to get a feel of the fun and learning that’s taking place. http://blip.tv/file/1494341/

And if you’ve done all the weatherizing and insulating that you can do in your home and still want to cut your carbon use, check out this video for instructions on how to make a small solar heater that multiplies the solar gain of a sunny window.
http://www.youtube.com/v/lTOe2OYSPlw

Roxbury Energy Fair and Boston Green Justice Coalition

Going green means more than windfarms on the Cape and solar panels in the suburbs. Saturday, Dec. 6th  a growing movement announced itself with a call for energy savings, quality jobs, and healthier urban communities.

The Boston Green Justice Coalition is a group of community organizations, labor unions, and environmental organizations that have come together to make sure that good jobs and other benefits for low-income families are realized out of Boston’s green efforts.

coming up soon…

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Low Carbon Living group

Monday, Dec. 15, 6:30pm

Harbor School, 11 Charles Street, across the street from the Fields Corner T-station.

Join a small group for a series of 4 meetings focused on measuring and reducing your “carbon footprint.” Use the Low Carbon Diet workbook to learn tips and tricks for saving money while you help save the world. See the power of your actions at home magnified as you connect with others doing the same in Boston and elsewhere. And if you’ve already done what you can at home to conserve energy and reduce your “carbon footprint,” learn how to teach your family, friends, coworkers, and neighbors how to save energy too. Info: Chris at ACORN at (617) 436-7100