A regional resource for climate advocates
January 13, 2023
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3 ways to tap billions in new money to go green — starting this month
By Shannon Osaka, Washington Post, Jan 2, 2022 | mage: David Paul Morris, Bloomberg News
Earlier this year, Congress passed the biggest climate bill in history — cloaked under the name the “Inflation Reduction Act.” But while economists say the bill may not reduce inflation very much, it could do one important thing for a country trying to move away from fossil fuels: Spur millions of households across America to switch over to cleaner energy sources with free money.
Starting in the new year, the bill will offer households thousands of dollars to transition over from fossil-fuel burning heaters, stoves and cars to cleaner versions. Read more.
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Massachusetts EOEEA issues report on anticipated climate change impacts in Massachusetts
In late December, the Massachusetts Executive Office of Energy and Environment Affairs (EEA) released the “MA Climate Change Assessment,” the first statewide assessment detailing how Massachusetts people, environments, and infrastructure may be affected by climate change and related hazards through the end of the century.
This assessment will directly inform the first five-year update to the State Hazard Mitigation and Climate Adaptation Plan (SHMCAP) that will be released in Fall 2023. Importantly, it evaluates 37 climate impacts across five sectors: Human, Infrastructure, Natural Environment, Governance, and Economy; and seven regions of the Commonwealth, including the Cape & Islands region. Read the Executive Summary (22 pages). Read the Statewide Report (165 pages)
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Gov. Maura Healey issues her 1st executive order, creating climate chief
By Alison Kuznitz, MassLive, Jan 6, 2023 | Image: Chris Van Buskirk, MassLive
In her first full day in office, Gov. Maura Healey issued an executive order creating a climate chief within her Cabinet, as the newly sworn-in Democratic leader envisions Massachusetts as a global leader in tackling the climate crisis through what she sees as bold electrification and renewable energy goals.
Her order also establishes the Office of Climate Innovation and Resilience within the governor’s office, which will help develop climate-related legislation, track mitigation and resiliency targets, and adopt sustainability practices for state government, among other focus areas. Read more.
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Mass. unveils plans to roll back gas in new buildings
By David Iaconangelo, EnergyWire, Jan. 9 2022
Massachusetts energy officials are planning to shrink natural gas’s role in heating new buildings, as new Democratic Gov. Maura Healey faces steep challenges with her energy and climate agenda.
Late last year, the Department of Energy Resources issued draft and final rules that promote electrification of space and water heat. The draft rule, released for public comment on Dec. 23, outlines conditions for participation in a first-of-its-kind demonstration program where up to 10 Massachusetts towns and cities can ban fossil fuels in new buildings.
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TWO "DON'T-MISS" EVENTS
SAVE THE DATES & REGISTER TODAY!
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Monthly Meeting: Cape Cod CANS
(Climate Action Networks & Committees)
Thursday, January 19
6:30 PM - 7:30 PM
Join the Climate Collaborative and meet fellow climate leaders and activists from around the Cape & Islands for our regular Monthly "CAN" (Climate Action Networks) meeting. This month, we'll focus on a topic that every one of us has encountered at some point: Getting Organized and Getting Going. And we’ll explore the opportunities and challenges in convening community members concerned about climate change. And of course, we'll have time to share our local news, events, experiences, successes, challenges and lessons learned, as we learn with and from each other. Come as you are and all are welcome!
*You will receive a Zoom link next week.
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Climate Conversations
Climate Justice:
What Is It & What Does It Mean for Cape Cod & the Islands?
Friday, January 27
8:00 AM - 9:00 AM
Join the Climate Collaborative in its first Climate Conversation of 2023 for a interactive and informative discussion on climate justice. The Reverend Vernon Walker, Executive Director of CREW,* will speak on disproportionate impacts of climate impacts on communities around the globe and the Commonwealth. He will be joined by Lew Stern, Climate Collaborative board member and co-chair of its new Special Committee on Climate Justice, who will offer local perspective on our region's EJ communities and climate impacts. Maggie Phelan, Collaborative board member and co-chair of its Climate Justice special committee, will moderate and audience Q&A will follow. Stay tuned for more info next week and.Zoom links will be sent to registrants prior to meeting.
*Communities Responding to Extreme Weather
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A $300 million idea to equitably 'jumpstart' a climate-friendly building revolution in Mass.
By Miriam Wasser, WBUR, Dec 26, 2022
A broad coalition of environmental, housing and education advocacy groups say they have a plan to help Massachusetts meet one of its most challenging climate goals: “decarbonizing,” or dramatically reducing carbon emissions, from buildings in the state.
The idea is fairly straightforward. The groups are asking the legislature to set aside $300 million from the state’s remaining federal COVID-19 relief funds to help retrofit affordable and public housing units, schools, libraries and other municipal buildings.
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Four Big Things to Expect in Clean Energy in 2023
By Dan Gearino, Inside Climate News, Jan 5, 2023
Image: Mark Harrington
In 2023, the country’s first super-size offshore wind farms will come online, or at least get close to it. U.S. sales of electric vehicles will continue to accelerate, likely hitting 1 million units per year for the first time. And, state lawmakers in Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan and Minnesota are poised to pass climate and clean energy legislation.
Meanwhile, the most significant event for the clean energy economy in 2022—the Inflation Reduction Act—is going to have reverberations throughout 2023 and beyond as federal agencies work to implement the law and consumers and companies begin to see its benefits.
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Manufacturers and Models for New Qualified Clean Vehicles Purchased in 2023 or After
By IRS.gov
If you bought and placed in service a new qualified plug-in electric vehicle (EV) or fuel cell vehicle (FCV) on January 1, 2023 or later and meet certain income limitations, you may be eligible for a clean vehicle tax credit up to $7,500 under Internal Revenue Code Section 30D.
Qualified Manufacturers of the vehicles listed below have indicated that the vehicles are currently eligible for a credit provided other requirements are met. Check back for additions to this list. For vehicles purchased in 2022 or before, credit eligibility was determined under different criteria. Read more.
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The Climate Lesson of 2022
By Top of Mind, Jan 3, 2023 | Image: Amanda Perobelli/Reuters
Few places went untouched by last year’s climate-fueled extreme weather. The summer brought scorching heat waves, including in regions of the world historically unaccustomed to and unprepared for triple-digit temps. In September, Hurricane Ian barrelled through the Caribbean and then slammed into the Florida coast—leaving a trail of destruction. Deadly flooding submerged a third of Pakistan, and the megadrought across the western United States continued to push water reserves to the brink. Read more.
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EU ban on deforestation-linked goods sets benchmark, say US lawmakers
Campaigners hail EU move, and congressman says it gives fresh impetus to similar US plans
By The Guardian, Jan 3, 2023
A groundbreaking EU deal to ban the import of goods linked to deforestation has set a global benchmark and will hasten the passage of a similar law in the US, American lawmakers have said.
A football pitch-sized tract of forest is lost every second somewhere around the world, mostly to agricultural expansion. From 2024, the EU will require firms working in deforestation hotspots to certify that their goods have not harmed forests after a cutoff date of 31 December 2020. Read more.
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Climate, Consumers & Health
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Study: Gas stoves linked to childhood asthma in Mass.
By Ross Cristantiello, Inside Climate News, Jan 9, 2022 | Image: Sean Gallup
Massachusetts parents may want to explore different stove options in their homes. A new study has found that gas stoves cause 15.4% of childhood asthma cases in Massachusetts. The peer-reviewed study was co-authored by the Rocky Mountain Institute, a nonprofit that focuses on sustainability.
Researchers found that the percentage of children that get asthma from gas stoves is higher in Massachusetts than nationally. Read more.
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Best Battery-Powered Snow Blowers of 2023
By Paul Hope, Consumer Reports, Jan 4, 2023
Tired of shoveling snow off your driveway and sidewalk? Consider purchasing a battery-powered snow blower. Consumer Reports has been testing battery-powered snow blowers for more than six years. Over that time period these tools, which are sometimes called cordless or cordless electric snow blowers (or snow throwers), have been improving by leaps and bounds. Read more.
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Why everyone is going to need a heat pump
By Robert Gebelhoff, The Washington Post, Jan 4, 2023 | Photo Credit: Chris Ratcliffe, Bloomberg News
For anyone using fossil fuels to heat their homes, I have good and bad news. The bad: You’re going to want to replace that system with heat pumps eventually, and it might be expensive. The good: The government can help you, and the change will have huge benefits for you and the world.
These heating and cooling systems, once considered useful only in warmer climates, have in the past few years become far more sophisticated. They are now the best chance we have to phase out fossil fuels as a means of heating and could set the stage for a climate policy revolution. Read more.
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The ‘Plant Daddy of Dallas’ Is Paving the Way for Clean, Profitable Urban Agriculture
By Autumn Jones, Inside Climate News, Jan 5, 2022
The first thing Michael Bell remembers in life is helping his grandmother in her vegetable garden. He would grow green beans and tomatoes alongside her in their small town of Bowie, Texas. During the winter they protected seedlings using plastic bottles they gathered from friends.
Most families raised cattle; Bell’s did too. And while many of his peers dreamed of roping and riding on the ranch, Bell preferred the plants. Thirty years later, in a sprawling North Texas metropolis, Bell has joined the movement to bring farms to big cities. Some people call him the “plant daddy of Dallas,” or “the salad guy.”
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A Regenerative Grazing Revolution Is Taking Root in the Mid-Atlantic
By Lisa Held, Civil Eats, March 30, 2022
Image: Mary Kathryn Barnet
In western Maryland this March, the proverbial lion and lamb seemed to be running circles around each other. Instead of warming up gradually, the temperature rose and fell unpredictably. Warm sun alternated with freezing rain. In response, Ron Holter’s Jersey cows seemed to be clinging cautiously to their winter coats. Read more
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How Corn Ethanol for Biofuel Fed Climate Change
By Virginia Gewin, Civil Eats, Feb 14, 2022
The U.S. is the world leader in biofuel production—generating 47 percent of global output over the last decade. The ten-fold expansion in ethanol production in the U.S. from 2002 to 2019 has been driven by the Renewable Fuel Standard (RFS), a federal program that since 2005 has required transportation fuel to contain a minimum volume of renewable fuels. Read more.
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"I think having land and not ruining it is the most beautiful art that anybody could ever want."
– Andy Warhol
Image: CGTN
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Low Salt Marsh Habitats Release More Carbon in Response to Warming, a New Study Finds
By Hannah Loss, Inside Climate News, Jan 9, 2022
Salt marshes, excellent reservoirs of carbon, are living ecosystems with vegetation and microscopic organisms that live, breathe, poop and die in the marsh mud...
Yet as temperatures rise, marshes at the lowest elevations may also be significant emitters of carbon. This complicated relationship between temperature and respiration of carbon was measured in a new study from the Marine Biological Laboratory in Woods Hole, Massachusetts. Read more.
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Warming oceans have decimated marine parasites — but that’s not a good thing
By Hannah Hickey, University of Washington News | Photo: Katherine Maslenikov/UW Burke Museum
More than a century of preserved fish specimens offer a rare glimpse into long-term trends in parasite populations. New research from the University of Washington shows that fish parasites plummeted from 1880 to 2019, a 140-year stretch when Puget Sound — their habitat and the second largest estuary in the mainland U.S. — warmed significantly.
The study, published (in January)... suggests that parasites may be especially vulnerable to a changing climate. Read more.
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Climate warming reduces organic carbon burial beneath oceans
By Jade Boyd, Rice News, Jan 4, 2023
An international team of scientists painstakingly gathered data from more than 50 years of seagoing scientific drilling missions to conduct a first-of-its-kind study of organic carbon that falls to the bottom of the ocean and gets drawn deep inside the planet.
The JOIDES Resolution is a scientific research vessel operated by Texas A&M University for the International Ocean Discovery Program that drills into the ocean floor to collect and study core samples. Their study, published this week in Nature, suggests climate warming could reduce organic carbon burial and increase... Read more.
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Scientists Report a Dramatic Drop in the Extent of Antarctic Sea Ice
Links between global warming and the decline of sea ice in the Southern Ocean are still unclear, but climate can’t be ruled out as a driver.
By Bob Berwyn, Inside Climate News, Jan 6, 2023 |
Image: Sebnem Coskun
The new year started with the familiar refrain of climate extremes, as scientists with the National Snow and Ice Data Center reported Jan. 3 that the sea ice around Antarctica dropped to its lowest extent on record for early January. “The current low sea ice extent … is extreme, and frankly we are working to understand it,” said Antarctica expert Ted Scambos, a senior research scientist with the Earth Science and Observation Center at the University of Colorado at Boulder. Read more.
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Commonwealth Wind and Park City Wind to hold live open houses
Thursday, January 12, 2023
5:00-7:00pm
Centerville Library
585 Main Street, Centerville
Thursday, January 19, 2023
5-7pm
Osterville Library
43 Wianno Ave #2028, Osterville
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Truro Climate Action Committee &
The Truro Public Library present
Electrifying Your Home with Cape Light Compact
Saturday, January 28, 2PM
Truro Public Library
7 Standish Way North Truro, MA
In Person/Free Admission/Child Care Available
Truro’s Climate Action Committee is partnering with the Truro Library to present a series of programs to educate residents, homeowners, businesses and other stakeholders about our carbon footprints, and options for protecting our vulnerable peninsula. Call 508-487-1105. email tpl_mail@clamsnet.org, or visit www.trurolibrary.org for more information:
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Residential Retrofits for Energy
Equity Summit
Featuring Keynote Speaker Delmar Gillus of Elevate Energy
January 19 & 20, 2023
Via Zoom
Join ACEEE for a free, two-half-day, virtual summit featuring sessions for local/state government staff and community-based organizations on leveraging federal funding and multi-sector, community-centered approaches to scaling up holistic retrofits in affordable housing.
Learn how thoughtful collaboration can lead to home upgrades that generate energy savings, health benefits, local jobs, and more equitable outcomes for residents. Community -based organizations are eligible to receive stipends for their participation in the summit.
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NECEC Emerging Trends Series: Decarbonizing Building Heating
Thursday, Jan. 19, 2023
10:00-11:30am
Join NECEC for a dynamic online session on how we can keep buildings heated without turning up the temperature on our climate.
This event convenes leaders in the built environment along with technology experts and developers to discuss the pros and cons of each solution. Hear from local community representatives about their challenges and which solutions might deliver the best results for EJ communities.
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The Cities Keeping Their Car-Free Spaces
The open streets of the pandemic reclaimed public space for pedestrians and bicyclists. From Bogotá to New York to Stockholm, some of those changes have become permanent.
By Linda Poon, Feargus O'Sullivan, and Amy Yee, Bloomberg News, December 29, 2022 } Photo Credit: Global Designing Cities Initiative
The early days of the pandemic ushered in a new urgency to create more public space as restrictions on indoor gatherings left urban dwellers yearning for the outdoors. But while many of these efforts were intended only to be temporary, some have endured.
In the last three years, many cities have taken back streets and parking lots from cars, turning them into dining and play areas for pedestrians. Read more.
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‘Amphibious’ houses are designed to float during floods
By YCC Team, Yale Climate Connections, Dec 30, 2022
An amphibian lives part of its life on land and part in water. An amphibious house is designed to do the same.
“It’s an approach that deals with flooding by allowing a building to float,” says Elizabeth English, professor of architecture at the University of Waterloo in Ontario. She says making a home amphibious can be relatively simple and affordable for homes without basements.
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We are a non-profit 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is reduce the Cape & Islands' contributions to climate change and protect our region from its potentially devastating impacts. 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 Collaborative's Climate Action Alerts newsletter is curated and compiled by Fran Schofield with production assistance by Lauren Gottlieb. We welcome climate news from your home, school, business, town, faith community, or organization. Please submit your news, events, or article ideas to info@capecodclimate.org.
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