A regional resource for Cape & Islands climate activists
March 18,2021
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Hard-hitting video explains the origins of climate change 'polarization'
'God $ Green' explores the 'unholy alliance' between fossil fuel interests and the religious right.
By Bud Ward, Yale Climate Connections, March 12, 2021
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A story “about today. That started yesterday. And impacts tomorrow.”
That’s how the University of Virginia’s Religion, Race & Democracy Lab introduces its new “ God $ Green: An Unholy Alliance” 19-minute publicly available “eye-popping” video.
The video addresses decades of what it calls “religious polarization, political propaganda, corporate deal-making, and environmental injustice based on systemic racism.”
They’re talking climate change here, “the biggest crisis facing us today.” And they don’t pull punches, as in addressing the joining of “potent forces [that] came together to mount an army of climate change skeptics in the name of God, country, and capitalism.” Read more. View video here.
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QUOTE OF THE DAY
“From our research experience we know that storytelling is key for communicating
the climate crisis in a way that can lead to taking action. With creative ideas, artistic
works, and a lot of commitment, (TikTok creators) show in a partly humorous,
partly frightening and disturbing way how important it is to protect the climate."
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Meet the Climate Change Activists of TikTok
A crop of eco-creators is bent on educating their followers about the looming global disaster. Can their message translate into action?
By Emma Patteegear, Wired, March 11, 2021
[Warning: video contains profanity.] When Louis Levanti woke up one morning last September, climate change wasn’t on his mind. “I was never huge into researching climate change, but I was aware that it is real.” So when the 24-year-old TikTok creator, who lives with his parents on Long Island, opened his phone and saw something about a clock being unveiled, he wasn’t initially interested. “I rolled my eyes thinking it had something to do with the stock market.”
The Climate Clock, in Union Square in New York City, counts down how much time we have left to act before climate change is irreversible. Levanti, who normally posts videos with topics like “weird food that celebrities like to eat” or “annoying things people do at the gym,” was distressed, and he immediately decided to make a TikTok video about it. “It’s a problem that can’t be ignored,” he said. “Why not responsibly use my big platform to educate people and wake some people up the way I was?” Read more. Watch video (Warning: video contains profanity.)
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Nothing’s Off the Table: Gina McCarthy Has Big Plans for the Climate Fight
The former EPA head is now Biden’s domestic climate czar, on a mission to harness the federal government’s might to stop climate change
By Andy Kroll, Rolling Stone, March 13, 2021
Gina McCarthy logged on to Zoom one day in early February and saw a crowd of Cabinet secretaries and other agency chiefs staring back at her, a Brady Bunch of senior bureaucrats. It was the first meeting of the Biden administration’s National Climate Task Force, a team of nearly two dozen top officials from across the government. Created by executive order, the task force is in charge of jump-starting Biden’s “whole-of-government” climate agenda and putting the government on track to meet ambitious targets like decarbonizing the nation’s power sector by 2035.
To lead this task force, Biden turned to McCarthy, naming her to be the White House’s domestic climate czar. McCarthy, a 66-year-old New Englander with the chewy Boston accent to prove it, knows a thing or two about how to wield executive power in the fight against climate change. As the head of Environmental Protection Agency under former President Barack Obama, McCarthy led the creation of the Clean Power Plan, which created the first national emissions standards for power plants, and a slew of other agency-level actions to reduce pollution and transition to clean energy. Obstructionist Republicans lambasted McCarthy as an out-of-control bureaucrat; Democrats hailed her efforts to meet the greatest political and policy challenge of our lifetime. Read more.
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International Climate Policy and John Kerry’s New Role in President Biden’s Administration
By Tim Cronin, Climate X Change, March 10, 2021
Days after President Joe Biden was elected in November, former Secretary of State John Kerry was announced to be the U.S. Special Presidential Envoy for Climate. Kerry will be the first to hold this position in a presidential cabinet, making history as the Biden administration promises to take extensive actions against the climate crisis. A few of their targets include transitioning to a carbon-free power sector, adopting climate-smart agricultural practices, and establishing a National Climate Task Force. Read more.
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Biden's executive orders on climate have broad public support
With a narrowly split House and Senate, Biden's executive orders and other presidential actions enjoy benefits of going with, not against, the tide of public opinion.
By Gary Yohe, Henry Jacoby, Ben Santer, and Richard Richels, Yale Climate Connection, March 8, 2021
Governing from the White House by executive actions – whether by executive orders or variations thereon – has its pluses and minuses.
Executive orders, for instance, can help get past rigid partisan opposition and around the steep Senate filibuster requirements of at least 60 votes for passage. Some require action, but others are intended to signal the incumbent’s perspectives and preferences. Read more.
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Details behind Biden's '30 by 30' U.S. lands and oceans climate goal
The administration's sweeping plans to protect 30 % of U.S. lands and ocean territories by 2030 seek to capitalize on natural landscapes and resources. The potential is promising, the political obstacles substantial.
By Bruce Lieberman, Yale Climate Connections, March 11, 2021
Among the many goals in President Biden’s climate change agenda, protecting 30 percent of U.S. lands and ocean territories by 2030 is among the most ambitious. And among the most complex. The administration initiative is likely to face political headwinds in a divided government. Nevertheless, achieving the “30 by 30” goal could be a critical marker on the road toward a carbon-free future. The reason: Natural landscapes and seascapes are powerful carbon sinks, pulling CO2 from the atmosphere and storing carbon in soil, grasses, shrubs, and trees, coral reefs, sea grasses, and ocean floor sediments. Read more.
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What's Been Brewing in Brewster?
Select board resolution suggests model for other Cape Cod communities
In 2020, 12 of Cape Cod's 15 towns passed Climate Emergency declarations at town meeting (or, in one case, town council), signaling commitment to take necessary steps to reach net zero emissions in the earliest technologically and economically feasible time. Remaining towns will be asked to approve the citizens' petition declaration in Spring 2021.
Meanwhile, late last fall, the town of Brewster select board unanimously passed a climate and net zero resolution, which puts more teeth into citizens' petitions already adopted throughout Cape Cod. It directs all town officials and departments to (1)reduce net greenhouse gas emissions from human activity within and by the Town to zero at the earliest technically and economically feasible time, and (2) Reduce the Town’s vulnerability to climate change. Read the Brewster Select Board Resolution here.
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Learn What To Do After Declaring Climate Emergency
Almost 2,000 governments worldwide have declared Climate Emergency. What comes next?
Source: Climate Mobilization
On March 29 at 8pm ET, Climate Mobilization Project will release an updated Climate Emergency Campaign Guide featuring extensive new resources on policies that local governments can pass after declaring Climate Emergency. Whether you're a longtime Climate Emergency organizer or just want to learn more, don't miss this webinar, The seminar will offer:
- A powerful new Climate Emergency vision to share
- An overview of Climate Emergency programs and resources you can use to implement them in your town
- An update on next steps in Climate Mobilization's organizing.
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Getting Down to Business (& Finance)
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Biden administration wants the finance sector to face up to climate risk
CFTC to create a new “climate risk unit," joining initiatives at Treasury, Securities and Exchange Commission, Federal Reserve
By Steven Mufson and
A growing number of federal regulators are pushing corporate America to reckon with the cost of climate change, arguing that global warming poses significant peril not only to the environment but to the U.S. economy.
On Wednesday, Rostin Behnam, the acting chairman of the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, will announce that he is establishing a Climate Risk Unit to focus on the role of complex financial derivatives in understanding and pricing
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Redlined, Now Flooding
Maps of historic housing discrimination show how neighborhoods that suffered redlining in the 1930s face a far higher risk of flooding today.
By Kriston Capps and Christopher Cannon, Bloomberg News, March 15, 2021
Flooding is a rising threat across the U.S., with homeowners facing as much as $19B in damages every year. What puts a neighborhood at high risk for flooding? Geography is key, but new data reveal another factor that can be determinative, too: race.
Contemporary maps for flood risk overlap in striking ways with New Deal–era maps used by the federal government to assess risk for mortgage lending. When appraisers mapped cities for the federal Homeowners’ Loan Corporation in the 1930s, they assigned grades to neighborhoods based on several factors, race high among them. Black and immigrant neighborhoods were deemed undesirable, marked by yellow or red lines designating these areas “declining” or “hazardous”—a racist practice known as redlining.
These historically redlined neighborhoods suffer a far higher risk of flooding today, according to new research from Redfin, the Seattle-based real-estate brokerage. Read more.
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Climate Solutions 101
Filled with the latest need-to-know science and fascinating insights from global leaders in climate policy, research, investment, and beyond, this video series is a brain-shift toward a brighter climate reality.
Climate Solutions 101 is the world’s first major educational effort focused solely on solutions. Rather than rehashing well-known climate challenges, Project Drawdown centers game-changing climate action based on its own rigorous scientific research and analysis. This course, presented in video units and in-depth conversations, combines Project Drawdown’s trusted resources with the expertise of several inspiring voices from around the world. Climate solutions become attainable with increased access to free, science-based educational resources, elevated public discourse, and tangible examples of real-world action. Continue your climate solutions journey, today.
Explore the last 50 years of stunning change to see our current climate inflection point in context. Hear more about emissions sources and sinks, and take a step back to see the critical importance of centering human equality in the race to shift climate solutions to global action. What role will you play in building a better future? Watch the trailer.
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A World Powerfully Transformed Podcast with FCEN Co-Chair Susan Starkey
A World Powerfully Transformed, hosted by the Rev. Tony Cryer of the faith community Unity on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, brings spiritual principles to everyday life. With special guests and current topics, the podcast is intended to inspire awakening and bring us all closer to the reality of a world based on love and not fear.
In the podcast "God and Nature," Rev. Cryer interviews Susan Starkey, Climate Collaborative board member and co-leader of the Faith Communities Environmental Network (FCEN) about its mission and eco-justice orientation. FCEN is an interfaith environmental group comprised of 35 diverse faith communities across Cape Cod and the Islands. Listen to the podcast here. Read about FCEN's emerging focus resulting from the climate emergency, Covid-19, and heightened awareness of inequities affecting Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples.
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Energy & The Built Environment
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Climate change: 'Default effect' sees massive green energy switch
When Swiss energy companies made green electricity the default choice, huge numbers of consumers were happy to stick with it - even though it cost them more.
By Matt McGrath, BBC News, March 11, 2021
Four years after the switch, researchers found that around 80% of customers were still on green tariffs. This "default effect" happened partly because people didn't want the hassle of switching back to fossil fuels. The authors say the idea could have a big impact on global emissions of CO2. In the study, the researchers looked at what happened when two Swiss energy suppliers changed the default electricity offering for their customers from a mixture of fuels to renewables only.
This change affected around 234,000 private households and 9,000 businesses. Before the switch, the numbers choosing to have green power were at around 3%. Afterwards, this rose to 80-90% of customers. Read more.
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The Cape Cod Climate Emergency and Eco-Justice Seminar Series
Last Wednesday of the Month March-October
7:00 - 8:15PM
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These practical monthly forums--sponsored by the Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Falmouth, St. Barnabas Episcopal Church, and the Faith Communities Environmental Network--start in March. Attend one, or all! For more information, contact Lew Stern at sternconsulting@comcast.net or 617-759-7060. (Note: sessions are open to all but limited to 50 people/session to facilitate discussion.)
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Ceres 2021 Transform Tomorrow Today Virtual Conference
March 22 - 25
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Ceres 2021 Transform Tomorrow Today virtual conference will explore climate policy at the state, regional, federal and global levels. With fresh momentum building for bold climate policy at all levels of government, learn how policy makers, investors, and corporate voices can move the needle toward creating real change at the federal and state level.
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March 23-24, 2021
Registration Fee: $200
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Learn What To Do After Declaring Climate Emergency
March 29, 2021
8pm ET
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Climate Mobilization Project's Learn What To Do After Declaring Climate Emergency will discuss what comes next after declaring a Climate Emergency.
Check out their new organizer toolkit, policy platform and more. For seasoned municipal organizers and newcomers.
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ELM Earth Month Lunchtime Webinar Series
Thursdays from 12:00-12:45PM
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"Climate &..." is a weekly lunchtime series sponsored by Environmental League of Massachusetts during "Earth Month." In four sessions, ELM will convene a diverse array of thought leaders to explore how Massachusetts can fight the climate crisis while building a healthy, green, just, and prosperous future for the people of the Commonwealth.
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Check out the session recordings below.
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Watch 30+ videos and learn from experts around the region, state and country.
Join the conversation and get involved!
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MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATIVE RESOURCES
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We are an all-volunteer 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to reach carbon neutrality — or net zero — on Cape Cod and the Islands of Massachusetts by enhancing communication, collaboration, and activism among organizations, programs, and individuals committed to mitigating the climate crisis. 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 Action Alerts newsletter is compiled and crafted by Fran Schofield. If you've got a climate story from your home, school, workplace, town or organization, please be in touch! And don't forget to share this action alert with your friends and suggest they subscribe here.
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