by Vicki Tardif

It seems history and modern technology are coming together as the Old North Church has installed LED lights. It is interesting to see these sites trying to balance historical accuracy with modern concerns.

by Vicki Tardif

When I was a kid, I tried to convince my mother that giving up school for seven weeks would be an appropriate Lenten sacrifice. (For some reason, she disagreed and suggested that I fill a Lenten folder with the money I earned from doing extra chores.) According to a Boston Globe article, people are becoming as creative with their Lenten sacrifices as I thought I was at nine years old, although in a more positive direction. People are looking to infuse their Lenten season with a spirit of environmentalism. The Episcopal Diocese of Massachusetts has a list of green Lenten sacrifices like eating locally-grown foods. Some people interviewed have given up “carbon” for Lent. At least one Church will be distributing “eco-palms” on Palm Sunday — palms that were harvested in an environmentally-conscious way. (Unfortunately, the article does not describe what is meant my environmentally-conscious).

I don’t think that “eco-palms” will be the difference in whether or not we can curb climate change, but it is interesting to see how people are infusing environmentalism into their everyday lives. Ultimately, those are the sorts of changes that add up to really make a difference.

It is also good to see environmentalism moving into the mainstream. For too long, “living green” has been seen as the purview of left-wing hippies. The Catholic Church is many things, but I sincerely doubt anyone is going to confuse Pope Benedict XVI with a hippie, even after he called on Catholics to better protect the environment. This sort of creative thinking and movement to the mainstream gives me hope that we will find a way to deal with climate change.

by Eric Richard

The following are notes I took at a workshop held by MassDEP.

Gerald Harry, Massachusetts Department of Revenue

Enterprise Funds are established under MGL Chapter 44.   This allows you to segregate revenues and expenses from the tax levy.

Cities and Towns can adopt an Enterprise Fund subject to Town Meeting or City Council.We see enterprise funds set up for water, sewer, ambulances, trash, hockey rinks, etc. Once it is adopted, it must be run for a minimum of 3 years.

They help measure financial performance by allowing you to readily measure the impacts of the decisions that you make on costs/revenue.

If there is money left over at the end of each fiscal year, this is called net assets unrestricted and can be carried forward.

We have been trying to encourage communities to build a reserve fund (no more than 5% of the overall user charges) into Enterprise Funds to protect against unforseen emergencies.

Revenues for an Enterprise Fund are primarily generated by the user fees.  You can get some revenue from investing the money.  You can potentially get state grants for funds.

You can use excess funds  to subsidize user fees.  But you need to recognize that this points to a deeper issue about your user fees that will eventually catch up with you.

You can use money from the Enterprise Funds for indirect costs.  For example, if you have a town employee (like a Billing Clerk) who is spending some portion of their time doing billing for an Enterprise Fund, you can pay for a reasonable amount of that from the Enterprise Fund.

by Eric Richard

This post contains notes from a session I attended today at a workshop hosted by MassDEP.

Dennis Lipka, Town of Holden

The Town of Holden has had municipal trash collection (using one hauler) since 2000.  All of our waste goes to Wheelabrator.

We cover single family homes and multifamily residences w/ fewer than 4 units. It is a fee based system (using an Enterprise fund).

In 2004, our recycling rate was at 14%.  In 2005, we implemented an overflow fee — anything outside of the 95 gallon tote would have to use a fee-based bag.

We actually use the bags as a promotional opportunity.  They say “Town of Holden” on them, but they also list out the things that are not allowed in the trash bags.

In 2007, we  decided to switch vendors.  We invited in other haulers, one of whom was Casella.  They wanted to provide an additional 95 gallon container for recyclables along with much more aggressive marketing and education (including education at the elementary schools).

We realized that the 95 gallon trash container sent the wrong message.  The optimized message is a much smaller trash container and a larger recycling bin.

We also realized there are some interesting dynamics in recycling:

• People will recycle to the capacity that you provide.  Therefore, if you give them a larger recycling container, they will recycle more
• Covered containers provide some magic.  People are more likely to recycle more if their recycling containers are covered.

So, when we talked w/ Casella, we decided that we wanted 65 gallon trash containers and 95 gallon recycling containers.

On July 1, we went live with single stream recycling.  With a 95 gallon container, we thought that semi-weekly recycling would work.

One of the nice things about the single stream is its simplicity; if it is in the toter, it goes — we don’t fight about the size of the cardboard. People are finding the system to be very easy to use.  Single stream is much less of a hassle.

On the first month, we doubled our recycling rate to 35%. We added an extra week of recycling on for Christmas and we broke 41% recycling for that week.

We offer two plans:

• 65-gal trash + 95 gal-recycling for $15 / month
• 35-gal trash + 35 gal-recycling for $11 / month

Both plans include the toters and recycling bins.

All Casella people go through a customer service training program that we specified.

The base contract is 5 years with 3 five-year optional extensions. The contract included purchase of all of the toters.

We had 400 people opt-out initially, but have gotten about 100 of those people back.

We have not had any problems w/ the semi-automated system.  If you were in Downtown Boston in Chinatown, you might have some problems.  But, in normal streets, we haven’t had any problems.

Casella has been very proactive about interacting with the community.  They work with people like the Boy Scouts.  They put together promotional literature.  They are putting together a video that we will air on cable TV.  They have a customer service operation that operates 16 hours a day 7 days a week.

Residents are very pleased with the program.

by Eric Richard

Today I attended a workshop hosted by the Massachussetts Department of Environmental Protection to help municipalities understand more about how to contract with waste haulers to provide curbside solid waste and recycling services.

What follows are my notes from this workshop.  The workshop consisted of three different speakers.    I will make each speaker a different post so people can comment on them separately if they would like.

John W. Giorgio

John is a principal in the municipal law firm of Kopelman and Paige, P.C.

The firm serves as town counsel to 120 towns.  John heads up the environmental and contracts practice group and has negotiated dozens of contracts for towns.

Procurement Process and Public Bidding

Under state law (Chapter 30B), there is an exemption for public bidding of solid waste contracts.  Therefore, if you do not have any local bidding requirements, you can exercise sound business decisions without going out to bid.

This doesn’t necessarily mean that this is the best option.   You really should look around.  Generally towns are putting out an Invitation for Bid or an RFP.

If you go down that route, I recommend that you follow the public bidding process as defined in the law with up front caveats about how you intend to deviate for this.  I would stick with sealed bids, but you might want to reserve the right to award the contract to whoever you believe is in the best interests of the town (not going purely based off price).

As long as you know exactly what you want and can specify those criteria very explicitly, then you can award based on price (through an Invitation for Bid).  But an RFP allows you to base your decision on factors other then price.

With an RFP, you get two separate, sealed results.

• The technical proposal sets forth all of the technical qualifications that person has.  You then rank those proposals based on a set of evaluation criteria.
• The price proposal is delivered separately and you only open the price proposal after you have conducted your evaluation on the technical proposal.

You can then award the contract taking into consideration both the technical proposal and the price.  You don’t have to award to the lowest bidder if you have already determined that another bidder has a better technical proposal.

The key is making sure that your specification is designed to ensure that you are going to get all of the services that you need.

If you aren’t sure what services you want, you may want to talk with some potential bidders in advance.  You could invite the bidders in beforehand and have a conversation w/ them about the services they offer, their view on the state of the market, etc.  This can help influence your actual proposal that you go out to bid with.  You could alternatively do this in a formal process as a Request for Information.

As long as you reserve the right up front, you can negotiate the price down (because it is exempt under 30B), but you do need to make it clear that you are reserving this right up front.

If you know exactly what you want and price is going to be the deciding factor, go with a Invitation for Bid.

Once you go down either of these routes, follow all of the procurement laws.  This includes where, when, and how you publicize information.

If you move to a PAYT model and are purchasing bags or stickers, those are not exempted from the procurement rules.

Length of the Contract

The Uniform Procurement Act says that cities and towns can enter into contracts for up to 3 years.  For contracts longer than that, you need authorization from your Town Meeting or City Council prior to soliciting the bids.  This includes any extension or option in the contract.  For example, a 3-year contract with a 2-year extension is considered a 5-year contract for these purposes.

If you don’t get this authorization in advance, then it technically is not a legal document.

You need to check to see if your town has a local bylaw or ordinance that varies from this.  For example, maybe the Town Manager is able to enter into contracts that exceed this, or maybe there are other restrictions.

Because many of the services that waste contractors are looking to offer will have upfront capital expenditures, that makes shorter contracts less interesting.  If you go for a five year contract, you are likely to get more interest from providers and a lower price than a three year contract.

Who Has the Authority to Sign Contracts?

Boards of Health often think that they have more power than they do.  According to Massachusetts law, they have regulatory authority, but, unless there is a local bylaw that gives them that authority or Town Meeting has specifically authorized the BOH to enter into a particular contract, they do not have the power to contract,

Absent that, you have to look at who has the contracting authority.  In a city, that is generally the mayor.  In a Town, this might be the Town Manager, the Board of Selectmen, or the Town Administrator.

Getting out of contracts (if you have to)

If you enter into a 5-year curbside collection contract and the money is appropriated in the first year, and then you hit a fiscal wall downstream (e.g., if we get out of this contract, we can save the town money) and Town Meeting refuses to appropriate the money, what happens?

Under law, multi-year contracts are subject to annual renewal through appropriations.  If the town refuses to appropriate money, then the contract is canceled with no liability.  You do not have to reserve this right — it is implicit in the contract.

If your community is interested in entering into a long term waste (e.g., 20 years) to secure your solid waste disposal, the town can agree that the town will be liable, regardless of whether the appropriation is made or not.  This will likely give you a better contract with long term security, but it is much harder to get out of if need to.

If your town owns a solid waste system (e.g., a transfer station), and you want to bring in an outside contractor to run this, the law allows the town to enter into contracts for up to 40 years.

Moving Waste Off the Tax Levy

If a town wants to offer trash services to its residents, the traditional choice was to fund this on the tax levy.  It is well established under the law that the town can charge residents (through the property tax) for a service offered by the town.

But, everyone is facing limitations imposed by Prop 2 1/2.  Most cities and towns are up against their levy limits.

Therefore, when you are looking at a solid waste budget that can be not an insignificant portion of your budget, there is a strong temptation to get this out of the tax levy.

What are your options to move this off the tax levy?

One option is going to a pay as you throw system where users are now paying a fee to use the trash and recycling system. This can help a town put a bandaid on their fiscal problems.  It basically acts like an override since you have this additional new fee system that is outside the levy that persists.

However, if you go to a pay as you throw system, you have to institute a fee.  Towns certainly can have fees for service, but you cannot use the guise of a fee in place of a tax.

So, what is the difference between a permissible fee and an impermissible tax?

• The fee has to be exchanged for a particular beneficial service that is not available to users who do not pay the fee.
• Fees are paid by choice.  The party paying the fee has the choice of not utilizing the service and, thus, not paying the fee.
• User fees cannot generate new revenue for the town that can be used for other purposes; they can only reimburse the town for the cost of providing that service.

The trickiest of these items, and the one that towns tend to get caught on, is ensuring that the fee is a “choice”.  In order to survive a legal challenge, you have to prove that you have some sort of an opt out provision. You also can’t have the burden being unnecessarily high. So, how do you make sure you include the element of choice?

• One option is good old competition.  If you can provide the service at a better price than the alternatives, then you will be able to compete by price.
• Alternatively, if you have a use fee, like a sticker or bag fee, then the users have the option of not buying the bag and thus, not participating in the system; users who do not want to participate do not buy bags or stickers and do not benefit from the system.
• You can provide an explicit opt out mechanism where residents have to show that they have a contract with another hauler and, thus, are not subject to the service.

If you are going to implement a user fee, you should seriously consider an Enterprise Fund.  This allows you to show very clearly what your costs are and allows you to prove that the fees are fair.

Mandatory Recycling Provisions

If your town wants to implement a mandatory recycling provision, they can pass a bylaw at Town Meeting based on  MGL Chapter 40 Section 8h.

This allows a town to impose a mandatory recycling provision that sets the requirements for any hauler in town.  This allows you to “level the playing field” to ensure that all providers must meet a minimum set of guidelines.

If the town is contracting with one hauler, you can use this mechanism to ensure that alternative vendors cannot undercut your price by offering lower service.

You can achieve similar results through the Board of Health permitting process. While the BOH can implement permitting processes, a bylaw codifies this much more.  It protects you from the whims of the Board of Health and ensures that any change has to come before Town Meeting again.  This also strengthens your legal strength.

Flow Control Bylaw

If a Town does not control management of all solid waste in the town, but wants to be able to direct where the materials (trash or recycling) go, there are mechanisms called Flow Control Bylaws.

For example, you could pass a bylaw that says “If you do business in this town, then you have to send all trash to facility X.”

In the 1994 case of C&A Carbone, Inc. v. Town of Clarkstown, New York, the Supreme Court struck this down saying that this violated the Commerce Clause because it gave one facility an unfair advantage over another.  People then assumed that Flow Control bylaws where null and void.

But last year in the case of United Haulers Association Inc. v. Oneida-Herkimer Solid Waste Management Authority, the Supreme Court decided that Flow Control Bylaws are acceptable if the recipient of the trash is a public entity (compared to a private/commercial entity).  You have to have some evidence that the public program is promoting a public interest (including increasing or mandating recycling).

If you want to dictate where your trash or recycling goes, this could be a means to do this.

by Vicki Tardif

Everyone else seems to be blogging about this, so I will too. Whole Foods has announce that it will no longer offer plastic bags to consumers. The store will still offer paper bags made of 100% recycled paper. Shoppers can also get a 10 cent discount for every reusable bag they bring in to cart their groceries away.

San Francisco banned plastic bags last year and many cities are looking to follow suit. I suspect in both the case of San Franciscans and Whole Foods shoppers, that they are more likely to support these sorts of bans than the population at large. For example, I know that Rush Limbaugh rails against stores oppressing him by stealing his plastic bags.

It will be interesting to see if the movement continues to gather momentum or if it will remain an anomaly found in left-thinking enclaves.

by Vicki Tardif

A few months ago, the Oxford University Press named “locavore” the 2007 word of the year. I first heard the word “locavore” last spring as I started reading more about the local-food movement. I have mixed feelings about the locavore movement. All of the locavore advocates I found supported eating food grown within the somewhat arbitrary limit of 100 miles. Conveniently, these people all seemed to live in the San Francisco area, which just happens to be within 100 miles of Salinas Valley, otherwise known as the “Salad Bowl of the World”. Last month, one of these California-based locavores blogged about the spinach growing at a local farm. I am a life-long New Englander; the only things I expect to grow in December are the snow banks.

Recently, NPR’s Here and Now did an an interview with James McWilliams on this topic. (It is the first 15 minutes of the audio clip on that page.) James McWilliams is a visiting scholar at Yale and author of an upcoming book on the history of pesticides. In this interview, he talks about how there is more to determining how “green” your food is than simply adding up the miles your food traveled to get to your plate. For example, is it better to eat food grown locally with the use of pesticides or to eat organic food that was grown farther away? If I live in a drought area, should I eat locally-grown tomatoes or tomatoes grown in an area where water is more plentiful?

There is no one-size-fits-all answer to these questions. The “greenest” way for my uncle in Texas to eat is different than it is for me here in Massachusetts. My friends in California may find a different solution than either of us. We may also have different priorities. I may care about preserving the land by keeping local farms alive. My uncle may care about how to live responsibly in drought conditions. My California friends may be focused on curbing the use of pesticides. These are all environmentally-friendly goals.

So what is a consumer to do? If we are willing to take a step back, it turns out that there is a common solution — education. Go to local farmers’ markets and talk to the farmers. They can tell you which crops are in season, which ones are doing well, and which ones are struggling that growing season. If your grocery store lists the origin of its produce, take note. If it doesn’t, ask the manager why they do not provide this information to consumers. If your grocer provides organic produce, look at that option. Regardless of our goals, education is the first step to working toward greening our diets, even if the solutions we settle upon are not the same.

by Vicki Tardif

By day, I am a software engineer. In a former job, I designed and implemented customized software for large-scale web sites. After a while, I learned that one of the best ways for a project to start off on the wrong foot was for the customer to specify that they wanted their web site to use Hot-New-Technology-Mentioned-In-Business-Week™. Often times Hot-New-Technology-Mentioned-In-Business-Week™ was completely inappropriate for the engineering problem at hand and using it created unneeded complexity. But for some reason, the customers decided that they were more competent than the professional engineers they hired. Inevitably, the more the customer insisted on a particular implementation, the more the project floundered.

The California Energy Commission fell into the trap of requesting the Hot-New-Technology-Mentioned-In-Business-Week™, when it proposed mandating thermostats that can be controlled by state regulators. In spite of the details of their proposal, the California Energy Commission’s goal is not to control people’s thermostats; their goal is to cut California’s energy consumption, particularly during peak usage times. Instead of meeting their goal, the Energy Commission attracted opposition and derision from around the country and ultimately scrapped their proposal.

Ideally, lawmakers write legislation that either promotes a desired behavior or deters unwanted behavior. Lawmakers are not and cannot be experts in every field under the sun. When they write legislation that is overly specific, they run the risk of either inadvertently promoting undesired behavior or squashing innovation that may lead to a better solution. In the case of the state regulated thermostat settings, nothing stops particularly obstinate homeowners from finding a different, less efficient way to cool their homes and ultimately using more power in the process. A better way to achieve the same goal would be to mandate programmable thermostats and educate consumers on how best to use them. The Energy Commission could then position itself as trying to help consumers save money instead of trying to force people to conserve.

Similarly, the federal government gives a tax credit for hybrid and alternative fuel vehicles. The goal of the law is to help people buy more fuel efficient cars. However, as it is written, if I buy a hybrid SUV that gets 18 miles per gallon, I get a tax credit; if I buy a traditional compact car that gets 30 miles per gallon, I do not. Is it really more environmentally-friendly for me to drive the hybrid SUV instead of the compact car? Because the law is overly specific, it can promote the very behavior it is trying to deter.

Ideally, legislation should be written to describe the end goal and allow the market to find a solution that meets that goal. Instead of promoting hybrid vehicles, the government should promote a minimum fuel efficiency. This would not only close the hybrid SUV loophole mentioned above, but it would also allow the law to adapt along with new solutions. If I somehow find a way to power my car with a fleet of gerbils running on wheels, I should also get the credit, so long as I meet the fuel-efficiency goal. Who knows, maybe my gerbil-powered car could blow away a Prius in a drag race, but we will never find out so long as lawmakers are mandating the Hot-New-Technology-Mentioned-In- Business-Week™.

by Eric Richard

This post is my summary of the MCAN 2007 Conference.

I thought it was an good, productive day.

If there was one theme that came out loud and clear it is that big things are happening in Massachusetts. There was a palpable level of energy over both the Green Communities Act (the energy bill put forth by Speaker DiMasi) and the Global Warming Act.

I don’t think anyone thinks that either of these is perfect, but I think people are excited that after years of Republican governors, you are finally seeing major movement on the environmental front.

There was definitely a strong sense of optimism that Massachusetts will finally go from lagging behind on environmental issues to really being a leader. As one audience member said, “With all of the changes going on, I will finally be able to be proud to be an environmentalist from Massachusetts.”

There was also a very strong sense that if we really push hard here, this can result in a huge boost to the state’s economy, creating a large number of highly paid, technical jobs. This has been Gov. Patrick’s position from day one — that you can have a focus on environmentalism and job growth at the same time and, if done right, this could lead to a real boon to the state’s economy.

I really enjoyed Ian Bowles’ presentation. I don’t think you could walk away from his presentation without thinking that the Patrick administration is moving aggressively to make things happen. I also thought his point that we should be focusing on efficiency rather than new energy was very interesting. He seemed to be quite convinced that if we can get the Green Communities Act passed, that it will result in pretty wide sweeping changes around efficiency.

I also enjoyed Warren Leon’s presentation. There have been discussions on this blog about the role of individual action vs. governmental regulation and where we should put our energies and I thought he had a very interesting perspective on why individual action is a prerequisite to action at the legislative level. I thought one of the more interesting questions of the day was when someone asked Mr. Leon what he thought of the provision in the Green Communities Act that would bascially eliminate the organization that he runs. He gave a very direct answer!

One thing that was moderately surprising is that I never heard a question come up about the NSTAR Green program, what its status is, what people think of it, etc. I would have expected a little more discussion on this front.

On a very practical level, kudos to the staff that put the conference together. The registration process was much better than last year. And I also appreciated their focus on practicing what they preach by minimizing handouts and ensuring that as much as possible was recyclable.

Anyway, it was an interesting day. I’d love comments from anyone else who was able to attend on what they liked, didn’t like, what they thought was interesting, etc.

by Eric Richard

The following are notes on a very brief update from Mark Rodgers on the state of the Cape Wind project.

It’s been a long road, but I am pleased to report that the pace is going to pick up remarkably. We expect by the this time next year, the permitting phase of Cape Wind will be over. The U.S. Minerals Management Service will be coming up with an environmental assessment for Cape Wind.

Ian Bowles has said that Cape Wind’s impact is akin to taking 175,000 cars off the road. The NRDC has said that Cape Wind is the largest supply side reduction of CO2 proposed anywhere in the U.S.

We look forward to moving this project forward.

by Eric Richard

The following are notes taken from the MCAN 2007 presentation by Warren Leon who is the Director of the Renewable Energy Trust at the Massachusetts Technology Collaborative.

For decades, I have been working in the environmental field and advocating activism and change and the individual and local level. And no matter where I go, someone always asks the question, “Isn’t what is really going to make a difference, big policy at the national and international level? How can you possibly make a difference for something as big as global warming at a local level?”

My response has been that if you care about things at the national level, then you had *better* be engaged in the individual actions.

For example, on fuel efficiency standards, we made trip after trip to the U.S. Congress to tell them to implement higher fuel efficiency standards and we presented all sorts of polls showing that the U.S. population was in support of increased fuel efficiency standards. But, they didn’t believe us. Why? Because real people in the real world weren’t taken the individual action of buying fuel efficient cars. So, the facts in the real world undercut our polls. If people are out buying gas guzzling SUVs then it is hard to make the point that they want more fuel efficient cars. They already have a choice and they are voting with their dollars.

As another example, the organic farming industry complained for years that all of the money for agriculture research would go to conventional agriculture. The point it changed is when individual consumers started putting their money toward organic foods. People noticed and then money started flowing toward organic agriculture.

One of the reasons why you see all of the action happening recently at the state level in Massachusetts is because you have all of the activists out there like you, convincing the legislators that this is an important issue.

So, how can you be an effective activist?

We are at the point where we are going outside of the converted and are trying to reach a mass audience. These people will be more critical and more cautious and will be more likely to turn off to the cause if they do not get good results. Because of this, we need to make sure that we are not over-hyping the products that we are selling or the results that we will achieve. We need to be scrupulously honest about the results we will achieve.

If we push new technologies, we need to make sure that they are reliable and that they work.

We to have high standards and be honest. We have to admit to ourselves that there is a tendency in the environmental movement to oversell things.

The real way to have maximum effectiveness is to be analytical. We should figure out what are all of the different things we can do in the community and figure out which could have the greatest impact and focus on that. We should know up front what we should expect to accomplish and how we can accomplish it.

One possible strategy is to focus on things that are highly visible. It gives a sense of progress. It shows that things aren’t hopeless and that it is possible to make change. It will make it much easier for you to succeed at your next project if you can get a visible success.

At the same time, just because something isn’t visible doesn’t mean you shouldn’t do it. If you do something that is not as visible, you should make sure you get as much impact out of it as possible.

With any project you do, you should look for educational opportunities associated with the project. Can you use the project to educate the public that there are other citizens who care? Can you use the project to educate policy makers that there is a signficant constiuency that cares about the issue? Are there other people in the community who can learn from your project to replicate it in their world? Is there an opportunity to educate youth about the technology involved or the possible economic impacts?

Can you disseminate out information about your projects to other people for them to learn from your work? For example, can you exchange information with your sister city about your projects so they can learn from them?

Figure out how to get out the message to developing countries that we in America release that the current model is not correct and that they shouldn’t follow our past mistakes, but our new tactics.
General Q&A

Q: Is there any advantage to moving the Renewable Energy Trust Fund over to the EOEA.

A: I think it would be a terrible idea. Obviously, that is self serving. We haven’t been perfect. But, we have learned an awful lot over the years. We know how to deliver the best results at the minimal cost. I think we’d lose a lot of momentum.

To the extent that the legislature gives us clearer guidance about the sorts of projects they would like to see us focusing on, that would be great.

Q: There are lots of things that we “know” we shouldn’t do, but we still do. We know we should exercise, but we don’t. We know we should eat healthy, but we don’t. Why do you put such great focus on education and how do you see that it makes a difference?

A: There are lots of things that we know we should do that we don’t do. But, the education that I was talking about was to educate people about the fact that a lot of people have woken up to this issue. What we should be focusing on are the things that people do once (e.g., buy a car, buy an appliance, build a new building) rather than focusing on the things that they do over and over again every day. Those things will have a bigger impact.

by Eric Richard

The following are notes from Ian Bowles‘ presentation at the MCAN Conference. Ian Bowles is the Secretary of the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs for Massachusetts.

At many ways at the federal level, we have a lost decade. But George Bush’s indifference on this issue has unified the Democrats and unleashed the states. In addition, the media has turned on this issues and the IPCC is starting to really have an effect.

We’re the first state to put the energy and environment departments together. One goal was to focus on improving the environmental impact of energy. But, it is also to focus on the positive economic impact that we can get from energy initiatives. This really is an economic opportunity for Massachusetts.

Unfortunately, we inherited a bit of a hole from the previous administration. Governor Romney basically poisoned the well telling business that RGGI was going to mean more cost for them. This got us off to a tough start, but we are now engaging with the businesses to educate them about how this can be an economic opportunity.

The more we can show that what we do saves money and reduces emissions, the more the consensus will grow.

We joined RGGI on Deval’s 10th day in office — this was really his first major policy initiative. We’re ready to move. We’d like to start running our auctions in the 2nd quarter of next year. We are now waiting on the other states to catch up.

We are the first state to require that large developments do an analysis of what they can do to reduce their overall greenhouse gas impacts. This will bring to the fore more green buildings.

We also adopted a biofuels initiative that will require home heating oil to include an increasing percentage of sustainable biofuel.

We instituted a policy that cellulosic ethanol will not be subject to the gas tax. Our hope is that we can start to turn Massachusetts into a center for innovation around cellulosic ethanol.

The way we regulate utilities today encourages them to sell as much electricity as they possible can. Their rate structure means that the more they sell, the more their shareholders make. We need to separate out the incentive for utilities to be real partners in conservation. We’ve got to find ways to make the utility companies full bore partners on efficiency.

The governor has proposed a zero load growth policy which means that we would have to generate any additional energy through conservation/efficiency.

Thew new energy bill passed by the house will free up money for energy efficiency.

We want to install 250 MW of solar in the state in the next 10 years. This will require new solar rebates that we hope to roll out by Jan 1 of next year.

We need to make it easier for towns to build things like windmills. We have to get the regulations out of the way and allow them to move forward. Allow smaller renewable installations should get the same regulatory benefits as large scale energy providers.

Big change in the MA building code. That will have far reaching benefits.

Mitigation is our predominant priority, but we are starting to do some things for adaptation.

The challenge is getting the mainstream business to understand that this is an issue they should be paying attention to. For example, working with the local chambers of commerce and get them on board.

There is great opportunity for municipal leadership.

General Q&A

Q: Since we want to discourage auto transportation and encourage public transportation, shouldn’t we consider a gasoline tax?

A: We are in the midst of a robust debate about the structure of our transportation agencies. We want to first focus on getting efficiencies there. Once we have that, we will come back to this issue.

Q: What plans are there for training inner city workers on renewable energy?

A: Greg Watson is focusing his energy on this specific issue. We’ve had great cooperation with the IBEW and other unions.

Q: Salem Harbor and Brayton Points are some of the dirtiest plans around. When we talk about cap and trade, how can we get rates / ton of emissions that will shut those plants down? And what are we doing to replace that capacity? And what is the role of nuclear energy?

A: One of the benefits of utility deregulation is that now have some of the most efficient power plants in the nation.

Our policy is to review all of these systems. RGGI will put pressure on the plants that are high emitters and the economics will not favor coal.

We have serious reservations about the waste from nuclear plants. On the economic site, nuclear will be able to compete.

Q: The House energy bill includes a provision that might incent coal gasification. What is your position on this?

A: The bill takes the RPS and creates three different categories of energy — two of which are called “renewable”. The “tier 3″ category, which is not called renewable, includes both combined heat and power and coal gasification.

I see this as a real benefit for combined heat and power since it is much cheaper than coal gasification, so, I wouldn’t overreact to that clause.

Q: What can we do to improved commercial investment in renewables?

A: We hope that our new program will change things quite dramatically in the coming months.

Q: You haven’t mentioned advanced metering to allow consumers to manipulate when they use energy. To what degree are you looking at that technology to get residential customers involved in their use of energy?

A: A lot of commercial/industrial users can use things like time-of-day pricing. As home owners, we don’t have the opportunity to participate in similar pricing. This would be a big benefit to residents.

The problem is that the cost of those smart meters remains substantial.

The House bill has a pilot program of smart meters. But, the question is always which rate payers should bear the cost of those smart meters?

The way forward is the pilot program.

Q: Who is pushing for coal gasification?

A: Those who are pushing coal gasification are the generators who want to experiment.

As you think about things to fight against, set priorities. I would focus on bettering the economics for renewables and then let economics work. So, if you can focus on allowing more renewables to get built and improve the economics of them, then you don’t need to fight the battle on non-renewables.

Q: If we are using the casinos to pay for roads, isn’t that counter to the concept of having people drive less?

A: The casino proposal did include LEED certification requirements for the casinos.

This is a debate worth having.

There is a lot to like about pushing the burden of financing transportation onto the users of transportation, but I don’t think that all of this funding could come from these people.

Q: How do you balance the needs of new renewable energy with the costs to the towns of generating this new energy? For example, adding a biomass plant can generate all sorts of additional traffic, congestion, etc. to haul materials to the plant.

A: Our office will look at each case on the merits, so there is not a bias toward renewables over the towns.

Until we make energy efficiency the centerpiece of our policy, there are going to continue to be new pushes for new supply. The best thing we can do is focus on energy efficiency.

by Eric Richard

The following are notes from a presentation by Rob Pratt, a Senior Vice President of the Henry P. Kendall Foundation. The Kendall Foundation created the Cambridge Energy Alliance to try to demonstrate large scale energy reductions focused in Cambridge, MA.

What is the Cambridge Energy Alliance?

We can either be depressed by climate change or excited about what we can do.

In 1999, the trustees of the Kendall Foundation decided to make environmental issues and global warming their “big thing”.

When looking at making a difference, it is all about emissions. You have to figure out what the biggest contributors are to the problem and then figure out how you can reduce the most important problems.

If you look at the major contributors to global warming in New England, they are slightly different than the national average.

In New England, transportation is our biggest emitter. This is a very difficult problem to solve, but this is our largest problem. Electric power is our second biggest contributor in New England (first nationally). It is crucial that we have to make sure that coal becomes history.

Residential electricity consumption in New England is almost 3x the national average. In part this is explained because we are a cold region. But, there is also a lot of affluence and larger houses here. It isn’t all due to the climate.

With electricity being such a substantial piece of the problem, you can either focus on supply side (e.g., increasing green energy) or demand-side (reducing consumption of dirty energy). Energy efficiency is a very financially attractive way of addressing this issue. Every time you replace a window or a boiler, you get savings year after year.

We have to step up energy efficiency to a whole new level. Where can we start making a difference? What are the kind of things we can do?

We have established the Cambridge Energy Alliance which is a 5-year program to go after all sectors in Cambridge to reduce 50 MW of electrical consumption (14% of Cambridge’s electricity).

Our goal is to get a 50% participation rate among residents. This is a very high bar — most energy efficiency initiatives are lucky to get 3-4% participation. This level of participation has never been done before. People don’t even think that this level is imaginable. We believe that by using the City as the advocate combined with very large scale cavassing (like political canvassing) and visible publicity and peer pressure, we believe we can get there.

We want to show the world what can be done.

Our program is based on the ESCO model. We work with organizations to provide them money to make the necessary changes and then they pay back through their savings.

By fronting the money for energy efficiency, we believe that we will be able to demonstrate that energy efficiency programs can be very profitable and will drive large scale adoption.

What can people do in their local communities?

Continue to idenitfy and support clean energy opportunities. Solar hot water heating, as an example, is very effective.

Promote energy efficiencies. Use perfomance contracting for municipal buildings. Have your municipality contract with an ESCO. We have some of the best ESCOs in the country here in MA.

Mobilize the school and university students.

Reduce waste and increase recycling. If you can really build up your recylcing percentages, that is really big.

What can people do individually?

Transportation is a big one. A lot of this is life style. We need to be moving our population centers into more dense areas (smart growth). The most efficient building a long way out of the city is not as good as a moderately efficient building in the city.

Home energy efficiencies are very good.

Local food can help a lot.

by Eric Richard

The following are notes taken from the “What’s New Under the Golden Dome?” session at the MCAN conference.  This session was a panel talking about environmental and energy legislation in the Massachusetts State House.

Sen. Mark Pacheco

The grass roots support is definitely out there and you all are ahead of the politications.

How do we put Massachusetts back in the lead on environmental  issues, like we once were?  We are currently in a position where we are trying to catch up to states like New Jersey.  We should be able to do better.

This year is really fantastic what is starting to take place.

The Green Communities Act, which is the energy bill, has been reported out of the house.  It primarily deals with fuel efficiency.  It is quite a comprehensive bill.  There are some technical issues that we want to work out in the Senate, but we are in the process of putting a major focus on fuel effeciency and energy efficiency and renewables for the Massachusetts economy.  There are a number of provisions related to green buildings.
In addition, we crafted The Global Warming Solutions Act to reduce CO2 by 20% over 1990 by 2020 and 80% over 1990 by 2050.  We set some benchmarks on how you get there.  By 2009, the state agencies would be required to put forth plans to hit these goals.  We want to codify this into law so that it isn’t the discretion of the next governor to either comply or not.

We expand the role of the transportation secretary to say that, “It is your job to look at the role of emissions in transportation.”

We also create the mechanism for a revolving loan project to fund pilot projects around the state to show that this can actually work.  The costs for solar or wind or whatever, wind up  being inflated when we do not have financial institutions that won’t do the lending on a longer term basis (20-25 years).  Once you get financing on a longer term, then many of these projects are very competitve with what is out there in the tranditional sector.

It is great that we have gotten all of this into the mainstream dialog, but if we want to ensure that these bills turn into law, we need to ensure that global warming advocacy continues to happen.  It is great that we are making progress here, but we have to finish the job.  Call your state senator and rep. and make sure they know how important it is to you.

Frank Gorke, Dir. of Environment Massachusetts

This really is an exciting time under the Golden Dome.  I have been working on these sorts of issues since 2001.  And in past years, there just hasn’t been as much to talk about.

If you only remember one thing, it is to call your Senator and ask them to pass the Global Warming Solutions Act.

One of our arguments is that one of the best ways of getting to a national policy here is to get the most progressive states to pass the most progressive laws mandating the science based limits.

When the speaker initially introduced his energy bill, it was really half-baked.  The energy package that they just announced is much improved.  We think this will go a long way toward making a new energy future here in Massachusetts.

It puts energy efficiency at the heart of our energy policy.  We currently pay about $.09 to buy new energy.  You can save energy for about $.03.  We should take every step we can to put efficiency first.  We expect to see a significant expansion of the efficiency programs if this bill passes.

It tackles buildings in a significant way.  Massachusetts has long had energy codes, but we have failed to update them in any meaningful way.  Because of that, they are out of date. The bill now says that we will take the most recent standards for energy efficiency every three years.   This will ensure that we are always up to date with modern standards.

It also creates a new enforcement regime for energy code.  We think that energy code compliance is very low.  The bill directs the energy office to create a new regime and train energy code inspectors.  We expect this would result in buildings that are significantly more efficient.

There is a net metering provision in the bill that will make it more cost effective for home owners and small businesses to install their own reneweable energy sources.

There is a provision in the bill that directs regulators to get rid of any obstacles to combined heat and power.  Combined heat and power is when you use the waste heat used for generating energy to then actually heat or cool your building.  You can immediately increase your efficiencies through this.

It also creates an alternative renewable portfolio standard.

There are a number of companies in Massachusetts who are pushing for coal gasification.  We are very concerned about this.  Any coal process is inherently dirty.  Coal gasification is probably something that we should continue to do research on, but it isn’t something we should  be putting into prime time.  But one of the provisions in this bill would basically require some energy come from coal gasification.  If this provision is going to be in the bill, we need to get a requirement that 100% of the CO2 has to be sequestered.

Overall, we are very encouraged that this bill is on the move.  It passed out of the House on Thursday.  The Senate is likely to take this up in January.  We hope they will pass it with some of these specific changes.

John Rogers, Union of Concerned Scientists

Massachusetts passed the first renewable portfolio standard in 1997.  There are now 26 states that have them.  There is one seriously in play at the federal level (it has passed in the house, but not in the Senate).

What is clear, is that it is one of the most powerful tools for renewable energy in the U.S.

In Massachusetts, the supply of renewable energy has been growing.  This has been coming online because of the RPS.

The bad news is that there is still a gap between where we want to be and where we are at.

The original legislation sets a target of 4% renewable energies by 2009 and then says that it will grow 1% / year, but that is not codified in statue.   This lack a statutory requirement creates some uncertainty in the market and hurts development of new renewables.  In contrast, the new energy bill lays out a codified path to get to 14% by 2020.   This will help get new investments since people can count on the requirements being in placed.

There were certain technologies that were left out of the original bill.  It doesn’t have hydro-electric energy.  There was a category of biomass that was originally excluded.  The speakers bill covers these.

The bill also includes requirements for long term contracting (10-15 year contracts) with renewable energy providers.    Unfortunately, it limits this to MA-based providers which isn’t necessarily good.

It also limits some of the imports of renewable energy from outside of New England.  That isn’t necessarily a good thing.

There is a provision that would bring the MTC under the EOEA.  We still think it is probably a bad idea to bring the MTC that close to the general budget.  We think that a measure of independence and ensures that we are spending on renewables is important.

General Q&A

Q: Are we ever going to have mandatory recycling in the State?  And will we require stores to take things like packaging back to the stores?

A: There are a number of pieces of legislation before the committes that would do that.  The ability to get them through is more difficult.  It has been very difficult to get this done.  Every legislative cycle you try to pick out a few things that absolutely need to happen.

A: It is our hope that by putting in place a broad carbon cap that it will make it easier to use the existing tools to hit that target.  If you pass the Global Warming Act, then it makes these sorts of tactics much more viable.

Q: What language do we have in the Global Warming Solution Act and in the speaker’s enegry bill that would provide some support at the vocational school, commuty college and high school level to train people with new skillsets?

A: In the Global Warming Solutions Act, we have language in there that creates a set of initiatives for workforce development.  This is going to take off.  It is going to be similar to what happened in the .com sector in CA.  If we adopt this legislation it will really drive a lot of capital investment in the state that will create new jobs.

Q: Why does the speaker’s legislation provide tax benefits for “hybrids” rather than based on fuel efficiency standards?

A: Can we improve that langauge?  I believe that there will be a lot of ammendments on the Senate side that will take a lot of good ideas that came out of the House and, now that the world has seen it, and try to improve on issues like this.  Hopefully this results in an even better bill for us to take to conference.

A: A number of folks have already suggested to change this language to be performance based rather than technology based, but we have failed so far.

Q: In Ireland, when you pay the emissions taxes on your car, part of that is a carbon-based tax that charges more based on emissions.  Is that possible here?

A: That proposal is on the table right now and this is in the transportation bond bill as one of the ways that we believe we could pay for more commuter rail services.  People would pay more based on their level of pollution.

Q: Is there anything in the dialog for a lighting efficiency standard?

A: I have language that would phase out incandescents completely.  We have already thought all of this out.  We can move in that direction, but we didn’t want to attach this to the energy bill to ensure that we didn’t derail the energy bill.

Once we get the Global Warming bill done, the executive branch could then start promulgating these regulations.

We could  put forward legislation that sets forth minimums.

Q: Is there anything in the existing law that would prevent towns or municipalities from putting in place regulations that would require manadatory recycling of materials at stores?
A: Not sure.  This could wind up being impacted by federal commerce and trade laws.

Q: What is 1990 used as the base year for the Global Warming provisions?

A: 1990 is the year that was used in the international negotiations.  Most states have increased their emissions significantly since 1990.  But Massachusetts has kept its emissions flat since 1990.  So, 1990 actually is a fine year for MA standards.

The following are notes taken from the opening remarks by Rob Garritty, Executive Director for MCAN.

Most of our big-L leaders are actually followers. Our political leaders lead when people re showing them the way. You need to show them the way to go.

The following individuals are the real folks leading the way. They are the “Everyday Climate Heroes”:

• Loie HayesCoordinator of the Boston Climate Action Network. Became actively involved in 2005 with Clean Water Action. Started four LCD groups and also had a very successful Step It Up Event.
• Nancy Nolan

  Coordinator the Lexington Global Warming Action Network which now has an e-mail list of over 250. Worked with MassEnergy and MTC to win solar panels. Over 350 Lexington residents contributed to earn over
  $50,000 in PVs for Lexington.

• Carol Hannauer

  Installed a geothermal heat source. Cut her water use in half. During her two year presidency, has expanded Sudbury’s activty a lot including a Sustainable Sudbury project. Expanded the town’s plastic
  recycling project and a methane recovery project at the landfill.

• Jennifer Boudrie

  Founded the Marlborough Climate Action Network (now called Green Marlborough). Put her advocacy into action and ran for city council.

• Dan Ruben

  Executive director of Boston Green Tourism. Helped “green” the 2004 Democratic and Republican National Conferences.

• Susan Altman

  An environmental communication expert. Runs our Low Carbon Living program. Created Medford Environmental Alliance.

• Laurie Macintosh

  Founded Sustainable Milton. Initiated a Recycle Up program to increase paper and cardboard recycling.

• Paul Eldrenkamp

  Active Newton Green Decade member. Often demonstrates blower door tests and infrared scans.

• Bob Luoma

  Built two web sites for MCAN. Founded Carlisle Climate Action Network. Webmaster for MCAN.

• Tom Balf

  Environmental health and safety expect. Got over 1,000 people to a Clean Energy Fair.

• Susan Butler

  Major improvements for her house. And is selling clean energy RECs President of Green Decade Cambridge. Helped earn 2 solar PV arrays for Cambridge.

• Marc Breslow

  Founded MCAN in 1999. When we started this back then, global warming was known as a problem, but had no visibility in the world as a problem we have to be addressing. It is incredibly gratifying to see the whole world dealing with this problem.

by Eric Richard

Today, I am at the MCAN Global Warming Conference.

I will be taking notes throughout the day and posting them online for folks who weren’t able to come.

by Eric Richard

A few months ago, there was a post about Green Dimes.  My wife and I have subscribed to this and haven’t really noticed any substantive change in the mail we get.

So, a couple of weeks ago, when I heard about the new junk mail reduction service supported by Natural Resources Defense Council,  I figured I’d give it a try.

It is really simple to use and, unlike Green Dimes, it is completely free.

First, you create an account.

Then, each time you get a new catalog in the mail, you log in, find the catalog in their list, and type in the “Customer Number” that is on your catalog. They then take care of getting you off that catalog’s mailing list.

So, now each time we bring in the mail, I take the catalogs over to my computer and zap them.   Takes about 10 seconds each.

One thing that is very nice is that their list of catalogs seems to be pretty complete.  In the last couple of weeks, I’ve added 11 catalogs to our “do not send” list and I think there have only been one or two catalogs that I couldn’t find in their list.

Now, I don’t have the results yet — it will take a few more months.  But, hopefully this will help reduce our paper waste.

The following article appeared in the Sudbury Town Crier last week.

by Eric Richard

School is back in session, the morning air is crisp, and the leaves are starting to turn. This can only mean one thing – Fall is upon us.

As we move out of summer and into fall, we are all looking at is renewing our contracts with our heating oil providers to make sure our homes are warm throughout the upcoming winter.

But, before you sign on for another year with your existing provider, you might want to consider trying something new that can help the environment.

Home heating oil, also known as “No. 2 heating oil”, is a liquid petroleum product, somewhat similar to diesel fuel used in some automobiles.

Because home heating oil is made from petroleum, it has a number of intrinsic problems associated with it including:

• It increases the demand for imported foreign oil.

  The United States imports about 56 percent of its oil and this number is increasing. According to the US Energy Information Administration, this number could grow to as high as 70% by 2025.This dependence on foreign oil produces very broad national security concerns.”It’s one of the great failures of American politics and policy that we are so dependent on oil from one of the most corrupt and unstable areas of the world,” says former US Sen. Timothy Wirth.

• The price of heating oil is subject to huge price fluctuations.

  We have all seen this effect first hand. As oil prices increase, home heating oil prices increase.A storm that knocks out a refinery or a political event in the Middle East can result in major jumps in the price of heating oil.

  Oil is already trading at record high prices of $80 per barrel and prices are likely to continue increasing with more consumption leading to greater demand.

• Burning oil is an inherently dirty process.

  The process of breaking down the chemical bonds in oil to produce energy results in all sorts of by products like carbon dioxide (CO₂) , carbon monoxide (CO), nitrous oxides (NO_x), and sulfur oxide (SO).These emissions result in increased global warming, acid rain, and adverse health effects.

Fortunately, there is an alternative that can help reduce all of these negative effects: rather than burning petroleum to heat our homes, we can burn fat.

What is Biodiesel?

Biodiesel (also known by names like “biofuel” and “Bioheat® fuel”) is a fuel made from vegetable oils (typically soybean oil), recycled cooking grease, or animal fats rather than petroleum.

Biodiesel can either be used in its pure form (referred to as B-100), or can be mixed with traditional home heating oil.For example, a mixture of 80% heating oil and 20% biodiesel is referred to as B-20.

The great news is that a mix like B-20 can be used in your existing home heating system without any modifications; you can use your existing tank and burner. In fact, you can even add B-20 to an existing tank that already contains traditional heating oil.

B-20 is a better option than traditional heating oil for many reasons including:

• It reduces the need for imported foreign oil. Every gallon of biodiesel that is used reduces the need for imported oil.
• It helps support the domestic economy.

  Rather than sending money abroad to buy oil, biodiesel is generally made from American-made products.

• It burns more cleanly than traditional heating oil.

  According to the Department of Energy, Burning B-20 results in approximately 15% lower CO₂ emissions and substantially lower emissions of other pollutants.

• It has lower price variability than heating oil.

  Any good financial planner will tell you that the key to a healthy investment portfolio is diversification – by investing in different products you spread your risk around meaning that you are insulated from the full brunt of changes in one area.Similarly, B-20 helps decrease the impact of spikes in the oil market. While traditional home heating oil will swing greatly with the price of petroleum, B-20 will have narrower swings, dampened by the fact that 20% of the mix is coming from a source other than oil.

The only downside of biodiesel is that it tends to be slightly more expensive than traditional home heating oil. But, the difference is very minor and worth paying to help national security and the environment.

What’s Next?

The great news for Sudbury residents is that B-20 is an option that we can all consider. Bursaw Gas & Oil in Acton provides biodiesel to Sudbury.

So, as you plan for this winter, do something for the environment and switch from traditional home heating oil to biodiesel. Call Bursaw at (978) 263-8752 and make the switch.

While you are at it make sure to get your furnace tuned and replace your air filters to ensure that your entire system is running at optimal performance.

The following column was published in last week’s Sudbury Town Crier.

By Members of the Sudbury Earth Decade Committee

On Tuesday, October 16, Sudbury residents will have an opportunity to weigh in on the future of the Town when we vote on the new Police Station.

This is a chance to make a decision that has long-term consequences for the character and financial structure of the town. Confronted with this decision, we need to take a long-term view of the benefits and costs.

A long-term threat to the financial stability of Sudbury is the prospect of unpredictable, rising energy costs. When these costs rise too fast, there is fiscal pressure for an override budget.

Knowing that this problem exists, we must not sit back and wait for it to hit us. We must get ahead of the curve and minimize the problem.

For several years, the Selectmen have aggressively pursued goals from Sustainable Sudbury, the town’s 2001 Master Pan; implementing many energy efficiency policies to reduce the energy costs of our existing infrastructure.We applaud the Selectmen for their work to date; however, the most dramatic savings come when we construct a new building considering energy efficiency from the ground up.

The new Police Station provides a great first opportunity for us to build in long-term savings.Inspired by the principles set forth by the United States Green Building Council under the Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) program, the design of the new station includes over twenty passive design elements focused on sustainability that will not increase maintenance costs including:

• Construction designed to minimize the costs of winter and summer climate control
• Access to daytime natural light to reduce the use of electric lighting
• Landscaping using native plants that do not require extensive use of water and fertilizer
• Use of construction materials that do not outgas unpleasant and potentially harmful odors.

The design also keeps the future in mind. From the beginning, it provides support for other active LEED elements that may have maintenance issues such as photovoltaic (solar) panels and ground source heating and cooling. In addition, room for expansion allows for growth of the facility. Building in these supports up front will save tens of thousands of dollars in the future as Sudbury grows and technology improves. Even better, they add little or nothing to the immediate cost of the building.

Sudbury needs a new Police Station. This design for the new police station is well thought-out, is environmentally friendly and is an important part of the long-term plan to reduce Sudbury’s overall energy consumption.Build it correctly now and save money in the long and short run.

On October 16, please vote to authorize the new Police Station.

The Sudbury Earth Decade Committee is a non-profit organization committed to environmental causes. You can learn more about the EDC and join our campaign at www.sudburyedc.org.

by Eric Richard

People probably already know this, but it was just announced that Al Gore and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) won this year’s Nobel Peace Prize.

I think it is great that they are being recognized for their work and, more importantly, that the cause is getting this sort of attention and visibility.  I think this will only help to push things even further into the mainstream.

Go Al, Go!