AS AN ENVIRONMENTAL ENGINEER, climate resilience enthusiast, and local agriculture advocate, the recent flooding in Western Massachusetts touched on the things I care about most in the world. Within my local region, the ancestral Nonotuck Homelands now known as Pioneer Valley, the impacts to roads, rivers, and farms have been nerve-racking, but the community responses […]
Climate change
Posted inOpinion
What you need to know about heat pumps
TECHNOLOGY IMPROVEMENTS likely to reach the market within two years will improve conventional air-to-air heat pump efficiency by perhaps 10 percent or more while reducing the climate risks of refrigerant leaks. The improvements will involve a shift in the refrigerant chemicals used within the pumps. From an environmental perspective, it may make sense for some […]
Posted inEnergy, Environment, State Government, State House News Service
Green bank to target building decarbonization
STATE HOUSE NEWS SERVICE WITH AN EYE on the state’s mid-century greenhouse gas emission reduction commitments, Gov. Maura Healey announced Tuesday the launch of a “green bank” that she hopes will attract private investment and federal money to pay for building retrofits and new construction of decarbonized buildings in Massachusetts. The Massachusetts Community Climate Bank […]
Posted inOpinion
Wildlands, the natural answer to climate change
NEW ENGLAND is not immune to the global ecological crises of climate change and biodiversity loss, which both threaten human health and safety. With little time to act, we are racing to make up for decades of inaction and are leaning heavily on technology and intervention, from industrial-scale wind generation on mountain ridgelines and off […]
Posted inEnvironment
Cities, towns are frontline in addressing climate change
OUR HEALTH as a community is tied to the health of our environment and our planet. The stark reality however is that our future is not guaranteed. Climate change is no longer some far-off crisis we’re buckling up for – it’s here. And it’s an emergency. We don’t have time to be timid. A large […]
Posted inOpinion
A letter to Bill McKibben: Do the math
Dear Bill McKibben, Thanks for coming home to Concord/Lexington on April 2 and reminding us how we have wasted precious time since you sounded the alarm in 1989 with “The End of Nature” book. We shrugged our shoulders then and went on to build McMansions in your old neighborhood and ignore the far-flung receding Arctic […]
Posted inOpinion
No more climate legislation needed; it’s time for action
IN 2021, after extensive negotiation, the Massachusetts Legislature passed the Next Generation Roadmap for Massachusetts Climate Policy, which calls for reducing emissions by 75 percent by 2040 and 85 percent by 2050 relative to 1990 levels. Now, based on the latest IPCC report, those seemingly ambitious goals already seem insufficient. But do we really need […]
Posted inOpinion
The dirty secret about ‘clean’ electric vehicles
AUTOMOBILES EMIT tailpipe carbon emissions, we all know that, and these emissions in the aggregate are now the largest single source of carbon emissions in Massachusetts and many other states, surpassing the energy and building sectors. Efforts to reduce transportation sector emissions have rightly taken center stage as a matter of public policy, but the […]
Posted inOpinion
Criticism of green hydrogen misses the mark
A YEAR AGO, President Biden signed into law the single most sweeping climate bill in American history. Supported by virtually the entire Democratic Party and environmental leaders like the Environmental Defense Fund, the Sierra Club and 350.org, the Inflation Reduction Act will lower carbon emissions and help us get closer to “net zero” by 2050. […]
Posted inEnergy, Environment, Opinion
Fair share for the fossil fuel industry
RIGHT NOW, the fossil fuel industry is booming. A recent Reuters report said that Exxon Mobil made record annual profits in 2022, raking in $55.7 billion, exceeding its previous record of $45.2 billion in 2008. In 2018, the top 200 oil, gas, and mining companies had a combined revenue of $8 trillion – more than double […]