A Chance Meeting

The Cape & South Shore Team was in Falmouth last week, and the continued cold, wet weather on the Cape was getting us down. Tuesday afternoon, Courto and I were canvassing in East Falmouth, and we decided to follow a street down to the end of the peninsula. We found ourselves amidst old and picturesque shingled homes, just a few steps from the beach, looking across the Sound [pdf] at Martha's Vineyard. People were surprisingly receptive to the petition, though some of the houses seemed to be more like weekend-only homes. It was certainly a glitzy neighborhood.

Then, a car drove slowly by. And stopped a hundred feet or so ahead of us. As we approached, the man inside asked us what we were doing; we feared we might've been breaking some private neighborhood's rules.

But, lo and behold, it was State Senator Marc Pacheco (D-Taunton), Chair of the Senate Committee on Global Warming and Climate Change and all-around climate hero. He asked if we were with Powershift - and we were surprised that he'd even heard about it, until he explained his role in the Massachusetts State Legislature's climate heroism. I'll explain:

As you probably know, climate change is a looming crisis. The science keeps getting more and more ominous - projections of warming by 2100 are getting sometimes REALLY SCARY - on a Business-as-usual track, meaning if we continue without doing anything to change our ways. Worse, it looks like we have only a little time left to take meaningful action, since there's a new round of climate treaties being negotiated in December. But we already know what to do: change business-as-usual! Grow our own renewable energy industries here, reduce energy use, stop mining and burning coal, respect people's rights to live pollution-free. This will take legislative progress, of a stricter kind than found in Congress's latest attempt.

And that's where Senator Pacheco, and you and I, can help. Senator Pacheco co-authored a resolution, with Representative Frank Smizik (D-Brookline) and members of Mass PowerShift, that calls on Congress to Repower America with 100% Clean Electricity within 10 Years. (Read the resolution here.) It was passed by the Massachusetts General Court on April 9th this year.

Now, we're asking you to do the same thing.  Sign our petition, either online or when we come to your door, telling Congress that WE DO CARE about renewable energy, and we want it to happen now. And help us keep the pressure on via community action, media attention, events, and more. Join Powershift and become a leader in your community. We can plant that seed, but it's up to you to water and nourish it in your hometown, since we'll be biking away soon!

We thanked Senator Pacheco, he thanked us, and then he drove off in his hybrid. And we got back on our bikes, to head to the next neighborhood.

The Purpose of Massachusetts Climate Summer

As this is my final night as an active member biking with the Massachusetts Climate Summer program, and in response, or perhaps more accurately after being inspired by Jay's visit to the Cambridge team tonight where he re-focused us on the goals of our actions, I want to remind, encourage, inspire and/or introduce you to what we, in general, will accomplish this summer.

We are trying to find the people in Massachusetts who also have identified this huge problem and care about solving it. We are empowering those who feel hopeless to act, because of the enormity of this problem, to make them leaders in the climate movement.

In my experiences, I have felt so overwhelmed by the huge amount of work and the seeming majority of people who do not care or aren't willing to do anything to save the world's future. I would like to share one metaphor from the Awakening the Dreamer symposium that we have been facilitating which stuck out to me the first time I heard it and continues to bring me hope:

When a caterpillar begins to eat like crazy, up to 100 times its own weight, before its transformation, tiny cells called "imaginal cells" begin to awake in the caterpillar. They begin to find each other and cluster together. Even though they are in the minority, they gather and determine the genetic direction for the whole caterpillar. The rest of the cells dissolve into a nutritive soup and allow the imaginal cells to lead its evolution, which of course is to become the colorful, wonderful, and beautiful butterfly. If you had only seen the caterpillar and its cocoon, how could you possibly believe, or even simply imagine, that it could change so drastically?

With every person we meet that refuses to talk to us about this issue, chooses to ignore it, or slams a door in our face, we must remember that we do not need everyone, nor do we even need a majority of people for us to realize our dream of a clean and sustainable future for the world. Many people cannot imagine that it can be done, but who could imagine that an awkward 80-legged caterpillar could turn into a beautiful golden-winged butterfly? We believe, and we know, that it can be done, and that we have the resources to do it. We are finding those other "imaginal cells" out there in Massachusetts, then in America, and then around the world, that will guide the direction our world will head in. The others that don't care will not stop us. Our politicians and leaders will see just one message (as those who stand idly-by do not care enough to organize and send a message together), that a strong group of deeply committed citizens demand that we cap the world's carbon-levels in the air at 350-parts per million, and that we will not stop demanding this until it happens! Otherwise, there will be no more world left to care about.

"Never doubt that a small group of commiteed people can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has." -Margaret Mead

I'd like to thank everyone in the Mass Climate Summer program whom I've met in the past three weeks, and especially to my friends in the Cambridge team, for an amazing experience and for giving me such hope and inspiration for the future. I have personally grown so much in so little time, and it was incredibly refreshing to meet other passionate people who so deeply want to work towards this beautiful goal. I promise I will read the blog religiously and will see you all back in Boston at the end of July!

-Keane

MCS on NPR

We were on the radio this afternoon! It was on WAMC, the NPR station out of Albany! We're all so excited that our message has reached 3 types of media now! Check it out.

Our First Symposium

Well, we on the North Shore team have just finished our first symposium at the College Ave Methodist Church in Somerville MA hosted by I an Keane Southard with LT on Audio Visuals. About ten people came to the symposium today which I personally thought was nice. The group was not large but also not too small which I think gave us a good standing for our first symposium run through. Everything ran smoothly and we were all satisfied with our days work. I would like to express my thanks to all that came and participated today with a special thanks to Marla for helping us to secure our symposium location.

Mark B. Cabral

Moving East

Western Mass Team - Greenfield

We thoroughly enjoyed our time in Pittsfield and briefly seeing Jay on Tuesday. We got great responses while canvassing and held a small symposium. Next, we spent about two days in picturesqe Williamstown where we held a symposium with a sizable group of college students and had great luck canvassing in professor's neighborhoods. While in the area, we also helped one morning to weatherize Mount Greylock Regional High School by adding stripping to doors to make the building more energy efficient. We were joined by local alumns of the high school as well as Williams students.

We've had wonderful luck with the media as well! We were featured on the front page of the North Adams transcript http://www.thetranscript.com/northberkshirenews/ci_12685269 as well as being featured on the 6 o'clock news on the local NBC channel 13 out of Albany (not positive it has aired yet, but we had a great time with the interview and being followed canvassing. Link to follow soon!)

Today we have moved on (or back to) Greenfield. It was a long ride, about 40 miles, but included lots of stops for taking pictures of the beautiful Berkshires and a quick dip in a river. We've arrived safe and sound in local activist, Becca King's house and we're excited to begin our work here tomorrow!

We will not only be canvassing for our own petition here but we will also be aiding the campaign of Greening Greenfield where residents pledge to reduce their carbon footprints. We will also be helping retired citizens to access information to find out about qualifying for funding to help them weatherize their homes.

We figure that by this point now we have traveled well over 150 miles and I can honestly say that I am so proud of my teammates! We may be exhausted from riding but that does not stop our important canvassing and symposium work. I am extremely honored that I have gotten to meet and work with the wonderful people on the Climate Summer Teams, MAPS personnell, local organizers, and be a part of this great movement!

Stay Green!
--Leila

Earlier this week we left the hospitality of Marla and her two next-door-neighbors for our current abode, a shared Anglo/Korean church just down the road from Tufts, where Sally's connections have been instrumental in procuring showers for our admittedly less-than-fragrant selves. Keane is keenly appreciative of the baby grand piano and the kitchen doesn't even smell like kim chee, as we had been warned it would, though the fact that all the cupboards and drawers are labeled in Korean does tend to enliven the hunt for utensils. Indeed LT has risen admirably to the herculean task of meeting all eight of our dietary likes, dislikes, foibles, and idiosyncracies, and we can boast of such healthy meal options as ice cream for dinner and make your own pizza night. In our rapidly vanishing downtime last weekend we made it to a bike worshop with Adam - a MAPS member who had hosted us for a scrumptious vegan dinner when we biked through Lexington - but Mark's proposal to attend an open-air concert in Harvard Square was ultimately defeated by the unremitting rain. This ought not to have come as a surprise to anybody, as we'd not gone a day canvassing without our ponchos and jackets. But we are excited to see it clear up this afternoon in time for Critical Mass, where we plan to collect signatures for the petition, distribute flyers for our first symposium (!) tomorrow, and initiate conversations/build relationships. We're off now so more later.

Cheers, Lesley

Second Media Hit in Cambridge Chronicle!

We just got our second article in three days in the Cambridge Chronicle! Check it out!

http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/homepage/x1686364215/Student-activists-bicycle-across-state-to-organize-against-climate-crisis

Our first symposium is tomorrow and we are hoping to have a good turnout of people. Mark and I will be facilitating at the College Ave United Methodist Church (in Davis Square in Somerville) on Saturday from 1-4pm. We are also working hard on planning our first big event ("I know I'm not getting coal in MY stocking!"-Mark).

We've also been keeping tabs on the important House of Representives vote today on the new Climate Bill (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/31565446/ns/us_news-environment/).

Tonight we are all biking to Boston to take part in the monthly "Critical Mass". Their website (http://www.bostoncriticalmass.org/) explains that "Critical Mass is a vision of a happy, bike-friendly world replacing our polluted, congested roads, a protest for better cycling facilities and against car culture, a mobile paean to bicycling’s joys, a merry ride downtown and through the neighborhoods with friends, and more – all rolled into one convenient monthly ride right after work! Critical Mass is a party on two wheels to celebrate bicycling – a fast, friendly, clean, efficient, healthy, cheap, sensible, and fun way to get around the city." We will be canvassing during the event and handing out flyers for our symposium tomorrow. We hope to connect with other motivated people and groups in Boston!

Also, while canvassing around Tufts University, we knocked on the door of one fellow who had already checked out our website, signed the petition online, and had seen us biking around Davis Square already. He is part of a group called Emergent Energy Group (http://emergentgroup.com/) which started up at Tufts and plans, designs, and facilitates the advancement of community-based alternative energy projects and sustainable ventures throughout New England and beyond.

Keep up the good work!

-Keane

Our First Symposium :-)

This is a video that shows our first Symposium.  We also had some attendees comment on what they experienced.  It was great!  Enjoy.  

Cambridge Energy Alliance and Canvassing

Enjoy!

-Keane

"And Cinderella and the Prince joined a yoga class and lived healthily ever after"

Currently myself and the rest of the cape cod team is at the West Falmouth library doing some office work, Lauren is schmoozing with the bridge club, Justin is planning out the days canvass routes, Vicky doing media stuff, Courto finding us homes, Jeff finding Symposium hosts and I am keeping up with the blog. After an awesome weekend in Centerville at Barbara Hill's (the director of Clean Power Now) house we trekked about 20 miles through 30 mile an hour winds and torrential down pour to Falmouth where we were greeted by a photographer from the Falmouth Enterprise who took a very wet picture of us all with our bikes and the re power America banner which was printed in yesterday's paper.

A documentary film maker named Robbie has been following us around and video taping us riding/having meetings for his documentary about cape wind- 'cape spin.' It is expected to be released in January and we are all very excited about the potential to be in it! he is coming back tomorrow to tape us canvassing (i think he just likes hanging out with us).

It hasn't stopped raining for days and although we are all perpetually wet we are excited to continue canvassing and for our second Symposium at the Falmouth Main library on Saturday. This morning we all biked to main st. for an 8 am yoga session that Lauren found us free passes to, it was a good way to wake up and to bond as a team. Coincidentally when we returned to the house we turned the TV on and watched sesame street, big bird read the end of a story to some kids. he read: "and so Cinderella and the prince joined a yoga class and lived healthily ever after."

I hope everyone is doing well and staying dry :)

Heather

Cambridge Chronicle and canvassing

Cambridge Team--Medford

The Cambridge Chronicle just wrote an article about the work that we "climate heroes" are doing with the Cambridge Energy Alliance, check it out!
http://www.wickedlocal.com/cambridge/homepage/x1662360053/Cambridge-Energy-Alliance-launches-community-outreach-program

We just moved into a new home, thanks to the Wesley United Methodist Church in Medford, and are getting ready for our second day of Climate Summer canvassing around Somerville. Hopefully the rain will hold off for a while and we can beat last week's success rate of over 80 houses each! Somerville is super densely populated, which makes it easy to talk to a lot of people in a short amount of time, and we'll be canvassing right around the church where we are holding our symposium this weekend so that those who attend can connect with other interested people in their neighborhood.
We're also looking forward to this Sunday, when we get to participate in a HEET energy efficiency barn raising at the Cambridge Community Center. I can't wait to get some hands-on experience of how weatherization is actually done; we'll be installing indoor storm windows with Lilah from CEA. Like any good old-fashioned barn raising, the idea is to bring members of the surrounding community together to help each other out, learn some new skills, learn about energy efficiency, and of course have a party afterwards!

US Global Change report

The U.S. Global Change Research Program just recently released a report on the current and projected future impacts of climate change in the US (http://globalchange.gov/). In the Northeast:

• Extreme heat and declining air quality are likely to pose increasing problems for human health, especially in urban areas.

• Agricultural production, including dairy, fruit, and maple syrup, are likely to be adversely affected as favorable climates shift.
• Severe flooding due to sea-level rise and heavy downpours is likely to occur more frequently.
• The projected reduction in snow cover will adversely affect winter recreation and the industries that rely upon it.
• The center of lobster fisheries is projected to continue its northward shift and the cod fishery on Georges Bank is likely to be diminished.

Northeast annual average temperature has increased by 2°F since 1970, with winter temperatures rising twice this much. Warming has resulted in many other climate-related changes including more frequent very hot days, a longer growing season, an increase in heavy downpours, less winter precipitation falling as snow and more as rain, reduced snowpack, earlier break-up of winter ice on lakes and rivers, earlier spring snowmelt resulting in earlier peak river flows, rising sea surface temperatures, and rising sea level. These trends are projected to continue, with more dramatic changes under higher emissions scenarios compared to lower emissions scenarios. Some of the extensive climate-related changes projected for the region could significantly alter the region’s economy, landscape, character, and quality of life.

Here's an article about what this report might mean for the enactment of federal climate legislation, especially with the House debate on the Waxman/Markey ACES bill just around the corner (maybe next week?): http://www.grist.org/article/index/2009-06-16-climate-science-impacts-usa/P1

Rainy Days in Lenox

Western Mass - Lenox

What an amazing time we're having! We left the comfortable church of Pastor Van's on Thursday morning after a breakfast of oatmeal. It was the end of the box of oatmeal and the raisins so Steph meticulously made sure we each had equal amounts dropping one raisin into each of our bowls in turn - 19 each in the end and none left over! It was raining HARD that morning and we gave up all attempts at keeping dry. We took refuge briefly on the back porch of an inn in Stockbridge to eat PB&J sandwiches for lunch. The ride proved to be not as difficult a climb out of Great Barrington up to Lenox as we had thought it would be. On the way we found out that it can be quite hazardous to pull the trailers in the rain. Sam had two close calls - once hitting a pothole and once making a tight turn when the trailer flipped on its side causing his bike to swerve and the nylon rope holding the tub to break. Everything was fine though. No injuries or lost equipment. This is why we allow for extra room between our bikes in the rain (this is to appease all of the worry wort partents out there!) ;) We arrived at Lynn Rist's house in the mid afternoon, our shoes completely squishy puddles. We did our best to not track in the dirt from the road though! After we settled in and a few of us showered, we briefly canvassed in the neighborhood (still in the rain).

Friday consisted of sleeping in, doing office work and canvassing. Steph and I achieved an almost 50% success rate in getting signatures at houses! That evening we had the most amazing potluck here with such wonderful people. Authors and editors of EnlightenNext magazine were here along with other local activists and friends of Lynn’s. We stayed up late into the night talking about biomimicry technology, the environmental movement, the situation in Iran, psychic parrots, and so much more. It was such a wonderful and intellectual group to be surrounded by; we were truly blessed!

Saturday, in the late morning Steph and I made a trip to Stop and Shop to buy food for the next few days. (A man we met in one isle had seen us biking there and told us we had made good time since he'd passed us in his car only a few minutes before!) After lunch, Antoine and Sam headed out to buy snacks for our symposium while Steph, Jane and myself went to Radio Shack to locate a USB for Jane's camera and an AV adapter for mac computers to connect to a projector. (We never found the latter, but we were all three asked to hang out/exchange numbers by the man working at the store who was obviously very impressed by the idea of 3 women biking across the state together. We walked out of the store with only the USB, a receipt, and a funny story for the guys.)

From there, we biked to town hall (up the newly dubbed "Hill of Death" on route 7 to Lenox center) where our symposium was held. It is called such due to its long, steep slope and we have ridden up and down it now a total of 8 times. Steph, Jane and I facilitated tonight and I must say, we worked very well together, and the guys were very supportive of us which we were grateful for. We had some technical issues with getting videos to run smoothly which was very aggravating and embarrassing and caused us to want to smash the computer and projector against the wall. However, we luckily had a very receptive and appreciative group. We got some great networking and media coverage (a newspaper reporter as well as Judy Eddy who made appearance #2 since she loved seeing us Tuesday. We look forward to seeing her at the program close in Boston!) We are so thankful for all of the work Susan Olshuff did for our group regarding the symposium and the potluck! She is truly an inspiring local leader.

Afterwards, we five were very hungry, over tired, but elated and inspired! The heavy rainstorm made for quite an adventure home. We wooped and shouted, as well as cursed the driving rain, on the way out of town. Jane and I dubbed the hill we decided walk up the "Hill of Death 2" since we simply lacked the motivation to bike so hard in the dark and the rain, but the rest of the team waited for us at the top as is our usual policy. However, going down the Hill of Death 1 was quite fun as it had been turned into a river and we were forced to follow the blinking red lights on each other's bikes as we squinted through the rain. (To anyone adventuresome or under 30 years old - it was EPIC. To mom and dad - we were very careful!) After a carbo-loading dinner and large cups of tea, we gladly welcomed bed.

Yesterday, Sunday, we had a looooooong bike ride from Lenox to Pittsfield (not really – it took about 20 minutes). I believe it was Jane who said “So when does the real ride start?” once we arrived. But we were thankful because the rides to Williamstown and Greenfield will be anything but easy. After settling in, Jane, Sam and Antoine went on an adventure to find a farmer’s market which turned out to be just a Community Supported Agriculture program (CSA) and had to opt for a supermarket instead. After an extensive team meeting and dinner, we had some free time and went to bed.

Today we are spending the day at the local library doing office work and will be canvassing later. We also bought a copy of the Berkshire Eagle yesterday which had an article on us! We hadn't realized that it was being published so soon that a friendly woman in the neighborhood we were staying at in Lenox saw us on bikes and when she asked who we were realized that she had just read about us that morning! It was written by the reporter who came to the symposium in Lenox. We were on the front page of the Local News section, though not the actual front page. But it was very exciting to see our names printed and be quoted. Here's the link to it online: http://www.berkshireeagle.com/local/ci_12660078 And don’t forget to visit our picasa photo site at http://picasaweb.google.com/climatesummerphotos

Stay Green!
--Leila

Canvassing Experiences (so far)

Cambridge Team - Cambridge

Yesterday we completed our first day of Mass Climate Summer canvassing after our first two days of canvassing for CEA. I must admit that coming into this program, I was extremely nervous to canvas. If anyone knows me well (or at least knew me before this program), you know that I am a pretty reserved and shy person when first talking to and meeting strangers. In fact I almost will never answer the phone if I don't know who it is calling on the other end (just ask my family). Last week at our training in Deerfield, we went out one night to do a short "practice" canvass in nearby Greenfield, and I was absolutely terrified. I kept thinking of how I react to people coming up to my door that I don't know (I don't even answer it usually), but I got up the courage to start knocking on the doors and an amazing thing happened. When we were done, I was just so pumped and excited. Talking to people and connecting with those that really care about this issue, gaining their support and realizing how the tides are turning, how people are now standing up and coming together to help pull the world out of the deep pit that we have dug for ourselves, was so invigorating. If I were going around door-to-door trying to sell people some junk that they really do not need, like knives or something, I would feel like a total jerk for trying to exploit them out of their money. But we aren't asking for money, we are trying to connect people and empower them to speak out and get involved in fixing this problem. We are not exploiting them, but we are joining together to help us all, and this is something I believe in so much that I can do this work that otherwise would be so difficult for me. I was so pumped and excited that I flew up that big hill back to Woolman's (you all remember that hill!) and I was excited about the work we were about to continue for the rest of the summer and as long as this problem exists. I'm proud to say that yesterday I knocked on 81 strangers doors and again felt that same excitement and hope connecting with people who care about changing the world.

Keep up the good work!
-Keane

Here is what is going on in the Cape :-)

Enjoy

J-Ro

It's Business Time...

Canvassing yesterday proved much more successful for me and the rest of the team then the first day... Practice makes perfect I suppose... I find canvassing a really unique experience in that you can meet and connect with someone instantly over a problem that we are all facing together... However, for every interested, concerned person there usually is a door slam, however, it's still getting the word out there- good or bad, people are talking about climate change... concerned or skeptic...

We are hosting a symposium this Saturday the 20th June, 12:30 pm at the Sturgis Library in Barnstable. We have been madly making flyer's, calling media contacts and calling on some lovely ladies of St. Mary's Church to reach out to anyone they know who may be interested in attending. We are all pumped to be hosting our first one and can't wait to meet and connect and share this experience with the people who come...

Sarah, a lady whom me met through St. Mary's Church and her husband has invited us over for dinner tonight... We are canvassing near by and when we finish we will be going straight there to enjoy a nice meal and a shower- which we are uber excited about... We too have been showering via 'anti bacterial wet ones'...

As Heather wrote earlier in the week, the meeting with Barbara Hill (Ex. Director of Clean Power Now) and her crew has given us even more information and knowledge to share with the people of the Cape. We have been giving people flyer's that informs, educates and empowers citizens to support viable renewable energy projects and policies, and to secure their local and regional benefits. The proposed Wind Farm in Nantucket Sound, pulled some great coverage and had a story featured on 'The Daily Show' with Jason Jones, go to their website www.cleanpowernow.org to view.

My 30 minute time limit on the computer is up, so must cruise...

Peace and Pedal Love,
Courto

First Day of CEA Canvassing

Cambridge Team - Cambridge

Today we completed our first day of canvassing for Cambridge Energy Alliance. We are giving people tips on how to conserve energy in their homes, exchanging compact fluorecent lightbulbs (CFLs) for their incandecent bulbs and getting people to sign up for free energy audits. Many people were not home, but many of those we talked to were excited about what we were doing and we even had several people who couldn't even accept the free CFL because they had changed all their light bulbs already! We've also been so delightfully suprised at how many people bike around Cambridge, in fact only 30 percent of Cambridges emissions come from vehicles, while most of it comes from buildings, which makes our work for CEA that much more important.

We have also scheduled our first Awakening the Dreamer Symposium for Saturday, June 27th, from 1-4pm at the College Avenue United Methodist Church at 14 Chapel St, Davis Square, in Somerville. It will be sponsered by Cambridge Welcoming Ministries (http://cambridgewelcomingministries.org/) and we are looking forward to putting it on! We are also planning our next symposium for the week after that will be sponsered by CEA.

Keep up the good work!

-Keane

Wind Mills and Wave Power on Cape Cod

Hello from the village of Barnstable!
The Cape Cod team has had a great couple days here so far; we finally got the ball rolling with canvassing, and today we scheduled our first symposium for this Saturday at the historic Sturgis Library. Earlier today we initiated our newest member, Jeff, by doing a practice run-through of Awakening the Dreamer with him as our only audience member. It turns out that the front lawn of the county courthouse makes a great location for the symposium.

Canvassing has been going really well so far, especially since people on the Cape are amazingly well informed about the Cape Wind project. I've talked to people from all walks of life who are excited about the possibility of clean energy coming to Massachusetts and all of America. Yesterday I spoke to a tugboat captain who told me "Yeah, I know about all that stuff, I'm the guy who hauls all the oil," and then proceeded to fully endorse the call to re-power America. Today, I got the chance to meet some expatriate Swedes who told me that the Cape should borrow a page from their homeland and look into wave power generation. Apparently Cape Cod is a perfect location.

We never have to go very far to run into lawn signs with the big red "YES" and blue windmills of Clean Power Now. Hopefully our canvassing efforts will go a long way toward informing their supporters about the next steps in bringing wind power to the Cape. Who knows, maybe after Cape Wind becomes the first off-shore wind farm in the nation, Cape residents will be ready to embrace wave power as well!

Anyway, time to go make some burritos for hungry climate activists!

Bear of a Time in Barrington

Western Mass - Great Barrington

Yesterday (Tuesday) was a long intensive day of office work at the library. We took a brief break to complete an interview on the library steps and take a picture for the Berkshire Eagle newspaper. It will come out all over the county on Thursday (we're hoping for front page coverage!). Now people in Pittsfield, Lenox, Great Barrington, and several other towns we plan on visiting in the coming weeks will know about Climate Summer and the Symposium.

In the afternoon, we headed over to the Berkshire Community College South campus here on Main street to run our first Awakening the Dreamer Symposium. Before we started, we had a radio interview with Judy Eddy who stayed for the rest of the Symposium and was a very appreciative audience member. She plans to come to our symposium on Saturday as well in hopes of getting more material. She want to meet up with us again in Boston in the end so that she can create a series about us and pitch it to NPR - Naitonal Public Radio, here we come!

Sam and Antoine presented while I, Leila, ran the audio/visual components and Steph and Jane joined the audience. Everything ran smoothly but we discussed breifly as a team afterwords what we could imporove on for Saturday's symposium in Lenox (which may prove to be a very large group due to some wonderful connections we've made with local activists and environmental groups through the Massachusetts Climate Action Network (MCAN).

Before and after the symposium we feasted on Antoine's birthday cake, made specially for his 22nd birthday, by our very own pastry-chef-in-training, Steph. It tasted absolutely wonderful and we enjoyed our dinner outside in the little grassy cloister behind the church.

Today we slept in and then did our laundry down the street. We all shared ice cream and smoothies while we waited. Then, we had our first real down time of the trip when we went swimming in Lake Mansfield. Though Jane complained that it was not a "real" lake due to her Lake Eerie standards, it was beautiful sitting outside and eating our grilled cheese sandwhiches and then going for a quick dip. Sam dove in first, followed by Jane, who then both tried to swim to the other side, but were eventually deterred by the copious amounts of aquatic plants. Leila and Antoine then followed, and Steph dipped her toes in and took pictures from the water's edge. It proved to be a highly satisfying and refreshing swim since we haven't had a chance to take real shower since Saturday (shhhh). But Antoine has perfected what he calls the "dry shower" or "bird bath" in the meantime and passed his wisdom on to us.

Tonight we go out for our second night of canvassing and Leila will then prepare a taco dinner. Tomorrow we bike from Great Barrington to Lenox (all uphill) but it will be beautiful and we have more than enough time to make the trip.

Stay Green!
--Leila

Mount up, ride on... the journey from Deerfield

Cambridge Team, Cambridge



Video by Keane Southard,

Enjoy

Clean Power Now!

Yesterday evening the cape cod team arrived in barnstable after meeting our sixth teammate Jeff! it was a beautiful and relaxed ride along the canal followed by windy roads through salt marshes and cranberry bogs. With the team finally in tact we began to realize that this is really happening and we are going to bring the climate movement to Massachusetts' favorite vacation- The Cape! When we arrived at our destination we were amazed at how beautiful the church we are staying at is and how nice and hospitable the people are. We were provided with dinner, comfortable beds and good conversation while in the mean time setting up plans to present a symposium. After our dinner we spent some time teaching Jeff about the different team roles and what climate summer is all about, we are all very happy to have him here.

Earlier today we met in Hyannis with an organization called Clean Power Now who is working very hard to make the cape wind project, a proposed off shore wind farm in Nantucket Sound, happen. The Cape Wind project would provide 75% of the energy needs for Cape Cod, Nantucket and Martha's Vineyard through the harvest of clean and renewable wind power. For those of us who are informed and awake it seems like a no-brainer, Cape Wind is the way to go, but there are still the special interests of the wealthy owners of beach front property (Ted Kennedy for example) who are opposing the project with all their might. These people are worried about the wind turbines ruining the beauty of the beloved Nantucket sound but, in reality, the project would be barely visible from shore and more than that... wind turbines are cool looking!

Barbara Hill, the director of Clean Power Now, has worked hard to find housing for our team on the cape and continues to help us in every way possible. She is even letting us stay at her house this weekend! I am excited to hear more of her ideas and for mass climate summer to become more closely involved with her, and many other's, initiative to have Massachusetts be the first (but definitely not the last) state in the country to have a beautifully beneficial off shore wind farm, perhaps the first step to re-powering America with 100% clean electricity in 10 years.

More to come-

Heather

Cambridge Energy Alliance - Day 1

Cambridge Team - Cambridge

Greetings people of the internet. So, on today's adventure we find our climate heroes joining forces with the Cambridge Energy Alliance (CEA) for their first day of training. The CEA seeks to reach out to Cambridge community members by offering free energy audits in the efforts of saving people money through reduced energy consumption as well as building the city of Cambridge into a model of sustainability for the nation. We set out early this morning after having a lovely breakfast of oatmeal and fruit. We arrived at CEA headquarters ahead of the scheduled arrival time. Bicycling without the hindrance of gear and trailers was greatly welcomed by the crew. Throughout the day we were trained in CEA canvassing and what exactly would be involved in energy auditing. Check out the CEA's website at:

Cambridge Energy Alliance

and their blog:

Energy 2.0

and they were featured recently on an episode of "NOW" on PBS, part of which can be seen here on Youtube!



At roughly 4:00pm we took to the streets in pairs setting out across Cambridge posting fliers that simply stated the presence of the CEA and its intentions. To our advantage, Cambridge is very biker friendly having many isolated bicycling lanes designed in the traffic structure. Keane and I mainly hit up local businesses including laundromats and restaurants to post fliers. When we were at a local library's sidewalk we stumbled across an Eleanor Roosevelt project presumably created by a middle school student (Libby Mahoney, thank you for your work) which I happily presented on video. I'm sure you will all see that in the near future. At 6:00pm we raced home, merging with the rest of our group at the top of Sunnyside Ave. For now its dinner time, so I'll leave you with this "Without hydrogen bonds, the world would be completely different".

Peace Out.
Mark B. Cabral

Clear Sailing

Western Mass – Great Barrington

We woke up in Lenox yesterday (Sunday) morning to find a HUGE breakfast being made by two members of the church we were staying in. We honestly worried about whether we were going to be able to bike after eating French toast, eggs, lemon pound cake, fruit, toast, orange juice, and bacon. We went to a lovely service where the congregation kindly sent their prayers with us for our journey.

We made record time biking from Lenox to Great Barrington in exactly two hours. It was our most beautiful ride to date. We stopped several times to take pictures. As Sam said after one gorgeous vista, “That’s quite and Ansel Adams there!” Once again, we managed to avoid the worst of the bad weather. We ate a lunch of leftover food prepared by the Lenox congregation on the grass outside the First Congregational Church here and then moved our stuff inside.

We proceeded to go through the manuals and videos and practice our symposium. We took a break during which Sam and Leila went to the library (more like sitting outside on the front steps to get the wifi because it was closed) while Antoine and Jane went to grocery shopping and Steph napped. We had a yummy dinner of spaghetti and we got a bit hysterical with laughter due to our exhaustion. That’s how we knew it was time to call it quits and go to bed.

This morning (Monday) we awoke to the organ being played in the sanctuary next door for the children’s chorus rehearsal. After a quick stop at the post office across the street, we ended up at the library where we are all currently hard at work. First canvass here tonight and a symposium tomorrow night.

Pictures to follow here on the blog as well as on the new picasa account and the facebook fan page! We'll also be uploading youtube videos soon of our adventures which we will be sure to let you all know about!

Stay Green!
--Leila

Our First Two Days on the Bikes!

Cambridge Team - Arlington

It seems like forever ago, but it has only been two days since the teams set out from Woolman Hill in Deerfield to help stop climate change across Massachusetts. After saying our goodbyes to the Western Mass team, we stayed with the Cape Cod team on our way to spend the night together at Barre Congregational Church, which happened to be a nice 47 miles from our launching point over many, many interesting and exciting hills. After a smooth and flat first stretch, we were all feeling confident in our biking abilities, feeling the cool air off of the passing brooks, smiling at the partly sunny, but not overly oppressing sky, above...and then we entered the wonderful world of bike maintenance. It seemed like everything possible that could go wrong did, short of someone crashing. The trailer hitches broke off sending our trailers flying across the road, Lesley’s brakes were stuck in the on position continuously, Sally’s rear wheel was as crooked as could be, Mark had a flat, or two…you get the picture. By the end of the day we were all expert bike repairmen/women.

Anyways, we eventually stopped to eat a packed lunch of Nutella and potato chips sandwiches (or at least I did) by the side of the road in Montague. We decided at this point that we were behind on our initial estimated arrival time of early evening into Barre, so we broke up into two teams, one faster that would arrive at the church first and prepare dinner so we could all be ready to eat as soon as the other team arrived. I navigated in the slower group as the other team disappeared over the hills. Town after town disappeared behind us as we passed many farms, roadside farm stands, rivers, and forests. On the back roads of New England, there are no chain fast food restaurants and billboards, just local country stores, lots of cool looking barns, churches with big white steeples, and trees. Sure beats the big interstate. But we were losing more time and going slower and slower each time we stopped at the top of another hill to catch our breath and drink some water, or because someone’s tire went flat. Each hill was harder than the last, and we kept thinking, will there ever be a nice long downhill after the top?

The sun was beginning to disappear around 9pm as we were traveling around the Quabbin reservoir, and not only were we getting tired of endless hills, we were very hungry and had only a granola bar and a box of Tic-Tacs to nourish ourselves and only one of the 9 of us in our group had a light on their bike. Suddenly our nice leisurely ride across western Massachusetts was turning into a real problem of how we were going to make it safely to Barre while we still had 8 miles to go. Exhausted, hardly visible by cars, and malnourished (the 1.9 calories in each tic-tac didn’t quite fuel us on as much as we’d hoped), we were forced to stop in the middle of nowhere in Petersham at 10pm and figure out a different solution. After debating over whether or not we should camp out on the side of the road and call it a night or dial the operator and find the nearest pizza place to deliver a pizza to us on the side of the road and then ask the pizza man to drive us to our destination, we called Jay with the other group already at the church in Barre and waited for him to find a solution. After a half hour, Lester, our new friend from the Barre church, along with Jay pulled up in a car to save the day, bearing gifts of chips, fruit, and granola bars, along with bike lights for several of us. Never had a meal of potato chips tasted so good! With our new strength and bike lights, we finally stumbled into Barre weary and drained at 11:30pm to enjoy a dinner of eggs and pancakes and then collapse into our sleeping bags, only to wake up at 8am and hit the road again in the morning for another long day of riding.

The morning arrived too soon, we said goodbye to our Cape Cod friends and hit the road, but we weren’t even across the street when the trailer and Emily’s bike broke, which delayed us nearly an hour. We figured out that biking the whole way to Lexington, where we were staying for the night, would be ride of 50 miles, and if there were as many hills and we went the same speed as yesterday, we wouldn’t make it until very late again (if at all). We decided instead to bike 22 miles to Fitchburg and take the “T” into Concord, then bike the final 7 miles to Lexington. After many more hills, bike problems (including Mark running over a dog, but luckily no one was hurt and the dog owner welded the trailer hitch for us), and worrying that we wouldn’t make it in time for the train, we hit a long downhill and cruised the last four miles into Fitchburg with high spirits. We lugged all our bikes onto the train and for some reason it was not leaving yet. In our train car, a man ran into the car telling us he was so thankful the train had stopped or he’d have missed it, only to have the police jump on in the other end and throw handcuffs on the man! After a few minutes, he was released after they realized he was not the suspect they were looking for and the train finally left the station. Strange happenings in Fitchburg.

We arrived in Concord and had a nice flat ride into Lexington to meet up for a nice vegan dinner with Adam, a member of Mass Powershift and bike repairman, but not before Kyle’s trailer hitch got stuck in his spokes and broke the tire. After a nice dinner and deep discussion on how the world and culture needs to change in order to stop climate change, we headed over to the church, across from the Lexington battle green, to spend the night, still without having showered!

So far we have had met a bunch of kind and interesting people on the road, from people letting us in their home to fill up our water bottles, to a man who was creating biodiesel fuel in his garage, to a lady who served us fresh and delicious lemonade and showed us a better route to go, but we are excited to soon settle down and work with the Cambridge Energy Alliance. We miss you other groups and are excited to hear your stories and successes as well! More exciting things to come!

-Keane

To The Cape!

Today we arrived in Bourne, the gateway to Cape Cod, after an eventful weekend of riding both bikes and trains we finally made it to Jay's house where he prepared for us a feast- vegan and all! We are continuing to bond as a team and are very anxious to meet our sixth teammate, Jeff. Lauren was kind enough to let us stay at her house last night and we will be staying at Jay's tonight, we are being spoiled with home stays, hopefully the church in Barnstable wont prove to be too much of a shock for us.

I am excited to get some work done and begin canvassing and presenting symposiums. Right now we do not have any symposiums scheduled but we will be working hard the next few days to change that. Right now Lauren and Courtney are busy washing the dished from tonight's meal while Justin and Vicky declare their new found fondness of Massachusetts and all its hilly glory: "i think i would like mass better in a car."

Our first Sunday night team meeting is in a little while signifying the true beginning of our team's initiative to wake up the cape and further spread the movement for 100% clean electricity. We are all a little disappointed that Jeff will not be here tonight but hopefully he will be arriving tomorrow and we will all spend the day together biking to Barnstable and showing him the ways of the climate summer cape cod team and filling him in on all he missed out on during training. We have decided to practice the symposium sometime his week by presenting it to Jeff, allowing him to experience what it is he will be doing all summer while allowing us to practice our presentation skills.

I hope everyone is doing well and the other two teams are having as much fun as we are, we miss our fellow climate summer-ers and look forward to reuniting with many story and much experience under our belts.

good night :)
Heather

First Day on the Road Pics

For Every Uphill There is a Downhill

Western Mass - Lenox

Enjoying the sights, sounds, smells, and hills of western mass. Lush green trees line the roads and cool streams wind around the valleys so that we cross them multiple times or follow them for long stretches of time. Though tempted to jump in to the crystal clear lakes and rivers we see, we have kept biking, making very good time between each of our stops.

We are beginning to get a feel for our pacing and techniques for riding (for example, not letting a bike attached to a trailer tip over or else the hitch will snap!) Mechanics have gone pretty smoothly except for starting out with a trailer tire with a slow leak (already patched once in Greenfield), some issues with Jane's derailer and brakes today, and retying the strings holding the bins on the trailer. Jane and Sam are at a local bikeshop run by a trustee of the United Methodist Church here getting some of these issues solved. We often switch the order we follow each other while biking, but Steph has proved to be an awesome sweep making sure we all make it up the hills together.

On Friday we rode on routes 116 and 112 from Deerfield to Cummington. Though we were detained a while due to trailer issues we finally left the gas station in Greenfield around 2:30 and arrived at our destination at around 6:30. The back door of the church was generously left open for the ease of our coming and going. We found an extensive note left by Reverend Liza Neal that detailed everything we needed to know and made our stay run smoothly. We had a yummy dinner while enjoying the sunset and having deep conversations. We even had a special ice cream treat for desert courtesy of Antoine!

Today, Saturday, we rode route 9 (west) to route 7 (south) passing through Pittsfield and finally arriving in Lenox. We have been absolutely overwhelmed by the kindness and hospitality of Pastor Val Roberts-Toler and her family here at the United Methodist Church. We were happily munching on brownies just moments after walking through the door! And oh, what wonders a shower can do after a long hot, humid day of travel!

Tomorrow holds a shorter ride than our two previous ones, to Great Barrington where we will canvass and hold a symposium. Another update to come soon!

Stay Green!

The meeting house where we had our training sessions (in the picture set up for the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium facilitator training).

Training!

We've had a jam-packed few days here at the Woolman Hill Conference Center and Retreat. We're tirelessly preparing for the summer ahead, surrounding ourselves with inspiring mentors and peers, and immersing ourselves in exciting environmental news and debates.

Here's a look at the week thus far:
Sunday brought our enthusiastic climateers from all over the world (yes, this is a global issue!) and involved first introductions, settling in, and much deserved rest!

Monday, we awoke bright and early for breakfast followed by an amazing 3-hour version of the Awakening the Dreamer Symposium. During this session we experienced the feelings of sorrow, enlightenment, reflection, hope, and empowerment. We will be trained in leading this symposium ourselves on Thursday so that we can spread the message as we travel around the state. Afterwords, we worked in exchange for our stay here which included weeding and gardening, brush removal, wood stacking, mulching, and window washing among other jobs. Lectures on creating a personal Public Narrative and the History of the grassroots environmental movement followed at the end of the day.

Tuesday we enjoyed a hearty blueberry pancake breakfast followed by more practice with Public Narrative tool use. After lunch we continued our work-for-stay projects. Later, we talked about relationship building during our canvassing. Lastly, we found out which routes we are to be on (Western and Central Mass, Cambridge and the North Shore, Cape Cod and Islands and South Shore) and worked on event planning together.

Wednesday (today), we completed canvass training, and more work-for-stay. We got a crash course on bike maintenance from John, a student at UMass Amherst. In the evening we finally got to put our training to work during our first trial run of canvassing in downtown Greenfield! We were very successful in our signature gathering for the petition calling for 100% clean electricity in 10 years. We learned a lot about how we can further hone our canvassing and public speaking skills over the coming months.

As a group we have grown very close to each other in such a short period of time and will be sad to see the teams go their separate ways. However, we look very forward to meeting up in Boston at the end of July to share our amazing experiences.

Be sure to follow our blogs, vlogs, tweets, status updates, groups, fan pages, etc!

Stay Green!

The Trailer Build - MIT May 30th

T-1 Week

Well everyone, this is it. We have one week until Mass Climate Summer kicks off with training on June 7th. We have an intrepid group of students ready to rock the climate world. We have a week of training lined up, and a host of amazing partner organizations eager to help build a better world with us.

Let's take the next week to think about what we're about to do. Lots of people knock on doors every summer, most of them trying to raise money for establishment environmental organizations. There are also several bike rides for the climate that are going on - the Brita ride and the Trek to Re-Energize America. None of them are doing grassroots organizing. We have an opportunity this summer to combine fun with effectiveness and the ironic thing is that those are one and the same. Why hasn't anyone done this before?

We're going to hone our community organizing skills and build the infrastructure for an incredible campaign here in Massachusetts. We're going to develop our leadership skills and bring those skills back to the campuses and states that we go to school in and propagate effective organizing all across the country (and the world!).

So I invite you, in the next week before it all begins, to reflect on your role in all of this. Take a step back and remember what we are trying to achieve, and then be glad in the realization that our generation has been given a challenge so big as to call out the best in us. Let's rise to it.