New England Climate Summer 2010: Summer Jobs for the Environment

Hi Friends,

Do you want to change the world this summer? I'd like to give you some info on a really cool summer opportunity, one that I did last year and am helping organize this year. It's called New England Climate Summer. Last year, we had three teams crisscrossing Massachusetts - I was on the Cape Cod team - and this year we're learning, changing our goals, and expanding. I can solidly say that this past summer was perhaps the most fun of my life, and it was when I realized that I really could make a difference.

Briefly: You'll travel by bike from town to town across New England, carrying everything with you, and spending a week in each town, building the climate movement. But here are the Top 5 Reasons to do New England Climate Summer:

 →  It's sustainable! You'll travel entirely by bike, carrying everything with you, truly BEING the change you wish to see in the world.

 →  It's really fun. I spent the summer on Cape Cod (oh, and a week on Martha's Vineyard!) meeting inspiring people, exploring new places, and sharing our stories. Some of my closest friends are people I biked with and met through this program last summer.

 →  It's independent. This is not one of those jobs where you stand on the corner fundraising for some big organization. It's truly organized and designed by me and four other young people, and we'd welcome your input.

 →  You'll make a difference, inspiring and engaging people across the region to work together to help fight climate change locally and nationally.

 →  The planet needs you! Our governments are collectively failing to respond to the climate crisis, and we can work together to show how important it is.

Want to learn more? Look at our sweet blog or our collection of photos from last summer. Or, follow us on twitter!



Some blog highlights:
The Kindness of Strangers: an update from the North Shore team, July 2009
Too Legit to Quit: Western Mass team runs into MassPIRG canvassers, July 2009
A Week On Island: Cape Cod team gets free hummus and more on Martha's Vineyard, July 2009

Thanks! If you have any questions, please visit New England Climate Summer or comment below.

Peace,
Jeff Gang
Western Mass. Coordinator
Students for a Just & Stable Future
Mass Climate Summer alum '09

Hitting the Ground Rolling

Plans are underway for climate summer 2010!

A planning group met today that consisted of great leadership. Jay O'Hara and Marla Marcum, our co-coordinators facilitated some great discussion about how to make the next months go smoothly. Alumns Heather Bulis and Jeff Gang of last year's Cape Team, Leila Quinn of the Western Massachusetts Team, and Emily Schweitzer of the Cambridge Team were there to give valuable insights. Amy Goldsmith, an integral planner last summer has stepped forward again to fill many major responsibilities. Katie MacDonald, an influential leader from Students for a Just and Stable Future, has once again proven her commitment to strengthening the climate movement and offered many valuable connections.

Applications will be available online soon. Application deadline is April 1st, 2010.

Program dates are June 6th to August 8th.

Biking for Clean Electricity

From the Archives

Recently found a video on the Channel 13 News fan page on facebook that was recorded while we were in Williamstown at the end of June. Click Here.

A Team Leader's Reflections

A beautifully written piece by Stephanie Black-Schaffer, leader of the Western/Central Mass Team, shared at the Climate Summer Finale in Boston yesterday.

Do you know who the hardest person to canvass was? Right now you’re thinking maybe it was the misanthrope who took vindictive pleasure cussing you out, or maybe the apathetic aristocrat who said ‘no’ before you opened your mouth, or maybe the talkative old lady who kept you on her porch for forty minutes.

--Incidentally, we had all three--

But the hardest person to canvass wasn’t any of these. It was the person who was totally informed. Informed but jaded. It was that individual who laughed when he heard your petition, told you he’d sign it because he thought it was a great idea, but that he’d been trying to change the world for decades and no one listened. That would get you wondering. If this active, experienced, informed person couldn’t get anything done, who were you—one college student—to try?

Now imagine living with such a person. My father had the highest National Merit score in the state of Ohio. He’s extremely smart, extremely well-read. Though he’s certain climate change is occurring, he doesn’t believe we can do much about it. He gets me wondering. If my intelligent, informed father doesn’t think anything can be done, who am I—one little student—to presume?

But then it occurred to me: movements start with one or two little people. The Civil Rights movement started in the single digits. There were only nine Little Rock students, one Ruby Bridges, four sit-in demonstrators, one Rosa Parks, two black major league baseball players, one Martin Luther King Jr. If they could change the course of history, why couldn’t I?

--And by the way there are twenty of us, so this is practically in our pocket—

But boycotting climate change somehow doesn’t have the same umph as sitting on the wrong side of the bus. ‘I’m turning off my lights now—how do you like that?’ ‘Check out these solar panels. Pal.’

I don’t honestly think your neighbors would care.

Which is why we weren’t just boycotting, we were also petitioning, holding events, hosting workshops. We are a group of hopeful college students cycling across the state. And for every response that made us stop in our tracks and question our resolve, there was one that made us tuck our clipboard under our arm and skip to the next house.

Who was the best person to canvass? Right now you’re thinking maybe it was the woman who invited us in to use her toilet or the old man who gave us three chocolate chip cookies. (Which was very nice.) But it got better. The best person to canvass was the one who blinked like he couldn’t believe what he was seeing and thanked us for being real, for working to save his planet.

Because that’s kind of what it’s come down to: saving the planet. And we haven’t got much time. After cycling for two months, you start thinking of everything in terms of bikes—you don’t feel sad, you feel “flat;” you don’t feel happy, you feel “pumped.” So I will explain our situation, right now, in terms of biking.

For every steep hill, there comes a point at which you can no longer shift gears; you must either stand on your bike pedals—painstakingly throw your whole weight behind each push—or teeter to a stop and topple over. I sure as heck hope we haven’t passed this point yet, because I hate climbing a hill in third gear.

This is a call to shift gears.

This is a call to change the course of history. This is a call for 100% clean electricity in ten years. We are so passed the single digits at this point.

New ideas in Newburyport

North Shore Team--Winchester
When we rolled into First Parish Congregational Church in Newbury last week, the first thing we noticed was a huuuuge vegetable garden out back! “I hope that belongs to the church!” LT said. We soon discovered that it did, and is a community garden called the New Eden Collaborative. It’s a project of the Green Artists League, which describes itself as “an interdisciplinary artists' collective that creates public art addressing the global environmental crisis.” Our hostess Erin Stack is its director, and is a big fan of “subversive art” that actually tries to convey a message and create change. She’s done pieces like “Recently homeless polar bear needs ice,” a performance artwork which you can check out on their website. Coincidentally, I once ran into the homeless polar bear in Boston Common last year!
It was great to talk with Erin about our project and all of hers, about the role of art in activism, and about all the great stuff happening in Newburyport. She’s excited to plan an event for the International Day of Climate Action on October 24th with the First Parish church, and her enthusiasm is contagious. She also treated us to a delicious meal of pasta with homemade pesto and fresh romano beans that I helped her pick from the garden out back. Erin, thanks for all your help and hospitality, we’re excited to work with you in the future!


Last Monday night in Newburyport we had the pleasure of dining with Elizabeth, John, Ben, Nile, and Bernard, the core group of Transition Newburyport. The Transition movement is a fairly new one, with chapters growing all across the state and the country. Based on the premise that climate change and peak oil are inevitably going to alter our society, they work to find ways for their community to drastically reduce carbon emissions, significantly rebuild resilience and greatly strengthen the local economy. The purpose of the core group, they explained, is to prepare a plan for the community to adapt, and then to dissolve as the measures are put into place. They also have their own permaculture plot in the New Eden garden, in which they allow lots of local plants to coexist and try to keep the soil in as natural a state as possible. Transition is a really interesting movement, working on the cultural change aspect of the problem and trying to strengthen the community. Their message also ties in very nicely with that of Awakening the Dreamer; as we start to see some of the imminent effects of climate change, we need to address adaptation as a whole, connecting with a strong community. As the Wombat and as Rev. Tom Bentley of Trinity Congregational Church in Gloucester remind us, all is one! Transition has also encouraged its groups around the nation to plan an action for October 24th, so I’m excited to see what the 20 or so groups in Massachusetts come up with.
Here’s a quick video of Elizabeth Marcus, the Transition member who was unbelievably helpful with getting housing and a place for the symposium while we were in town. Thanks Elizabeth!



Hearing about and connecting with these great people and projects was so encouraging and exhilarating for us. If you’re looking towards a sustainable future for Massachusetts and the nation, I think Newburyport is setting a great example for us to follow!

Lessons from Massachusetts

Cross-Posted with It's Getting Hot in Here

For the past two months, I've been spreading the word about the climate emergency as part of Mass Powershift's Massachusetts Climate Summer, a group of student volunteers biking around the state.  (You might have already read about us!)  We've been in cities and towns, past beaches and through slums, under the rain and sun, and on ferries, trains, and subways. We canvass every weekday, not asking for money, but building support for a movement and engaging leaders. And since our project is almost through, I thought I'd share some of the lessons we've learned during our time in the Commonwealth.  First, I'll talk about the canvassing experience, and then I'd like to share some impressions about getting the message across.

What is it like going door-to-door? Well, as anyone with canvass experience can tell you, it can be difficult.  But I've found that as soon as I tell folks, “we're not fundraising” or “there's no money involved” they loosen up, and begin to seriously listen to me.  I'm not some kid with a fundraising script; I'm a volunteer, giving my time because I care about climate change.  The message is clear: they should care too.  Our efforts have been very successful - 4,000+ signatures thus far.  I'd suggest that this sort of canvassing holds good potential for our movement across the country.

What does real America think about climate change, and how do they respond to it? First, the bad news: there is a lot of work to be done.  Many people can't be bothered to think about climate change. If they are aware of it, it is on a very superficial level – an understanding that driving a Prius is good and SUVs are not (to which I respond, “why not ride your bike?") – and it's thought of as something that does not concern them, that they cannot change.  At one house, a husband came to the door as his wife was signing our petition, and she told him it was about “climate control.”  It's going to take much more effort to get the message through to the crowd that gets all their news from TV. 

I'm reminded of a phrase I picked up from the Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream symposium, which we have been presenting in each town.  The phrase is from Maude Barlow - "the right not to know."  It's the feeling that allows some people to "check out" and ignore the world's issues.  She summarizes it:

"I don’t have to know about poverty, I don’t have to know about racism, I don’t have to know about environmental degradation or environmental justice or injustice because it’s not me, I’ve got my life and I’ve got my family and I can do what I want."

Especially in certain affluent neighborhoods, this feeling is tangible in the way people occasionally react – as though I'm somehow bothering them by reminding them that our way of life is affecting the climate, harming the poor, indebting our children.  What can we do?  We need to keep trying, but I've also come to realize that my efforts are better spent elsewhere .  And while there are some folks (even in Massachusetts!) who aren't "on the same page" about climate change, our very presence – as students, as volunteers, as young people doing their civic duty – makes an impression on doubters, gets them to think again, drives them to learn more.  Some of them even have CFLs in their porch lights!

The good news? People really respond to the Repower America goals on our petitions: 100% clean electricity in 10 years. Whether a retired nuclear power plant worker, a third-grade teacher, a national park ranger, or a building contractor, almost everyone "gets it" - that is, they understand that we're burning too much coal and oil, and we have abundant alternatives here that are a good solution.  Even those that don't know the terminology, who don't read or listen to the news, who have never thought about the greenhouse effect – all these people understand that polluting is bad, and solar and wind power make sense, and they may even have some inkling that we're affecting the global climate system.  And they've all signed.  Whatever their reasons for signing our petition, I'm glad that they are joining us.

Beyond that, we've found networks of engaged citizens who are educated on these issues, who understand that we need to live more sustainably.  These folks are already involved in other issues - civic education, peace rallies, community health and social services, recycling, and local food – and they want to know what should be done about climate change.  Yes, it's important to change your light bulbs, insulate your house, and begin to think about personal sustainability.  But it is essential to change the laws, pressure your legislators, and give our industrial emitters a wake-up call - and before Copenhagen!  These people immediately understand the power of an October 24th action, and with their help we'll keep pressure on as we move forward into the fall.  These are the folks who give me hope, who have really powered this program by helping us find places to stay, groups to talk to, and supporters along the way.  It's great to see that there are so many different roles to play, and each of us can find one that engages our strengths. 

To sum up, I've learned that people in Massachusetts mostly understand the need for clean electricity, and want to do something about it.  Our job has been to empower them.

We're finishing up soon, with a big rally in Boston.  But the work is not done.  Of course, we need to continue educating the public, presenting a credible message, explaining why climate change matters.  And we need to continue to strive for sustainability, both personal and institutional.

More importantly, though, we need to strengthen the movement to push government in the right direction!  The last presidential election showed what 1.2 million volunteers can do - and it's more than just clicking and donating.   We all need to see people not as just names on mailing lists with checkbooks, but as individuals with ideas, energy, and commitment to offer.  By channeling that energy, we inspire more and more action, rather than just asking for a click on an online petition.  There's a need for boots on the ground, for voices that are concerned, for people to be engaged.  And that's why I think the Mass Climate Summer model is a good one, and I hope you can use your energy to build change, starting right in your neighborhood!