An MA Fishy Wildlife Enviro Show

Greetings Earthlings. We spend a good deal of time criticizing the Massachusetts Department of Cut & Run (usually known as Conservation & Recreation), and for good reason, given they are trashing our public forests. There's another state agency we haven't spent as nearly as much time getting on their case for similar climate crimes, The Massachusetts Division of Fisheries and Wildlife, sometimes referred to as MassWildlife, an agency of the Massachusetts Department of Fish and Game, within the Executive Office of Energy and Environmental Affairs. We shift our focus on them now with the help, once again, of Michael Kellett, of Restore the North Woods. Michael is the lead author of a newly released study, Forest-clearing to create early-successional habitats: Questionable benefits, significant costs (it's long and detailed with all sorts of citations and footnotes on how a lot of our public lands are being subjected to what we call sketchy science and ill-advised experimentation). [UPDATE: Interview HERE] As usual, we will also bring you along to meet this week's Fool-on-the-Hill, our candidate for a new segment "Their Brains Were Small & They Died", and a peek into The Enviro Show Echo Chamber, and our other new gadget "The Gov. Healey Logging Moritorium Announcement Timer" on our blog (we're waiting!)  but first it's time for..........Revenge of the Critters! "Bull on a Rope" sounds ill-advised from here.

Our Fool-on-the-Hill is a repeat offender, this time Sen. Tom Cotton, (R-Ark) made the bogus statement "Democrats are coming for your kitchen appliances. Their desire to control every aspect of your life knows no bounds—including how you make breakfast. They just can’t help themselves" in response to mere warnings about the dangers of fracked gas in the home. Yes folks, it's the Repugs tired old gaslighting again. 😉

Let's go directly to our new "Their Brains Were Small & They Died" segment where we find some folks from Finland giving new meaning to the term shortsighted. Stora Enso, in Finland, describes itself as "one of the largest private forest owners in the world" so hey, why not turn a bunch of those trees into........batteries?  Lauri Lehtonen, head of Stora Enso's lignin-based battery scheme called, Lignode says: "With more and more people buying electric cars and storing energy at home, the global appetite for batteries is expected to grow sharply in the coming years". As Lehtonen sees it, "the demand is just mind-blowing".  If you say so, Lauri but not as mind-blowing as clearcutting carbon capturing forests to make business-as-usual batteries. 

There's a reason we say "It's the Climate Crisis, Stupid!" We're not sure which segment this clunker should go in 'cuz surely some people behind this idea may have small brain issues. That said, this is assuredly a Climate Crisis issue too, besides being epic stupid. It was announced recently that the UN's COP 28 climate conference next November will be led by Sultan Ahmed Al Jaber, CEO of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company? You might want to click on that link to register your....um...thoughts. Also, The Guardian reported on a disturbing trend, mostly out West where forests ravaged by climate-driven wildfires are not returning, mostly due to climate-driven drought and heat. And this: climate activists in Germany have been occupying a small village near a coal mine for the past few years in an effort to stop the expansion of the mine. Sadly, they were recently removed and Germany (no longer purchasing Russian gas due to the invasion of Ukraine) now takes a giant step backwards in energy. 

 In The Enviro Show Echo Chamber Inside Climate News informs us, "In the first half of 2022, the United States became the world’s top exporter of liquified natural gas. Then, in September, crude oil exports hit an all-time high when the country sent abroad about 4 million barrels per day."  It gets worse: "The rise in oil and gas exports has been supported by three consecutive presidential administrations that each viewed energy exports as a lever of foreign policy. More than anything, though, it is the culmination of a sustained campaign by the oil industry that has seen production soar even as domestic demand for its fuels threatens to decline." Looks like we're "Back Slidin' with Biden" and Obama before him. We are sad and angry to report the shooting of forest protector Manuel Teran by the Atlanta Police. Tort was shot and killed by police last Wednesday during a violent raid of the protest camp and community gathering space that has blocked construction of an enormous police training facility known as “Cop City” on roughly 100 acres of public forest in southeast Atlanta. Also, you know how we go on-and-on about plastics, right? There might be some good news about recycling plastics. Are you ready?......worms. Problem is, they just don't eat fast enough. And finally, PETA is getting into UMass Amherst's face yet again over animal torture. "PETA supporters were kicked out by security at the Westin St. Francis hotel in San Francisco, CA after invading the University of Massachusetts–Amherst (UMass) alumni event and confronting President Marty Meehan and Chancellor Kumble R. Subbaswamy over the school’s horrific menopause experiments on marmoset monkeys. Video footage is available here".  

A bit of a new twist to our Enviro Show Quote of the Week. Glen has suggested d.o. read his latest poem titled "Eugenics.....for Trees!": 

Select the very best and kill the rest seems

at best a fascist test for those who attest 

to love the woodlands but should most likely

give it a rest, take some time to quiet the mind

sit with the trees and wait in time not fall back

to some kind of rewind and status quo bind

sit with the wood until understood future is

not the past but the last chance to get passed

old notions and assembled motions leading

forward to flooding oceans and tortured 

skies brought on by business-as-usual and

far too many lies

After our conversation with Michael it's on to the Bus Stop Billboard:

 

Sunday April 2, Noon to 5pm. A training on Non-Violent Direct Action (NVDA) in Northampton. This is an opportunity to learn about the purpose, strategy, risks, and rewards of taking direct action / civil disobedience. Even if you’ve taken such trainings before, this will still be of value, to meet other people you can work with and to strategize together. The training will be given by two very experienced trainers and activists, Paki Wieland and Jeff Napolitano.  Go HERE.  

Sunday April 2, 7pm. Bill McKibben on Climate Change, Migration and Racism. Concord-Carlisle High School Auditorium or Zoom HERE. For those who prefer to attend remotely, the event will also be streamed over Zoom. Please follow this link to register for the Zoom session.  

 

 

Tuesday, April 4, 8:00pm The Campaign to Free Jessica Reznicek is hosting an international webinar to highlight the industry coordinated global effort to suppress the human rights of those who protect life on Earth. Please find the info below from Free Jessica Reznicek and register for their webinar here! http://bitly.ws/BKIS    

APRIL 11, 7pm. Via Zoom:  PFAS: The Forever Chemicals. Sponsored by Brookline Mothers Out Front and Brookline Department of Public Health & Human Services. Co-sponsors: Brookline Rotary and Friends of Brookline Public Health.  Register in advance:  https://tinyurl.com/4k4psrum  

 

Thursday April 13, 6:30pm.  Turning a Barren Lawn into Thriving Habitat, by naturalists Charley Eiseman and Julia Blyth – ZOOM talk. Email contact: info@greeninggreenfieldma.org  

 

April 21-24, All Day. The Big One. This invitation is for everybody to Unite to Survive – and come together from the 21st to the 24th April at The Houses of Parliament, Westminster, UK. Go HERE. 

 

 

Saturday & Sunday April 22 & 23, 1:00-2:00pm. The Earth and Fire Arts Fest spans the week leading up to the Earth Day Weekend. Workshops run by professional artists include visual arts, storytelling and multi-disciplinary experiences around the theme of sustainability and our relationship with nature. The final weekend includes a free family parade, and a ticketed exhibit and performance about care for the planet that sustains us. Go HERE.  

 

 

Sunday April 23, 1pm.  Climate Action Festival. Arcadia Wildlife Center, Easthampton, MA  Creativity & Community Building to Celebrate the Power of Youth Voices in the Climate Conversation. 

 

 

Monday April 24, 7pm.  Climate Action Now Gathering with Melissa Hoffer - First ever Climate Chief in the Commonwealth. Go HERE.  

 

As noted, Glen & family are going on a long electric car journey out West. You can follow their exploits HERE and that's it for now except remember to..........Listen to Your Mother!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Save the Trees Enviro Show

Greetings Earthlings and greetings to our new Governor here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. We can hardly wait until she announces her promised one-year moratorium on logging in our public lands. Michael Kellett of Restore the North Woods returns to the show to discuss just that with Glen & d.o.  As always, we will also introduce you to this week's Fool-on-the-Hill and remind anyone not paying attention that "It's the Climate Crisis, Stupid!" as well as take you on a visit the The Enviro Show Echo Chamber and more, but first it's time for ..........Revenge of the Critters! More habitat invasion by those humans seals their fate.

This week's Fool-on-the-Hill is one of those newly elected MAGA Death Cult Repugnican Reps who apparently is deeply concerned about being accused of....are you ready? witchcraft! Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, a gun toting Florida pol, is engaged in a legal fight with political enemies who say she is a literal witch. The story makes all sorts of sordid twists and turns (Surprise!) with other fools like Roger Stone and Bubba the Love Sponge, as well as an Hispanics for Trump associate Paloma Zuniga reportedly saying “Luna practices witchcraft.” “That is where I heard that from, she puts spells on people.” said Matt Tito, a pal of Roger Stone who mulled challenging Luna in a primary. It goes on and on and is as crazy as any of the QAnon/MAGA freak shows out there. We're thinking Luna is just another fool for getting in deep with the Repugnican clown car and for joining up with fascist cabal on The Hill who foolishly call themselves "The Freedom Caucus".  We guess Luna et al are free to make fools of themselves but not on our time. 

Those clowns we just spoke of may be too caught up in themselves and their fantasies to believe "It's the Climate Crisis, Stupid!" but we have some good news for them anyway. First, the good news from the Amazon (that's the REAL Amazon) is environmentalists and indigenous rights advocates around the world are "celebrating Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva's selection of Marina Silva and Sônia Guajajara to serve as the nation's environment and Indigenous ministers, respectively. Since his October victory, the new president has publicly vowed to make Amazon destruction "a thing of the past" and discussed creating a police unit for environmental crimes."  Next, we learned Scotland Is Poised to Become the World’s First “Rewilding Nation”! "The deforestation of Scotland unfolded over hundreds of years, beginning in the early 18th century when trees were felled on a massive scale for fuel and buildings. In the early 19th century, more trees were cleared to make space for farming. By the 1950s, only about 1 percent of the original Caledonian Forest—the forest that once covered most of Scotland—remained, according to Richard Bunting, a spokesperson for the Scottish nonprofit Trees for Life. “But we have the space, the wealth, the experience, and the global responsibility to rewild,” Bunting says. Read more HERE.  That said, we far from being....um..out of the woods? Remember, the study "America’s Vanishing Climate Forests profiles 12 projects on federal public lands that will log thousands of acres of mature and old-growth stands, from Oregon to West Virginia, harming habitat for endangered species and releasing centuries of carbon being stored by the trees." (Sorry but it is what it is).

Time for our Enviro Show Quote of the Week: 

“What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.”
                                                                  — Chris Maser

In The Enviro Show Echo Chamber we echo ourselves and others who have signed-on to the Trees for a Public Good Network's Letter of Support to Gov. Healey and her team. The Letter, in part, states: "Dear Governor-Elect Healey:
We, the undersigned climate activists collaborating in the Trees-as-a-Public-Good Network, offer our sincerest congratulations on your election victory. We feel assured our Commonwealth will be all the better for your presence at the helm of government. We are writing about implementation of the Healey Climate Plan, with a particular focus on forest and tree canopy preservation as crucial elements in protecting the climate, our waters, and wildlife habitat. We strongly support several key points to which you committed during the campaign:
● Temporary moratorium on commercial harvesting on our state-owned public lands, which
will support forest recovery from years of ill-conceived logging.
● Science-based state forest management plan that works to establish carbon and
biodiversity reserves on state-owned lands
● Removal of biomass subsidies from the Alternative Portfolio Standard
We also urge you to expand on these plans, particularly in the areas of
● Protecting mature forests
● Protecting mature municipal trees
● Environmentally responsible siting of solar panels

We strongly recommend that you establish a permanent advisory board of independent climate scientists and community-based climate activists to assure that all statewide policies appropriately address climate goals and the public interest, including forest and tree preservation....." [Click on this link for the full text and signatures].

 And next time, depending on news developments, we may initiate a "Save the Trees Moratorium Clock", a sort of improvement on our old Biomass Baker Countdown Timer. Stay tuned!  

And now, something completely different, a new segment titled "Their Brains Were Too Small" and we open it with CBS's "60 Minutes" and their finally discovering The Sixth Great Extinction. 

After our conversation with Micheal we move on to the Bus Stop Billboard:

Sunday January 22, 5:30pm. Vigil in Worcester tomorrow for the Forest Protector killed in the Atlanta Forest. The address is Collective-a-gogo 266 Olean St., Worcester, MA. , MA.

Monday, January 23, 5pm. We Must Protect Cape Cod Bay Rally & Speakout. HALT HOLTEC! Save Our Bay rally and Nuclear Decommissioning Citizens Advisory Panel meeting. 5:00 PM Rally on Town Hall front lawn [weather permitting]; 6:00 PM Informational gathering at entrance to hall [weather permitting or inside]; 6:30 PM NDCAP meeting Great Hall, Plymouth Town Hall, 26 Court Street, Plymouth, MA. Go to: SaveOurBayMA.com  

 

Monday January 23, 7pm. Climate Action Now's monthly gathering on Zoom. Everyone is warmly welcomed to join Climate Action Now at our  First Monthly Gathering of 2023. Register HERE.    

Tuesday January 24, 10am. WMass Passanger Rail Committee Meeting. The legislature established this commission to investigate and receive public testimony concerning potential public entities with the ability to design, permit, construct, operate and maintain passenger rail service proposals from the East-West Passenger Rail Study Final Report. The meeting is scheduled for January 24, 2023 at 10 a.m. at the John W. Olver Transit Center in Greenfield. A sign-in sheet at the hearing location will be made available for those persons who wish to address the Commission in-person. Members of the public wishing to view and participate in the meeting remotely may do so by accessing a livestream of the meeting by email HERE.  

Tuesday January 24, 7 to 8pm. Join The Walden Woods Project and RESTORE: The North Woods for a conversation with George Wuerthner. His presentation will provide insights and an overview to the major factors driving large wildfires in the West, and will discuss the ecological importance of these blazes as well as policies that could help to protect communities from such events. Go HERE. 

Wednesday January 25, 2 to 4pm. at the State House - Hands Together for Climate Justice. A 3 part event. More info HERE. 

 

Thursday January 26, 7:00pm. Screening of the film "Boycott".  A legal thriller with “accidental plaintiffs” at the center of the story, Boycott is a bracing look at the far-reaching implications of anti-boycott legislation and an inspiring tale of everyday Americans standing up to protect our rights in an age of shifting politics and threats to freedom of speech.There will be a Q&A with the filmmakers and a chance to ask questions afterwards. Please RSVP here to get the zoom link!  

 

Saturday, January 28, 2 p.m.  Attend the XRUS National Online Open House. The aim is both to help chapters network and to help new/returning members find or start local chapters. We will send out a registration link soon, but please contact us in the meantime with any questions. We hope to see you on January 28, but if you have any questions at all in the meantime, please contact the Chapter Support and Engagement Working Group at xrus_chapter_engagement@unitedrebellion.com. We want to hear from you!

 

Tuesday February 7 February Die-In for Climate Action (TBA): XR Boston holds a monthly die-in in public areas around Boston to raise awareness about the climate and ecological crises. We aim to mobilize the public to demand the systemic change necessary to ensure a safe and habitable Earth for all. The location is weather dependent and will be confirmed briefly before the event. We'll meet at 5:30 pm, RSVP for the location. Wear warm dry clothing!

 

 

Saturday, February 11, 11:30am - 1:30pm.  Kick-off meeting -The Amherst Climate Justice Alliance is a newly formed coalition with the mission to support accelerated, effective climate action by the Town of Amherst, identify priority strategies and actions for the Town to take, help foster a community-wide, unified commitment to significantly lowering our public and private carbon footprints, and prioritize racial and economic justice.  Jones Library (Woodbury Room), Amity Street, Amherst, MA.  More HERE.  

More events coming but that's it for now except..........Listen to Your Mother!