Category: Climate Movement
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Climate activists and congress members push for a Green New Deal
Sunrise Movement held a protest on Capitol Hill. Photo: Ken Schles. “We’re gonna fix our climate, we’re gonna clean our air, and we’re gonna put people to work,” Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez said to a crowd of protesters in front of the John F. Kennedy School of Government on Wednesday, December 5. She was joined by incoming…
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Divest! Harvard Students Challenge Their University’s Fossil-Fuel Investments
By Brian Hoefling Harvard students spent the last week hungry. From Oct. 20-24, a group called Divest Harvard sponsored a fast aimed at persuading the school to sell off its shares in fossil fuel companies. According to Sidni Frederick, a Harvard sophomore and one of the fast’s co-coordinators, over two hundred students participated. Many others…
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Oh Crap, Is That Today?! Our Last-Minute Guide to the 2014 Midterms
Valerie Adamski BOSTON, Mass.—On Nov. 4, people across the Commonwealth will head to the polls to choose a new governor, attorney general and other elected officials in a little-known ritual called “midterm elections.” Don’t worry — we forgot, too. But we’ve got you covered with this handy guide to where the statewide candidates stand on…
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Climate Crisis: 400,000 March in New York to Urge Action from World Leaders
On September 21, over 400,000 people marched through Manhattan demanding global action against climate change. The People’s Climate March was planned as a response to the United Nations (UN) Climate Summit on September 23 and became the largest climate march to date. Thousands of other activists around the world also took actions in solidarity with…
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Activists Rally Behind New Farm-Animal Protection Bills with ‘Pups for Pigs’ Rally
BOSTON, Mass.––Many consumers still imagine real farms to be like the idyllic farms displayed on their food packaging. However, many Americans are increasingly conscious of the much different – and, to many, much more disturbing – conditions that exist on modern factory farms. Now, activists across the Commonwealth are promoting bipartisan farm-animal rights legislation in…
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Boston Joins International Climate Leadership Group
BOSTON, Mass.— Mayor Martin Walsh recently announced that Boston will join the C40 Cities Climate Leadership Group (C40), an invitation-only global network of cities working to prepare for and prevent climate change. He also announced the creation of the 2014 Climate Action Plan Steering Committee, which will direct and update Boston’s 2007 Climate Action Plan,…
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Climate Groups Press Governor Patrick for a Clean Fuel Standard
CAMBRIDGE, Mass.—Dorian Williams, joined by fellow members of the Better Future Project and 350 Massachusetts, has been trying multiple times to get into Gov. Patrick’s office since last October. They only have one goal in mind: to encourage Gov. Patrick to cement his legacy as a climate champion and put Massachusetts on the right path…
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What Is Massachusetts’ Future? Activists Push Governor Patrick to Define His Climate Legacy
Last month, 350 Massachusetts, a statewide affiliate of the international environmental justice organization 350.org, announced that they were going to co-sponsor an environmental forum with gubernatorial candidates at Faneuil Hall. When the day came, volunteers from all over the Commonwealth gathered near Quincy Market. Erica Sunders from Worcester was one of them. “I’ve been concerned…
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Turning Up the Heat on Coal Power in Massachusetts
SOMERSET, Mass.—Henry David Thoreau, that famous son of Massachusetts, famously wrote, “If the machine of government is of such a nature that it requires you to be the agent of injustice to another, then, I say, break the law.” Climate activists across the commonwealth have been taking those words to heart. On 7 January 2013,…
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The Costs of Coal
Camilo Viviero grew up in Somerset, Mass., in the shadow of two coal-fired power plants. “For years growing up, you would hear around midnight this air horn. That’s when they would send out the plumes of toxins. In the middle of the night, while we were sleeping,” he says. One of those plants was decommissioned…