Weigh in with your thoughts and perspectives on local solar. The Cape Climate Coalition (CACC) and the MIT Renewables Clinic are co-hosting a public roundtable discussion at Gloucester City Hall on Monday, April 8 at 5:30 p.m.  All are welcome to attend and discuss the potential for developing new solar energy projects in Gloucester.  This is a time to raise questions and express your initial reasons for why and where you would support or oppose new projects.

An expansion of solar energy capacity on Cape Ann could reduce energy costs and carbon emissions and support a shift to “electrify everything”, as well as provide for economic development and local energy security. The CACC in its recent webinar with Senator Bruce Tarr has added to concerns about the vulnerabilities in the current National Grid transmission and distribution electric grid serving Cape Ann. We need more local energy production, but we also need to learn more about how this could be achieved.  And the community needs to weigh on in where they would support locating solar projects and what other factors they think would be important in decisions to develop new projects. 

Students, through interviews and two public meetings, the first of which is on April 8th, will assess with our help the relative potential of expanded solar capacity with rooftop solar on buildings, on municipal properties, with floating solar panels on reservoirs, in open spaces, over parking lots, in industrial parks, along roadways, and blended with public art. We would like to hear about where and on what basis you would support such projects.

MIT’s Renewable Energy Facility Siting Clinic trains MIT students who work alongside a professional mediator to help communities resolve local conflicts around the siting of renewable energy facilities. By providing a neutral independent forum, the Clinic brings together all relevant stakeholders involved in a siting dispute to identify key concerns and interests and support consensus building.  MIT’s Clinic focuses on providing a formal stakeholder assessment, and facilitating a joint fact-finding and problem-solving process. The Clinic does not promote a specific siting outcome.

CATA is testing an electric bus this week. And here is the scoop!

What do YOU think about electric buses for Cape Ann? Contact Cape Ann Transportation Authority (CATA) and give them your feedback. Phone: (978) 283-1886Email: WebbF@canntran.com

Did you know that transportation accounts for 29% of greenhouse gas* emissions in Massachusetts? Transitioning to electric vehicles, and powering them with renewable energy, is an excellent way to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

*Greenhouse gases from burning fossil fuels are causing climate change, the gases trap heat in the atmosphere and warm the planet.

Eric Hutchins checks in with good news about the American eel count at Millbrook Meadow! To volunteer contact Eric at: eric.hutchins@noaa.gov

The Cape Ann Climate Coalition met with our local astrophysicist, Dr. Bill Waller of Rockport, to ask him a few questions. Is there a Planet B? And what do we need to do to save this big rocky ball of planet (Earth) that we call home?

Cape Ann just became more climate resistant (and beautiful!) thanks to our local climate hero Nathan Ives. On Friday April 9, 2021, Nathan Ives and his Project Elm team received and began planting 100 disease-resistant elm trees in Rockport and Gloucester.

It is a grassroots community project intending to help restore elm trees to their once prominent place on Gloucester and Rockport streetscapes while taking a proactive step to help reverse global climate change (trees capture carbon dioxide (CO2), a greenhouse gas, out of the air and store the carbon in their trunk. CO2 and other greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are driving climate change.) The project is inspired by the World Economic Forum’s 1-trillion tree initiative.

Project Elm is a grassroots community project intending to help restore elm trees to their once prominent place on Gloucester (and Rockport) streetscapes while taking a proactive step to help reverse global climate change. Scientists tell us that one of the best ways to fight climate change is to plant more trees–1 trillion trees, in fact. Sadly, the onset of Dutch Elm Disease in the 1950s brought an abrupt end to elms in the United States until only recently. Scientists have now developed disease resistant cultivars of the elm tree that are thriving in the US and, in particular, in New England.

In total, $5600 was raised to support Project Elm’s vision and mission! In addition to Awesome Rockport, the following groups and people contributed money to help make this happen:• Awesome Gloucester • Allison Mueller• Sal Zerilli• Rick Doucette• Neptune’s Harvest• We’re All in This Together

What is the role of the artist when when faced with the climate crisis? This webinar produced by the Cape Ann Coalition’s Climate Arts Group explores the artist’s role. It begins with a video of Rockport artist and environmental activist Elaine MacGray Starrett “Without Just Grounds”. Following the screening, Starrett’s daughter, Dr. Amy Bower, an oceanographer at the Woods Hole Oceanographic Institution, is joined in a conversation about art, science and climate change, with Cape Ann environmental 3-D artist Sinikka Nogelo and the nationally-known public artist Mags Harries.

If you would like to volunteer or learn more about the Cape Ann Climate Coalition, please visit www.capeannclimatecoalition.org.