The BEAT News February 27, 2013

News Headlines

Avoid Toxic Chemicals in Everyday Products

Berkshire Environmental Action Team (BEAT) will present Darylle Sheenhan, an environmental health activist, talking about the effects of toxic chemicals encountered in everyday life and steps to take to avoid them, Tuesday, March 5, 6:30 to 8:00 pm, at Berkshire Community College, Room K111.

Darylle Sheehan, of the Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow and the Campaign for Safe Cosmetics, will speak about potential health hazards found in common places, from shampoo, to children’s jewelry, to your local dry cleaner. Resources for keeping yourself and your family safe from toxic exposure will be provided.

“Starting before birth, every one of us is repeatedly and regularly exposed to toxic chemicals that can seriously harm our health without our consent,” Sheehan said. “Chemicals in found in seemingly benign places have been linked to asthma, cancer, learning disabilities, reproductive damage, and a host of other health issues. Our individual rights and our quality of life are threatened by harmful pollution and products.”

The Alliance for a Healthy Tomorrow (AHT) is a coalition of citizens, scientists, health professionals, workers, and educators in Massachusetts seeking preventive action on toxic hazards in our everyday lives. The Campaign for Safe Cosmetics is a national coalition effort launched to protect the health of consumers and workers by securing the corporate, regulatory, and legislative reforms necessary to eliminate dangerous chemicals from cosmetics and personal care products.

Berkshire Environmental Action Team (BEAT) works with you to protect the environment for wildlife. BEAT believes that an informed and engaged citizenry is the environment’s best protection.  BEAT publishes a free, weekly e-newsletter with environmental news, calendar of events, and public notices for western Massachusetts. Please visit our website: www.thebeatnews.org.

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Coalition Calls for President to Hold a Climate Summit

Governors, Mayors, Business, Insurance, Farm, Military, Youth, Faith, and Other Voices: Enhance The Economy, Improve Public Health, Protect National Security, Safeguard Our Children, Act Justly, and Honor Our Moral Duties By Putting Solutions Into Action

 

A unique coalition is urging President Obama to follow up his State of the Union commitment to address the climate crises by directly engaging America in climate solutions: (www.climatesummit2013.org). [BEAT is one of the organizations that has signed the Climate Summit 2013 petition.]

Specifically, the group wants the President to host a kick-off solutions-focused national climate summit linked directly with concurrent action-planning meetings hosted by state and local governments, business, civic, and faith organizations nationwide. The events would be designed to mobilize Americans to implement proven, beneficial solutions to prepare for and build resilience to the impacts of climate change, and reduce climate-damaging greenhouse gas emissions.

To achieve the bold climate goals the President described in his State of the Union address, he must reach out directly to and engage Americans where they live, work, play, and pray, said Bob Doppelt, director of The Resources Innovation Group and a leader of the Climate Summit 2013 Coalition.

The national leaders endorsing Climate Summit 2013 include Governors, Mayors,  business, farm, insurance, youth, faith, civil rights, climate justice, former military, and other leaders, as well as top climate scientists. A growing list of Catholic leaders that support the proposal can be found here.

Climate disruption is not just an environmental issue. It is a profound economic, health, social justice, and national security problem with deep moral implications, concluded Doppelt.  Our proposal is consistent with calls by six scientific societies for a high-level climate summit. It will serve as a springboard to expand existing resilience building and emission reduction programs, launch new ones, and spur tremendous innovation that reaps great near and long term benefits nationwide.

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JUST UNVEILED: Be the first to find out how your members of Congress measured up in LCV’s 2012 National Environmental Scorecard and use our new, interactive website!

 

Today is a big day for us. Not only are we releasing the 2012 National Environmental Scorecard, but we’re also unveiling a completely new, interactive Scorecard website, where you can see all the votes we’ve scored going back more than 40 years.

Right now, I’m about to jump on a call to share this news with the national press, but I wanted to make sure that LCV members like you got an exclusive look at our new site before anyone else lays eyes on it.

Find out where your members of Congress stood on the most important environmental votes of the year. Explore LCV’s 2012 National Environmental Scorecard on our new website here >>

Unfortunately the best thing that can be said about this session of the 112th Congress is that it’s over.

This was hands down, the most anti-environmental House of Representatives ever. Continuing their bad record from 2011, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) and Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-VA) forced through radical bills attacking cornerstone environmental laws such as the Clean Air Act and the Clean Water Act. They pushed to drill off our shores and in the Arctic Refuge, tried to approve the harmful Keystone XL tar sands pipeline, and attacked protections for our national parks, forests, and wildlife.

If it wasn’t for our champions in the U.S. Senate and the Obama Administration, many of the environmental and public health safeguards we rely on would have been lost.

Want to know if your members of Congress stood with people or polluters last year? Take a look at the 2012 National Environmental Scorecard here.

The good news is: if we can educate the public about anti-environmental legislators’ records, we can build the public pressure to hold them accountable and improve our environmental policies in the years to come.

So that’s why we’ve completely overhauled our Scorecard website to make it easier for you to access and share the information not just from this year, but every year since the National Environmental Scorecard was first released in 1971.

On our new website you can not only read about the votes and check out the scores for your members of Congress, but you can also see how your state’s congressional delegation has voted compared to the rest of the country using interactive charts and maps. You can look at votes taken over the years on just one issue like clean energy or climate change. And we’ve built in share features that make it easy to spread the word on social media or send a message to your members of Congress to thank or reprimand them depending on their vote history.

I hope you’ll take a moment to explore and share our new National Environmental Scorecard website today at: scorecard.lcv.org

Thanks for helping us make a major splash with this release by getting the word out today.

Best,

Gene Karpinski
President
League of Conservation Voters

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Back the Ban on Incineration

from Sierra Club Massachusetts

Burning trash is dirty business. It produces huge quantities of global warming gases, releases toxins into the atmosphere, including potent carcinogens like dioxins and furans, and heavy metals such as mercury. It destroys needed recyclable materials. And in return, it provides only a tiny amount of electricity.

Although incineration threatens our health and environment, under industry pressure the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is planning to lift our 22-year old state moratorium on new incinerators. This would open the door for new facilities, putting our health at risk.

It’s a fact that 90% of our trash could be reused, recycled, or composted. Much of that 90% is actually banned from disposal by state law. But weak compliance – and no enforcement – are allowing these materials to be burned or buried.

The reasons for our 22-year moratorium are still valid today. And now additional concerns are making headlines: depletion of energy, resources, and climate change. Rather than enforce bans to keep easily recyclable materials and yard waste out of the trash, the DEP seems to believe that we should pump more CO2 and more pollutants into the air we breathe.

Despite claims that the “new” methods of incineration are safer, the reality is that it’s a 19th century technology that continues to threaten our health and our environment, places toxins in the waste stream, destroys recyclable materials, and worsens climate change.

The threat to public health posed by incinerator emissions is indisputable. The reasons for our moratorium are still valid today.

 

Tell DEP Commissioner Kenneth Kimmell to maintain the State’s moratorium on increased incineration, and to strengthen and enforce waste bans. Comments will be accepted until March 1, 2013, 5 p.m.

 

More Incineration Facts:

  • Incinerators emit toxins, such as heavy metals (lead, cadmium, arsenic, nickel, chromium, and mercury), halogenated hydrocarbons, acid gases, potent carcinogens such as dioxins and furans.
  • Incinerators emit ultra-fine particulates. These particles, most dangerous to health, are not limited or even measured.
  • The health impacts of dioxin include cancer, IQ deficits, disrupted sexual development, birth defects, immune system damage, behavioral disorders, diabetes, and altered sex ratios.
  • Studies show higher cancer rates and the presence of elevated levels of dioxin in the blood of people living near municipal solid waste incinerators.
  • Incinerators produce even more CO2 per kWh than coal, contributing to climate change.
  • Incinerators primarily want paper and plastic, competing with curbside programs for the most recyclable and needed materials in the waste stream.
  • Incineration captures only 20% of the energy value in garbage wasting the rest. Recycling captures up to 80%.
  • Gasification, Pyrolysis, Plasma and Waste-to-Energy are just new names that the garbage industry has come up with for burning trash.
  • Incineration owners are even lobbying to have their pollution-spewing facilities considered “green,” qualifying for tax credits similar to the ones given to solar and wind energy projects.

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The Truth Behind the Brands

The 10 biggest food companies in the world employ millions of people in poor countries to grow and produce their products. They have massive global reach and influence. And with enough pressure from consumers like you and me, they could make a powerful difference in reducing poverty, hunger and inequality.

Oxfam’s GROW campaign is kicking off a new initiative, Behind the Brands, to rank the policies of these big companies on important issues like transparency, equality for women, treatment of farmers, land, clean water, sustainability and climate change. For the first time, you’ll be able to see what the companies behind products like M&Ms, Crunch, Oreos and others are doing to help our planet.

Check out Behind the Brands to see how these snacks rank and what you can do to push them to do better >>

You might be surprised at how some of these companies score on our Brand Scorecard. The good news is that companies can change, and you can help! No company is too big that they can ignore the voices of their consumers.

We’re starting out by asking the world’s biggest cocoa buyers – Mars, Mondelez, and Nestlé, who make products like M&Ms, Oreos, and Crunch – to demand that they make equality for women cocoa farmers a priority. When it comes to women, these companies all score a 4 or lower on our Brand Scorecard, because:

  • Most cocoa farmers and workers live below the poverty line, and many earn less than $2 a day.
  • Less than 5% of the price of a typical chocolate bar goes back to cocoa farmers.
  • In West Africa, where most of the world’s cocoa comes from, women do nearly half of the labor on cocoa farms but own just a quarter of the land.
  • Women working on cocoa farms have fewer economic opportunities and, as workers, typically earn less than men. Just one example: in Nigeria, farmers told our researchers that women are paid $2-3 for a day’s work, while men earn around $7 per day.

The women who grow and pick the cocoa that Mars, Mondelez, and Nestlé put in their products deserve better: better pay, fair treatment, opportunities for training, the chance to own the land they work, and more. It all starts with consumers like you raising your voice today.

Help expose the truth Behind the Brands – from Mars, Mondelez, Nestlé and beyond – and learn more about how your favorite foods rank on our scorecard >>

Together, we can change the way these companies do business – and give people in poverty the tools they need to thrive.

Thanks so much for joining us.

Sincerely,

Vicky Rateau, GROW Campaign Manager
Oxfam America


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Family fun at the Berkshire Museum!

Ongoing Discovery Programs are free with Museum admission.

Aquarium Adventures
Fridays, 11 a.m. Spend quality time getting to know our Aquarium friends with play time, scavenger hunts, animal meet-and-greet, songs, stories, and more. Geared towards children 18 months to 3 years. Older and younger siblings are always welcome!

Chow Time in the Aquarium
Saturdays, 12:30 p.m.

Chow Time has a new look and format! Visit the Aquarium and help to prepare feasts fit for turtles, fish and even a skink.


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Co-op Power Sustainability Summit – May 11th

Co-op Power’s Sustainability Summit 2013 will take place at Hampshire College in Amherst, MA, on Saturday, May 11th. The Summit will focus on green job development, green businesses development, and community finance.

The Summit will feature:

  • Five strands of three workshops that illuminate aspects of our overarching theme
  • A keynote speaker
  • Catered lunch
  • An exhibitor hall where vendors and activist organizations can connect with participants interested in a more sustainable future

If you’re interested in presenting at the summit or leading a workshop, please call Elizabeth at 413-349-4086


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“Cows Save the Planet and Other Stories of Ecological and Economic Renewal”

Author Judith Schwartz to speak at Berkshire Festival of Women Writers

Along with Phyllis Webb and Billie Best

Sunday, March 3, 3:00-5:00 at American Institute of Economic Research

 

Great Barrington, MA – February 19, 2013 – The Schumacher Center for a New Economics presents Judith D. Schwartz, author of Cows Save the Planet (Chelsea Green), along with local community activists Phyllis Webb and Billie Best, in a panel discussion on using narrative to articulate approaches to environmental and economic renewal. The event is part of the third annual Berkshire Festival of Women Writers, a month-long celebration of women’s contributions to the literary arts.

 

“Climate change is all about CO2.” “Economic growth is imperative.” “Cattle are bad for the environment.” These may sound like statements of fact, but they are not true. They are simply the stories we use to make sense of environmental and economic reality. In her upcoming book Cows Save the Planet And Other Improbable Ways of Restoring Soil to Heal the Earth (Chelsea Green Publishing, May 2013), journalist Judith D. Schwartz researches many of these commonly-accepted narratives and finds that accepting such stories without question actually interferes with our ability to confront challenges and make changes in our relationship to our environment.  It is when we push past the accepted explanations that we can find potential solutions. Join us as we break down conventional narratives and share ideas on the possible.

 

Judith D. Schwartz is a writer based in Bennington, VT.  Phyllis Webb and her husband own and operate the Magic Fluke Co., a ukelele manufacturing company in Sheffield.  She has held numerous leadership positions in community organizations and has been an advocate for strong local economies for more than twenty years. Billie Best is Executive Director of Project Native, a nonprofit farm in the Berkshires.

 

The American Institute for Economic Research is at 250 Division Street, Great Barrington, MA, 02130. The event is free of charge and all are welcome.

 

The Schumacher Center for a New Economics works to educate the public about an economics that supports both people and the planet through research, publications, practical applications, media campaigns, and educational programs.  For more information contact Alice Maggio at alicemaggio@centerforneweconomics.org.

 

For more information on the Berkshire Festival of Women Writers, contact Jennifer Browdy de Hernandez at 413-528-7224 or email bfww@simons-rock.edu.


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The Center for EcoTechnology is offering EcoFellowship positions for 2013-2014

 

The Center for EcoTechnology (CET) is seeking college graduates who want to explore working at a green non-profit and learn community outreach and educational programming skills.

 

CET EcoFellowships offer:

  • One-year professional development program (mid-August,  2013 through summer, 2014)
  • Stipend of $1500 per month
  • Health and dental benefits
  • $2000 bonus for successful completion of program
  • MUCH MORE!

 

Attached is an overview of the program and descriptions for the types of placements that will be available.  While we are still developing the specifics for the positions, we are looking for 5 to 8 EcoFellows for the upcoming program year.

 

Interested candidates should send cover letter and resume via email (hr@cetonline.org) to:   Amanda Bates, HR Assistant, 112 Elm Street, Pittsfield, MA 01201.  Please note “2013-2014 EcoFellow Interest” in subject line.

 

CET will conduct rolling interviews in February and April, second-round interviews in late April, and hiring in early May.  This way, your college students will know where they will be starting for their next job before they even graduate!

 

Please let us know if you have any questions about our program or have any recommendations on ways to reach out to your student population.   Feel free to forward this email to anyone you think would find it of interest.

 

The Center for EcoTechnology is a non-profit with 35 years of proven service to the communities of Western Massachusetts and beyond.  We believe that being green doesn’t have to be overwhelming.  By providing clear, objective, science-based, and practical means to carry out daily activities with less environmental impact, we envision a community where basic needs such as energy, air, water, food, and housing are healthy, clean and affordable – now and for future generations. 

 

To learn more about our organization, please look at us online:  www.cetonline.org


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We need volunteers

Help us get ready for opening day, April 20th. We need to clean native plant seeds. It’s gentle hand work for people with good eyesight and nimble fingers. Volunteer with a friend for a few hours at a time. We’ll provide a sunny room and music. Bring a group of four volunteers for three hours and we’ll buy you lunch.

We also need help getting our plant signs ready for the nursery. We have more than 200 species of native plants. Each one gets a sign with a description and photo. We could use a little help printing and laminating signs.

To volunteer, please call 413-274-3433.

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The New Entry Sustainable Farming Project, a beginning farmer training program, is seeking a year-round Farmer Resource Coordinator, to begin mid-March.  

The position is based in Lowell, MA and can be full-time or there is flexibility for two (2) part-time positions based on the two distinct major areas of job responsibility.  Competitive salary and benefits.  Participants from diverse backgrounds are strongly encourage to apply.  Cross-cultural experience is required.

Attached is the combined job description.  The main duties of this position are comprised of two distinct programs and areas of responsibilities – you may elect to apply for the entire position (full-time) or one project area of the position (part-time – either farmland matching or BFN/Mass); we are willing to be flexible for the right person(s). Please specify whether you are applyling for the entire position or a portion of the job in your cover letter with your application.

Major duties involve:

A.       Manage New Entry’s local and statewide Farmland Matching Programs – identify available farmland by working closely with farmers and partners / service providers in the region to assess land suitability and determine leasing and/or purchasing options; evaluate producer needs and match goals with available parcels; facilitate relationships and provide technical assistance to farmers and landowners to result in secure land tenure relationships.  Create and update educational resources for landowners and farmers around accessing and using land in MA.  Develop relationships with service provider organizations offering farmland services in Massachusetts for potential collaboration and development of regional land matching programs; organize educational workshops and other educational opportunities around the state regarding farmland; and other duties as described in detail in the full job description.

B.      Coordinate the statewide Beginning Farmer Network of Massachusetts (BFN/Mass – see www.bfnmass.org<http://www.bfnmass.org> ) and provide other Technical Assistance / Trainings for new and socially disadvantaged farmers – develop relationships with beginning farmers and service providers to create and maintain the statewide beginning farmer network; supervise BFN/Mass working groups; facilitate the creation of and manage on-line tools for Beginning Farmers and an active Referral network for Beginning Farmers.  Plan state-wide retreats/forums for beginning farmers and farm service providers to network; and coordinate workshops for farmer’s continuing education, relating to such topics as new growing practices, tractor work, or connecting to USDA resources.  Coordinate New Entry partnerships with other refugee farming organizations in the region, including teaching ESL classroom and practical skills workshops in organic crop production practices, and other duties as described in detail in the full job description.

To apply, please email a cover letter, resume, and complete the Community Teamwork, Inc. application form.  Email all three documents to:  hr@comteam.org, jennifer.hashley@tufts.edu; and bweaver@comteam.org
We are hoping to fill this position quickly, so please submit your applications materials as soon as possible if you are interested.  Deadline to apply:  Monday, March 4th.

 

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