Dana Drugmand

As a native Bay Stater and a young person, I would love to see my home state take a bold step towards addressing the climate crisis by passing a carbon tax.

A proposed community solar project in Williamstown that is estimated to save the town $2 million over 20 years is at risk of being stalled due to the net metering caps

“In the face of the climate crisis Harvard is profiting from the same companies that are actively undermining the scientific knowledge being generated from within the Harvard community.” -- Kelsey Wirth, co-founder of the group Mothers Out Front

“I think one of the challenges with climate change is that it is abstract. But when we do things like spend twelve days seeing where a pipeline is proposed to go, we make that a bit more real and we bring others with us to see that, making the abstract a little more concrete.”  -- Jay O’Hara, one of the walk organizers

“I’m here today because I cannot look my daughter in the eye if I have not tried to protect her future while our leaders on every level fail to act on climate change. We must not let [our leaders] act for the short-term gain of a few.” -- Anne Goodwin, of Mothers Out Front

“I think you owe it to us, you owe it to Generation Y, Generation Z, whatever, Generation Omega, you owe it to all the young generations to divest from fossil fuels. You started it, and now you’ve got to help us, because you know what, I want to live to see 50.” -- Nathan Tran-Trinh, a student at Boston Latin School.

"I’m on our Conservation Commission and we all feel strongly that this is going to have a really negative impact on a wonderful little community where people are there because they value the treasures we have here from an environmental point of view." -- Judy Williams of Plainfield, attending the Kinder Morgan open house at Berkshire Community College

Ultimately, as several speakers explained, the path to advancing this clean energy economy is being blocked by the tremendous wealth and power that the fossil fuel industry exerts over the nation's political and regulatory system. A study by the Political Economy Research Institute at UMASS-Amherst, on the other hand, that found that rapidly transitioning to a renewable energy economy could create over 2 million net new jobs.

"I can confidently say that the pace of renewable energy technology adoption is increasing, and the very certain progress in electricity storage will allow residential and utility scale solar to offset demand for those peak winter hours in the years 2020-2030 that this study says can be fulfilled by new pipeline capacity." -- Berkshire Photovoltaic Services’ Christopher Kilfoyle

The study did not consider the impact of pipeline investments on Massachusetts’s long-term reliance on natural gas, nor did it consider these investments’ potential displacement of alternative energy sources. Environmental impacts of pipeline siting and construction and of natural gas extraction were also not considered.

Clean energy is the fastest growing part of the Massachusetts economy, providing 88,000 jobs thus far. If the low estimate cost of the pipeline were directed towards investment in clean energy, it could generate approximately 24,000 permanent jobs. -- Rosemary Wessel, of No Fracked Gas in Mass

Hundreds of concerned citizens from across the state converged in Fitchburg to plan next steps for stopping the Kinder Morgan gas pipeline and advancing clean energy goals.

Our present reality is not just that we are on the fast track to climate catastrophe. It is also that we now have an economic and political system that isn’t working too well for most people.