QYouth Climate Movement, QCAN’s youth chapter, organized a clothing swap at Quincy High School on May 15. The event was a lot of fun and provided gently used clothing to teens who can use it, diverted many pounds of waste from Quincy’s trash stream, and helped spread the message that fast fashion is bad for the planet. (Everyone loves a new sweater, but the fashion industry is responsible for up to 10% of global carbon emissions — so trading outfits to extend the wearable lifespan of those garments can help reduce that fashion footprint.)

Thank you to the participants, volunteers, and QYouth members that made this event a huge success! QYouth meets at the Thomas Crane Main Library at 3:30pm on the third Thursday of each month. More info is available on their Instagram.

If your home is heated by natural gas or oil (like most in Quincy), there’s no getting around it: You’re burning a lot of carbon each winter. And probably a lot of money, too: The price of gas and oil heat is expected to jump 30% or more this winter. But a heat pump can efficiently heat your home — even on the coldest New England winter day — without burning fossil fuels. 

What is a heat pump? It’s essentially an air conditioner that can also run in reverse. In summer, like an air conditioner or refrigerator, it removes heat from your home. And in winter, as long as there is some heat energy in the air — and there’s always some, until we reach absolute zero, a.k.a. negative 273º Celsius — the outdoor condenser pulls whatever heat it can find out of the atmosphere and uses a special refrigerant to send that warmth inside to the blower unit.  

Global warming is increasingly contributing to the frequency and intensity of weather events, resulting in significant consequences for the U.S. Rising seas and rain events that can last for days are causing flood events threatening quality of life. Roads are washed away and infrastructure, utilities, and emergency services are all at risk from these worsening weather events. Reliable infrastructure is essential to the economic prosperity, sustainability, and security of communities across the United States.

Last month the First Street Foundation released its third national risk assessment, Infrastructure on the Brink, in which flood risk vulnerability is measured by city and county. In-depth information for Massachusetts’ at-risk neighborhoods by zip code, city, and county can be found at FloodFactor.com.

In March 2020, in the name of health and safety, my family temporarily retired our reusable grocery bags. Quincy had passed a plastic bag ban three months prior, but then we were back to single-use plastic. In August of 2020, after the CDC confirmed that surface transmission of COVID was not a threat, the state brought back local bans on single-use plastic bags and allowed for reusable plastic bags again.

We were ready, reusable bags in hand. We were ready to go back to focusing on saving the planet, reducing our carbon footprint, reducing our reliance on plastic. And we hoped that our local supermarkets, big box stores, and pharmacies would start again to encourage reusable bags. We hoped we wouldn’t have to see the flimsy plastic bags of the “before times.” Yet that hasn’t been entirely the case.

Some of the roads in Quincy look different lately – they are decked out with green paint and green posts. What’s going on? The answer is that Quincy streets are slowly becoming more complete. A “Complete Street” is one that provides safe and accessible options for all travel modes – foot, bicycle, public transit, and vehicles – to people of all ages and abilities. If a street has bike lanes like the ones newly installed in Quincy, biking is the fun choice to get where you’re going – as well as the environmentally friendly one! 

In 2018 Quincy adopted a new Complete Streets policy, and in 2019 the Commonwealth awarded Quincy over $300,000 of Complete Streets Grant Funding. The locations redesigned with that funding include: