January 1, 2020

Late last year, at a time when governments everywhere were working on solutions to the worldwide climate emergency, the Quincy City Council took a vote that will only worsen the situation.

The problem: The city’s new ban on single-use plastic bags, as currently worded, will drive consumers towards paper bags, whose manufacture results in four times as much greenhouse gas pollution as that of single-use plastic bags.

The good news: The ban doesn’t take effect until March 1, so it’s not too late for the city to revise the plastic bag ordinance. Continue reading →

12/11/2019

Dear Editor:

The year 2019 has seen massive floods and wildfires in the US and around the globe. Glaciers and the polar ice caps continue to recede, raising sea levels ever higher. A summer heat wave in Europe caused killed thousands of people. Crops died in the fields from lack of rain or too much of it, and from increasingly unpredictable weather patterns. Plant and animal species went extinct, with the World Wildlife Fund estimating up to 100,000 extinctions per year in recent years–between 1,000 and 10,000 times the natural extinction rate. Continue reading →

On October 17, 2019, QCAN held a Candidates’ Night at United First Parish Church exploring local environmental issues. Eleven city councilor candidates participated, along with mayoral candidate Brenda Ryan and Mayor Koch’s chief of staff, Chris Walker. They discussed responding to climate science, recycling and food waste collection, net-zero building standards, electric vehicles in Quincy, climate preparedness, and leading by example. Several incumbents mentioned QCAN’s advocacy in connection with the city’s progress in addressing climate change.

View a video of the full program on QCAN’s Youtube page or click these direct links for shorter videos of: Continue reading →

Update: Dr. Templer’s talk is online here.

New England is known for its forests. For the blaze of color that explodes every fall, the dazzling stillness of a newly fallen snow, the austere refuge that drew Thoreau to “live deliberately” by Walden Pond.

But what will become of these iconic landscapes in a warming world? Pamela Templer, a biology professor at Boston University, will discuss her research on the topic at a free public lecture on Tuesday, October 29, 2019, at 7 pm. The talk will be held at the Thomas Crane Library at 40 Washington Street in Quincy and is co-sponsored by the Quincy Climate Action Network, Fore River Residents Against the Compressor Station, and the library.

(Image: bluepoint – Flickr, CC BY 2.0)

The research has important implications for New England. “I think of our forests as natural filters,” says Templer. Trees pull pollutants out of the air, draw the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and lock it in their wood and roots, and soak up pollutants from soils, preventing them from contaminating waterways.

Continue reading →

Save the date! QCAN will once again be hosting a Candidates’ Night focused on environmental and climate issues for city council and mayoral candidates. Join us at the Church of the Presidents at Quincy Center from 7 to 9 pm on Thursday, October 17, 2019. If you can’t make it, check out our YouTube channel after the event for videos of candidates’ answers.

September 10, 2019

Quincy Climate Action Network, Fore River Residents Against Compressor Station, and the Thomas Crane Public Library will celebrate Climate Week 2019 with a lecture by John Rogers, senior energy analyst at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). Rogers will speak on the promise of offshore wind power for the New England economy as well as the global environment. The lecture will take place at 7 p.m. on Tuesday September 24 at the library’s main branch, 40 Washington Street in Quincy Center. Admission is free, and all are welcome.

Continue reading →

QuincyCAN volunteers meet monthly, and our meetings are open to the public. They normally occur at 7 pm on the second Wednesday of the month at the Houghs Neck Community Center. But on September 11, 2019, the meeting will be held in the upstairs community room at the Stop & Shop on Southern Artery at 7 pm.