If you love the Earth, free music and great food, you should be at Earthfest on the Hatch Shell this Saturday! This annual event, presented courtesy of Radio 92.9, features hundreds of environmentally-friendly vendors and sponsors along with local non-profits doing work right in your backyard, such as your favorite non-profit CLF! Stop by our booth for a face painting of your favorite oceanic creature or fill out a ticket for a chance at a great prize or just chat with one of our many dedicated staffers about the work we’re doing across the region. We’ll be located in the non-profit exhibitor area between the Main Events area and the Vendor Cafe. The event will also feature free music from some great groups such as Eve 6, Third Eye Blind, Switchfoot and more. For the complete list of musical acts, please see here. Details: Radio 92.9 EarthFest Saturday, May 19 10 a.m. – 4 p.m. Hatch Shell, Boston, MA Directions So come out and show your support for CLF and New England’s environment this weekend! Hope to see you there!

A fairly accurate critique of climate advocates and global warming advocacy can be that we can be a bit depressing.  This is not surprising when we are telling a story about how current trends will lead to large portions of the world becoming uninhabitable and sea levels rising to swallow many of our coastal cities and every day another study comes out that shows even the unenforceable and aspirational pledges by our governments will not be met and we face “potentially disastrous consequences.” But an different and reoccurring theme in work around climate is interesting interaction with “adult” beverages like wine, beer and other alcoholic beverages – and not just because it is tempting to give up and just spend the day drinking. There is the story of a leading climate scientist who is also a wine expert – and therefore the leading voice on the impact of global warming on the production of wine – a very serious matter when you consider that changing climate will undermine the ability of centuries old vineyards to thrive. Similar concerns bedevil the world of beer, where a changing climate endangers the production of the hops that are the heart of quality beer. read more…

Maine lobsterman Richard Nelson on getting involved with the National Ocean Policy and a weekly roundup of interesting fish- and fishing-related stories. read more..

We are in the midst of a massive, historic retreat in the nation’s use of coal to produce electricity, which began in 2008. This ongoing shift away from our dirtiest fuel has made news around the country. The primary reason: coal-fired power plants – expensive new facilities and decades-old dinosaurs alike – can’t compete in today’s marketplace. Investors and customers are moving toward cleaner, cheaper alternatives, principally natural gas but also renewables (especially wind) and high-tech ways of reducing energy use. The national trend is occurring here in New Hampshire and throughout New England. This week, New Hampshire learned that PSNH is not operating its flagship coal plant, Merrimack Station in Bow, and that its economic prospects are not good. In fact, the plant will sit completely idle for six months of 2012, prompting the Manchester Union Leader to run the headline, “PSNH’s Bow power plant shuts down.” (The word “temporarily” was later added to the online story.) The two coal boilers at PSNH’s Schiller Station in Portsmouth will operate even less. (The Nashua Telegraph also took note.) This is welcome and long overdue relief for New Hampshire from New England’s top toxic polluter, and it would not have happened without legal pressure from read more…

We’re thrilled to be co-sponsoring Majora Carter’s public presentation “Home(town) Security” on Wednesday, May 9, at 7:00 p.m. in Concord, New Hampshire.  A pioneer of sustainability in the South Bronx, Majora has been a champion of identifying and implementing creative local solutions to make communities healthy, vibrant places for all people. Majora founded Sustainable South Bronx in 2001, introducing green solutions to build healthier, more sustainable communities with creative solutions like greenbelts, rooftop gardens and bike paths.  Her work earned her a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship (“Genius Award”) in 2005. Since 2008, Majora’s consulting company has exported climate adaptation, urban micro-AgriBusiness and leadership development strategies for business, government, foundations, universities and economically under-performing communities.  Majora hosts the Peabody Award winning public-radio series “The Promised Land.” Come learn about the inspiring story of Majora’s work as an “eco-entrepreneur,” using local solutions to create green, local jobs that make communities more resilient.  The event is free, but please register at www.nhplanners.org. When: Wednesday, May 9, 2012, 7:00 p.m. Where: Grappone Conference Center, 70 Constitution Ave, Concord, NH

The end of any legislative session is tumultuous. Vermont’s citizen legislature, that meets part-time only a few months each year, is no different. In this year’s end-of-session tumult, progress on clean energy was left on the cutting room floor. This is a big disappointment. The same legislature that made skiing and snowboarding Vermont’s official winter sports failed to pass legislation that would keep those sports off the endangered list. The Vermont Legislature stripped the Renewable Energy Standard from the energy bill it approved. Renewable standards require utilities to help address climate change by providing their customers with a certain percentage of power from clean, renewable sources. The more power we get from clean sources, the less power we get from older and dirtier fossil fuel plants. Twenty-nine states, including every other New England state, already have renewable standards, but Vermont is left behind in the dark ages of dirty power. Throughout the session, CLF worked closely with other environmental organizations, business leaders and renewable developers to put in place a meaningful renewable standard so Vermont’s electric power users can do more to reduce carbon. The urgency of the climate crisis demands strong action. There will be opportunities to move further read more…

Until the last week or so, it’s been a dry spring here in Maine and so most of us have welcomed the recent spate of rain. But as I rode past the Back Cove and the East End Wastewater treatment plant in Portland this morning, it was hard not to think about the downside of all this rain–the runoff from streets, rooftops and other hard surfaces that overwhelms our sewer system and treatment facilities and washes untreated right into Back Cove and Casco Bay, carrying pollutants like oil, metals, waste and other accumulated debris along with it. It’s no surprise that these concerns might occur to me, given CLF’s long-standing involvement in tackling this issue, but it doesn’t take an advocate to see the need for action. For Chris Aceto, CLF’s landlord here at 47 Portland Street in Portland’s Bayside neighborhood, a recent article by Seth Koenig of the Bangor Daily News brought back some not so great memories of a dirtier Casco Bay and was a reminder that we still have a lot of work to do: “I am 46. My mother used to take me to the East End Beach when I was 6 which would have been read more…

A keystone to CLF’s work to secure a clean energy future for the region is completing the transition to a coal-free New England. It is a time of historic progress: cleaner, cheaper alternatives are driving coal out of the market, and old coal plants are closing their doors. But Massachusetts remains a critical battleground for CLF’s work, with two costly old coal-fired power plants continuing to jeopardize public health and stoke climate change. That’s why we’re delighted to tell you about an event hosted by Cambridge City Councilor Marjorie Decker entitled “The True Cost of Energy: Coal.” Councilor Decker has invited the public to a panel discussing the true costs of coal and a free screening of the critically acclaimed documentary The Last Mountain in Cambridge, MA, on Wednesday, May 9. With stunning footage of the practice of mountaintop removal mining, the film bears dramatic witness to the social, public health, and environmental damage wrought by coal and power companies, and chronicles the grassroots fight against coal in Appalachia and around the country. The New York Times called The Last Mountain a “persuasive indictment” of coal; I think you’ll agree. The Last Mountain producer Eric Grunebaum will be on hand read more…

In a world where messages are sent instantaneously, it is hard to believe the time to consider (again) whether the continued operation of Vermont Yankee is good for Vermont would take more than a year. Entergy, Vermont Yankee’s owners, proposed a schedule to Vermont regulators that would have the case completed in just over eighteen months.   CLF argued for a shorter schedule noting that Entergy’s schedule was “roughly equivalent to the gestation period for elephants.”  This is simply too long. Most cases, including the previous Vermont Yankee proceeding at the Public Service Board and the recent federal trial for Vermont Yankee were completed in far less time.  In its ruling on May 4, the Vermont Public Service Board accepted the longer time-frame Entergy requested. It also provides for two separate rounds of hearings – one in February and a second in June. The Board also scheduled two public hearings where anyone interested can weigh in and provide input to the Board on whether Vermont Yankee should retire. Entergy’s foot dragging means Vermonters will wait an extra eighteen months before seeing this tired, old and polluting nuclear plant closed. That’s too bad. Especially since the plant was supposed to close on read more…

Another false claim by Entergy – the owner of the Vermont Yankee nuclear facility in Vermont – is laid to rest. On Monday, the ISO-New England came out with an important determination that Vermont Yankee is not needed for reliability of the electrical grid. This has been brewing for awhile and is quite significant since Entergy keeps claiming its tired old and polluting plant on the banks of the Connecticut River is needed for reliability. That claim is simply false. In a filing made with the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission, the ISO New England stated: “[T]he ISO determined that Vermont Yankee is not needed for reliability for the 2015-2016 Capacity Commitment Period. This determination is based on the expectation that certain transmission upgrades will be in place prior to the 2015-2016 Capacity Commitment Period as well as new resources which have been procured through the Forward Capacity Market.”  [see page 8-9 of this filing] This is a very important determination and is good news for New England’s clean energy future. It shows the transformation of our power grid to cleaner sources and away from older and polluting coal and nuclear plants. By way of explanation, the ISO New England operates the read more…