Against a backdrop of protesters vehemently opposing bad proposals to bring energy from Canada into New England, governors from the six New England states this week demonstrated their commitment to a clean energy future for our region. They resolved to pool their buying power, regionally, for renewable energy. This will boost wind and solar energy, among other clean sources, at the best available price — a much-needed step on our path to affordable renewable energy and independence from dirty fossil fuels.

The resolution was announced at the 36th annual meeting of New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers, held July 29th and 30th in Burlington, Vermont. The protesters outside the meeting had the attention of high-ranking officials from Canada, whose energy system has been linked with ours – in small ways so far – for decades.  That linkage could grow dramatically in the future, for mutual benefit.  Eastern Canada has the potential to serve markets all over New England with low-carbon, low-cost and clean electricity from renewable sources. And New England needs it, if we get it on the right terms.

The wrong terms are exemplified by the Trailbreaker proposal and the Northern Pass transmission project, the two Canadian energy proposals galvanizing protesters outside the meetings in Burlington. Trailbreaker would send slurry oil derived from tar sands in Western Canada to Portland, Maine by reversing the flow of the Portland-to-Montreal pipeline that has cut across Quebec, Vermont, New Hampshire and Maine since it was built over 50 years ago. Northern Pass would cut a route running the length of New Hampshire, including through the White Mountains, for a high-voltage DC transmission line to deliver Canadian hydropower to parts of New England. In both cases, the environmental burdens far outweigh any benefits for our region.

However, long-term supplies of hydro, wind and other sources of power – that respect and significantly benefit the landscape through which they are transmitted, support rather than undermine the development of New England’s own renewable energy resources, replace coal  and other dirty fuels, keep the lights on at reasonable cost, and accurately account for their impacts – are what New England needs. The details will be complicated, but they can be worked out.

Conversations inside the meeting were tilting in the direction of such productive cross-border cooperation, and the announcement of a regional resolution to bring clean, affordable energy to New England may have provided some salve for the protesters. Still, we need to continue to be vigilant about Trailbreaker and Northern Pass and we will spend the effort to defeat them if we must. But any effort spent on these deeply-flawed proposals –whether advancing them or fighting them – is an unfortunate use of precious time for both countries, given the urgent call of climate change.

The sooner we get to the task of building our shared clean energy future the better, for New Englanders and our friends to the north.

This week, along with millions of Americans, I will cheer at a parade, join a BBQ, and watch fireworks. I will do this with my family, in a familiar place, with familiar faces, and celebrate this most American of holidays.

July 4th has always meant a great deal to me, first as an American boy growing up, and now as an American environmentalist. It is a great holiday because it is a holiday that makes us proud of what we’ve accomplished. Independence. Self reliance. Prosperity.

These values are often associated with places: when we think of America, we think of the icons of America. Yellowstone. Zion. And New England’s very own Acadia National Park. As Americans, preserving these natural treasures is among our proudest accomplishments. Our oceans should be no different. Here, in the Gulf of Maine, we have George’s Bank, Stellwagen Bank, and Cashes Ledge – a spectacular undersea mountain range – where you find steep canyons, deep kelp forests, and vibrant, charismatic marine life. Their beauty and majesty are breathtaking.

Why, then, do these special ocean places not stir us like our special places on land? I believe it’s because  we don’t see them. We don’t think of our underwater treasures as icons of America because we can’t light up our grill next to a kelp forest and watch seals swim by, like we can an eagle flying over head.

There can be no doubt that our oceans are national treasures. To help raise awareness – and to literally raise these places out of the sea and into our living rooms and offices – we have launched the New England Ocean Odyssey with National Geographic photographer Brian Skerry. The photos from this first-of-its-kind journey will show just how magnificent, and how fragile, the ocean can be. Indeed, they already have. This early collection of photos from Brian is only the beginning.

The photo of a sea star, featured above, is a bright burst of color against a dark backdrop – a firework against a night sky. The seal is part friend, part pastor, welcoming you and praying at the same time. And the image of the right whale bursts with strength. It swells with American pride.

Just as there is no doubt that our oceans are treasures, so too is there no doubt that they are being damaged. Bottom trawlers damage huge swaths of the ocean floor with their heavy chains, doors and dredges, likened by some scientists to a bulldozer scraping the delicate floor of a pristine forest. New England’s oceans are rising much faster than predicted. They are also becoming more acidic from harmful greenhouse gas emissions. Recent record increases in precipitation may even be fundamentally altering plankton production, jeopardizing the very productivity of our marine web of life.

As you celebrate Independence Day this week, and think about America’s independence, think about what makes us proud to be Americans. Think about the pride we take in our National Parks, and the foresight we had to protect them and so many other treasured landscapes. And think about how much we depend on, but how little protection we give to, our oceans.

In our increasingly interdependent world, that is pushing the limits of our ecosystems, certain renewed forms of independence would be a good thing.

Independence from fossil fuels.

Independence from unhealthy food and transportation systems.

Independence from water-polluting infrastructure of all types.

The natural independence – and security – for our children and grandchildren, that flow from creating a truly sustainable future.

And independence that comes with the pride of protecting America’s natural resources – on land and under our shining sea.

Llike so many of us, I love New England’s ocean treasures. This July 4th, stand with CLF in remembering and protecting them, so our children and grandchildren can love them too.

Last week I stood in front of a group of young, energetic and extremely well qualified people and welcomed them as CLF’s 2012 summer interns – an act being repeated thousands of times around the country this summer. As I looked across the room at this highly talented group of young people, two thoughts occurred to me: among them are our future leaders, and our movement – the environmental movement – will be very different when they are standing in my position, welcoming interns to their organizations in the years ahead.

The movement certainly was different when I joined it, 35 years ago, as an intern with the Sierra Club. Working out of their DC office, I worked on issues related to Native Americans in Alaska. At the time, when the American environmental movement was still young, our issues were advanced primarily by litigation, by males, and by people who were predominantly well educated and white. That, thankfully, is no longer true.

Looking into the faces of our interns, I saw not just lawyers but city planners, economists and biologists. I saw people from all over the country, and people from all walks of life. Their toolbox is larger and more refined, their network larger and more informed than ours was 35 years ago. Looking around the room, at the new members of CLF’s family, I thought: some of these people will change the world. Of that I am convinced.

I also have little doubt that our movement will continue to change, as it has during my lifetime. In talking to these interns, I wondered: what advice could I give them, and people like them at other environmental organizations across the country? What advice could I give to young people hoping to enter the movement? I have three suggestions.

**

Be aggressive. Be creative.

Many people are hired as interns for specific projects that match their interests and the needs of the organization. This is a good thing, certainly. But it has been my observation that people often find their calling – where their skills and their passion combine with their work – when they least expect it. A career is often made not of straight lines, but of surprise turns that, once taken, are committed to.

Be aggressive in pursuing that which interests you. So long as you get your assigned work done, everyone will benefit from you going the extra mile and pursuing your interests.

Let it change. Help us grow.

Just like any movement, our movement needs to change so as to remain effective and fresh. Innovation and change occur because people have new ideas, and new people join the movement.

We have been successful as a movement, but the challenges facing us remain systemic and, at times, daunting. We need change; we should welcome and encourage innovation.

How do you do this as an intern? Become an advocate. Recruit your friends. Don’t settle for a system you think is broken. Make a ruckus, and make it as loud or as quiet as you need to be effective.

Be substantive.  Communicate well.

People trust others who know their stuff. Learn the details. Understand the science behind the positions we take. Learn the policy-making and regulatory processes you’re working with. There is no substitute for depth of knowledge and understanding of nuance. But hone your ability to explain what you know to ordinary people. It’s an art, and it takes constant practice. It is essential. An expert in isolation is a waste of an expert; and expert who can make her depth of knowledge readily understood is a gem.

**

On the day I greeted our new interns, someone else greeted my son as he began his internship in Chicago. I hope that person felt about him as I do about our interns: here at CLF is one of our new great leaders.

I’d like to think that CLF is fertile ground for nurturing environmental advocates. Among the ranks of our alumni are the leaders of companies, leading environmental advocates, leading public servants, and two current, long-standing CLF staff members who started as interns and never left.

To all those working for us this summer, I say: welcome to the CLF family. Now, go out and change the world. Make New England, and our world, thrive.

An urban garden -- precisely what we need more of. Photo courtesy of Tony Fischer Photography @ flickr.

It began with our tomatoes. As I’ve written before, my wife and I are avid gardeners and have grown tomatoes many times before but these – these tomatoes were proving difficult to grow. This was not due to the plants, but due to me and to the setting in which we were growing them: the rooftop of our apartment building in the city of Somerville, MA.

My wife and I had decided to grow tomatoes in containers on our roof for the same reasons many do: we wanted to continue our hobby after moving to the city, and we wanted fresh vegetables we had grown our selves. Much like catching a trout on a fly you yourself have tied, there is something immensely gratifying about this sort of self-reliance. The tomatoes just taste better.

But they did prove difficult. Growing tomatoes in plastic buckets on a black roof under the summer sun requires mastering the art of properly irrigating your plants. First we watered them too much. Then we watered them too little. I remember at one point standing over my plants, wondering at what I had done wrong, and looking enviously at the elaborate, automatic watering system my engineering neighbor had constructed and perfected for her tomatoes. Finally, we got it right.

Adapting to growing a garden on an urban roof, not a field in Vermont, proved to be a challenge. And I learned some lessons that help me to understand some of CLF’s work better.

We need to grow food in areas we don’t think of as farmland. As I hear more about urban agriculture growing in our cities, the more I am convinced that our cities are fertile ground for growing food. Cities are not only sites of consumption, but also of production, and are essential to a strong regional food system. Just as we support traditional New England farms, so too should we support community gardens, rooftop gardens, porch and patios plantings, and other urban horticulture. To eat in the city, we need to grow in the city.

As I look around, I see plenty of evidence that we’re on the way to making this happen.

Many of the staff at CLF are growing their own food: a few have plots in community gardens, one works for a CSA in Concord, MA, many have gardens, one raises goats, another a slew of barn animals, while plenty others have small porch or window plantings at their apartments and homes.

I know we’re not alone, either. Young people are turning to farming not just as avocation but as vocation. They’re tilling rural soil, certainly, but also planting new beds amongst our city streets. It’s a new generation, in more ways than one.

I also see more CSAs now than I ever noticed before. My wife and I have been members of several CSAs for a number of years, in Burlington, VT, and Boston, MA. Now, I see more access, in more areas, to the kinds of food provided by these CSAs than ever before.

We participate in food systems whether we choose to or not, by virtue of the fact that we all eat. And, as the old saying goes, you are what you eat. Phrased slightly differently, food is at the heart of many of our problems: our thirst for fossil fuels, our polluting farm infrastructure, economic inequity and the obesity epidemic. If we fix our food problem, we make it easier to fix some of these other problems as well.

In the current issue of Conservation Matters, there is an article about how CLF and CLF Ventures are working to improve our regional food system. As I said in my president’s letter, “sustainable agriculture, when applied to cities, makes them more resilient, economically vibrant and livable.”

Standing on my rooftop, viewing my tomatoes, this struck me as true: we need to grow more food in areas we don’t think of as farmland. We will be more vibrant as a region, stronger as communities, and healthier as individuals.

I received that message this week. It came in two parts. The first part was delivered by a polite and efficient Somerville, MA police officer, in the form of the below ticket. I had blown right through a red light.

The second part was the irony that hit me as his blue lights were flashing: Just last week I posted this blog post, about how far we’ve come in Boston toward a safe and respectful bike commuting environment, in part because cyclists tend to follow the rules far more regularly than they did in the past.

I am guilty. No question about it. It doesn’t matter that the move I made was safe – to me and others – and likely promoted efficiency because I got out of the way of traffic before the waiting cars started moving through the intersection. I violated the rules that we have developed to govern our competing demands on a shared resource: our roadways.

I am blowing the whistle on myself for a few reasons, but principally to make a simple argument: the rule of law is not only necessary, but immensely helpful. We should respect it. Now, to those reasons.

First, the experience gave me the opportunity to reflect on how subjective we all get when using the roads. I bike, and I drive. When biking, I am often amazed at how quickly I fall into the mindset that all drivers are the problem, and when driving how quick I am to note the bad moves of the cyclists on the road.  You may know what I mean.

Test yourself: are you, or is any one, really capable of innately respecting the rights of all users of a shared resource when we are users ourselves?

Which leads to the second point: this is why we have laws. They govern situations that humans are not entirely capable of governing in the absence of law. The rule of law is, in my view, one of the greatest human inventions yet. It is the fundamental underpinning of so much of a civil society, including the rational sharing of scarce, common resources subject to multiple demands, for the greater good of all.

Resources like clean water. Like marine fisheries. Like clean air for all who breathe. Like a healthy economy for the welfare of all. Like justice. And like safe streets and other public investments in transportation.

If we don’t like the rules we should not flaunt them, we should work to change them. Some innovations worth watching are now in the works.  France, for example, appears to be experimenting with new rules that would allow cyclists to go through red lights in some situations, where clearing the intersection of cyclists before cars start up might actually make for safer conditions.

I don’t know if that’s right or wrong. But I do know it was wrong for me to adopt that rule for myself. Civil society, operating under the rule of law, can’t work that way. Open respectful debate, and thoughtful engagement in our democracy and participation in the governing process – that’s how we develop the rules we use to promote the general good of the body politic.

We at CLF are engaged in that sort of work in every one of our states, to promote what we and our members (and many more) believe is the general good of society, and we’re proud to do it. Especially in the election season that is now upon us, we invite all to join in the process on whatever issue excites you. It’s good for all of us, and necessary if we’re going to address the challenges we face effectively, and together. And that’s how it has to be done.

CLF President John Kassel in front of the MA State House on his commute from work.

Every year, environmentalists and the public alike celebrate Earth Day in late April. It is a day with a long, proud history – a day when, for a brief moment, we share our environmental concern with a broader public. But let’s be clear: one day is not enough.

This year marks more than 40 years since the first Earth Day, 50 years since Silent Spring, and 20 years since the Rio Earth Summit. The mounting environmental threats we face as a region, and as a nation, cannot be dealt with in a day. They require sustained effort towards a sustainable future. They require every one of us to do our part, every day.

That may sound daunting, but here’s one solution that’s as easy as walking or riding a bike: one of the best things you can do for the environment is to bike more, to walk more, or to take public transportation. This Earth Day, give your car a rest.

There’s no question that driving is a strain on our environment, our economy and our health. Transportation is the largest US consumer of petroleum, accounting for twenty percent of US greenhouse gas emissions. High prices aren’t slowing us down, either: last year Americans spent $481 billion on gas, a record high. That’s in part because the number of “extreme commuters”— those who travel ninety minutes or more each way—have been the fastest-growing category.

For all the money (and time) spent, it’s not making us happy. Drawing on a body of research, David Brooks wrote in the NY Times that “The daily activity most injurious to happiness is commuting.” Nor is it making us healthy. Commuting by car raises people’s risk of obesity, increases their exposure to pollution, reduces air quality through hazardous air pollution, and reduces sleep and exercise. Across the US, vehicle exhaust accounts for 55% of nitrogen oxides, and 60% of carbon monoxide emissions. For those driving, and the 25 million Americans living with asthma, this is a bad thing. These reasons and many more, CLF is proud to be affiliated with the Environmental Insurance Agency (EIA) that offers discounted insurance rates for those who drive less.

The portrait is clear: driving is one of the most polluting things we do nearly every day – and we don’t even think about it. If you want to celebrate Earth Day, drive less.

I’ve been a bike commuter my entire adult life. I rode to work in Boston in the mid-1980’s, and now, 25 years later, I’m doing it again. I can tell you that the over those years, the biking culture here in Boston has changed dramatically. When I first began riding, it was very common for me to stop at an intersection and be the only bike commuter. Now, I’m almost always part of a large pack.

A MassBike fact sheet claims that “in 2000, 0.52% of Massachusetts workers 16 and older (15,980 people total) used a bicycle to get to work.” Meanwhile, the League of American Cyclists claims that between 2000 and 2009 bike ridership in Boston increased by 118%. This rise makes sense, given the efforts by Boston’s bike-supporting Mayor Menino and his bike Czar Nicole Freedman, under whose tenure the city of Boston has installed more than 50 miles of bike lanes. Boston’s great bike sharing program, Hubway, also undoubtedly helps. After having been named one of the country’s worst biking cities by Bicycling magazine, last year they named us one of the country’s 26 best.

There’s no doubt we’ve come a long way. Back when I began riding to work in Boston, there was a fend-for-yourself, cowboy sort of attitude. That’s all changed, and for the better. Cyclists follow the rules far more frequently now. This makes for safer travel for all, and gains respect among drivers and the general public for this alternative form of transportation. Biking shares the road, and also reduces the need for public expenditures on roads. By encouraging biking, we make the most of our shared investment in transportation.

We need the same increase in respect for other forms of transit, like buses, subways and trains, which also help us get the most out of our transportation dollars. Instead of continuing to build infrastructure that funnels everyone onto roads across New England, in their cars, we need to share our transportation resources, for our benefit, and the planet’s.

We also need to optimize our transit system for walking, for biking, for trains and for buses. And we need to treat all forms of transportation equally. As CLF’s former President Doug Foy once said at UVA’s Miller Center, “It’s always amazed me that we refer to driving, roads and bridges and then everything else an alternative form of transportation.” Indeed. Isn’t walking the primary form, for all of us? The one we first learned to use? All of these “alternatives” should be equal forms of transportation, with equal access for all.

The growth of urban biking is due in large part, in recent years, to the power of numbers. And the improvement in bikers’ attitudes also continues to help: if you give respect, you get respect. But there’s also something else going on here: You can’t keep a good idea down. Let’s consider a few stats:

• A short, four-mile round trip by bicycle keeps about 15 pounds of pollutants out of the air we breathe. Source: MassBike.
• A 15-minute bike ride to and from work five times a week burns off the equivalent of 11 pounds of fat in a year. Source: MassBike.
• Individuals who switch from driving to taking public transit can save, on average $10,120 this year, and up to $844 a month. Source: American Public Transportation Association APTA

Who wouldn’t want to save money, improve their health, and save the earth? A newspaper put it well when they ran a headline that said, “Commuting to work is ‘bad for your health’ (unless you cycle or go by foot…).”

This Earth Day, ditch the car and pick up your bike. Or go for a walk. And then, when it comes time to go back to work, keep on riding. I’ll see you on the road.

Photo courtesy of Putneypics @ flickr. Creative Commons.

A couple of weeks ago I met a young farmer near Rutland, VT who was stunned to be out plowing his fields in the month of March. At that time the fields are usually knee-deep muddy, if not still covered in snow, ice or the slow-melting crust of the long winter. He was stunned:  if he plows and plants now, what’s going to happen next? How will his crops respond? Should he wait, for something more like a “normal” planting season to return?

These are questions that thousands of us gardeners across New England have been struggling with lately, in the wake of an unseasonably warm spell, and a winter that broke records first for early snowfall, and then low overall snowfall and high temperatures. Looking out our windows when the weather warms, we are drawn to one place: the soil – we long to get our hands in the dirt, and smell the wonderful scents of spring. For the farmer I mentioned above, the decision wasn’t just recreational or therapeutic; the crops for the CSA he recently founded with his partner were at risk. He had to plan carefully, not knowing what lies ahead.

In Vermont, where my wife and I have tended our garden for years, you start your seeds on Town Meeting Day and plant on Memorial Day. But this year, that timeline is way off.

Recently, for the first time in 22 years, the U.S. Department of Agriculture released an updated version of its Plant Hardiness Zone Map. The map charts average winter minimum temperatures, or cold intensity. What this map confirmed in VT is what we have observed anecdotally across New England and the United States: that our world is warming, as this map by the Arbor Day Foundation shows vividly. For the first time in VT, for instance, zone 5b has crept into the southern edges of our state. And the south coast of Connecticut, Rhode Island and Massachusetts includes zone 7a, which is also found in Northern Alabama. The commentary on the new map carefully avoids concluding the shifts are the results of climate change; most gardeners will draw their own conclusions.

For me, the question of whether or not to plant returned me to a question about my greenhouse. Previous owners of our house built a small, traditional greenhouse that helped with the slow and wet transition from winter to spring, with consistency and in the same place for 15 years. It succumbed to the elements recently, and we decided to try smaller, portable hoop houses over our raised beds. They’re more suitable to highly variable temperatures. Where once a rigid structure suited our weather and our needs, that’s no longer the case. We need to be more flexible. More adaptable.

This winter ranks as the 4th warmest nationally since the late 1880s, when climatologists began keeping records. People still consider Memorial Day as a safe time to plant, but the average last frost day is 10 days prior, as Vern Grubinger, University of Vermont Extension vegetable and berry specialist, said in this Brattelboro Reformer article.

What happens when you plan according to tradition, but the seasonal calendar is out of kilter? What happens when convention no longer suits our contemporary reality? These are questions of adaptation, and they apply to backyard gardens – and also flood zone mapping, transportation, and almost everything we do in the natural world. We have to start building differently, for a different world.

And so I wanted to ask you – CLF members, and members of the public alike – how are you adapting? What have you done with your garden this spring?  Are you anticipating odd weather in the months ahead? How will you respond? Please share your comments here and share your photos with us on our Facebook page.

I look forward to hearing from you. And happy planting.

A few weeks ago I attended a conference in Washington, DC that brought together environmental groups from all over the country. In speaking with my colleagues, I was reminded of how this country is a patchwork quilt: each of us brought a unique set of challenges, a strong independent sense of identity, and solutions to regional challenges – solutions that are sometimes adopted at the national level. This certainly is true of New England.

Over the last year, two events have emphasized the importance of interregional coordination. In the process, they have reminded me of New England’s long history of regional cooperation to advance nation leading clean energy projects, and of the way in which those have been adopted on the national stage.

The first of these issues is FERC Order 1,000 – a significant reform to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission’s position on “electric transmission planning and cost allocation requirements for public utility transmission providers” issued in June of 2010. That Order, and material explaining it, can be found on the FERC website. The new rules announced in that Order mandate that utilities operating wholesale electricity systems across the country engage in a process of regional planning. Here in New England, we have been doing that for as long, if not longer, than anywhere else in the country, so that part of the order will prompt new regional innovations largely elsewhere in the country. Another part of the order instructs regional operators of the electric grid to consider the public policy mandates of the states in their region in the planning they do for their part of the grid. The New England states have a variety of innovative policies intended to bring about a clean energy future. How our regional grid operator accounts for those in its planning is very likely to break ground for the rest of the country.

Similarly, the recent breakthrough settlement agreement by the Patrick Administration in the proposed merger between NStar and Northeast Utilities also reminded me of the need for regional coordination. Consider the scale of the proposed utility: As The Boston Globe reported, “the proposed $17.5 billion merger… would create the largest utility in the region, [and serve] nearly 3.5 million electric and gas customers from Westport, Conn., to Pittsburg, N.H., near the Canadian border.”

With a reach extending from southern Connecticut to Northern New Hampshire by way of Boston, the resulting utility has obligations under a variety of critical state policies intended to protect the environment and build a resilient clean energy economy. The right to operate as a state-sanctioned monopoly is conditioned on the utility meeting those obligations. The initial terms of the proposed merger did not meet those requirements; the merger as revised by the settlement, as my colleague Sue Reid said, “ensures that this powerful new utility will be in lockstep with Massachusetts’ nation-leading clean energy policies and propel the state forward instead of backwards in implementing them.”

This cases highlight the need for advocacy groups to be able to field their teams  on a scale and in a manner that that rises to the challenge of the moment. The NU/NStar merger required us to play on a regional scale; FERC Order 1,000 provides a chance to use the federally regulated planning process to advance critical state policies that are designed to build a cleaner and thriving New England. The challenges we face, and the institutions we engage (like utilities), are large and extend across our region and beyond, not respecting traditional boundaries. CLF must meet this challenge with size, scale, intentions, goals, and strategies that are appropriately sized to meet those challenges.

Given New England’s strong tradition of leadership on energy and environmental issues, I have confidence we have the tools required. However, as my conversations in DC emphasized, what is appropriate here in New England is not appropriate for every region.

Given the differences between the various regions of the country, and various areas within those regions, I wonder: To what extent can we successfully plot a common future? These questions are as relevant within New England as between regions.

Driving south from Acadia National Park in Maine or Hanover, New Hampshire, or east from Springfield, MA and Hartford, CT the scenery changes, the weather warms and the population becomes more dense. Though each place is in New England, each feels very different – and, if you ask someone on the street, chances are they’ll tell you just how unique and independent their town or city is. The same is true as you travel north from Atlanta or NYC to Boston, or east from Chicago or San Francisco. Within New England, as within our country, our differences can be easier to see than our shared future, but it is the latter that requires our attention.

More and more, we have the tools. That puts us in a good position to work together, town by town, region by region, for a thriving New England, and a thriving country.

As some of you may know, I had one of those painful (and thankfully rare) life experiences this month that reinforce our natural instinct that people matter most of all in life. Thank you all for your kind wishes and support. It made a big difference.

Although that experience was personal, the same message – people matter most – is worth taking to heart in our professional lives. Our work colleagues are “family” in a sense; we help one another grow and thrive. In addition, in order to achieve CLF’s collective mission we need to connect with people who care about New England like we do – people precisely like you. We won’t succeed without you.

Brain Skerry @ the NEw England Boat Show with CLF.

Getting out to meet people where they live, work, and play is something we’re doing that right now at the New England Boat Show. CLF has a booth where the CLF family is meeting new people and talking about the wonders of New England’s oceans and the need for people to rally in support of them.

I’m very pleased to introduce the gentleman in the CLF vest, whom you may not recognize. He’s Brian Skerry, and you’re going to be seeing a lot more of him. He’s a world-renowned underwater photographer whose pictures have appeared many times on the cover of National Geographic. (He was signing his books at our table here; the girl in the yellow sweatshirt is reacting to his photos.) And he’s going to be our ambassador (and photographer) for the New England Ocean Odyssey – a project conceived and soon to be launched by our Ocean Conservation program team. It will take people on a journey beneath New England’s waves, and bring them to the surface fired up to protect and improve our marine environment.

CLF's Roberta Gilbert

It will also take us – CLF – on a journey, into person-to-person engagement. Here’s Roberta Gilbert, making friends for us. She was terrific! We at CLF will all be good at it – I’m sure of that – because we at CLF believe in what we’re doing. That’s the most important thing. You can’t promote effectively what you don’t believe in, and enthusiasm is infectious. Everything else is detail.

And why? It’s worth reminding ourselves. We cannot succeed without more people in our tent, providing activism for our advocacy, financial contributions, legal standing, moral support, and energy, ideas and enthusiasm. It’s everyone’s New England, after all, that we want to help thrive.

And so join us. We’ll be more successful, and it’ll be more fun.