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  TalkingFish.org interviewed Mike Palmer, Northeast Fisheries Science Center fisheries biologist, about stock assessments.

  June 12 – Taking Stock of New England Fish: Part 4 – TalkingFish.org interviews Mike Palmer, Research Fisheries Biologist in the Population Dynamics Branch of the Northeast Fisheries Science Center. In this post, Mike Palmer answers our questions about best available science and the challenges of conducting fish stock assessments.

• June 15 – Fish Talk in the News – Friday, June 15 – Stories of interest this week: Discussion of a new marketing campaign for Maine lobster; NEFMC looking for a new executive director; GMRI raises awareness of underutilized local species; work begins to remove the Great Works Dam on the Penobscot River in Maine; record numbers of river herring and shad are returning to spawn in the Connecticut River; and a new study shows the Gulf of Maine’s productivity is decreasing due to climate change.

RIPTA bus. Source: Wikimedia commons.

The Senate Study Commission on Sustainable Transportation Funding held its second meeting of the year today. I sit on the Commission, having been appointed to the position by Senate President Teresa Paiva-Weed (D-Newport). Other Commission members include three senators, RIDOT Director Michael Lewis, and RIPTA CEO Charles Odimgbe.

CLF is interested in public transit because of our concern about climate change. Here in Rhode Island, the transportation sector is the largest contributor to greenhouse gas emissions and the fastest growing sector. Thus, any serious effort to address climate change must include a focus on transportation.

I am afraid that the Study Commission members are getting bogged down in the minutiae of how RIPTA runs. There was plenty of discussion at today’s session about small matters, such as whether RIPTA made a mistake seven years ago in cancelling one run of the weekend route between Providence and Newport.

At the end of today’s session, I tried to bring Study Commission members back to what the main points are that we need to remember. There are five main points.

First, RIPTA has the highest fares of any comparable transit agency in the country.

Second, we live in a country in which every public transit service is heavily dependent on government subsidies. Every transit system in small cities gets subsidized. Every medium-sized transit system (like RIPTA) gets subsidies. Every big-city transit system (like New York and San Francisco) gets subsidies. But RIPTA gets the lowest subsidies of any peer transit system in the country.

Third, RIPTA has seen substantial ridership increases in every category of rider in every recent year. Part of the reason for this is that gas prices are going up; part of the reason is that RIPTA is getting better. The bottom line is that RIPTA is taking more passengers on more rides than ever before.

Fourth, RIPTA is heavily dependent on the proceeds of the gasoline tax. RIPTA gets about $40 million annually from this source, and this is the largest single source of RIPTA revenue. But gas tax revenue is declining – in fact, the yield per penny of the gas tax decreased by almost 13% in just four years recently.

The fifth point is the most important. The purpose of the Senate Study Commission is to devise new, additional ways to fund transportation in Rhode Island – including RIPTA – sustainably. Our purpose is not to second-guess the agency about the minutiae of internal agency decisions. The Senate leadership charged us with the task of developing new, sustainable funding sources for RIPTA.

That task is especially timely right now. Three years ago the General Assembly charged RIPTA with developing a Five-Year Strategic Plan for service expansions and improvements. RIPTA did a superb job developing that plan – the plan includes new bus rapid transit on RIPTA’s two busiest routes, the #11 (Broad Street) and the # 99 (North Main Street); increasing the number of park-and-rides; and adding new buses on busy routes.

The Senate Study Commission needs to keep in mind why it was created. We were not created to get lost in the weeds and tiny details of a complex agency. We were created to recommend to the General Assembly new, sustainable funding sources for transportation funding in Rhode Island, including RIPTA.

Yesterday, National Public Radio reported on a severe toxic algae bloom that is plaguing a popular lake in Oklahoma.

The algae in Oklahoma was spurred by familiar factors – lower water levels in the lake due to higher  water consumption by people, hotter conditions and low rainfall attributable to climate change, and nutrient pollution swept into the lake by stormwater runoff from the surrounding land area.

What was new was to hear public officials acknowledge that the lack of clean water is hurting the local economy and impacting people’s health.

As NPR Reported:

“ Across the state, the lack of water has even cut into tourism. Low water levels in northeast Oklahoma’s Grand Lake resulted in a spike of toxic levels of blue-green algae.

Gov. Mary Fallin says this hit just as visitors were arriving for July 4 celebrations.

It took a toll on businesses and tourism at the lake itself,” Fallin says. ‘Some of the businesses I talked to at Grand Lake told me they saw a 50 percent drop in the number of people who were coming into their businesses.’”

As the CLF Scoop reported earlier this summer, U.S. Senator Jim Inhofe got sick after swimming amid the toxic blue-green algae in Grand Lake, and pinned his own illness on the algae.  Inhofe is known as one of the staunchest anti-environmentalists in Congress, and has opposed regulation to address climate change.  The Senator himself reportedly admitted the irony, suggesting that “the environment was fighting back.”

CLF hasn’t been sitting on the sidelines like some.  We’re fighting back against the sources of toxic algae blooms in New England – polluted stormwater runoff, inadequate management of sewage, and carbon dioxide emissions that accelerate climate change.  Reversing the devastating toxic algae blooms that regularly shut down bays along Cape Cod, Lake Champlain, New Hampshire’s Great Bay, Narragansett Bay in Rhode Island, and elsewhere throughout the region is a top priority for CLF.

Unfortunately, it has taken a crisis to convince some elected officials what CLF has known for years.  Clean water generates economic growth, health, and tourism, while creating outdoor spaces that nurture our spirit.

Why buy when you can save? Power saved through energy efficiency is widely available, clean, and costs approximately one half to one third the cost of buying electricity from a power plant. During a nine-month workshop process with regulators, utilities and businesses, CLF recommended Vermont invest in far greater efficiency to aggressively tackle high-energy bills, curb pollution and climate change, and provide a more secure energy future. While Vermont regulators acknowledged that greater efficiency pays for itself and avoids more expensive power purchases and transmission upgrades, they ultimately approved only a small increase for efficiency efforts.

The Board’s order is disappointing. A limited number of businesses opposed increasing efficiency. This opposition is short-sighted. The most successful businesses are also the most efficient. They represent opportunities for growing our economy and keeping jobs in Vermont and pollution out of Vermont. With more energy efficiency, we can support and grow our economy instead of throwing our energy dollars out the window. Efficiency investments provide savings through financial incentives for equipment, lighting, renovation, and construction that allows buildings and homes to use less energy.

Even with this limited increase, Vermont will remain a strong leader on electrical energy efficiency. Unfortunately, there are still too many savings left on the table. As a result, Vermonters will be paying too much and polluting too much to meet our power needs. We could easily make twice the investment we are making now, and that’s what we should be doing. The Board’s decision is a baby step in the right direction, but we still have a marathon to run.

With just one click of your mouse, you can help save 500 million barrels of oil, cut 250 million metric tons of carbon dioxide pollution, and produce $41 billion in net economic benefits.

Please take action today: Support EPA’s first-ever climate pollution and fuel economy standards for freight trucks and buses.

The deadline for comments is Monday, January 31st, so make sure your voice is heard.

Background

Last October, the EPA and the Department of Transportation (DOT) issued a joint proposal to adopt America’s first-ever climate pollution and fuel economy standards for freight trucks and buses.

These vehicles – from the largest pickups to 18-wheelers – use more than 100 million gallons of oil per day. They are also responsible for about 20% of the climate pollution from America’s transportation sector.

The new standards, which will apply to trucks and buses manufactured in model years 2014 to 2018, will help strengthen our economy, increase our national security and reduce dangerous air pollution. By 2030, the volume of projected daily oil savings from the proposed standards would be large enough to offset America’s oil imports from Iraq.

This proposal follows two previous actions by EPA and DOT to improve fuel efficiency and climate pollution standards for passenger cars and trucks.

The first announcement was in April, when the Obama administration adopted the first-ever national greenhouse gas emission standards for model year 2012-2016 cars and light trucks. The second announcement came in October with the announcement of a blueprint for new standards for model years 2017 to 2025.

CLF has led our region in pushing for these initiatives to reduce dangerous emissions from transportation and protect the health of all New Englanders. Please join CLF in supporting these new standards by submitting your comments to the EPA.

The public comment period ends January 31st, so add yours now.

The folks who deny that the globe is warming are fond of saying the computer models that show how our climate is changing are wrong.  It looks like they may be right – but not in they way they intend. The situation may be much worse as in-depth review of paleoclimate data (information about the changes in the earth’s climate stretching back millions of years) suggests that CO2 “may have at least twice the effect on global temperatures than currently projected by computer models” – which would mean that we could see changes in global average temperatures by 2100 that would render large sections of the earth uninhabitable.

Scary stuff that is described quite clearly by Joe Romm on his authoritative Climate Progress blog.

This science reinforces, yet again, the need to take aggressive action on a wide range of fronts to slash greenhouse gas emissions.

Regional is the new national. Solutions to the environmental problems that threaten our economy, our security and our health are not coming from Washington. Instead, they’re being forged by energetic and creative problem-solvers like CLF who work in regions and states and strive to create models for the rest of the country. This is CLF’s moment.

But we can’t do it small.

To be truly effective in the face of the unprecedented challenges facing New England, we need a movement behind us. We need neighborhoods standing up for their right to clean air and water, cities and towns demanding better transportation options, and a whole region clamoring for clean energy.

About a year ago, we started work to ensure that our story was clear and compelling and inclusive enough to engage a whole region in our mission. We began by asking employees and board members, partners and adversaries, long-time members and new friends what draws them to CLF. Resoundingly, we heard: “CLF protects my New England.”

This notion of protection is inherent in CLF’s brand: our region’s abundant natural resources, as well as its historic cities and towns, are in peril from the impacts of climate change and other realities of modern life. CLF has a long and successful history protecting New England’s environment – from a landmark lawsuit that prevented oil and gas drilling off of our shores to developing green car insurance that rewards people for driving less. At CLF, protection is not about keeping things the way they were. It anticipates the reality of a changing environment and is on the cutting edge of planning for it, to ensure that our region will continue to thrive. This kind of protection requires pragmatic, science-based approaches, fearless creativity, and a willingness to collaborate to find solutions to our most complex challenges.

To convey the many facets of CLF’s brand, built painstakingly over 44 years, we needed to refine, not redefine, our story. We started with articulating our mission:

CLF protects New England’s environment for the benefit of all people.  We use the law, science, and the market to create solutions that preserve our natural resources, build healthy communities, and sustain a vibrant economy.

And our vision:  A healthy, thriving New England – for generations to come.

Our new logo, with the emphatic red “zing,” is the ultimate distillation of CLF’s brand. It’s at once humble and outspoken, pragmatic and creative, patient and dynamic. And yet, it’s simple. Similarly, our new marketing and communications materials – both digital and print – are designed to let our stories stand out. There is lots of white space, an antidote to our tendency to accumulate. Our new design will discipline us to be economical with our words and keep our messages crisp and clear.

Economy of words is never more important than in a tagline. Our five are the answer to every question about why we do what we do:

For a thriving New England

There is no doubt that our ability to communicate our story effectively is key to achieving our mission. It is the currency with which we develop relationships with our members, with foundations who share our vision, and with influencers in the legislature and the media who help further our cause. With a great story to tell and, now, a great way to tell it, we are ready to seize this moment for CLF and galvanize all who would join us in protecting our New England.