Notes from the Energy and Climate Team Kick-Off Meeting

The Energy and Climate Team held its first planning meeting on Monday, August 17th. We discussed CfSC's efforts to use its grassroots network to promote policies and campaigns that reduce energy use and greenhouse gas emissions.

We agreed on two goals for the team:

• To influence policy-makers around energy and climate change issues, both generally and on specific legislation
• To motivate and enable individuals to go beyond personal actions (for example, limiting their own carbon footprint) and act at a policy level

We brainstormed a variety of possible actions we can take, both in the short and longer term.

• Take action in support of Markey-Waxman
• Assess local candidates around their views on energy and climate issues
• Attend the 9/24 Cambridge hearing on climate change
• Partner with local organizations involved in energy and climate change activities, perhaps around "barn-raisings”
• Engage in discussions of the issues, including things that get in the way of efforts to drive change
• Support action on Green Communities Act
• Get communities to adopt Stretch Building Code
• Find out what help our congressional delegation could use
• Host a forum, perhaps in October, around how Markey-Waxman will impact Cambridge and Somerville

In the short term, we decided to:

1. Organize people to attend 9/24 climate change forum, and then report back
2. Organize people to attend, ask questions at October Green Decade candidates forum in Cambridge, and then report back
3. Ask Senator Kerry’s office about seeing Senate bill and try to meet with a local staffer about it
4. Look into local organizations and propose how we could engage with them

We will be holding another meeting in September; additional details will be posted here soon.