NEWBURYPORT — A local nonprofit organization will be very busy over the next couple of months promoting fall cleanups in the local area and beyond.

The Alliance of Climate and Environmental Stewards, or ACES, is a Newburyport-based network of organizations and people dedicated to climate and environmental health.

The organization, which facilitates a weekly column for The Daily News of Newburyport, has been working to create a more sustainable planet by connecting and amplifying local organizations since 2018. It is also promoting a number of area cleanups as part of its 2022 Fall Cleanup Campaign.

“If somebody can’t go to one cleanup, they may be able to participate in another,” ACES President Art Currier said.

Among the events, ACES is promoting is a cleanup of Crane Beach in Ipswich on Saturday, Oct. 22, from 10 a.m. to noon. In addition, the Seacoast Paddle Board Club will kick off a cleanup at the Peirce Island boat ramp in Portsmouth, New Hampshire, on Sunday, Oct. 30, from 10 to 11:30 a.m.

The Coastal Trails Coalition will host a pair of cleanups Saturday, Nov. 19 – the first at Lions Park in Salisbury and the second at the Riverwalk Trail entrance in Amesbury. Both begin at 9 a.m.

Currier said the Salisbury Department of Public Works regularly gives people the opportunity to organize a cleanup at a local site.

“Efforts like this require collaboration,” he said. “So supporting all of these cleanups is vital for all of these communities. Together, we can make a much bigger dent because of the teamwork involved.”

ACES has worked with Jim McCarthy of Newburyport, who heads up the Greater Newburyport Plogging group, which regularly uses handheld devices to pick up trash year-round.

“Jim is a phenomenal environmental steward who is self-motivated,” said Brenda Hoover of ACES. “People clean up every day, all year long, it is endless.

Hoover said the spring is typically the best time for local cleanups, which often coincide with Earth Day in April, and ACES hopes to work with a local student group to develop an all-school cleanup in the area, possibly next spring.

“Nothing has been set in stone at this point because schools are about a month in,” she said. “But we’re hoping some of the students will be able to spearhead that project.”

For more information, go to the Alliance of Climate and Environmental Stewards website at www.aces-alliance.org/.

Staff writer Jim Sullivan covers Newburyport for The Daily News. He can be reached via email at jsullivan@newburyportnews.com or by phone at 978-961-3145. Follow him on Twitter @ndnsully.

In addition to melting glaciers, forest fires, droughts, and floods because of climate change, we also are seeing people on the move around the world.

Hurricanes Fiona and Ian, in addition to flooding vast swathes of Puerto Rico and Florida, will be bringing a tremendous surge of people heading north due to the cataclysmic climate damage. We will begin seeing a “storm surge” of refugees.

NBC News on Wednesday afternoon estimated that over 100,000 homes will be uninhabitable in Florida. and Reuters with a New York dateline on Wednesday also wrote, “An estimated 349,000 homes and businesses were still without power in Puerto Rico on Wednesday after Hurricane Fiona hit on Sept. 18, causing an island-wide power outage for its 3.3 million people”

A large portion of these Americans are going to be displaced people they are American climate refugees, and they will be surging north to friends and family, some of which are in the gateway cities of Springfield and Lawrence.

Also, many of which are retirees from leafy suburbs who will be trying to move back. For a state with too little housing affordability, or even availability at any price, we are going to feel that wave of people forcefully arriving. We are not prepared to accommodate the potential impact of this chaos.

As society works to mitigate climate change longer term, we also need to have emergency plans at the ready. Should there be a Massachusetts emergency zoning waiver to start filling the housing needs of these American refugees?

They will become climate refugees due to two hurricanes in the early weeks of a very big season of storms. They will have been big and energetic due to very warm waters and rising sea levels as the glaciers of the north melt. But more will be coming in months to come.

Each of ACES’ Allies has been working and preaching about climate change for years.

Storm Surge – of Newburyport – is one of those groups which has specifically educated the public, including a long-planned film, “2040,” about opportunities of what can be done to counter the climate crises that just aired at the Firehouse.

They have taught us over the years the whys and hows of storm surges. They have let us know that as The Washington Post recently described, that “when a hurricane travels over the open sea, its powerful winds act like a giant bulldozer collecting water and pushing it forward.

When this buildup of water runs into land, the sudden rise in sea level above normal tides is called storm surge, and it is sometimes the most deadly and destructive part of a hurricane.”

Our immediate issues from these two hurricanes will be absorbing people moving back to be sheltered with family already here. Important next steps should be anticipated ASAP.

Our next governor’s leadership on this issue to engage all our elected officials and departments ranging from mayors to MassDOT to support new housing production and new protections at our water’s edges is critical.

Worcester and Holyoke, Lowell and New Bedford, will all need state aid to deploy to housing in new and innovative ways. We need everyone to step up and start putting aside NIMBY instincts and creatively confront this significant challenge through collaboration at all levels.

Bureaucratic logjams should be cleared away and work start soon – we do not want to be swept away in the chaos that may ensue.

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member Ana Satir. To share any comments or questions, send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its 4 Initiatives, visit https://www.aces-alliance.org.

Monarch butterflies only lay their eggs on milkweed. It is the only plant the monarch caterpillar can eat. As open fields are lost to development, homeowners using pesticides, and their cool winter forests are warming, the monarch population is losing their areas to land and reproduce.

You can help this magnificent insect, as well as other native pollinators, by planting native milkweeds and fall nectars such as goldenrods and asters and stop using pesticides on your property including plant-based mosquito sprays.

Along with fall nectars, types of local milkweeds you can plant are swamp milkweed, butterfly weed, whorled milkweed, and poke milkweed and the best time to plant milkweed seeds is after foraging wild critters hibernate in late November.

Every fall, monarchs that emerge from chrysalises in the northern United States. and southern Canada migrate all the way to their wintering grounds in the cool mountain forests of central Mexico. The following spring, they begin their journey north where four generations breed and die along the way before the southern migration begins again. It’s up to us to help provide shelter and nutrients for this long journey to Mexico.

Kattie Banks Hone, known as the “Monarch Gardener” in Ipswich spoke recently about monarch butterflies at the Newburyport Senior Center. The presentation offered insight into the Monarch’s natural history, migration, the reason for its decline and the many conservation efforts that are currently underway along its migration pathway.

Recently classified as an endangered species by the International Union for Conservation of Nature, homeowners are perfectly positioned to help them.

Katie listed an entire season of blooms that you can plant in your own yard to help monarchs and other pollinators and can be found at themonarchgardener.com under Nursery Info.

An effort worked on over the summer by ACES Ally “Pollinator PowerWorks” was noteworthy as Ellie Volkhausen notes: “we’re proud to report that PPW planted 10 gardens with more on waiting list for next year”

Greater Newburyport has recently become a hot spot for bee, butterfly and hummingbird conservation with pollinator gardens popping up around the region and more people keeping bees too. and the city is teaming with ACES “Pollinator PowerWorks” to plant some of its conservation lands especially for pollinators like the Monarch butterfly.

You, too, can become part of the butterfly conservation movement too. Plan your own pollinator garden with appropriate fall planting of native perennials and subscribe to ACES’ newsletter to stay in touch with local environmental and climate news.

Colby Farm meadow seeking help to plant milkweeds and other pollinators.

If you want to help with the Pollinator Field on Colby Farm Lane, we need volunteers. Contact us at pollinatorpowerworks@gmail.com to sign up.

This column was coordinated by ACES YOUTH CORPS member Ana Satir. To share any comments or questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and the Youth Leadership Initiative, view the website – https://www.aces-alliance.org.

“A society grows great when old men plant trees in whose shade they know they shall never sit”

This ancient Greek proverb signifies much of my environmental thought process. As a horticulturalist and a lover of trees, I have luckily seen many events thru my career. In thinking about this column and what I am sharing, I believe reflections on the past lessons will shape the future for the better. “We learn from our mistakes” is an important axiom.

In Newburyport, there are 26 beautiful parks with trees, turf, plantings, and nature all around. Atkinson Common is a wonderful seven-acre flagship that is on the verge of becoming its own arboretum. I have had the privilege of working in Atkinson Common since 1992 as a contractor and then in the Parks Department.

People connect with the urban forest in parks and nature. There is a need for healthy strong trees in the community. Parks trees and street trees are anchors for the look and feel of the community. We learned from planting monocultures in our city parks, such as, the Bartlet Mall’s majestic elms which have been decimated with the invasion of Dutch Elm disease. We also learned that the Joppa Park’s double knock out roses were almost wiped out by the harsh winter of 2015. Now we avoid monocultures all together.

Our larger forested parks provide great escapes for children to go into the woods and use their imagination to connect with what they see and feel. Likewise, a dog owner can connect with many aspects of nature when they walk and exercise their pet. These are essential elements to a community short on space and long on pavement.

The use of the parks by the community during the COVID-19 pandemic reinforced the public’s need to gather in the outdoors while maintaining distance. I often found it difficult to have our crews do the mowing and landscaping in the parks because of all the people in the parks. A good challenge to have!

Looking forward, the city and community need to ensure that the natural resources that bless the city are safeguarded and reinforced. It needs to happen in an efficient and effective manner for the long term benefit of the entire community. This involves caring for the trees: maintaining the lawns, shrubs, and plantings; ensuring optimal use of the parks and facilities by and for the community, and planning future designs, plantings maintenance, and use.

Climate change is here and requires our younger generations to continue evolving and safeguarding our natural resources. New arboriculture methods are being taught that prepare us to work with this changing climate. The use of trees and plants that are acclimated to a warmer climate such as that of Pennsylvania or Virginia is now being stressed to Arborists and Horticulturalists in this region. The life span of an urban tree can span almost a century. However, we need to consider what kind of climate we will have in a 100 years. What do we need to consider for our parks and forest with this backdrop?

It seems that there are increasing educational opportunities abounding thru grass roots efforts as well as university and governmental programs to encourage our youth to take part in the changes that are needed in society for their well-being. One example is the Mass Department of Conservation and Recreation program involving their sponsoring a calendar poster contest.

It was won by a fifth-grade student at Newburyport’s Nock Middle School. The prize included the planting of a crabtree at the rear of the school with all the fifth-grade students participated in the planting of this tree. I believe programs like this set an example for students, as well as adults, about the importance of our natural resources. They can set the stage for future arborists and new members of the green industry.

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member Ana Satir. To share any comments or questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its 4 Initiatives, visit https://www.aces-alliance.org.

Mike Hennessey is parks manager for the City of Newburyport.

‍

Post-COVID, pre-election, with a jittery economy and in the face of multiple climate disasters, motivation is high worldwide for more dramatic climate action. It can all feel so disheartening and dire. But ACES is feeling a bit more optimistic lately.

A “green reset” is happening at every level and in every corner of the political, business, and nonprofit ecosystem as it regards climate. And money is beginning to flow via the Inflation Reduction Act to solve multiple problems by transitioning to cleaner energy sources to totally new ways of making and transporting things. And it’s change that is really needed.

In general, the United States. And other countries will do this by leveraging the pent-up demand for upgraded and new forms of infrastructure and the jobs that they generate. Building that new infrastructure will be a great investment opportunity and it will generate good, new jobs. Jobs that may require new job skills.

A big investment in much-needed new infrastructure, designed with green needs in mind, will energize community colleges and high schools to work with employers and business groups along with trade unions to invent new forms of apprenticeships for young America. Working to alter the course of climate degradation isn’t harmful to our economy. Rather, it’s the way forward to better jobs and a better economy. New investments in our economy can have a big payback both financially and in terms of climate.

Locally, Greater Newburyport has climate and environmental challenges of its own. Consider rising seas, a river that floods when moderately big storms hit. Consider the vulnerability of Plum Island and our sewer and water systems. Fortunately, our city leaders have worked to address some of these issues with upgraded sewer systems on Plum Island and coastal armoring at our wastewater treatment plant.

Intergovernmental things are needed too like working with other cities and the state and the Merrimack Valley Region Planning Commission to plan a river clean-up and rescue. We need regulators to press utilities to fix the gas leaks all over our cities. They may not be explosive, like in Lawrence, but they certainly add to global warming and affect the air we breathe.

As a new generation of aspiring politicians emerge on the local scene, we might ask them what they see they can do to create this needed “green reset.” How can they help make every neighborhood safe for biking and walking? How can they encourage and zone for walkable destinations like corner stores, coffee shops, meeting places and lunching in the neighborhoods as many more people telework and are in town during the day. What are the new green jobs that will emerge? How can the community arrange apprenticeships and internships to help young people get started? How can we, as a community, support them? Let’s push the big green reset button now for Greater Newburyport.

Green lights the color of money – they are flashing and it’s time to conceive of significant and important projects and apply for grants to roll forward towards a healthier future in the Merrimack Valley.

A resident of Newburyport, Ron Martino is an ACES advisor, and he publishes “GreenTalk Daily” on Twitter @ronmartino4

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member Ana Satir. To share any comments or questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its 4 Initiatives, visit https://www.aces-alliance.org.

During the mid-1800’s several million horseshoe crabs were annually harvested to feed pigs, chickens and fertilize the fields around Delaware Bay. Today those same horseshoe crabs would be worth over a billion dollars and be protecting millions of people from COVID- 19.

At its peak there were five companies producing what they called “cancerine fertilizer,” and the eggs of the crabs were so numerous that farmers would fill their hay wagons with billions of eggs and feed them to their farm animals. But they stopped a few weeks before slaughter so their chickens and pigs wouldn’t taste like dead fish. One would like to think that the industry was banned for conservation reasons, but it was more because of the introduction of chemical fertilizers and the fact that developers’ concerns that they couldn’t sell new bayfront homes because of the stench of millions of rotting horseshoe crabs.

But the crabs themselves seemed inexhaustible. Harvesters collected 750,000 crabs along a half-mile beach in 1855 and 1.2 million crabs along a mile-long stretch of beach the following year. But as would be expected, the population finally crashed along with the millions of shorebirds dependent on horseshoe crabs to fuel their migrations from South America to the Arctic Circle. By the late 1960s harvesters had only been able to collect 100,000 crabs a year. and birds like the endangered red knots were arriving on their Arctic nesting grounds too emaciated to start laying eggs.

The problem had not been so much that fishermen collected too many adult crabs, but that they had collected them in shallow waters before the females laid the eggs that would produce the future generations of the ancient arthropods. Now, horseshoe crabs are facing a similar crisis but this time the stakes are significantly higher, and their depletion is threatening millions of human lives.

Everyone has heard of Anthony Fauci and Francis Collins, but horseshoe crabs are truly the unsung heroes of the COVID pandemic. All the syringes, vaccines and antibody kits used to fight COVID-19 have to be tested for bacterial contamination and the way that is done is with a preparation of bright blue horseshoe crab blood called limulus lysate. A quart of the raw lysate is worth about $1,500. By the same token each crab is worth about $1,500 if you keep it alive and only use it for biomedical purposes. But now the pattern of over-harvesting and depletion is repeating itself. The COVID pandemic has increased the demand for horseshoe crab blood, so collectors are starting to harvest the crabs when they are laying their eggs in shallow waters, the way they did during the heyday of the fertilizer industry. This will lead to a precipitous decline in future generations of crabs — but the biomedical companies think it is worth the risk.

A scientist in Singapore has used gene-splicing technology to produce a recombinant form of lysate that doesn’t require killing live crabs. So far, the Food and Drug Administration has not approved this synthetic lysate because it didn’t want to switch horses in the middle of a pandemic. They had 30 years of experience using the more sensitive and cheaper natural lysate but only two years of trials with the synthetic version, so they turned it down.

But the writing is on the wall. The lysate companies can see that the synthetic lysate will probably be approved after the pandemic quiets down and the multi-million-dollar lysate industry will come to a rapid end, along with the lucrative horseshoe crab fishery that it depends on. Perhaps the companies can justify sacrificing a few years’ worth of horseshoe crabs because once the synthetic lysate is adopted, the 450-million-year-old species will have another million years or so to recover.

Can the same be said for humankind?

Bill Sargent, an Ipswich-based author of numerous books, provided this column from “Crab Wars: A Tale of Horseshoe Crabs, Ecology, and Human Health.” He can be reached at sargb@earthlink.net This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member Ana Satir. To share any comments or questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its 4 Initiatives, visit https://www.aces-alliance.org.

‍

In Waipoua Forest on the northernmost tip of New Zealand there is a tree 177-feet-tall and over 2,000 years old. Impressive, yes. Even more impressive is the reverence that the Maori show this primeval giant. It is named Tane Mahuta, “God of the Forest,” after the Maori god who pushed apart the sky father and earth mother to create a place on Earth for humans to live. The tree is so sacred that it is considered taboo to touch it. Tane Mahuta, in terms of sheer scale, is awesome, inspiring, and sublime. It stood in New Zealand before the first humans arrived on the island. No wonder it is considered a god.

Imagine if we treated our local trees with such reverence. Would we dare cut down even a small god if it shaded our pool or its leaves became a nuisance to rake? Of course, I’m not advocating that we deify the trees. But I do believe that we have lost a connection to them.

American consumer culture has taught us that trees on our property are exactly that, pieces of property, and we can do with them what we please. Imagine, instead, if we treated trees as the long-lived organisms that they are. That they are not something we own but living things that we must care for as stewards and protectors, just as we care for a loved one or a family pet. How would you feel if your property was home to a 2,000-year-old giant?

Such giants do exist. A bald cypress in a North Carolina swamp is 2,624 years old. A little closer to home, Mohawk Trail State Forest is home to Massachusetts’ oldest trees, a grove of 500-year-old hemlocks. This gets me thinking. Where is Newburyport’s oldest tree? How old is it? What species? Who planted it? Is it in danger of being cut down? There’s a hemlock in my yard, maybe 40 or 50 years old. Will it live 50 more years, much less 450? and what sort of effort will it take to safeguard this tree?

Working in collaboration with ACES, we have been assembling a group of individuals dedicated to ensuring our residents and visitors have a greater awareness and are educated about the importance of our local trees. This Tree Walk Coalition has representatives from Newburyport’s Tree Commission, Parks Commission, Belleville Improvement Society, the Friends of Newburyport Trees, and others as well as local city officials and naturalists. It is our hope that this coalition will help Newburyport live up to its promise and potential as an Arbor Day Foundation-designated Tree City USA.

Local youth are also getting in on the act of tree preservation. ACES Youth Corps interns recently created signs for a Tree Walk at the Indian Hill Reservoir in West Newbury to educate visitors about the importance of trees. I have been mentoring a passionate group of Newburyport High School students to bring similar interpretive signage to the trees of Atkinson Common. We hope our signage will not just be informative, but inspirational.

Earth Day may have passed, but it’s never too late to appreciate the vital role that trees play in our community. They give us the air we breathe. The shade us on the hottest summer days. They are universes unto themselves providing habitat for countless insects, birds, and animals. They are also a vital resource and commodity, providing one of the world’s most valuable building materials and harboring a wealth of medical cures and treatments. Trees offer us so much. Lately, I’ve been asking myself, “What do we owe trees in return?” Is clean water and a quiet place to grow enough? Or do they deserve more?

Ted Boretti is chairperson of the Newburyport Parks Commission.

Today, rising household costs have increased the severity of local food insecurity beyond that of 2020. Families with children are relying on Our Neighbors’ Table for 33% more food than they were in 2020. Working individuals need more from ONT to make ends meet.

Eight years after the 2008 recession, local food insecurity rates were still on the rise. As we look at the horizon after the 2020 crisis, we see it takes more than a village to tackle the challenges of food insecurity in our communities.

It takes many villages – each connected at the local, grassroots level to the specific needs of its members and interconnected to each other and the regional and state resources that can leverage the economies of their larger size. Creating a “hub and spoke” structure, in which local organizations can better access local and regional sources of fresh food, produces a more efficient and seamless result for all those needing food, support and hope.

That is why ONT, as part of the Seacoast Food Provider Network, is building a regional center to meet the challenges on the regional “spoke” connected to the larger “hub” of the Greater Boston Food Bank. This regional center then becomes a localized “hub” for the multitude of regional agencies providing access to food in our communities.

This regional center addresses our network’s two immediate challenges to delivering regional food security: Inadequate food inventory and inadequate logistical infrastructure. More specifically, there is limited distribution space and limited food storage for both dry and refrigerated food. We also share need for a pipeline of able-bodied volunteers as well as appropriate vehicles to transport food.

For the 15 members of our network, our new Salisbury-based repurposed 24,000-square-foot facility will create significant dry and cold storage; include fruit and vegetable storage for crops gleaned from local farms; house regional volunteer recruiting and training; and create a GBFB cross-dock to increase access to food for local agencies in the broader Lower Merrimack Valley who currently have limited or no access to GBFB food. ONT will also make our trucks and vans available to transport food across partner sites.

The pandemic only increased challenges to accessing food in the state and region. It also highlighted the importance of finding more ways to share knowledge and resources and working collectively.

Access to the GBFB cross-dock will expand the reach of the centralized food bank without adding the pressure of more demand at their central warehouse and will reduce the number of trucks traveling from our region to Boston. The shared storage facility and coordinated truck routes will allow our network to redirect even more locally grown and produced surplus foods from landfills to homes.

Delivering food security to this region does start at the village level and will only be successful with local leadership and involvement. But success at the local level depends on leveraging limited financial resources to not only deliver food but create a sustainable infrastructure across our communities with effective underpinning from the larger regional and state partners. That’s the goal of the Seacoast Food Hub – move forward, together.

For more information, please visit our website: https://www.ourneighborstable.org/.

‍

The Merrimack River drains a watershed of 5,000 square miles that sustains over 2.5 million citizens, supplies drinking water to 600,000 Merrimack Valley residents, and provides major recreational opportunities, diverse fish and wildlife habitat, and stunning scenic beauty to more than 200 New Hampshire and Massachusetts communities.  

Recently, there has been heightened concern for the health of the Merrimack due to the long-term effects of industrialization, population growth, CSOs, increased upland runoff, and a variety of point and nonpoint source pollutants.  

These are big problems and for the past 2-3 years ACES has been supporting the creation of a broad-based, multi-state coalition that can raise community, state, and federal awareness of the urgency for a clean, safe Merrimack River. 

In 2019/2020, ACES conducted a highly successful Pilot Survey of one hundred-twenty-eight Master Level Rowers on the Merrimack requesting their observations and thoughts on the state of the Health of the River.  The results of that survey project are available on our website.

In 2021, the Alliance of Climate and Environmental Stewards is conducting a more general survey on the experiences of a broader range of recreational and commercial users of the Merrimack River, and we need your input!  By sharing your observations and familiarity with the river, you can help us gain valuable information about the health and true value of the river throughout our many Merrimack Valley communities.

‍How can you help?

‍Please visit the link below to take our free 10-15 minute river use survey ... and then forward the link to others who may also be interested in sharing their comments!

‍Share your unique experiences on the Merrimack River: 

‍

‍

The anecdotal information collected in this survey will complement the scientific data gathered by other organizations to provide a comprehensive picture of the health of the Merrimack River.  

We are looking for people who want to get involved in this project NOW, including HS and College Students and young and older adults.  Get in touch with us if you are interested in being part of the Merrimack River General Survey Team.

Question: What percentage of the earth’s surface can be used to raise crops?

In 1917 my grandfather, Albert Elwell, drove his dairy cattle up from Ipswich to Maple Crest Farm. Back in those days most of the roads were dirt and gravel with few vehicles on them, so driving your cattle was somewhat easier, but it was a long trip for the cattle.

My grandfather raised milking cows with some steers for family food, as well as tree fruit and chickens. A garden supplied food for the family all year long. In the fall vegetables were cooked on the kitchen woodstove to be canned and bottled for use during the winter and early spring months. I also recall the wooden ice boxes that a local ice man would deliver ice to several times a week. Back in those days, most of the farming was truly organic in practice. Commercial granular fertilizer was used rarely, if at all. Fields and gardens were enriched with cow, pig, and chicken manure, and manure spreaders were common equipment. Buckwheat and winter rye were popular green crops used to enrich and build up the soil.

With my grandfather’s retirement, the farm transitioned from a dairy, chicken, and fruit tree operation to a zucchini squash and strawberry operation. During that time some commercial fertilizer was used to grow the crops. Chemicals to kill weeds were not used; everything was hand or machine weeded.

When the Indian Hill Reservoir was built in the 1980s, 70 acres of farm land were taken for the reservoir and in several farm fields the good rich top soil was stripped off and not replaced. Around 1990 the farm basically ceased growing crops and remained fallow for 10 years.

In 2001, Carol and I bought the family farm and committed ourselves to bringing it back to life using environmentally sustainable methods. We took Newburyport’s bagged leaves along with local horse manure to enrich the sites where the soil had been removed. Currently, we take grass clippings and leaves to create needed compost. This year we have offered to take more of Newburyport’s bagged leaves – recycling in practice! We also plant sorghum Sudan grass, buckwheat, and winter rye to enrich the soils.

Maple Crest Farm now raises strawberries, blueberries, raspberries, and Christmas trees. Our strawberries and raspberries are free of insecticide, pesticide, and weed killer. Our blueberries are only sprayed with an insecticide, Imidan, in early spring to fight off the winter moth, which would strip the blueberry bushes of their flowers.

Weeds are controlled among the blueberry bushes by lining the rows with pine bark chips which restrict weed growth, maintain a wet soil, and help create a needed acidic soil of 4.5 to 5.0. Unfortunately, we currently have to spray limited amounts of glysophate between the Christmas trees to control weed growth, but we continue to explore more organic methods, such as vinegar, which turned out to be too costly. We will continue to experiment because Christmas trees are essential in converting carbon dioxide into oxygen. One full-size tree can create enough oxygen for four people for a day.

Maple Crest Farm also can provide an educational experience in environmental stewardship for today’s youth. We are available for tours of the farm and farming activities to introduce what growing crops entails. We would love to have K-12 school classes come to the farm for hands-on learning activities.

Now to answer the opening question: 75% of the surface is water 25% land, and half of the 25% are mountains or deserts. Three-quarters of the remaining 12% is already built on with houses, roads, office buildings, factories, rocky soil, etc. Thus only 3% of the earth’s surface can be used to grow crops to feed the world. And with global warming that 3% can be reduced to 2%. Sustainable farming and education about respecting farmlands and planet are essential for the well-being of our future and the future of our children.

John and Carol Elwell own and operate Maple Crest Farm. Visit the website at http://maplecrestfarm.biz/index.html or reach John at johnelwell@verizon.net.

‍

The Trustees of Reservations’ Saving the Great Marsh Project is the largest ecological restoration project on the coast in the 131-year history of the organization. The project seeks to restore the health of depleted salt marsh and to strengthen its ability to serve as a critical buffer against the effects of climate change.

Located on the North Shore and stretching from Salisbury to Gloucester, the 20,000-acre Great Marsh is the largest continuous salt marsh in New England, providing ecological, economic, recreational, and cultural value to millions of Massachusetts residents and visitors. It is a state-designated Area of Critical Environmental Concern.

Healthy coastal marshes support biodiversity and critical wildlife habitat, sequester carbon from the atmosphere, and serve as a barrier against storm surge and sea level rise. However, historical agricultural practices dating back to the colonial era have compromised marsh health. Ditches that were dug to spur salt marsh hay production have altered natural marsh draining processes, leaving it increasingly vulnerable to flooding. Sea level rise, accelerated by climate change, will lead to more flooding, eventually causing the loss of marshland and its conversion to open water. This loss will have tremendous local and regional impacts to biodiversity and climate resiliency on the North Shore.

The Trustees Great Marsh restoration project uses innovative nature-based methods and organic materials from the marsh itself. By harnessing the power of nature to heal itself, this process can restore natural tidal flow, and rebuilt marsh peat naturally, thereby keeping the marsh from sinking—known as subsidence. A healthy marsh can support critical habitat for wildlife and continue to build in elevation, keeping pace with sea level rise. In a multi-phase approach over a period of three to five years, The Trustees and partners aim to restore more than 1,200 acres of the Great Marsh.

The Trustees protects over 120 miles of coastline in Massachusetts—more than any other private landowner in the state. In 2016, we completed a comprehensive coastal vulnerability assessment of all our coastal properties, identifying beaches and salt marshes as our most at-risk natural areas. Active restoration of the Great Marsh began with a pilot project on 85 acres at the Trustees’ Old Town Hill reservation in Newbury in 2019 and positive results from this work are already evidenced by a significant decrease in standing water levels in the remediated marsh area year over year.

With the support of federal grants and other supporters, The Trustees is proceeding with Phase 2 of the project, restoring several hundred more acres of marsh, including 30 acres in Newbury at the William Forward Wildlife Management Area. Phase 3 of this project will scale up this work even more, working with the U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service, Mass Wildlife, Greenbelt, and other partners to restore an additional 916 acres of the Great Marsh, with hundreds more acres to follow. Active monitoring will continue for several years to measure the outcomes of the ongoing work.

This Great Marsh restoration project is at the necessary scale to make a real and lasting impact for future generations. To read more about the Saving the Great Marsh project, watch a recent Chronicle segment, and learn how you can support this work, visit onthecoast.thetrustees.org/marsh

For more information about projected marsh loss on the North Shore explore our inaugural State of the Coast Report (2020), focused on this region: thetrustees.org/coast or Contact: Kristen Grubbs, Coastal Project Manager, The Trustees kgrubbs@trustees.org, 978-607-1130

For many of us, thinking about the threats to our wildlife and ecosystems can be overwhelming. It might feel like the momentum is too great, that we can’t change the direction we’re heading in. But that’s not the case.

I’m writing today to let you know about an easy, rewarding way for you to make a very big impact. It’s not difficult or costly, and it happens locally, maybe in your own backyard.

Ready? Here it comes … you can help by taking care of the turtles who live in your neighborhood.

Newburyport and surrounding towns are hotspots for turtles crossing roads. We’ve got fantastic habitat and a healthy respect for wildlife here. Our turtle populations are certainly threatened, but they are in better shape than many. We can keep it that way, and we should.

Why? Protecting turtles is a big win. Turtles play a significant role in keeping our water clean and our wetlands healthy.

Our Eastern painted turtles are studied by researchers all over the world because of their potential to teach us how to keep someone alive in the aftermath of a heart attack or stroke.

These interesting, beautiful creatures also deserve our respect just for being what they are, regardless of what they do for us.

The life strategy of turtles is completely different from many of the mammals we are familiar with. They are built to live very long lives and are slow to reproduce. The dead turtle you see in the road may never be replaced by another turtle. Take a moment to think about that.

How can you help? Easy! Look out for them while driving, especially in May and June. Move a turtle across the road in the direction it is heading when it is safe for you to do so. and absolutely, contact a licensed wildlife rehabilitation organization like Turtle Rescue League (turtlerescueleague.org) when you find an injured turtle.

With proper treatment, turtles often survive injuries that make their finders think “there is no way in the world this turtle is going to make it.”

These are things we can all do. They are easy, they will make you feel good, and they are a tremendous “bang for the buck” as saving a single turtle is an enormous benefit to that turtle’s entire population.

This letter also serves as an announcement that Turtle Rescue League is launching our Guardians Program, right here in Greater Newburyport. With ACES, we’ll educate members and the community and coordinate efforts to maximize our impact protecting turtles.

If you’re interested in learning about the many ways we can help our turtles, once a year or all the time, I urge you to contact us today at guardians@turtlerescueleague.org. We want you, no matter your age, experience or skills, and you don’t need to live next to a wetland. I sincerely look forward to growing this program with you.

Right now, a new generation of turtles are hatching from their eggs. Perfect timing for us humans to start a new generation of Turtle Guardians, too. Join us to protect our turtle neighbors.

To finish, some amazing people need to be thanked. They have helped many, many turtles this year. David, Trey and Toby Scott of Boxford; Pam, Jason and Jerry Koen in West Newbury; and Mark Marroni of North Andover all deserve our thanks when we enjoy a clean drink of water, a walk on a wetlands trail, or a moment enjoying the company of a turtle basking nearby on a log. Thank you!

Nicolas has been a driving force for the Pollinator Powerworks (PPW) organization, a small multi-generational group dedicated to augmenting a pollinator pathway through the greater Newburyport area.. PPW partnered with 10 individuals and the River Valley Charter School to plant native pollinator gardens in yards and on the school property, totaling approximately 3,000 square feet. PPW is also partnered with the Conservation Commission of Newburyport to convert a hay field on Colby Farm Lane to a pollinator meadow. Volunteers created a list of native plants which Nicolas edited and expanded, based on his extensive knowledge of native north shore, MA plants. We created sample garden plans for small, medium, large, wet, and shade native pollinator gardens and launched a web page on our parent organization site.

Nicolas contributed to an op-ed for the Newburyport News which helped PPW find local gardeners and supporters interested in this cause. https://www.newburyportnews.com/opinion/commentary-planting-a-garden-can-help-save-the-planet/article_88349646-850c-11ec-8f68-4b14955a79ac.html. After this op-ed was printed, we received many emails. Nicolas responded to each respondent and organized a meeting with each interested party. He has spent countless hours designing people’s pollinator gardens. Over $2500 was raised through the PPW web page. He has spent the spring prepping garden space, delivering plants, and planting gardens.

Ellie Volckhausen, who nominated Nicolas, states, “Nicolas has shown up for every activity, bringing his passion for pollinator gardens and native MA plants. Nicolas has literally gotten his hands dirty and has removed hundreds of square feet of sod, weeds, and invasive plants. He has taught the members of our group, our gardeners, and a group of 4th and 5th graders at the River Valley Charter School best practices for planting, creating water wells, and mulching. He has taught us all a lot about native MA plants, as well. He is by far the most knowledgeable of our group! He is an impressive 17 year old and I think everyone involved in Pollinator Powerworks and ACES would be proud to see him acknowledged for how he’s gone above and beyond in his volunteer work. Nicolas is a Junior at Newburyport High School who moved to Newburyport from San Francisco in 2019. He enjoys spending time outside hiking and observing plants and wildlife, taking pictures, observing the weather, and gardening with native plants. His native plant garden is slowly expanding and has successfully attracted lots of pollinators and other wildlife.”

‍

A researcher puts a frog into a pot of boiling water and it hops right out. But if she drops that frog into a pot of tepid water and gradually raises the heat, the frog will stay put until it’s too late.

While factually dubious, the story is a metaphor for how we tend to deal with threatening change. An immediate, pervasive threat, like the coronavirus, grabs our attention, compelling us to respond, while an equally global, dire danger like the ecological crisis is something we feel we can put on the “back burner.”

Of course, for the present our focus needs to be on keeping everyone safe by following best practices. We keep informed, listen to CDC guidelines and comply with sensible government directives. and in navigating our way through coronavirus, we may discover connections that can help us change the course of global warming.

Extinction Rebellion (XR), an international movement to safeguard life on earth, draws parallels, noting “Both [the coronavirus and ecological crisis] reveal our global interconnectedness and vulnerability. Both require truth telling and cooperation to reduce suffering and save lives.” XR’s foundational demands and principles point to these areas of intersection.

In times of a national emergency, we need facts. Only then can we break through the fog of denial that permeates human nature. We saw this as most countries initially downplayed the contagion but soon came to their senses.

Monica Maggioni, journalist and executive with Italian Public Television, explained, “For many Italians, the normal warnings about this virus were simply not enough to change behavior. Denial comes too easily, perhaps. It was more convenient to … pretend that the news was unreal.”

How similar this sounds to our approach to global warming! When wildfires, floods, droughts and food scarcities happen elsewhere, it’s too easy to see them as unrelated misfortunes that do not impact us. When our government and media treat them the same way, our potential to respond remains untapped. But temperatures continue to rise, ice caps continue to melt and species continue to go extinct.

The scientific community has convinced us to face coronavirus even when we are not sick. We are taking their advice to slow down the rate of infection. This is not so with global warming.

For decades, our governments have ignored scientists’ warnings that we are tumbling toward an uninhabitable planet. Just as with COVID-19, we need to heed the science, tell the truth and act now.

Only then can we mobilize the resources to turn away from fossil fuels, and to develop sustainable, cost-effective energy sources. The good news is that solutions already exist; they have been developed by applied scientists and entrepreneurs around the world. The way lies before us. We need only the will to act.

The twin emergencies of pandemic and global warming remind us that life is precarious and precious. If we plow through in emergency mode, we risk forgetting what it is we defend. Extinction Rebellion urges us toward a regenerative culture, which is “healthy, resilient and adaptable,” caring for the planet and for life, reminding us of what we value.

We can emerge from the coronavirus crisis even stronger than before. The invitation then will be to apply the lessons learned to tackle the climate crisis. Let’s not be like those frogs waiting until it’s too late to act.

For more on Extinction Rebellion, go to xrmass.org. Nancy Ledoux can be contacted at nancyledoux@comcast.net.

‍

The Merrimack River is not only one of the region’s greatest assets, it is a barometer of the region’s environmental health. It provides a glimpse of what is happening from the White Mountains of New Hampshire to the foothills of central Massachusetts.

Though the river is far cleaner than it was a half century ago, the greatest environmental challenge of our time – climate change – is becoming more evident.

Toxic algae blooms are becoming common in the ponds, lakes and streams that feed into the Merrimack. They’re caused by warmer water and more nutrients, such as lawn fertilizer. These algae blooms are dangerous to humans and animals alike.

Weather patterns are changing – more droughts, punctuated by intense rainstorms. Plumes of polluted runoff enter the river after these intense storms.

Trees and undeveloped lands are our best natural allies in the battle against pollution and erosion, but they, too, are facing stress from both climate change and development. The U.S. Forest Service has named the Merrimack one of the nation’s most endangered rivers due to development pressures, primarily in the river’s vast New Hampshire headwaters.

New pollutants are entering the river, such as PFAS. Along the banks of the Merrimack in New Hampshire, hundreds of homes have PFAS levels that are so high residents can’t drink out of their own wells.

The cause is an industrial plant close to the Merrimack that has pumped PFAS residue into the air and water. In Massachusetts, the highest levels of PFAS have been found in the Shawsheen River, which feeds into the Merrimack in Lawrence.

And the Merrimack still faces a pollution problem that’s two centuries old – raw sewage. When we get intense rainstorms, Haverhill, Lawrence, Lowell, Nashua and Manchester don’t have the capacity to handle the flow that comes into their treatment plants. In 2021, they released about 750 million gallons of untreated sewage into the river. This sewage can contain unsafe bacteria levels.

These are a few of the issues that the Merrimack faces.

The good news is a lot of work is underway to mitigate these issues. In New Hampshire, a coalition of groups, including Merrimack River Watershed Council, is working to conserve large swaths of land to preserve the tree buffer that protects the Merrimack, and planting new trees to replace the fallen. We are also pushing for a new initiative to study and solve the toxic algae blooms that poison New Hampshire’s lakes and waterways.

Right now, there is a golden moment to solve the Merrimack’s sewage problem. Billions of dollars have been funneled to Massachusetts and New Hampshire for infrastructure and COVID relief funding. A portion of this money could be used to help Merrimack River cities fix their sewer systems.

Issues such as PFAS are harder to come to grips with. While it can be removed from drinking water, thus far there’s no solution for cleaning PFAS from rivers.

Many of the solutions to these problems will happen if the public gets involved. Keep up with the news, visit websites such as the EPA’s Merrimack River site, and join environmental groups like ACES, Storm Surge, Merrimack River Watershed Council, and Essex County Greenbelt to name just a few of the locals. Find out what your local, state and federal elected officials are doing about these issues, and encourage them to stay on top of it. Get your friends, family and neighbors involved. There is strength in numbers.

John Macone is an Amesbury resident and the education and policy specialist for the Merrimack River Watershed Council. He can be reached at jmacone@merrimack.org.

This column was coordinated by ACES Youth Corps member Caleb Bradshaw. To connect with ACES and share comments or questions, send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com or kbripper@icloud.com. To learn more about ACES, visit https://www.aces-alliance.org.

All around the world, carbon emissions are destroying the health of the Earth and living creatures on it.

Carbon dioxide takes up 80% of all greenhouse gas emissions. Our community needs to do something about it before time runs out and the planet will never be clean of these emissions again.

Carbon emissions became an issue in the 1970s when we started depending fully on burning fossil fuels for energy. And over the years, emissions have gotten worse, and worse, and worse.

These emissions impact everyone’s health, even the planet’s. This is because the carbon emissions get stuck in the Earth’s atmosphere, which creates smog, and large amounts of smog are horrible for anyone to breathe in.

It also causes climate change because the emissions trap a lot of heat in the atmosphere of Earth. Now because of this, everyone has seen and heard of the effects of this issue. There are more wildfires, heat waves, droughts, floods, the sea level is rising, glaciers are melting, etc.

I know some people think this isn’t such a serious matter. I mean, how can our world commit to not burning fossil fuels at all for a long period of time? I get it. It does seem impossible to fix this, but we need to think about the future, the health of our planet, and others suffering from this.

Government and nongovernmental organizations are trying to help end this issue. Most spread awareness, donate and create projects to help end this issue. They do succeed in doing so, too.

We have one organization in our community, too, called, the Alliance of Climate and Environmental Stewards (ACES).

Even though these organizations around the country are trying to help, we can’t just leave this problem all to them to fix. Our world needs all people to commit and decrease their own carbon footprint.

It’s not easy to change your whole lifestyle to save the planet, but this is a very serious situation. Time is running out by the day.

Bottled water use skyrocketed over the past couple of decades due to its convenience, the benefits of hydration, its ubiquitous availability and the perception it is better quality than tap water. Beverage companies have marketed bottled water as clean, fresh-tasting water that is so much better than our tap water.

But plastic bottle pollution is reaching critical levels here in the U.S. and across the globe. It’s astonishing how many plastic bottles do not get recycled and end up in our environment.

We all live in a seaside community where we can see evidence of plastic bottle pollution every time we walk the beaches. Single-use plastic bottles are bad for the environment, our oceans, aquatic life and now our own health.

Now, years later, we see the evidence building up in our landfills, our oceans and along our seashores. Several towns in Massachusetts, including Arlington, Concord, Brookline and several Cape Cod towns, have even banned the sale of single-use plastic bottles.

The call to action: Stop buying bottled water (and using single-use plastics in general).

What’s wrong with tap water? We all grew up drinking a glass of water from the kitchen sink. What changed?

Evidence mounted that even our tap water is not always safe to drink. The EPA and state agencies regulate the quality of our tap water by requiring testing and reporting of certain contaminants in our drinking water, and report to customers when there is a violation in the minimum quality standards.

Water departments are about to publish and mail this year’s required water quality report, which covers 2021. Watch for it in your mail. Many experts believe the standards set by the EPA are outdated and too loose, with many contaminants still going unregulated.

All of this contributes to our trust or lack of trust in our drinking water. Regardless,

“More than 50 percent of thousands of Americans surveyed by the Environmental Working Group say their tap water is unsafe and 40 percent won’t or can’t drink it.” (www.EWG.org, May 2022)

The solution to both problems – refillable water bottles.

Start using refillable water bottles and use filtered/purified water. That is the best way to get clean, healthy, great-tasting water without the single-use plastic bottles. Most of the bottled water we buy is filtered, purified tap water anyway.

Sad reality of plastic bottles

Nearly 300 million metric tons of plastic waste are produced every year. That number is growing by about 9% per year. It takes up to 1,000 years for a single water bottle to decompose.

Our plastic bottles are not really getting recycled. The U.S. generates more than 35 million tons of plastics but recycles just 8.3% of it. Americans throw away 35 billion empty water bottles a year.

Plastics are entering our oceans at an alarming rate. Two billion plastic bottles “leaked” into the oceans in 2016. That’s the equivalent of a truckload of single-use plastics every minute of every day. By 2040, the amount of plastic waste in the ocean will triple and will equal the weight of fish and aquatic mammals.

Bottled water production and distribution has an enormous carbon footprint: It takes almost 2,000 times the energy to manufacture a bottle of water than it does to produce tap water. It takes three times the amount of water in a bottle of water to make it as it does to fill it. Then, each week, it takes 40,000 18-wheeler trucks on our roads just to deliver our bottled water.

Bottled water contains microplastics. Research at the State University of New York at Fredonia showed that 93% of tested bottled water had microplastics contamination. About 70,000 microplastic particles are consumed by an average person each year.

Local resource to consider

There are a variety of systems that are available from various retailers and companies. Blue Ribbon Water of Newburyport is one firm that is committed to the reduction of single-use plastic bottles in our environment by providing systems to filter your own water for refilling your bottles. They work to educate the public about plastic bottle pollution and posting the latest water quality data on their website www.blueribbonwater.com.

Bill Cooper is a co-founder of Blue Ribbon Water in Newburyport.

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member Caleb Bradshaw. To share any comments or questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Youth Leadership Initiative, visit https://www.aces-alliance.org.

Motivated by the enormous environmental damage and cost to dispose of all the waste being generated in our local communities, ACES conducted research into the state of solid waste which is driving significant future cost increases. A goal of the report is to foster effective waste reduction plans and best practices in our regional communities in Massachusetts.

The team, consisting of 4 ACES Advisors and Sophie Giedraitis and Helena Strauch (both members of ACES Youth Corps and project interns) supported months of research and work. This has created a report with significant context to better understand what is happening with waste and its future impact on our communities, the goals and strategies of the Mass Waste Master Plan, and a planning worksheet tool for municipalities. This report offers the findings and research detail available to all interested city and town officials.

Sophie’s understanding of the importance of this issue is captured in this statement:  " Developing this report has given me significant insight into the future impact of different sectors of waste and how they will be impacting our surrounding communities.  Most importantly, I've learned what planning and practices are needed to address these waste concerns and protocols that could be implemented in the future to make progress towards a zero-waste environment. I hope that all communities will take actions that are truly needed"

Take a deep breath. Did you know that plankton in the ocean produces over 50% of the oxygen we breathe? The ocean is amazing – it provides oxygen, seafood and recreation.

It also absorbs carbon and helps stem the impacts of climate change. It contains an astonishing number of creatures, from tiny plankton to the largest animals on Earth. The health of all life on Earth depends on a healthy ocean. That is why each year in June, we celebrate World Ocean Day (although many of us celebrate the ocean all year!).

World Ocean Day occurs on June 8 each year. The United Nations General Assembly officially recognized World Ocean Day in 2008. The day was once called World Oceans Day, but the “s” was dropped in 2021 to acknowledge that there is one world ocean that connects us all.

The Gulf of Maine supports many marine species. If you visit the rocky shore at low tide, you may have a close encounter. You may see different kinds of marine algae and invertebrates such as periwinkles, mussels and crabs. Please only observe the animals and do not remove these sensitive creatures from their home.

Harbor and gray seals haul out on the coast at low tide in some areas. These semiaquatic animals are equally at home in the water or on the land (although they do not move very gracefully on land!).

Further offshore, you can find whales, dolphins and porpoises. Fin, humpback and minke whales are the most common whale species in our area. Since the late 1990s, we have been studying the distribution and behavior of whales.

Our work involves photographing whales from local boats, identifying individuals, and collecting data on location, behavior and any other marine life or human activity in the area. We use this data to learn about whale distribution, monitor human threats (sadly, the biggest threats to whales are vessel strikes and fishing gear entanglement), and study the life history of individuals. We share this information with other organizations and agencies in the Gulf of Maine.

One threat to the ocean that we all play a part in is marine debris – litter in our ocean and on our beaches. We have been collaborating with volunteers since 2001 to monitor and clean up marine debris in New England.

At each beach cleanup, we record the litter that we pick up. This data helps us determine what types of trash are most prevalent. We use this information to develop pollution prevention and education programs.

Each year, we pick up thousands of pieces of plastic on the beach. What do we find? Top items include plastic bottle caps, wrappers, cigarette butts, and pieces of foam from cups, insulation and packaging.

Each summer, we also see hundreds of balloons and plastic bags on the ocean. The trash in the environment can have disastrous consequences for marine life, which can swallow it or become entangled. If you pick up even one piece of litter from a beach, park or roadway, you could save the life of a marine animal.

Want to get involved? You can join a public beach cleanup, contact us to set up a private cleanup for your group, or conduct your own cleanup using our digital cleanup kit: https://blueoceansociety.org/cleanupkit. For more information on our beach cleanups and other programs, visit www.blueoceansociety.org.

Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to protect marine life in the Gulf of Maine through research, education and inspiring action.

Jennifer Kennedy is executive director of the Blue Ocean Society for Marine Conservation.

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member, Caleb Bradshaw. To share any comments or questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Youth Leadership Initiative, visit website https://www.aces-alliance.org.

The Environmental Science classes at Triton Regional High School recently undertook an initiative toward implementing more sustainable lifestyles over a two-week period. To “walk the talk,” Thomas Horsley, the teacher and supervisor of this project, also participated in this yearly project to demonstrate a difference.

If everyone on this planet were to share the same lifestyle as an average American, we would need five Earth’s worth of resources to support the population of the world (reference from Earth Overshoot Day). It is important for the health of our planet to make changes to reduce our negative impacts. Learning about a carbon footprint, students chose three changes they could make that would reduce their impact on the environment.

Senior Joe Abt decided his three actions would be: 1) turn off and unplug unused devices and lights, 2) use a reusable water bottle, and 3) use unpackaged shower essentials versus ones that come in plastic bottles.

“It has been going really well so far. Turning off the lights is going to be evident in my parents’ electrical bill,” Abt said. “It’s been pretty easy, honestly, changing habits. I would recommend this to other people, and other schools as a final project as well.”

One of the most common statements from students participating in this project was how easy it is to incorporate more sustainable ways of living into their lifestyles.

Isabella Savino, another senior, was participating in the Sustainability Project while on vacation in Arizona.

“During that time, it was really easy to think about more sustainable practices. We were all carpooling, and eating out which made it easier to avoid red meat,” Savino said.

She noted that, while this was an easy task for her, it caused her to be more thoughtful and insightful at the same time. Her plan is to incorporate these and more good practices so she can continue staying strong when back in Massachusetts.

Sage Woodward is a second-timer doing this project and also a senior. The first time around, she had made the decision to go vegan. Although she was unsuccessful in staying vegan for the full duration of the project, she gained from the experience and then made a decision to become serious and go vegetarian.

“This project can really show people that sustainable behaviors aren’t as hard as you may think they are. When I first went vegetarian, I thought it was going to be impossible,” Woodward said. “But it has actually been really easy and I know not eating meat is one of the best things you can do for the environment.”

Woodward believes that this project is a great opportunity to reflect and be thoughtful so you can open your mind to lifestyles like being a healthy vegetarian. This year, she chose to cut back on individually packaged goods, eating less dairy, and being better about using her reusable water bottle.

Thomas Horsley believes that this sustainability project is the most important assignment that he presents every year.

Since starting the legacy of the project, he has become vegetarian, rides his bike to school, and decreased his plastic use by using things such as shampoo bars.

“I want to demonstrate that every person, myself included, can make small, manageable changes in their lives to make a difference,” Horsley said.

He claimed that he, as well as many students, plans to extend sustainable practices beyond the duration of the project. Adjusting to the changes is the hard part, but the impact that will occur in the long run is surprisingly remarkable.

"Appreciate your positive contribution to a healthier environment"

Take a step and unplug those electronics not in use, take a shorter shower, invest in a reusable water bottle if you haven’t already, eat local, and use more plastic-free waste items. You will see the difference, and appreciate your positive contribution to a healthier environment.

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member, Caleb Bradshaw. To share any comments or questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Youth Leadership Initiative, visit website https://www.aces-alliance.org.

Labels can be misleading. For instance, the terms pro-life and pro-choice may seem antithetical. However, environmentalism is pro-life, in support of clean water, clean air and clean drinking water while it’s also pro-choice because it supports having a choice of cleanly produced foods, being able to avoid polluted air due to traffic jams, and having the option of taking a train to work.

Most people agree that choice is good; sustainable life is good. The real question is how to apply those values in both personal and societal contexts.

For good or ill, politics and our civic institutions are the only way we mediate those conflicts by seeking to find “common ground” or at least a tenuous peace.

That means that regarding environmental strategies and actions, we must make room for personal choice while clearly defining things we must do to save mankind’s place on earth. People will want to fly, travel, and drive fast cars. The key for environmentalists is to concede the right to choose while creating overall policies that aid climate. Even simple rules like auto emissions inspections, gas MPG standards, or banning certain pesticides represent such policies. Environmentalists must be politically aware participants in the public square to get these kinds of ideas enacted.

As one team member noted, “When I was a first-semester freshman in college in the ‘60s, my humanities professor posed a question that has stayed with me. ‘What are the ethical choices mediating the boundaries between the individual and the state?’” In times of societal stress, this question resurfaces as a starting point for formatting ideas and policy preferences.

The Vietnam War divided the country largely along generational lines. Ultimately, people took to the streets, organized, and voted. It was messy and contentious but the country needed to have those debates in order to clarify its values within a post-war new world.

Now is a similarly contentious time with issues of war, climate change, racism, gender, poverty, and ecology. Each is intensely “small p” political in that they affect people in their daily lives. It may help us if we revisit history for guidance. In Ancient Greece, civic political life was not optional. The Athenians had a word for those who refused to participate in public affairs: “idiotes.” Really!

"An existential threat to mankind"

So, let’s take that Greek ideal of democratic civic participation to heart to cope with our problems in 2022. We are now faced with dire global warming and climate change accompanied by widespread species extinction. That’s a big thing, an existential threat to mankind.

Environmentalists want to solve these problems and I hope you are one of them. It may be messy but our best choice is to participate in civic debate. It will require that we tease out and formulate specific proposals, and vocally and respectfully present them to our fellow citizens. Our only choice is to persuade, not just preach, about climate and the environment. We need to be pro-active in communications to create positive, reinforcing images that help people say “yes” to climate-friendly ideas and actions.

We must communicate all our climate concerns to the public in ways that honor healthy individual choices. As happened with the Women’s Reproductive Rights Rally this past week in Newburyport, we must speak up in the public square. Collectively, we want to persuade the 9,848 women and 8,229 men of Newburyport and the 330 million mostly female souls in our nation to move quickly and cooperatively in the direction of policies that protect the Earth and its creatures.

If we care about the earth, we must work to craft doable options for the public at large and educate people about the urgency of changing some of their ways.

Data alone will not be enough for individuals to make the best choices about actions needed for the well-being of all species. We need emotions and joy in our plans too. We must nurture butterflies and plant trees as well as the ideas that will sustain future generations.

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member, Caleb Bradshaw. To share any comments or questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Youth Leadership Initiative, visit website https://www.aces-alliance.org.

Greater Newburyport organizations who are allies of ACES mission will write columns related to their support of ACES’ climate, environmental, and social concerns.

As an art gallery owner and now the creative director for the non-profit PEG Center for Art and Activism, our mission is three-fold: to show art that addresses the climate crisis, human rights, and social justice. Our exhibitions and supporting programs aim to “educate-to-activate” our community to take steps to positively affect some of the most challenging issues we face today.

It is always important how the message is conveyed. People need to have a wholehearted understanding of the challenges, but to frighten, cajole, or over-step is not a way into most people’s hearts.

We at the PEG Center walk a fine line between beautiful art and focused messaging. Both, it turns out, are important.

From the beginning of humanity, we have been conveying messages through visual art. Often, what artists seek to tell is the story of what is most meaningful to them, whether it is the beauty of our natural world or the challenges of being human. Visual messaging is what links us, country to country and citizen to citizen, with our current, historical, and future dreams. When we amplify the beauty of our natural world, built into that amplification is a longing for it to be cared for, saved for future generations, so that deep into the future we trust this beauty will still exist.

We count on artists to convey the heart and soul of our challenges, so that we may have open-heartedness when facing our challenges.

As the artist Olafur Eliasson said in a 2016 article titled “Why Art Has The Power To Change The World”: “Art does not show people what to do, yet engaging with a good work of art can connect you to your senses, body, and mind. It can make the world felt. And this felt feeling may spur thinking, engagement, and even action.”

I have recently had the good fortune of knowing two eco-artists; artists whose work exemplifies their care for the environment. One, Rebecca McGee Tuck, creates wrack-line art from debris found at the high tide line from New England beaches. Olivia Fischer Fox is an oil painter whose portraits of children in nature give us pause. Each of these artists is also deeply involved in environmental activist organizations — for Rebecca it is Surfrider Foundation (www.surfrider.org) and for Olivia it is Mothers Out Front (www.mothersoutfront.org). When an artist lends her voice and her work to an activist group, her message and reach is amplified. We then learn about these organizations and get involved ourselves.

It has long been said that to feel something deeply creates compassion and caring for the health and survival of that which is at risk. Sometimes that heart-opening comes through visual activism, and sometimes it comes from simple messaging, which is why, for every art exhibition at PEG, we produce educational programs that support, expand, and amplify the message.

From now through the end of May, the PEG Center will be exhibiting works in a show titled “Shared Habitat Earth, SHE,” which has been curated by Boston-area artist Barbara Eskin, an artist passionate about the environment. She will be traveling to four locations in the Boston, South Shore, and north of Boston. PEG chose 20 artists for the exhibition here. In curating the choices that Barbara has put together, I sought work that told the message of the climate crisis in an open and rather blatant way. Barbara’s mission was to keep the work beautiful, in order not to turn viewers away.

Come see us during the show and let us know which point of view was most effective! Paula may be reached at paula.estey@yahoo.com.

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member, Caleb Bradshaw. To share any comments or questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Youth Leadership Initiative, visit website https://www.aces-alliance.org.

In Waipoua Forest on the northernmost tip of New Zealand there is a tree 177-feet-tall and over 2,000 years old. Impressive, yes. Even more impressive is the reverence that the Maori show this primeval giant. It is named Tane Mahuta, “God of the Forest,” after the Maori god who pushed apart the sky father and earth mother to create a place on Earth for humans to live. The tree is so sacred that it is considered taboo to touch it.

Tane Mahuta, in terms of sheer scale, is awesome, inspiring, and sublime. It stood in New Zealand before the first humans arrived on the island. No wonder it is considered a god.

Imagine if we treated our local trees with such reverence. Would we dare cut down even a small god if it shaded our pool or its leaves became a nuisance to rake? Of course, I’m not advocating that we deify the trees. But I do believe that we have lost a connection to them.

American consumer culture has taught us that trees on our property are exactly that, pieces of property, and we can do with them what we please.

Imagine, instead, if we treated trees as the long-lived organisms that they are. That they are not something we own but living things that we must care for as stewards and protectors, just as we care for a loved one or a family pet. How would you feel if your property was home to a 2,000-year-old giant?

Such giants do exist. A bald cypress in a North Carolina swamp is 2,624 years old. A little closer to home, Mohawk Trail State Forest is home to Massachusetts’ oldest trees, a grove of 500-year-old hemlocks. This gets me thinking. Where is Newburyport’s oldest tree? How old is it? What species? Who planted it? Is it in danger of being cut down? There’s a hemlock in my yard, maybe 40 or 50 years old. Will it live 50 more years, much less 450? and what sort of effort will it take to safeguard this tree?

Working in collaboration with ACES, I have been assembling a group of volunteers dedicated to preserving and caring for the trees in our community. This Tree Coalition has representatives from Newburyport’s Tree Commission, Parks Department, and the Friends of Newburyport Trees, as well as local city officials and naturalists. It is my hope that this coalition will help Newburyport live up to its promise as an Arbor Day Foundation-designated Tree City USA.

Local youth are also getting in on the act of tree preservation.

ACES Youth Corps interns recently created signs for a Tree Walk at the Indian Hill Reservoir in West Newbury to educate visitors about the importance of trees. I have been mentoring a passionate group of Newburyport High School students to bring similar interpretive signage to the trees of Atkinson Common. We hope our signage will not just be informative, but inspirational.

“What do we owe trees in return?”

Earth Day may have passed, but it’s never too late to appreciate the vital role that trees play in our community. They give us the air we breathe. They shade us on the hottest summer days. They are universes unto themselves providing habitat for countless insects, birds, and animals. They are also a vital resource and commodity, providing one of the world’s most valuable building materials and harboring a wealth of medical cures and treatments. Trees offer us so much. Lately, I’ve been asking myself, “What do we owe trees in return?” Is clean water and a quiet place to grow enough? Or do they deserve more?

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member Caleb Bradshaw. To share any comments or questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Youth Leadership Initiative, visit website https://www.aces-alliance.org.

Our mission at Parker River National Wildlife Refuge is first and foremost to protect wildlife and their habitats.

However, that mission could never succeed were it not for the tireless efforts of our many partners and volunteers who share a deep appreciation for their public lands — and a passion to instill the same in others.

That is why, throughout April and May, we and our partners are celebrating an extended Earth Day with a focus on recreating responsibly, giving back to public lands, and fostering an awareness for the social and emotional benefits of being in wild places. From shoreline cleanups to behind-the-scenes bicycle tours, there are more ways than ever to experience your national wildlife refuge and reconnect with nature.

Front desk volunteers are once again staffing our exhibit space, welcoming and orienting guests with a smile, as volunteer beach stewards protect nesting birds and educate beach goers about piping plovers. Refuge maintenance volunteers construct and repair a variety of structures, offering enhanced opportunities for the public and efficiencies for staff.

The Friends of Parker River, instrumental in their support for all aspects of refuge operations, coordinate among dozens of volunteers who tirelessly clean the beaches and shovel mountains of sand from the boardwalks, ensuring accessibility to all.

The services provided by members of our community to continually improve these spaces are profound and too numerous to name here.

To engage in other ways, consider taking part in the variety of programs offered over the coming weeks. For the first time, we are working with our Mass Audubon partners — an ACES ally — to offer drop-in bird banding demonstrations so visitors can learn about long-term monitoring efforts at the refuge. Numerous guided bird walks are available both day and night. Or, for a faster-paced adventure, consider a trek to Great Bay National Wildlife Refuge for one of several bicycle tours of this unique landscape steeped in Cold War history.

Having just celebrated Earth Day 22, we at Parker River extend our heartfelt thanks to all who contribute to make the refuge and surrounding lands a world-class destination for wildlife and people alike.

Although our primary mission is about the land, the waters, and the wildlife of our — your — National Wildlife Refuge, the staff and managers are cognizant of its contribution to the local area economies where we live and work.

After all, eco-tourism creates a stronger local economy as visitors task time to dine in and visit our local host communities in New Hampshire and Massachusetts such as Newburyport and Gloucester.

For more information and how to participate in upcoming events: https://www.fws.gov/refuge/parker-river/events.

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member, Caleb Bradshaw. To share any comments or questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Youth Leadership Initiative, visit website https://www.aces-alliance.org.

If we wish to continue to enjoy the natural beauty of this coastal area, we all must work together toward the common goal of taking care of the environment.

This reality must be embraced by us all, though often it is not. There seems to be a lack of awareness about how our daily actions affect and even threaten our surroundings, by impacting the availability and quality of the food we eat, the water we drink, and the air we breathe. If we choose not to care for the environment, the consequences are many, including scarcity of clean water, increasing air pollution, and uncontrollable hazardous waste, all of which contribute to the permanent loss of biodiversity.

We are at a pivotal moment, one in which it is imperative to fully understand this important fact: we have nowhere else to go, no planet B.

Our personal interactions with the environment, the ways in which we use our natural resources, must be done responsibly and sustainably. The simple truth is that humanity exists because of what nature provides. We are part of nature, which means if nature disappears, we disappear along with it.  So, what can we do? Compost, recycle, use less and reuse more, but also clean up! If we work together to clean up along our roadsides, beaches, marshes, and parks, we can improve the coastal and ocean ecosystems. Roadside trash ultimately finds its way into our waters. Just take a walk along the river to see the evidence in plain sight, gathered in the sea grass: plastics, trash of all kinds, even the occasional tire. We must ensure that none of that trash kills marine life or disrupts the aquatic life cycle. Our lives depend on it. 

So many decisions we make can help keep our communities clean, including being conscious of how and where we dispose of our waste. 

Please make an effort to clean up wherever you are and wherever you go. There are several opportunities to get involved in an organized beach, marsh, or park cleanup this spring, and if those planned events don’t align with your schedule, then grab a bucket and choose a spot to make your own personal cleanup site. Jane Goodall once said, “You cannot get through a single day without having an impact on the world around you. What you do makes a difference, and you have to decide what kind of difference you want to make.” We must all work together to take care of this amazing planet that we all call home. 

If you would like to learn about local organized cleanup opportunities, please see our 2022 Spring Cleanup Campaign Poster.

This campaign poster is a collaboration between ACES, the listed organizations, and our team of volunteers.  Lisa Conti is one of our volunteers whose recent letter to ACES highlights why she became involved:

“Art Currier, president of the Alliance of Climate and Environmental Stewards (ACES), reconnected with me to ask if I was interested in helping advance efforts to improve our environment. I learned that ACES needed someone to help guide high school students on promoting spring clean-up efforts in Greater Newburyport.

The project, and ACES’s mission, resonated with me. Whether at the beach or around my Salisbury neighborhood, I see and pick up way too much trash left by inconsiderate people. What do their selfish actions tell our children and grandchildren? Is the environment not worth saving for them? I’m glad to volunteer with like-minded adults and students who believe everyone should respect Mother Earth. I hope you’ll join us in a clean-up this spring.”  Lisa’s note continued:

Respect Mother Earth 
And her giving ways 
Or trade away 
Our children's days 
- “Mother Earth (Natural Anthem”) by Neil Young

This column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member, Caleb Bradshaw. To share any comments or questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Youth Leadership Initiative, visit website https://www.aces-alliance.org.

‍

"A community that values the simplicity of everyday ways to all work together toward the common goal"

Being a small business owner in Newburyport, I am inspired by David Hall to focus on creating a lifestyle change of environmental sustainability. The Tannery Marketplace in Newburyport, which he developed, creates a community that makes it easy to recycle, reuse, recharge and reduce waste. It is a community that values the simplicity of everyday ways to all work together toward the common goal. With water fountains to easily refill water bottles to reduce plastics, electronic advertising boards to reduce paper products, composting and clearly labeled waste receptacles to electronic car charging, businesses support each other with awareness and action to create a more environmentally sustainable community.

I am also inspired by the Custom House Maritime Museum as they drive toward zero waste with new protocols for events. Significantly reducing waste, Eco-friendly service ware and a greater focus on re-energizing décor, etc., are critical actions of CAtCH events while managing events at the Custom House. We specialize in events where people make “being green” a priority. These inspirations and a passion for community spawned an initiative – “Forever Green Newburyport.”

As Taunya Wolfe, Greater Newburyport Chamber of Commerce director of the board describes: "Forever Green Newburyport is an annual collaborative program between the Greater Newburyport Chamber of Commerce & Industry and the City of Newburyport, both ACES allies to support environmental education, awareness and eco-tourism. We are all heartened by reading of all the progress and plans in Newburyport to build community resilience to climate change in Mayor Readon’s recent op-ed in the Daily News."

All local businesses and organizations are encouraged to participate in this community-wide initiative. Our member businesses participating in Forever Green Newburyport are conscious of the need to adopt climate and environmentally friendly promotions products, processes and business practices! We want to do our part for the planet and besides, ecotourism is a mainstay of our local economy.

Ecotourism, such as natural ecosystems, is a complex web of natural beauty and resources, gently used and providing income to the community.

Our region is lucky indeed that ecotourism provides a clean industry with employment opportunities and life style benefits for communities that focus on it as does greater Newburyport.

With an emphasis on enriching personal experiences and environmental awareness through interpretation, ecotourism promotes greater understanding and appreciation for nature, local society, and culture. It functions economically as we enjoy here to live “off and with the land and waters” in harmony with nature.

Forever Green Newburyport is promoting special events and activities from late March through late April 2022. These programs include retail store display windows, spotlighting several of our businesses that are actively engaged, education sessions featuring “how to” be more green and a collaborative calendar that spotlights community events from the end of March to Earth Day, April 22. Our mission is to support a variety of local and regional organizations that are already working hard to reduce waste and increase awareness.

Please come visit us in Newburyport this spring and summer and enjoy some of the most beautiful ecotourism activities in all of New England. You will be genuinely welcomed.

^{To plan for activities that one may enjoy, check out the community-wide calendar can be found at http://www.grtrnbpt.wixsite.com/rscalendar}

Forever Green Newburyport will be promoted to thousands through social media and other environmentally friendly avenues.

^{Check out: www.newburyportchamberofcommerce.org/forevergreen.}

Pat Cannon, is the leader of CAtCH events and Forever Green Newburyport Chamber of Commerce Lead.

This column was coordinated by ACES Youth Corps member Caleb Bradshaw. To share any comments or questions, send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES, visit www.aces-alliance.org.

‍

Newburyport is a beautiful green and blue city here on the coast of New England, and having been your mayor now for almost 100 days, it’s clear to see how relevant environmental issues are, and how crucial sustainability and resiliency are for this community.

Just in my first month, we had a major snowstorm that threatened many of our neighborhoods, including those on Plum Island. Some of you may have seen the news last month that the U.S. government released new models showing that the sea levels on the East Coast are expected to rise by about a foot by 2050. This means moderate coastal flooding is expected to happen 10 times as often, meaning we could see flooding multiple times a year, rather than every few years.

"My job is to help us plan for the future"

Much of my job is to help us plan for the future, so that means it’s extremely important for me to look for ways to help make this city more climate resilient, but also to find ways for us to reduce our waste and energy consumption so we can limit the effects of climate change.

The city is committed to the state’s goals of net zero waste and energy consumption. This means that by 2030, we’ll reduce our energy use by 45% and our waste by 30%. and by 2050, we’ll reduce our current energy use by 85% and waste by 90%. To get there, we have to change a lot about how we live, and find new ways to manage our energy usage and supply.

Working together to make those plans a reality

We can’t do it all at once but we need to plan for the future and all work together to make those plans a reality. We have put together plans that prioritize preserving natural resources, limiting trash and waste, increasing residential and commercial recycling and composting, and planning for sea level rise, as well as promoting environmental conservation by reducing what we use and preserving what we have.

Luckily we have a head start. The city of Newburyport was named a Massachusetts Green Community a decade ago, meaning we adopted policies and practices that would help us reduce our energy use. Overall, we’re committed to reducing municipal energy use by 20% to keep us on track. I must praise the city’s departments and workers who have been excellent in adapting climate friendly practices wherever they can, and particularly recognize the work of Molly Ettenborough, our Recycling and Energy manager, for leading on these efforts.

We’ve been working on replacing old, energy wasting infrastructure, and finding ways to use more renewable energy. We’ve been early adopters in promoting electric vehicles including planning charging stations such as in the garage and library parking lot. We’re part of an exciting pilot project in which our Police Department is trying out a new electric vehicle to learn how to incorporate more of them into our fleet.

Businesses and residents have been working to meet this challenge as well. This month the Newburyport Chamber of Commerce has launched Forever Green, an annual collaborative program to encourage education, awareness and eco-tourism between the chamber, the city of Newburyport, organizations focused on the environment, and the community. Additionally, many residents and businesses have utilized the Solarize Newburyport programs that promoted solar roofs on homes and businesses. Many of our businesses, such as Mark Richey Woodworking, and Circle Finishing, have added renewable power from wind and solar. Hillside Sustainable Village and MINCO’s smart growth area at Boston Way have been built with net zero energy as a focus.

Our students are also taking an active role in many ways. The high school Environmental Club and National Honor Society will be launching an organics/composting campaign this month to attract more households to composting their food waste. Others have planned beach and park clean ups, bike swaps, climate justice rallies, all to be found on the local sustainability calendar here.

Open space is a key component of what it means to live in an earth-friendly way. Our parks and playgrounds, especially including our rail trails extension in the South End and along the waterfront, have garnered praise New England wide for their design and beauty and are considered civic gems.

"We can’t do any of this alone"

Lastly, as mayor, I want to harness the community’s energy and passion and get everyone involved in our efforts to make the city greener. We can’t do any of this alone. We need help on three city committees that are looking for volunteers to help the city to realize our waste and energy reduction goals. The Waste Reduction, Energy Advisory, and Resiliency committees all have a lot of exciting new initiatives that need your help.

If you have time to contribute in one of these areas and would like to learn more, please reach out to my office and we’ll provide you with more information. On Earth Day 2022 (my birthday by the way), let’s resolve to help each other make Newburyport an even better, greener, place to live, work, and visit.

This column was coordinated by ACES Youth Corps member Caleb Bradshaw. To share any comments or questions, send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES, visit www.aces-alliance.org.

"nature sings its songs too"

Joni Mitchell’s song “Big Yellow Taxi,” released during the headiness of the first Earth Day, ranks among the top anthems of the 1970s environmental movement.

With lyrics such as “They took all the trees and put them in a tree museum,” and, “They paved paradise and put up a parking lot,” it rebuked what humans were doing to nature in the interest of what was popularly deemed to be progress.

Federal highway funds seem to offer no end in sight to our impulse to bulldoze more, as highways are expanded in a broken-record habit to pave over nature. Indeed, sometimes It may seem that all we can do in the face of this unstoppable wave of global urbanization is to sing the blues.

But nature sings its songs too. Whale song echoes over vast volumes of ocean waters. Bees sing their vibrations and dance to share their directions to find flowers. Those songs and the rhythms of annual migrations of birds and herds across continents show how closely entwined nature is to music. Music serves as a medium of communication to celebrate, invoke, or accompany aspects from the cycle of life.

In Native American culture, the music is closely connected to and even intertwined with nature. It is an integral part of spiritual, social, moral and cultural events. Its most traditional instruments are voices, drums, and flutes; and all created sound, melody, and song serve a specific purpose. Traditionally, their music was brought to life through inspiration, participation, and imitation.

“Songs come from creation itself,” and “songs come from the earth. We are merely vessels through which it can flow and come forth and give joy and give culture, and show us traditions,” explained Whirling Cloud Woman from the Ute peoples.

Humanity as a whole is now writing different songs about Earth and its climate challenges, songs in which individual citizens and governmental officials worldwide play new scores together. And here in Greater Newburyport, expanded rail trails, better walk-ability, edible public plantings and pollinator meadows sound sweet in every neighborhood.

Along the Merrimack River, the sound that comes from the singing birds, the flowing water, and kids laughing lets us forget our worries for awhile and reflect on what is good in life, including being lucky enough to have nature so close at hand. Just like in ‘Annie’s Song’ by John Denver, with lines like “you fill up my senses like a night in a forest, like the mountains in springtime like a walk in the rain,” we are so lucky to live where we do.

Yet there is bad news and we have a lot to do for the healing of Earth’s ills, and we all worry about it.

a “band” of environment and climate allies

But take heart — we can work on it together. Ecological science is helping urban planners think more creatively about nature-informed design. And such as improvisation in jazz, sometimes the most beautiful music comes in the moment and in collaboration with fellow band members. Here in Greater Newburyport, ACES has formed a “band” of environment and climate allies who continue to practice together week after week in hopes that the music deep in the rhythms of the natural world can be harmoniously channeled into meaningful stewardship actions.

Whatever your instrument — your voice, your pen, or your checkbook — please join the band and ACES this earth month and sing your own song for nature. And, save the date of Friday, April 22, from 1 to 4 p.m. for an Earth Day Climate Justice celebration being organized by the First Religious Society Unitarian Universalist, an ACES ally on the waterfront. We hope to see you there!

This column was coordinated by ACES Youth member Caleb Bradshaw. To share any comments or questions, send an email to ACESNewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES visit www.aces.alliance.org.

Climate Action Project (CAP) is an action committee of the Unitarian Universalist Church/First Religious Society on Pleasant Street in Newburyport.

CAP has been focused on climate change since our inception 10 years ago. We started with a limited mission: convincing the congregation to divest from direct holdings in fossil fuel stock. That process took a year — meeting with the Finance Committee, researching consequences, sharing information on climate change, then known as “global warming”. (This was in the days when many had not even heard of the issue and when those who had thought it might happen “someday.”)

We won that vote.

The ensuing years saw many pot lucks with speakers, letter-writing mornings, work with the Gulf of Maine Institute, or GOMI, holding Climate Cafés bringing teen leaders together with adults to teach the grown-ups about climate, and organizing annual Earth Day Sunday services. In 2020 we wrote an Environmental Policy now formally adopted into First Religious Socieity’s governance structure which requires every action/decision of the church and Young Church curriculum to put environment/climate concerns as a priority. CAP used a MassSave energy analysis of the church building and Parish Hall to significantly reduce energy use via increased insulation and air infiltration blocking measures.

Now it’s hard (maybe impossible) to find anyone who isn’t familiar with the climate issue and who doesn’t realize it’s here with us right now rather than in some foggy distant future.

CAP has moved from informing people to encouraging and taking action: future use of heat pump technologies to further reduce the church’s carbon footprint; member Lance Hidy creating a beautiful graphic printed as a 24” by 24” poster/yard poster with the caption, “Love Our Earth”; our Director of Children’s Ministry, Mara Flynn, with CAP members; and organizing a Climate Justice Rally for Friday, Earth Day, April 22, afternoon at the waterfront park in Newburyport. Students of all ages in the church will make climate-care posters and parade through Market Square to the rally site. Theater in the Open, Imagine Studios, Tinkerhaus, Storm Surge, ACES, PEG Center for Arts and Activism, and Merrimack River Watershed Council are participating. All are welcome!

To prepare, Mary McDonald of Tinkerhaus will host a Community Sign Making on April 9, Saturday, 10 a.m. – 2 p.m., at 3 Graf Road, Suite 11, in Newburyport. Again, all are welcome.

Julie Parker Amery, director of Faith Formation and Spiritual Exploration, is presenting “How To Save A Planet” on Thursday evenings continuing through April 14, on environmental/climate issues. Participants listen to a podcast then join virtually via Zoom to discuss.

This year’s Earth Day Sunday service, April 10, welcomes Salem State University professor Dr. Marcos Luna speaking on climate justice and science. In that service will be “A Moment For All Ages,” engaging the children in an environmental awareness activity.

CAP realizes we can’t save the planet by our work alone, but we endeavor to spread not only the word but also the actions, that, taken together, will keep our earth a beautiful and safe home for all of us forever.

This updated column was coordinated by ACES youth corps member, Caleb Bradshaw. To share any comments or questions, please send an email to acesnewburyport@gmail.com. To learn more about ACES and its Youth Leadership Initiative, visit website https://www.aces-alliance.org.

ACES wishes to shift its gaze for the moment from local climate and the environment to express that ACES stands with the people of Ukraine. The chaos, destruction, death and wrecked lives of so many in the war is horrible. The environmental destruction in the Ukraine is horrific.

Even more than the horrible nuclear plant accident that had previously marked the Ukraine 36 years ago. Even before the current war, the name of Chernobyl made a sad reminder of the possibilities of technology going wrong and the need for us all to be conservationists when it comes to protecting our environment.

ACES ally C-10 has been working tirelessly for years in greater Newburyport to focus on holding officials and regulators to high standards including their careful monitoring of the Seabrook nuclear power station. We are all grateful for their service in that regard.

The Chernobyl disaster was a nuclear accident that occurred on April 26, 1986, at the No. 4 reactor in the Chernobyl Nuclear Power Plant, near the city of Pripyat, in the north of Ukraine in the then-Soviet Union. It is considered the worst nuclear disaster in history both in cost and casualties.

The so called “exclusion zone” that was established around the nuclear plant has had weird ecosystems effects. Consisting of over 1,000 square miles of territory in the Ukraine, it become a kind of Dr. Frankenstein unintended experiment.

The shear numbers of wildlife has risen dramatically with elk, bison, wolves, and boar and lynx returning to the re-wilding areas. So maybe it’s going to be OK? Well, maybe in one respect but Science Daily reports that brightly colored birds are among the species most adversely affected by the high levels of radiation around the Chernobyl nuclear plant, ecologists have discovered.

And Audubon, an ACES ally, reported in 2014 that Chernobyl’s radiation seemed to be robbing birds of their sperm. And it has been reported that birds living around the site of the Chernobyl nuclear accident had 5% smaller brains, an effect directly linked to lingering background radiation. The finding comes from a study of 550 birds belonging to 48 different species living in the region.

As individual animals roam in and out of the area and mate with others not effected by the radiation event, what DNA changes have been introduced to the species and will they cause species to diverge over a longer time period?

All of that was made more fearful by news that the Russians resumed shelling the dormant nuclear plant. Saying it is dormant belies the fact that mostly spent nuclear fuel is buried underground there and should never be disturbed.

But it is not about the exclusion zone now. It’s about the people of the Ukraine. We owe them our prayers, our financial support and the world’s condemnation of the Russian invasion.

War in Ukraine is probably the most egregiously destructive climate and environmental action of all. It’s wrong and it needs to be called out and acted upon. ACES is proud to speak up for the land and the people of Ukraine. ACES stands with them.

We fervently hope that the national animal of Ukraine, the common nightingale which constitutes an essential element in Ukrainian folklore as a harbinger of spring and a voice of sweet, happy sounds, sings again soon.