Father, husband, cynical idealist working for a better climate future. Greening America's buildings with BlocPower. Tweets my own.
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Articles by Craig Altemose
DPU is too cozy with utilities it regulates - CommonWealth Magazine
MASSACHUSETTS SAW an important milestone earlier this year with the passage of the Next Generation Roadmap bill, a much-needed update to the state’s evolving response to the climate crisis. The bill was passed by overwhelming margins in the House and Senate and signed into law by the governor (after vetoing it twice).
Debunking Baker's 6 reasons for climate veto - CommonWealth Magazine
ON THURSDAY, Gov. Charlie Baker announced he would veto the Next Generation Road Map climate bill, a bill that would take a big step forward in advancing Massachusetts’ response to a public health emergency. Since his first failed run for governor as a climate denier, Baker has generally positioned himself as someone who is pro-climate action. And indeed, his administration just released an updated climate action plan that has much in it to celebrate.
Vote for climate and democracy - CommonWealth Magazine
CLIMATE AND DEMOCRACY are on the ballot this fall for hundreds of thousands of voters across the Commonwealth. Voters in all or part of 44 communities (a complete list is at the bottom of this column) will have a chance to signal an instruction to their state representative to vote for 100 percent renewable energy by 2040 and for all committee votes to be publicly available on state websites.
Climate police update needed on Beacon Hill - CommonWealth Magazine
THE MASSACHUSETTS LEGISLATURE has a chance to get the Commonwealth on to a better track with climate change. Massachusetts is regularly ranked first in the nation in energy efficiency programs and we have okay renewable energy programs, but when it comes to climate change policy we have been resting on our laurels. Our current programs were designed a decade or more ago. They set a timeline for reducing greenhouse emissions by 80 percent by 2050.
Climate action key theme of primary races - CommonWealth Magazine
ON TUESDAY, Massachusetts voters sent a political shockwave to Washington, DC. as they for the first time in history rejected a Kennedy — with a double-digit margin — at the ballot box in favor of Green New Deal author and progressive champion Ed Markey. This victory should be seen as a sign of the climate movement’s increasing political strength and a warning to those who stand in our way.
Lessons learned from the push for climate action - CommonWealth Magazine
ON WHAT WOULD HAVE BEEN the last day of the 2019-2020 legislative session, the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed a Roadmap Bill, helping to lay the foundation for a slightly more ambitious – and much better planned – decarbonization of the economy.
COVID-19’s lessons for climate change - CommonWealth Magazine
AS WE ENTER the beginning phases of re-opening Massachusetts, Covid-19 has already provided several important lessons for policymakers to consider when addressing the other major global crisis that experts have been warning us about: climate change. Two key lessons are immediately apparent. First, we ignore expert guidance at our peril.
Harvard’s ‘Green’ Endowment Policy Falls Tragically Short
On the day before Earth Day, Harvard announced a new “net-zero” by 2050 greenhouse gas emissions policy for its endowment. While it is about time Harvard acknowledges that the endowment is — as students, faculty, and alumni have been saying for years — an appropriate tool to achieve societal goals like climate action, the proposal was disappointing in its process, presentation, and policy.
Should the public buy Columbia Gas? - CommonWealth Magazine
THE RECENTLY PROPOSED $1.1 billion sale of Columbia Gas to Eversource provides an important opportunity to consider how we, the people of Massachusetts, want our public utilities to be governed and structured – and whether to pull them more firmly into the public domain. Public utilities are entities entrusted to provide critical public services to the public.
Baker’s net-zero goal is business-as-usual - CommonWealth Magazine
ON TUESDAY, two notable public figures gave public addresses on the topic of climate change, illuminating the bridge that exists between what society needs to do to tackle climate change, and what society is so far willing to do to tackle climate change. In his State of the State address, Massachusetts Gov.
BOSTON’S CLIMATE STRIKE: WHAT YOU NEED TO KNOW
Around one year ago, a 15-year-old girl in Sweden by the name of Greta Thunberg asked herself a simple question: What is the point of going to school to prepare for my future if climate change threatens to completely destroy the world I’m being prepared to enter? So she decided to skip school on Fridays and stand outside of the Swedish parliament to call on her government to do more on climate change. She began this bold act of defiance entirely by herself.
Enviros tell Kennedy to stay where he is - CommonWealth Magazine
RECENT NEWS REPORTS have suggested that US Rep. Joe Kennedy III is seriously considering challenging Sen. Ed Markey in the Democratic primary. We are writing to say, in no uncertain terms, and in no disrespect to the congressman, that this is the wrong time for an intra-party challenge. First off, it has been clear that Markey has been a pivotal leader when it comes to climate change, and arguably has one of the most important roles to play in a very narrow window of time to advance climate action.
Climate, housing activists find common ground on tax - CommonWealth Magazine
EARLIER THIS YEAR, Gov. Charlie Baker made waves when he announced a proposal to increase the real estate deeds excise tax by 50 percent to help fund critical municipal climate resilience projects. The environmental community was pleasantly surprised to hear the governor offer a clear, new funding stream to help prepare our communities for the many harmful impacts of climate change. The affordable housing community, on the other hand, was caught off-guard in a less pleasant way.
Three takes on natural gas - CommonWealth Magazine
The following three opinion pieces all focus on the great divide in Massachusetts over natural gas and its accompanying infrastructure. Get the Daily Download Our news roundup delivered every weekday. Email* Baker’s mixed record on climate change CRAIG ALTEMOSE EARLIER THIS MONTH, Gov. Charlie Baker traveled down to Washington, DC, to testify before a congressional committee about Massachusetts’s climate leadership.
We need a Green New Deal in Massachusetts
THE LATEST CLIMATE SCIENCE has come in, and it’s time to update our state’s climate laws. As a graduate student working on climate change in 2008, I was proud to help lead hundreds of students from across Massachusetts to campaign effusively for the passage of our state’s landmark Global Warming Solutions Act.
The many faces of climate denial
North Carolinians are paying a price for the politicization of climate science. In 2012, the North Carolina state legislature attempted to outlaw sea level rise by preventing the use of sea level rise data in any government planning efforts (after a 2010 study predicted a rise of three feet this century). The cost in terms of property damage and human suffering that could have been prevented without this order is hard to measure.
Why climate groups deserted Sanchez
A POLITICAL LIGHTNING BOLT hit the Massachusetts State House on September 4. Jeffrey Sanchez, the longtime incumbent and chair of the House Ways & Means Committee, was defeated by Nika Elugardo, a first-time candidate, community leader, and former staffer to Sen. Sonia Chang-Diaz. Sanchez outspent Elugardo 3-1 and was backed by much of the establishment, ranging from Boston Mayor Marty Walsh and Attorney General Maura Healey to the Boston Globe and 11 unions.
No 7th inning stretch needed, just clean energy home runs
This commentary was written by Joel Wool. I’VE NEVER BEEN A FAN of baseball metaphors. If we’re talking efficient use of energy rather than exercise or entertainment, it’s hard to see the utility of hitting a ball and running in circles. But since opponents of clean energy reforms have called for a “7th-inning stretch” to pause and reflect on climate progress achieved to date, allow me to respond in kind. We are dangerously close to striking out on climate. We need a home run. And then another.
What’s up with the Globe and natural gas?
of the Boston Globe’s editorial board advocacy for consumers and the environment, including its current strong criticism of regulation rollbacks by the Trump administration, it is puzzling to see the paper crusading for new natural gas pipelines that rigorous studies say we do not need, are outrageously expensive, and harm the environment and the climate.
We’re not absolutists, we’re realists
back-to-back 100-year floods, the Boston Globe’s editorial writers were busy this winter honing their case for expansion of natural gas pipeline capacity in New England that would make such flooding even more common. They’ve characterized opponents of new gas pipelines as being moralistic “purists” and “ absolutists ” who are willingly blind to the effects of importing liquefied natural gas, either by ship or by rail.
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