Dear John,
As the days slowly get longer and the sun peeks its face out later and later each day, we know it must be almost March in Maine. The best and least-crowded time of the year to go for a beach walk, March heralds the slow transition from winter to spring: the start of maple syrup season in Maine, as well as the first “ice out” and “fish in” of the year. Though it may be tempting to stay outside all season long, we hope you’ll unstrap your skis and unlace your boots to join us and our wonderful presenters for your lunch hour each Friday. I hope to see you online!
— Kathleen |
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Friday, March 1, 12-1 PM: Building a Joyful, Welcoming, Powerful Climate Movement that Can’t Be Ignored | Part 2
Over the last 15 years, throughout the United States, a movement has been building that integrates creativity into the practices and policies of local and regional governments as a game-changing tool. In 2022, President Biden signed an Executive Order mandating that all Federal Agencies integrate creativity in their planning, policies, and programs. Not simply murals and banners, puppets and songs, but civic engagement projects, civic performances, community collage mapping, and more.
Maine has led the nation with Art At Work’s 8-year residency in Portland’s City Manager’s office. Poetry projects to address historic low police morale. Family story circles and printmaking to address multiple racial discrimination lawsuits within the Public Works Department. Grassroots and municipal leaders creating ‘collage maps’ led by the head of Maine’s Director of Emergency Management Agency. A performance with police officers and African-born high school students in response to the fatal police shooting of a S. Sudanese resident.
Community Arts projects thrive on challenging, fun, meaningful engagement — the kind that fosters equity and creates common ground. These projects are playing an increasingly powerful role in building the relationships and movement we need. Join Marty Pottenger, Executive & Artistic Director of Art at Work, to learn more about her presentation at Cultural Advocacy Day on March 5th, and about how essential art is to creating a powerful climate movement that cannot be ignored.
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Friday, March 8, 12-1 PM: New England Feeding New England: A Regional Approach to Food System Resilience
What would it take for the 6 New England states to provide 30% of their food from regional farms and fisheries by 2030?
Tanya Swain from Maine Food Strategy and Leah Rovner, Project Manager for the New England Feeding New England Project, join us to share highlights from a recent report exploring that question and a study now underway to begin answering it. Learn about New England Feeding New England, a project of the New England State Food System Planners Partnership that will establish baseline data on the amount of food consumed in each New England state that’s produced within the region.
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Friday, March 15, 12-1 PM: Exploring our Climate Future with EN-ROADS
As climate change and its harmful effects accelerate, so too does the urgency for effective climate action. Learn how various climate policy solutions work to stabilize the climate and how they impact sustainability, justice, trade, energy, and income disparity. Join this interactive climate policy workshop using MIT Sloan School's EN-ROADS Climate Policy Simulator to explore our current climate trajectory, how recent legislation has improved our long-term outlook, and how Maine — the only state in the world's largest economy with both senators on the bipartisan Senate Climate Solutions Caucus — can lead the nation and world in advocating a stabilized climate and a sustainable future.
Peter Dugas is the Maine State Coordinator for Citizens Climate Lobby, a nonpartisan grassroots organization focused on effective and equitable climate solutions. He serves as the liaison to the office of Senator Angus King (ME-I), is an EN-ROADS Climate Ambassador, and is a long-time advocate for finding climate change solutions. He earned a degree in Physics and Engineering from Brown University and lives and works in Portland, Maine.
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Friday, March 22, 12-1 PM: The Fraud of Plastic Recycling: How Big Oil and the Plastics Industry Deceived the Public for Decades
Many of the same fossil fuel companies that knew and lied about how their oil and gas products cause climate change have also known and lied for decades about how another one of their core products — plastics — could never be recycled at scale.
A new report from the Center for Climate Integrity, The Fraud of Plastic Recycling: How Big Oil and the plastics industry deceived the public for decades and caused the plastic waste crisis, lays out new evidence that could provide the foundation for legal efforts to hold fossil fuel and other petrochemical companies accountable for that deception and the significant damage it has caused. Join Chelsea Linsley, Iyla Shornstein, and Alyssa Johl from the Center for Climate Integrity to learn about actions that states and communities across the U.S. are taking to hold Big Oil accountable.
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Friday, March 29, 12-1 PM: No Lunch & Learn |
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