InCity Voices

By Edith Morgan

Sunday, May 12, was Mothers’ Day – and April 22 was the universal mother earth’s Day, with our own earth day cleanup on April 27.

Before the European settlers came to these shores, this continent was by and large populated by various groups whom we in our ignorance called “Indians”. Though there were many “tribes” or peoples, they mostly shared a philosophy that regarded the land upon which they lived as their mother, our sustainer and provider of food and shelter. All the creatures and plants lived here as part of a cycle, each contributing to the balance that enabled life to go on.  Mother Earth was not “owned” by anyone, and working WITH nature was basic to the philosophy. It was not until European settlers came with their notions of property and overpowering nature, with the idea that all this bounty was put here for our exploitation and profit, that Mother Earth needed a day to remind us that she needs to be taken care of, and kept safe for us all, into the future.

Recently, we have increasingly begun to pay the price for our depredations. Yes, there have always been storms and various natural disasters, but they are coming more frequently and more powerfully than ever, and we are told to expect that they will increase steadily in strength and frequency. Sinkholes and earthquakes also appear more often and in unusual places, all testaments to the abuse being heaped on this small planet.

So it is a good thing, although merely a tiny beginning, that we look around our surroundings, and at least clean up the surface on which we live every day, and once it is pristine, vow to keep it picked up. Even if we did not toss the litter onto public places, picking it up will enable us to live and walk comfortably in our neighborhoods, parks, and other public places. If we show that we care about our environment, others passing through or living here will notice, and not wish to be the first to spoil it. It is always easier to mess up someplace that is already a mess, than it is to be the first….

Earth Day is just a beginning – for many of us, it is not just one day a year: we try to treat our little planet with care and respect every day, in many ways: we save on power, re-use, recycle, and give thought to the many ways we can live well without harming our environment. Our city recycles, and picks up weekly. Our streets are being cleared of winter debris, and the many parks throughout our city are being fixed, and in use by our families.

I get out into my garden and try to grow a few tomatoes, some chives, garlic, rosemary, swiss chard – with varying degrees of success. But mostly it is for the joy of watching something grow and develop.  Now that the trees are leafing out, grass is getting ready to be mowed again, and the bulbs are awakening and pushing up leaves and blooms, once again all seems right with the world, so long as we take care of it…And it is a chance to see and speak with neighbors, also outside, to exchange bulbs, ideas, and gossip too perhaps…

Jobs down 1,400 in April, up 12,900 in 2013

BOSTON – The Executive Office of Labor and Workforce Development today reported that the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ preliminary estimates show that Massachusetts’ total unemployment rate remained unchanged at 6.4 percent and the Commonwealth lost 1,400 jobs in April.

Professional, Scientific, and Business Services, Information, and the Education and Health Services sectors added jobs in April. In the first four months of 2013, Massachusetts added 12,900 jobs. Over the year, Massachusetts added 46,200 jobs, 43,600 of which were in the private sector.

Over the year, the unemployment rate was down 0.2 of a percentage point from the April 2012 rate of 6.6 percent. Revised numbers from the BLS estimate Massachusetts lost 3,800 jobs in March rather than 5,500 jobs as was reported last month.

April 2013 Employment Overview

Professional, Scientific, and Business Services added 4,500 (+0.9%) jobs over the month. Over the year, Professional, Scientific, and Business Services added 16,200 (+3.3%) jobs.

Information gained 900 (+1.0%) jobs over the month. Over the year, Information gained 2,700 (+3.1%) jobs.

Education and Health Services added 700 (+0.1%) jobs over the month. Over the year, Education and Health Services gained 15,600 (+2.3%) jobs. Click to continue »

WORCESTER — Ninety-nine percent of all of Earth’s land ice is locked up in the massive Greenland and Antarctic ice sheets. However, according to a new study led by Alex Gardner, assistant professor in the Clark University Graduate School of Geography, “the world’s other land ice stored in glaciers—humble repositories of the remaining 1 percent of land ice—contributed just as much to sea level rise as the two ice sheets combined over the period 2003 to 2009.”

“For the first time we’ve been able to very precisely constrain how much these glaciers, as a whole, are contributing to sea level rise,” said Gardner, who is the main author of the study “A Reconciled Estimate of Glacier Contributions to Sea Level Rise: 2003 to 2009,” published in the May 17 issue of Science magazine. “And what we find is that melting of these smaller ice bodies account for one third of observed sea level rise”

The research, which uses multiple satellites and an extensive collection of ground data, involved the efforts of 16 researchers from 10 countries, with major contributions from Clark University, the University of Michigan, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, Trent University, the University of Colorado at Boulder, and University of Alaska Fairbanks.

According to the authors, previous estimates of the recent contribution of glaciers to sea level rise have differed widely. Their study compares traditional ground measurements to satellite data from NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite (ICESat) and Gravity Recovery and Climate Experiment (GRACE) missions to come up with optimal mass change estimates for glaciers in all regions of the planet. Click to continue »

By Dan Paden

Most of us — even those of us who eat meat — know that life on a factory farm is no picnic for animals. Chickens are crammed together with thousands of others inside dark sheds that reek of ammonia. Piglets are castrated without being given any painkillers. Terrified calves are torn away from their mothers within hours of birth.

Here’s what you may not know: While for most animals, this life of misery will end with a terrifying death in a slaughterhouse, many will be injured or killed in a traffic accident on their way to slaughter. That’s because the meat industry has a history of hiring drivers with records that read like rap sheets. And until industry officials enact strict safe-driver policies, all of us—humans and animals alike—are at risk.

Just last month, for example, a truck loaded with pigs ran off U.S. 258 in Isle of Wight County, Va. Several pigs were ejected, and 55 were killed. Others were left to suffer in the hours following the crash. PETA discovered that the driver involved in this accident has been charged with at least 15 traffic offenses in North Carolina since 1995, including reckless driving, speeding (five violations) and seeking to evade federal safety regulations.

Also last month, a tractor trailer carrying nearly 1,000 turkeys for a company called Circle S Ranch, Inc., crashed in Henry County, Va., killing hundreds of the birds. And again, PETA found that the driver had an abysmal driving record, including a conviction for driving while impaired and driving while his license was revoked. His past charges also include felony manufacture of a controlled substance.

Click to continue »

How can we protect people and nature and return Earth’s climate system to balance, while meeting the energy needs of the planet’s rapidly growing population? Is renewable energy the answer?

BOSTON — Earth’s population is projected to exceed 9 billion people by 2050. As population increases and living standards in many parts of the world rise, so will energy demand and associated carbon dioxide pollution, a key driver of the global warming that is rapidly altering our natural world.

How can we meet and manage growing energy demands while protecting the planet’s health—and ours? What role can renewable energy—which, in 2011, accounted for only about 9 percent of all energy used in the United States—play in meeting that demand? Scale, cost, technology, policy, environmental impact: What are renewable energy’s greatest challenges? How do we meet them? What is the future of energy?

Join moderator Anthony Brooks, co-host of WBUR’s Radio Boston, and three renewable-energy thought leaders for this important community conversation at The Future of Energy, the second event in the Future of Nature lecture series that The Nature Conservancy is co-sponsoring with WBUR, Boston’s NPR news station, this spring.

The Future of Energy

TODAY – Monday, May 13, 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. (Reception starts at 6:30 p.m.; discussion 7:30 p.m.)

BSA Space, Atlantic Wharf, 290 Congress Street, Suite 200, Boston

• Daniel Kammen: Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor of Energy at the University of California, Berkeley and Energy and Climate Partnership for the Americas Fellow for the U. S. State Department.
• Jigar Shah: Partner at Inerjys cleantech investment firm and founder of SunEdison, one of the world’s leading solar services companies.
• Joe Fargione: Science director for The Nature Conservancy’s North America region. His research investigates energy production, land use, and how to value nature’s benefits to people.
• Moderator: Anthony Brooks, co-host, WBUR’s Radio Boston; producer, editor, reporter and host for WBUR and NPR with more than 25 years of experience in public radio.

Each night of The Future of Nature will feature national and global thought leaders discussing the most critical conservation challenges of our time – food, energy and water sustainability – as well as a pre-event reception with refreshments, good conversation, activities, and information from community groups that are working on these important issues.

About 200 people attended the Future of Food on Earth Day, April 22, at the Artists for Humanity EpiCenter in South Boston.

“We all have a part to play in ensuring that nature continues to meet the needs of all life on Earth, including people,” said Wayne Klockner, executive director of The Nature Conservancy in Massachusetts.  

Tickets are $25 per event. A $40 pass to the remaining two events also is available. Tickets and passes can be purchased online at http://www.nature.org/mass/futureofnature.

May 13

How can we protect people and nature and return Earth’s climate system to balance, while meeting the energy needs of the planet’s rapidly growing population? Is renewable energy the answer?

BOSTON — Earth’s population is projected to exceed 9 billion people by 2050. As population increases and living standards in many parts of the world rise, so will energy demand and associated carbon dioxide pollution, a key driver of the global warming that is rapidly altering our natural world.

How can we meet and manage growing energy demands while protecting the planet’s health—and ours? What role can renewable energy—which, in 2011, accounted for only about 9 percent of all energy used in the United States—play in meeting that demand? Scale, cost, technology, policy, environmental impact: What are renewable energy’s greatest challenges? How do we meet them? What is the future of energy?

Join moderator Anthony Brooks, co-host of WBUR’s Radio Boston, and three renewable-energy thought leaders for this important community conversation at The Future of Energy, the second event in the Future of Nature lecture series that The Nature Conservancy is co-sponsoring with WBUR, Boston’s NPR news station, this spring.

The Future of Energy

Monday, May 13, 6:30 p.m. to 9 p.m. (Reception starts at 6:30 p.m.; discussion 7:30 p.m.)

BSA Space, Atlantic Wharf, 290 Congress Street, Suite 200, Boston

• Daniel Kammen: Class of 1935 Distinguished Professor of Energy at the University of California, Berkeley and Energy and Climate Partnership for the Americas Fellow for the U. S. State Department.
• Jigar Shah: Partner at Inerjys cleantech investment firm and founder of SunEdison, one of the world’s leading solar services companies.
• Joe Fargione: Science director for The Nature Conservancy’s North America region. His research investigates energy production, land use, and how to value nature’s benefits to people.
• Moderator: Anthony Brooks, co-host, WBUR’s Radio Boston; producer, editor, reporter and host for WBUR and NPR with more than 25 years of experience in public radio.

Each night of The Future of Nature will feature national and global thought leaders discussing the most critical conservation challenges of our time – food, energy and water sustainability – as well as a pre-event reception with refreshments, good conversation, activities, and information from community groups that are working on these important issues.

About 200 people attended the Future of Food on Earth Day, April 22, at the Artists for Humanity EpiCenter in South Boston.

“We all have a part to play in ensuring that nature continues to meet the needs of all life on Earth, including people,” said Wayne Klockner, executive director of The Nature Conservancy in Massachusetts.  

Tickets are $25 per event. A $40 pass to the remaining two events also is available. Tickets and passes can be purchased online at http://www.nature.org/mass/futureofnature.

Many courts have ruled peaceful panhandling is protected under the First Amendment, and selective enforcement has targeted the poor and homeless.

WORCESTER — The American Civil Liberties Union filed suit today in federal court in Worcester on behalf of three Worcester residents to block two anti-panhandling laws enacted by the City of Worcester, claiming the laws are unconstitutional and violate the right to peacefully solicit donations in public and to engage the public in political and other speech.

“The laws are intended to prevent so-called ‘aggressive’ begging, but in fact prohibit a great deal of peaceful conduct which is protected expression,” said Kevin Martin, a volunteer attorney from the law firm Goodwin Procter LLP, which is handling the case for the ACLU of Massachusetts.

One of the new anti-begging laws prevents people from doing such things as holding a sign asking for help starting a half-hour before sunset, or performing music while having a hat or cup for donations, or soliciting donations for any cause if they are within 20 feet of the entrance to a bus stop, theater, ATM machine, or any other “place of public assembly.”

“Numerous courts throughout the country have ruled that peaceful panhandling is protected expression under the First Amendment,” said Martin. “Whatever legitimate concerns exist concerning truly criminal conduct by a few individuals can be addressed using existing laws.”

The second law prohibits standing on traffic islands, a location favored for years by people soliciting donations and engaging in protected speech, including many Worcester-area politicians and their supporters, various churches, the Salvation Army, and firefighter organizations raising funds for charity.
The lawsuit contends that this law too is not justified by any safety concerns significant enough to override the constitutional protection for expression.

In addition to raising First Amendment claims, the lawsuit says that the City is violating the right to equal protection of the laws, by enforcing the two laws only against the homeless and other poor people who seek help for themselves.

“When these laws were being considered, the City Solicitor suggested police would ignore violations by politicians and focus enforcement on those begging,” said Chris Robarge, a Worcester-based organizer with the ACLU of Massachusetts. “And since the laws were enacted, the police have ignored traffic median protesters who were acting in violation of the law, yet they have arrested homeless people who did the same thing.”

For more information about the ACLU of Massachusetts, go to:

http://www.aclum.org

For a copy of the lawsuit, go to:

https://www.aclum.org/sites/all/files/legal/worcester_antipanhandling/aclu_worcester_complaint.pdf

By Jeff Mackey

If you’re like most people, you’ll no doubt treat your mom to brunch or dinner on Mother’s Day. But this year, while you are saluting your own mom, please honor all mothers by celebrating with a meal that doesn’t include meat, eggs or dairy products. Some of the best mothers in the world are found in the animal kingdom, yet few animal moms on today’s farms are ever allowed to nurture their babies as nature intended.

For mother cows and their calves, for example, it’s love at first sight. The first minutes after birth are spent developing a bond that will last a lifetime. Their attachment and affection for each other is so deep that both mother and baby become extremely distressed if they are forced apart. Mother cows bellow in vain and their calves wail inconsolably; they cry out for each other for days. Some mother cows have even been known to escape their enclosures and travel for miles searching for their babies.

Sadly, such pitiful scenes are common on dairy farms. Mother cows are allowed to bond with and care for their calves for only a few hours before the babies are torn away so that we can have the milk that was meant to nourish them. Wide-eyed and terrified, the calves are desperate to suckle but instead are given a bottle of milk “replacer” and a short life in a veal crate (for males) or a life just like that of their sad mothers (for females). Meanwhile, the mother cows will soon be impregnated again, only to endure the same heartbreak nine months later.

If allowed, mother hens would turn their eggs as many as five times an hour and cluck softly to the chicks inside, who chirp back from within their shells. Once hatched, the chicks are shielded from predators by their protective mother’s wings. Click to continue »

U.S. DEPARTMENT OF VETERANS AFFAIRS

VA CENTRAL WESTERN MASSACHUSETTS HEALTHCARE SYSTEM

NORTHAMPTON – Veterans in western Massachusetts have several upcoming opportunities next month to receive information about Veteran-specific programs and services during public outreach events.

Congress designated May as National Military Appreciation Month in 1999 to ensure citizens are given the opportunity to publically demonstrate their appreciation for the sacrifices and successes made by service members – past and present.

To help remind residents of western Massachusetts of the important role the U.S. Armed Forces have played in the history and development of our country, the Department of Veterans Affairs is working with local and community partners in providing information to area Veterans and to highlight the service and contributions of all Veterans.

Notable events include an expo in Cummington, 5K walk/run events to help homeless Veterans and Veterans in need, and community Memorial Day ceremonies throughout the region, including a Memorial Day service open to the public at the VA Chapel in Leeds, scheduled for 11 a.m.

The first event to kick off the month will be held at the Cummington Fairgrounds on May 10 and 11.  Combat Veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan as well as spouses and families of Veterans and Veterans of all generations are invited to the first-ever Small Town Veterans Expo at the fairgrounds.

“This will be an exceptional opportunity for Veterans across all the rural areas of western Massachusetts to meet with service providers and receive information on the full range of assistance available to Veterans in our community,” said Steve Connor, director of Central Hampshire Veterans Services and organizer for the expo.

Connor said the idea for the expo started after several events in recent years in which many Veterans approached him about having an event closer to where their friends and neighbors live in rural areas of Hampden, Hampshire, Franklin and Berkshire counties.

“We want to put a face to our nation’s wars and conflicts for our fellow citizens,” said Connor.

The expo, starts each day at noon and ends at dusk.  Connor said it will be a casual, informal and fun opportunity for Veterans to learn about area services. 

Entertainment and refreshments will be offered and military vehicle displays will be an attraction.  An opening ceremony will be held at the fairgrounds at noon on Friday with local dignitaries. In addition, a parade of military vehicles, in what Connor calls a “Welcome Home Convoy,” will leave Pelham on Route 9 on Saturday morning at 10 a.m., heading west to the fair grounds.

Later in the month, two 5K races are scheduled to both highlight Veteran programs and services and to provide an opportunity for the public to contribute to community organizations that support Veterans and their families in need.

On May 18, the first-ever Hoof for a Roof 5K Run/Walk will be held on Armed Forces Day at Blunt Park in Springfield.  The run/walk starts at 8 a.m. from Roosevelt Boulevard and ends at Blunt Park where a community health fair will be held.

The Bilingual Veterans Outreach Center in Springfield is organizing the event to raise greater awareness about outreach for Veterans and with services to help Veterans in need.  Interested runners and families can go to the center’s web page at www.bilingualvets.org to register or to receive more information or by calling…

On May 27, the Veterans Association of Hampshire County will host the third annual Florence Memorial Day 5K run. 

The run starts in Florence center from Cooper’s Corner and proceeds up a steep hill to the VA medical center in Leeds where Veteran patients, staff and volunteers cheer on participants.

The race then finishes at Florence civic center before the annual Memorial Day service.  Interested runners and walkers can register for the race by going to www.florence5K.com or by calling (413) 586-3315.

At all of the May events, tables with information and staff with VA and community Veteran organizations will be available for Veterans to ask questions.

Although the Cummington event is geared to Veterans and their families, the public is also invited as an opportunity to welcome and to honor Veterans in the community.  

For all the events that take place in National Military Appreciation Month, the purpose will be to remember, recognize and appreciate those who have served and those now serving.

At the Cummington and Springfield events, the Springfield Mobile Vet Center, which is equipped with confidential counseling space and which travels to communities across the New England region to extend VA’s reach to Veterans, service members and their families, especially those living in rural or remote communities, will also participate.