826 Boston supports young writers

In Lexington, 826 Boston supporter Sonali Shah hosted NYT best-selling author Vaishnavi Patel for a fascinating conversation on the experiences of women in India and in Indian fiction. Good turnout. 826 Boston exists to nurture and highlight the writing talents of young writers in urban neighborhoods. Great organization. Shoutout to Read My Lips Boston for inviting my wife and me to the session.

Massport’s terrible two-fer

In entertaining a proposal to build new hangars for super-polluting private jets at Hanscom Airfield, Massport is on the verge of a terrible two-fer: aiding and abetting the warming of the planet and pandering to the concentration of private wealth. I joined advocates at the State House in thanking the Governor and asking her to prevail upon Massport to do the right thing. Nothing is guaranteed, and the odds remain very difficult, but they aren’t as long as they were two years ago! We have a real opportunity to stop this.

Senator Barrett speaks at a podium in the State House (wide shot)

Celebrating WIN at the Hero Awards

Waltham Inclusive Neighborhoods, founded by Tom Benavides, has been pushing to expand access to housing. I was pleased to present Tom with one of this year’s Hero Awards, organized by the Waltham Democratic City Committee, in recognition of the group’s impressive work.

Senator Barrett stands with Tom Benavides, Genoveva Tavera, and Mara Dolan

This just in, from Recharge, a national publication dedicated to covering electric power and the electric grid:

“A major US engineering body this week gave the nation’s grid infrastructure a damning D+ score in its quadrennial school report-style assessment, which noted that “a large portion of the system exhibits significant deterioration” with “strong risk of failure”.

There are bright spots of course – not least in New England, where a study by the grid operator found that the region could absorb power from over 9GW of offshore wind capacity by 2050 with far less investment than previously anticipated.”

Can we have a little optimism, please? Clean energy and the Massachusetts climate movement have legs younger than Donald Trump’s. We’ll be alive and kicking when he is long gone.

Boston is bustling with romance book clubs — where happy endings aren’t just possible, but required

The Boston Globe

And now for something different: Kudos to my amazing daughters, whose entrepreneurial embrace of happy endings makes me smile on my most challenging days.

A picture of an article appearing in the print edition of the Boston Globe.

Chelmsford turns out big for the climate

What a turnout! The Chelmsford Climate Action Team packed the room to talk state and local climate policy. The big question: How can towns make a difference? We covered everything from putting solar panels on condo roofs to making it easier to install heat pumps.

Senator Barrett speaks to the Chelmsford Climate Action Team
Senator Barrett speaks to the Chelmsford Climate Action Team

Proposed private-jet Hanscom expansion is a climate bomb in sheep’s clothing

The Lincoln Squirrel

State Sen. Mike Barrett posited to Davey that “there is a sense in which you’re rolling out SAFs, I think, as a shield and in order to disarm us,” a point that Davey heatedly denied, referencing an SAF startup in Charlestown in his defense. To this, Barrett replied: “We have lots of startups in Massachusetts that hope someday to cure cancer, and we certainly want to encourage them to try. But none of us go out and encourage our kids to smoke cigarettes because the cure is going to come in their lifetimes.”

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