I said those four sentences about 20 times in three hours on Saturday. It was just before I asked one of my neighbors if they had thought about ways to save energy in their home and would they like to sign up for the Commonwealth Challenge? It’s a funny thing, meeting your neighbors. I remember watching movies where people would welcome new people to the neighborhood with a home-baked pie. Have you ever gotten a home-baked pie? Maybe it’s just me, but I’ve never gotten a pie and I don’t usually take time to meet my neighbors. This is nice though. Now as I’m walking from the train to my house, I can say “Hey Neal!” or “What’s up Angela?” instead of nodding my head “Hello”.
A local energy professional checks for insulation in a Boston apartment
The Commonwealth Challenge is building community. Massachusetts neighbors are helping their neighbors save a little money, find a job, and do something about the most daunting crisis the planet has ever seen – climate change. If we are going to weather the storms ahead, we are going to have to learn how to come together. The Challenge is also about bridging the personal and the political. Let’s take the example of Angela, a woman I met on Saturday, to see how it works:
1. She signs up. On Saturday, I asked Angela if she would be willing to get an energy screening in her house to identify options for insulating and retrofitting the place. After I explained that screening was funded through the MassSAVE program she was already paying for through a $.0025/kWh charge each month on her utility bill, she said “sure” and signed up.
2. An energy screening is scheduled. This week a customer service representative at Next Step Living, a local energy efficiency company, will call Angela and schedule her screening. Next Step Living is one of four Massachusetts companies who have signed the “Green Collar Hiring Pledge”, promising to make quality jobs available to local workers with barriers to employment and use environmentally preferred materials and practices.
3. A local worker gets a job. Within a few weeks, a local professional energy specialist will come to Angela’s house, check her boiler and thermostat, check if she has insulation in the walls and attic, and recommend steps she can take to make her home safer, more comfortable, and more energy efficient (Read about Joe’s recent energy screening). As more people like Angela sign up, more local workers can be hired. If Angela chooses to follow up on her screening by investing in insulation, duct sealing, or other retrofit measures, a local worker will benefit with several hours more labor, Angela will save money on her bills for years to come, and her home could use up to 25% less CO2.
4. We deliver the results to Massachusetts. At the end of the campaign, on Thursday April 22nd, neighbors from around Massachusetts will join labor, faith, community, and business groups for a visit to the Massachusetts State House. Residents like Angela will tell the story of what they did alongside workers, business leaders, and advocates. All of them will call on the Massachusetts Legislature to invest aggressively in energy solutions like Angela’s with a statewide goal of 100% clean electricity by 2020.
Like 350’s “Get To Work” campaign, the Commonwealth Challenge was founded on the idea that we can’t put all our eggs in the advocacy and activism basket anymore. We have to come together as communities to begin solving the climate crisis and putting people back to work immediately. We have to show politicians and businesses how to lead as we demand that they enact the laws and create the products and services necessary to get us where we are trying to go. In short – we have to get to work.
The truth is we don’t know if this is going to work. What we do know is that we are not going to sit back as the legislation we are pushing for stalls in committee. We are going to ask our legislators to engage with us in this effort. We took the first step in that direction last Monday by hand-delivering letters to over 100 state representative and senators’ offices inviting them to take the Commonwealth Challenge pledge with us and support 100% clean power by 2020.
So far, one Massachusetts legislator has answered the call – Representative Will Brownsberger of Belmont. With 16 days until the 40th Earth Day, we hope more leaders will step up and take the Commonwealth Challenge. But we’re not waiting for them before we get to work.
Filed under: 350, Act Locally, Business, Earth Day, Economics, green jobs, Political Participation, Politics, United States 
