Justin on Climate
The most important issue to Justin
Climate Action is delivered at the local level. This was the area where I was most excited about steering Whitman, pulling my experience as an Energy Systems Engineer with municipal best practices to effectively lead Whitman’s adaptation to a changing climate while mitigating municipal greenhouse gas emissions. Each subsequent IPCC report only increases the urgency that we need to act. The 2022 report stated that the effects of climate change are outpacing our ability to adapt.
Before running in 2019 I gathered my thoughts following the death of George H. W. Bush in this post https://medium.com/@justin_evans/the-climate-courage-of-george-h-w-bush-dda6b95d1d29 . I later ran for Selectman advocating that we join the Community Preservation Act and explore Community Choice Energy Aggregation. Those posts still live on my facebook and instagram pages.
In 2019 Whitman completed the transition to all LED streetlights, leveraging Green Communities grants and ultimately saving the town $100,000 a year. The whole project had about a 3 year return on investment and now the town realizes massive energy and lease savings. And the streets are much more well lit!
In 2020 Whitman created a Municipal Vulnerability Preparedness and Hazard Mitigation Plan. A planning grant from the Commonwealth and the expertise of the Old Colony Planning Council were used to do this professionally and at no cost to Whitman taxpayers. Going forward we’ll now be able to apply for MVP Action grants to address identified vulnerabilities and adapt to a changing climate. If elected to a second term I plan to start seeking these grants to reinforce our infrastructure to flood risks, power loss from wind storms, and other hazards of a changing climate.
On the November 2020 presidential ballot the town overwhelmingly adopted the Community Preservation Act which will set aside funds for the preservation of open space in town. I ran on this, and advocated for it repeatedly up until the election. You can see my blog posts about it here, here, and here. And you surely saw my letters to the Whitman-Hanson Express and interviews on WHCA about it.
The Police Department used Green Communities grants to subsidize the purchase of our first hybrid police cruiser in 2020. The department liked it so much we purchased our second in 2021, and are asking for another at Town Meeting in 2022.
At the June 2021 Annual Town Meeting the town voted to ban single use plastic bags and polystyrene containers beginning in 2022. This proposed bylaw change was brought forward by students from Whitman-Hanson’s Student Environmental Awareness Club, and I had the privilege of speaking on their behalf in support of this ban.
In late 2021 I collected my thoughts and plotted a course that any Massachusetts municipality could take to really take climate action. That post can be found here. There are a lot of things on that list I can’t do on my own, but I wanted to set the course and begin fighting for real climate action.