Dear Climate Conversation Friends,
To start, we hope you and your families/friends are all doing well during this difficult time. It is hard to be apart when we need to be together, but we are learning creative ways to stay in touch and support one another in amazing ways. It is so heart-warming to witness the care and compassion that is flowing through our communities!
Needless to say, our April 7th gathering with Nick Lund of the Maine Audubon will be postponed until Tuesday, July 7th at 6:30 p.m. - 8 p.m. at The Wilkins House on Plummer Hill in Waterford. To peak your interest, we have attached a link to Maine Audubon’s daily communications page, Connections, where they are posting daily updates about birds, bird cams, backyard birding, and other info helpful during this lockdown: https://www.maineaudubon.org/connections/ More information will be forthcoming in the days ahead.
We have also attached below the press release that appeared in local papers, written by Sally Holm. It gives a nice review of where we have been and we where are going in our Climate Conversations.
We will continue to send you email updates and information along the way.
Be well, stay well and take a moment to take in the beauty of Spring unfolding around us.
In peace and hope,
Doretta and Kerry
Third Round of Climate Conversations to Begin at Waterford Church on April 7
What can we—as individuals and communities—do to limit the rapidly expanding impacts of climate change? From plans to protect our threatened birds and other wildlife, to rethinking our means of transportation, to stepping up our recycling, the Waterford Congregational Church Climate Conversations initiative is launching round three of our monthly series of discussions. All discussion sessions are held on the first Tuesday of each month from 6:30-8 pm in the Wilkins Community Center next door to the church.
The April session will be held on Tuesday, April 7. The meeting will feature Nick Lund of Maine Audubon who will discuss the health of our bird populations—both resident and migrating, and how Climate Change is impacting them. Nick will remind us of the importance of birds and wildlife to the health and survival of our planet and present us with specific ideas to help us protect birds, and wildlife in general.
Also in April—an Earth Day Fair, on Saturday, April 25, from 9 am-noon in the Waterford Common, will be offered with recycling information, guidelines, and tree and pollinator-friendly plantings, instructions for creating beeswax food wraps, roadside trash pickup, and demonstrations on reducing lake pollution among other enviro-friendly ideas. Many activities will be hands-on projects, and children are encouraged to participate.
On Tuesday, May 5, the group will be discussing the Transportation Climate Initiative (TCI) with Will Sedlack of the Maine Transportation Alliance and a panel of experts. Transportation is the largest source of carbon emissions in Maine, and Sedlack will lead a discussion of ways to reduce those emissions and expand access to clean transportation options in our state.
June’s session, on Tuesday, June 2 will cover recycling and what we must do to reduce, reuse, and eliminate what we throw away. Charlie and Antoinette Tarbell have pulled together a panel of experts to address these critical issues and help develop an agenda for action.
The Climate Conversations, which began in October 2019, have attracted more than 50 concerned citizens to each meeting. The year-long series has been planned and led by the Rev. Doretta Colburn, pastor of Waterford Congregational Church and an organic farmer, and Kerry Johnson, a retired management consultant and leadership expert.
Previous sessions have featured local and global impacts of our changing climate with perspectives offered by Lisa Pohlmann, CEO of the Natural Resources Council of Maine, youth representatives of the Maine Environmental Changemakers on their priorities and projects, Tyler Kidder of the Onion Foundation on how to talk persuasively about the issue, Virginia Tech University forestry professor Tom Hammett with an international perspective, and frontline stories and possible solutions that featured Deb Perkins, wildlife habitat ecologist; Scott Vlaun of the Center for an Ecology-based Economy (CEBE); and Colin Holme, director of the Lakes Environmental Association ( LEA).