A note from ACTT’s Island Fellow
Hello ACTT Community!
Brianna, ACTT’s Island Fellow here. It’s been over six months now since I came on board with this incredible team and my projects are in full swing. I’m working on greenhouse gas inventories for Tremont and Mount Desert to equip the towns to take targeted action, supporting our island-wide work on cooperative solar and building solutions, and beginning a community-driven process to develop Tremont’s Community Resilience Plan. In an endlessly complex web of data and information, I’m reminded of my winter hike up Cadillac as I figure out where to dig in for traction to keep moving. It’s my joy to get to connect so much wisdom from so many sources, but I’m learning that a successful project here at A Climate to Thrive doesn’t just hinge on technical knowledge or checking off criteria; a project succeeds when our community stands behind it.
Community-driven climate action happens through formal partnerships and connections that prioritize local needs, like the innovative pilot work of the Energy Transitions Initiative Partnership Project. It happens through our Comprehensive Building Solutions Program, thanks to our Energy Advocates who generously give their time, insights, and enthusiasm to help their neighbors tackle energy improvements with the confidence that comes from knowing someone is in their corner. It’s on the horizon for our Youth Summer Climate Fellows: MDI teens who will learn to harness their unique contributions and vision to develop impactful climate solutions. It’s intrinsic to a Community Resilience Plan already being shaped by the insights of long-time residents who speak about the changes they’ve witnessed in their lifetime. (Do you have photos, videos, or stories of climate impacts around the island, whether high-tide flooding on the waterfront, erosion along the shore, favorite ski or skating spots from years gone by where winter no longer reaches? If you’d be willing to share, please reach out to brianna@aclimatetothrive.org.)
Community-based climate action happens in gathering spaces like Local Leads the Way, where shared insight from communities state-wide multiplies possibilities. It gathers momentum when I connect with my fellow Island Fellows, as I will at our upcoming gathering on Deer Isle, and see how our communities from Eastport to Long Island face similar challenges, from water quality to affordable housing to a working waterfront threatened by changes in so many spheres. When we have conversations about small island schools on the ferry to Swan’s Island, when we learn about electric cables at risk of erosion over homemade chili and carrot cake during their Community Resilience Partnership enrollment workshop, we talk about what isn’t working and help one another find what is working and what could be.
We’re focused on connecting people to climate solutions that make practical sense, and connecting our towns and communities to the resources and funds that support implementation. Being part of these networks doesn’t mean sacrificing our unique vision, it means more tools and perspectives to draw from as we turn vision into reality.
But even outside of these formal partnerships, our community is driving change. When our Zero Waste Committee tackles the task of finding waste solutions for short-term rentals (see the guide attached to this newsletter!), when Healthy Acadia’s food security coordinator helps find a way to bring FarmDrop to unabridged islands, increasing access to fresh local food, that’s community-driven climate action as well. Every time someone tells their neighbors that yes, their heat pump kept their home warm even during the latest deep freeze, every time a family struggling with energy bills finds out about an Efficiency Maine rebate that could help keep their home warmer at low or no cost, that’s community-driven climate action.
Tons of carbon removed from the atmosphere is only one measurement of where we are on the path forward, an important measurement, to be sure, but not the whole story. The technologies we implement are only as valuable as the benefits they create for our communities. This work is about science and models and metrics, yes, and it’s also about taking care of one another.
That care is easy to see on this island, where our whole community, like the ACTT community, moves with a quiet generosity. This community shows up, like it did for our Building Solutions Fair, where over 150 people gathered in the high school gym to explore ways to take action in their own homes, and like it does for others in times of hardship. This commitment to showing up for our neighbors when it counts is, at the end of the day, what climate action is all about. I’m grateful to get to be a part of how MDI is rising to the moment.
Brianna Cunliffe, Island Fellow with A Climate to Thrive