Community-Driven Education Series
Educational programming designed to both bring important information to communities while also facilitating nuanced conversation, collaboration, and problem-solving.
Stay tuned for upcoming events and find recordings of past programs below!
Past Events & Recordings
A Homeowner’s Guide to Solar
Clean energy used to be something few people could afford, but a lot has changed over the past few years, especially now with increased incentives from the federal government. As electricity and oil prices continue to rise, it’s critical for all community members to understand how they can buffer the impact of rising energy costs, increase the resilience of their home or business, and actively reduce emissions. A Climate to Thrive discusses the various pathways residents and businesses have for going solar and the financial and environmental impact of each choice.
With ACTT Solar Coordinator Beth Woolfolk
Cohosted by the Jesup Memorial Library, The Southwest Harbor Public Library, and the Northeast Harbor Library.
Top Climate Actions for Everyone
This event highlights the most effective actions we can all take to address climate change right now, approaching the topic from the levels of policy, finance, community-wide solutions, and individual actions and considering how the thread of climate justice weaves throughout.
Cassie Cain, Maine Youth for Climate Justice Program Director; Laura Berry, Community Climate Action Planner; David Gibson, Director of Energy at College of the Atlantic; Ania Wright, Grassroots Climate Action Organizer for Sierra Club Maine; and Johannah Blackman, ACTT Founding Member and Executive Director
The IPCC Sixth Assessment Reports
This event provides an overview of the essential content contained in each of the most recent installments of the Intergovernmental Panel’s Sixth Assessment Report on Climate Change. The event concludes with information on what we all can be doing, right now, to address climate change, focused on the top priorities at the systemic, local, community, and individual levels and is meant to be watched in conjuncture with the recording of ACTT’s educational event from May 2022, which provides a deeper dive into top climate actions we all can take.
With Ivan Fernandez Professor at the University of Maine’s Climate Change Institute and the Co-Chair of the Maine Climate Council’s Scientific & Technical Subcommittee
Reducing Greenhouse Gas Emissions, a homeowner’s guide
What key activities can homeowners do to meaningfully reduce the greenhouse gas emissions associated with their home? What benefits do these changes bring to homeowners, beyond greenhouse gas reduction? And what support exists for homeowners engaged in making these changes?
Join a panel of experts for answers to all of these questions and more! Learn about the three key components of greenhouse gas reduction in buildings of all types, homes included, how you as a homeowner can engage in these key actions, and resources and financial support available throughout the process.
With David Gibson, Director of Energy at College of the Atlantic; Matt Damon & Paul Shepherd from Penobscot Home Performance; and Beth Woolfolk, ACTT Solar Coordinator.
Community Solar, Community Equity
The phrase “community solar” is tossed around a lot these days, with many different meanings. Solicitations arrive in the mail for subscription models that claim to be “community solar”. We hear about new “community solar farms” being developed, some providing ownership, some providing subscriptions.
What really is “community solar”? Does it matter who owns solar production, as long as clean energy is being added to the grid?
With Lynn Benander of Co-op Power and the People’s Solar Energy Fund and Sharon Klein, Associate Professor at the University of Maine’s Mitchell Center and School of Economics.
The Costs of Climate Change on MDI - Who Pays?
As MDI experiences increasingly severe weather events and warming, rising seas, taxpayers will be increasingly confronted with the bill for recovery and adaptation. And yet, another avenue exists to cover those costs.
Since 2017, 27 communities have turned to the courts to hold ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell and other major fossil fuel companies accountable, making those companies pay for local climate damages. Evidence has demonstrated that fossil fuel companies have known about the long-term negative impacts of their products and activities for more than 50 years and that these companies lied to the public to protect their bottom line. Through holding these companies accountable, communities across the country are shifting the cost of resilience and repair back onto the fossil fuel companies. The Center for Climate Integrity is supporting this work and will join MDI community members to share their experience and the possibilities this work could hold for the local MDI community.
Have you been hearing a lot about net zero emissions targets or carbon neutrality and wondering what those terms mean? Join climate justice organizer, advocate and activist Ania Wright to explore nuances around the concept of net zero, an emissions target popular with many countries and states, and carbon neutrality, the target involved in Maine’s Climate Action Plan: Maine Won’t Wait. Learn why net zero and carbon neutrality are problematic, why real zero targets are important, and how you can play a role in ensuring that emissions targets are meaningful and science-based.
With Ania Wright, Grassroots Climate Action Organizer for Sierra Club Maine
Growing Up in the Climate Crisis
The burden of the climate crisis is consistently placed upon youth. Youth activists are expected to create solutions and enact change. The resulting responsibility to fix the climate crisis is often narrated by adults within the movement. However, the outside perception of this responsibility and the reality of what it means to be a youth climate activist are vastly different.
On Tuesday, August 3 at 5:30, a panel organized by and featuring A Climate To Thrive’s five summer interns discussed what it means to be youth activists in the current climate crisis. “Growing Up in the Climate Crisis” explored how to navigate intergenerational collaboration within the climate movement, the collective sense of responsibility youth activists experience, the role of youth in climate education, and more.
Organized by ACTT 2021 Summer Interns, facilitated by Katrine Oesterby, ACTT Summer Intern Coordinator
Towards Climate Justice
In this talk, Dr. Darren Ranco, Professor at UMaine and a citizen of the Penobscot Nation discusses the ways Wabanaki Tribal Nations are taking leadership in climate justice and climate adaptation efforts across our region. Placing this work in the context colonization, Dr. Ranco details the current and coming climate change impacts to Wabanaki Tribal cultures and how centering Wabanaki Tribal perspectives creates just possibilities related to climate action and adaptation.
Federal & State Climate Plans & Policy
With the new Biden administration comes a far more ambitious approach to addressing climate change via policy. Maine has already taken action to push statewide climate policy forward, coming out with the Maine Climate Action Plan in December, 2020. Are you curious about these new plans and their potential impacts? So were we.
With Emily Cosbar, an energy policy consultant and Consulting Manager for PowerAdvocate, presents Biden’s Climate Plan and policy at the federal level. Ivan Fernandez, a professor at the University of Maine in Orono School of Forest Resources and a member of the Maine Climate Council, discusses the Maine Climate Action Plan.
The Gulf of Maine’s Climate Emergency
with the MDI High School AP Environmental Science Class, January 2021
Ruth Poland’s AP Environmental Science Class provides a comprehensive overview of climate change’s current and future impacts on MDI along with concrete, local solutions every Islander can engage in. These students share their perspectives through a clear, level headed presentation on the hard facts and what we can do about them.
From Reaction to Action on Climate Change
Ken Colburn sifts through climate change data to deliver the most important facts of this moment. Dennis Kiley then explores common emotional responses to the climate emergency, illuminates their value, and explains how they can serve as our guides. Finally, Johannah Blackman addresses the critical role of community engagement through exploring the vital role we each can play in addressing the climate crisis. At the end of each section, community member Liz Graves discusses how the topic at hand impacts her personally.
In this event, we focus on the utility interconnection issues homeowners in Maine increasingly face as they try to build small rooftop solar arrays. We spoke on how to break down the interconnection process, the current barriers homeowners experience, and how other utilities and states address the same issues. We ended by outlining what homeowners can do now to advocate for their projects and how to promote the necessary changes that need to occur at the Maine State Legislature and Public Utilities Commission.
A critical component of successfully transitioning off fossil fuels and building an affordable, climate-friendly, and extreme weather-resistant energy future is our electrical grid. Currently, the transition to renewable energy is hitting significant roadblocks when it comes to the grid here in Maine. In particular, folks might have read about issues interconnecting solar projects to the electrical grid and the crippling impact of these roadblocks on local solar. The good news is, there are solutions and implementing those solutions will benefit Maine residents and ratepayers! Join us to learn more about the Maine grid and solar energy and how we can each play a role in ensuring our grid is prepared to make the transition off fossil fuels for a climate-friendly future that will benefit all of us.
Thanks to the Onion Foundation & the Stephen & Tabitha King Foundation for their support of our Community Climate Educational Series.