Boston GreenScene

International NonProfit "Ocean Alliance" Seeks Administrative Volunteers

From the Editor's Desk

Have some extra time between now and the end of the year? Looking to get your foot in the door as an administrator at a green organization? If so, the following call for volunteers published by Ocean Alliance might interest you:

Ocean Alliance, an international nonprofit whale and ocean research organization located in Lincoln, Massachusetts, is seeking volunteer administrative assistance to help with year-end tasks and New Year outreach.

Responsibilities will include normal office duties, including filing, mailings, donor stewardship, and basic banking. We are Mac-based (with MS Office applications) and work in a converted barn in a very casual environment. 

Hours are flexible and schedules can be developed around availability. This volunteer position can lead to a permanent, part time position based on future organizational funding and the successful applicant’s fit with the team.

More organizational information can be found at www.oceanalliance.org.

Send brief resume/job experience and cover letter to patrickw@oceanalliance.org. No calls please.

Boston GreenScene's Policy Corner: The Green Bank

by Dan Burgess, Boston GreenScene's Policy Corner Commentator

As the national health care debate in the United States begins to come to a legislative end, the next issue to take center stage will be close to this website's heart: climate change and the environment.

We are truly at a pivotal moment. In the next year, for the first time in almost a decade, our country will seriously consider national legislation and international treaties that have the potential to curb the industrial damage we are causing our earth. As we have seen through the health care discussion, this discourse will be heated, and there will be an astounding amount of misinformation promulgated by those special interests that stand to lose money through successful legislation. If you think the health care lobbyists and conservative activists were fierce, you haven’t seen anything yet.

The industries that will be lining up against environmental protection and regulation include oil and gas, coal, manufacturing, and political interests like those who were shouting ‘Drill, Baby, Drill’ in the most recent Presidential election. This combination of interests will dwarf those that were against United States health care legislation in both money and vitriol.

In order to help inform, and combat the misleading information that is bound to bog down this compelling debate, I’ll attempt to highlight a green policy initiative or idea every week.

This week’s policy proposal to highlight is that of a Green Bank. First introduced by John D. Podesta and Karen Kornbluh earlier this year through the Center for American Progress, a public Green Bank would provide needed investment dollars specifically to the clean energy industry.

Cat People, Green is for the Birds

by Daniel E. Walsh  Author of Our Sunday "History & Reflections" Series

’Questions regarding the value or inutility of the domestic cat, and problems connected with limiting its more or less unwelcome outdoor activities, are causing much dissension. The discussion has reached an acute stage. Medical men, game protectors and bird lovers call on legislators to enact restrictive laws. Then ardent cat lovers rouse themselves for combat. In the excitement of partisanship many loose and ill-considered statements are made.’


Those sentiments recorded in a 1916 report to the Massachusetts Board of Agriculture by Edward Howe Forbush are echoed in today’s struggle with the very same issue. Cats kill birds and they kill them for the hell of it - a penchant they share with humans and few other species. Uncomfortable as that fact may be to those who like cats; the reality is that this issue requires frank assessment when the cat problem is raised. This problem affects various city ecosystems and is a part of a community’s carbon imprint in indirect ways.

Cats kill birds that nest in the city’s trees. That’s a plain fact and not in dispute. The killing lowers the numbers of birds and then increases the number of pest insects, which can have deleterious impact on the health of trees. Healthy trees contribute to clean air and lower the temperature around them. In general, lower temps and cleaner air diminishes the carbon imprint of a city.

This controversy places into conflict forces that seem to have come to their positions along similar paths. The folks who advocate for either cats or birds may have many similar emotional reasons to feel the way they do. Advocacy can often breed an intolerance of opposing views. In the extreme, and in a most peculiar manner, these factions can be seen to be at odds. The resolution of these matters or at least the attempts to come to some agreement has implications for other groups similarly conflicted.

Pearl Diving: The Joy of Washing Dishes

by Daniel E. Walsh  Author of Our Sunday "History & Reflections" Series

Is necessity the mother of invention? Not always. In 1886 Josephine Cochrane became annoyed with her servants. Their offense: chipping her fine china when they washed the dishes. She, the granddaughter of John Fitch, the inventor of the steamboat, put the family talent to work and invented the automatic dishwasher. Her model operated on the same washing principles as today’s machines: spray the dishes with extra hot soapy water, agitate the water to remove soil, drain, rinse, and allow time for drying.  Josephine may have been happy with her unchipped china but her bulky energy wasting invention would take a few decades before it became the sleek under-the-counter kitchen appliance it is today.

Not that those servants had anything to worry about if they were concerned about losing their occupation. Washing by hand would endure. Surprisingly, almost half of American households still wash dishes in the sink with varying degrees of impact on the environment--mostly negative. The skill of the hand dishwasher comes into play as to the use of heat and water necessary to do the job.