The event was a big success—collecting almost 50 Christmas trees and other holiday greens and multiple boxes of food donations and $1,700 for the Lee Food Pantry, which serves residents from several communities in the area.
“I think one of the challenges with climate change is that it is abstract. But when we do things like spend twelve days seeing where a pipeline is proposed to go, we make that a bit more real and we bring others with us to see that, making the abstract a little more concrete.”
-- Jay O’Hara, one of the walk organizers
Ultimately, as several speakers explained, the path to advancing this clean energy economy is being blocked by the tremendous wealth and power that the fossil fuel industry exerts over the nation's political and regulatory system. A study by the Political Economy Research Institute at UMASS-Amherst, on the other hand, that found that rapidly transitioning to a renewable energy economy could create over 2 million net new jobs.
Clean energy is the fastest growing part of the Massachusetts economy, providing 88,000 jobs thus far. If the low estimate cost of the pipeline were directed towards investment in clean energy, it could generate approximately 24,000 permanent jobs.
-- Rosemary Wessel, of No Fracked Gas in Mass
Hundreds of concerned citizens from across the state converged in Fitchburg to plan next steps for stopping the Kinder Morgan gas pipeline and advancing clean energy goals.
