Make a Change
Contacting Policy-Makers
The first step towards a Clean Air Massachusetts
First of all, we’d like to say thank you for visiting this part of our webpage. We believe contacting local politicians is one of the most efficient steps for enacting real change. We're very excited that you made it here.
Even if you don’t feel like sending emails today, we still highly encourage you to look at and be informed on our policy recommendations. They are examples of what feasible steps can be taken to reduce the burden of PM2.5 air pollution.
We have provided an email template that encompasses what we believe should be done at the state and local levels. If you would like to add a more personalized element, we would encourage you to add why PM2.5 control is important to you, your family, community, and town. For finding your representatives, we have linked a few websites and descriptions of how to use them at the bottom of the page.
While we highly encourage all action, we want to highlight how important it is to contact local representatives. As Tip O’Neill once said, “all politics are local”, and your local representatives are the most likely to implement change quickly.
Thank you again for your commitment to a Clean Air Massachusetts. It’s your action that gives us hope for a brighter, cleaner, healthier future.
Our Policy recommendations
Below are our general policy recommendations. We have separated them by size and scope.
Town Level
• Convert all municipal vehicle fleets – cars, trucks, buses - to hybrid and fully electric
• Place solar panels on the roofs of municipal buildings
• Preferentially purchase electricity produced by renewable energy
• Block construction of gas pipelines, compressor stations and other components of the natural gas network
• Prohibit gas hook-ups in new construction
• Revise building codes to increase energy efficiency
State Level
• Reduce pollutant emissions and air pollution levels by accelerating progress away from fossil fuels toward net zero carbon. Two powerful tools for accelerating this transition are to phase out all governmental subsidies and tax breaks for the fossil fuel industry, while at the same time increasing individual and system levels incentives for wind and solar power.
• Urge ISO-New England, the operator of the region’s electric power grid, to favor renewable energy over electricity produced by fossil fuel combustion
• Recognize the significant health and environmental impacts of methane gas and resist the temptation to continue to rely on gas for power generation and heating
• End all subsidies and tax breaks for the fossil fuel industry
• Resist any temptation to move to nuclear power
NEXT STEPS
Contacting local politicians has the most direct impact on you. Policies enacted will be closer to home, and your representative is more likely to respond to any request.
If you live in a city in Massachusetts, then you should contact your local Mayor’s office. Find your mayor here.
If you live in a town in Massachusetts, you should contact your local Select Board. They should be relatively easy to find on your city/town website.
Make sure that you not only get your representative’s name but also their email address.
Once you have the emails for your local representative(s), press the email now button below. This will take you to your local mail browser. At this point, you can now add the email addresses of your local representatives. If you would like, you can also add why PM2.5 control is important to you in the email.
Lastly, see below for our email template!
Dear Elected Official,
I am writing to call your attention to an important new study on the health effects of air pollution in Massachusetts released by the Global Observatory on Planetary Health at Boston College.
This report shows that air pollution is responsible for an estimated 2,780 premature deaths in Massachusetts each year – nearly 5% of all deaths in the state. Most of these pollution-related deaths are caused by heart disease, stroke and lung cancer. Air pollution is also responsible for the birth of 300 underweight babies and for 15,000 cases of childhood asthma each year.
Air pollution exposure in early life causes brain injury to children and takes away an estimated 2 million IQ points from our kids each year.
Combustion of fossil fuels – oil, coal and gas - is Massachusetts’ principal source of air pollution.
The Boston College report finds that pollution-related health effects are occurring in every city in town across Massachusetts. The impacts are most severe in low-income and disadvantaged communities, but no city or town in the Commonwealth is spared, regardless of size, location, demographics or median income. Air pollution does not respect political boundaries.
This is unacceptable. Air pollution is causing disease and death in people of all ages across Massachusetts today and mortgaging the future of all our children, and this is not right. Air pollution can be controlled and its health effects can be prevented. We can and must do better.
The Boston College report also contains good news. It shows that since the passage of the federal Clean Air Act in 1970 we have reduced air pollution in Massachusetts and across the United States by 74% - an amazing success story. This shows that we know how to prevent pollution and gives us a roadmap for going forward. The obstacles to preventing pollution are no longer technical. Instead, they are political and economic.
The report offers specific recommendations for preventing air pollution in Massachusetts. It recommends that cities and towns:• Convert all municipal vehicle fleets – cars, trucks, buses - to hybrid and fully electric vehicles;
• Place solar panels on the roofs of municipal buildings;
• Preferentially purchase green electricity;
• Block construction of gas pipelines, compressor stations and other components of the natural gas network;
• Prohibit gas hook-ups in new construction; and• Revise building codes to increase energy efficiency.It urges the state government to:• Add more air monitoring stations across Massachusetts;
• Post all air monitoring data on a regularly updated, open-access website; • Require the operators of the electric power grid to favor renewable energy over electricity produced by fossil fuels; and
• Stop pollution at its source by increasing incentives and tax breaks for solar panels, windmills and geothermal installations and phasing out all subsidies, tax breaks and special privileges for the fossil fuel industry.
I urge you as an elected official with the power to catalyze change to pay serious attention to the findings from this Boston College report and to act on them. Air pollution poses a clear and present danger to the health of every Massachusetts resident, young and old. We cannot afford to rest on our past successes
There is still important work to be done on pollution control in Massachusetts, and this work will save lives.
Sincerely,
A concerned Citizen
We cannot overemphasize the importance of your action and our sincere gratitude. Research is a critical component of environmental health and air pollution control, but it also requires action to be taken. Every time somebody sends an email, we know that the work we put into this project over the last 3 years was well worth it.
Thank you.