Okay, so we are now recording were we waiting for. Um, Ashwin. I think only Ashwin. Everyone else seems to be here. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. Yeah, just Ashwin. Sarah and Sarah Sarah's here. No, others here. Yeah, I just assume that Sarah is not coming ever. So. Um, okay. Let's get started. Um, And we'll do our best to stay focused.  Um, let's just go straight to the, to the minutes. So we're going to review the minutes from another strange day, which was the derecho. Which was less than a month ago. Oh my gosh. Okay. Can you see those? No, just see your folder. I never understand why this does this. Okay. Just give me a minute here. There we go. Now you're good. Yes. Does anyone want to vote to approve the minutes? Or motion to approve the minutes. I should say sorry. I can so move to approve the minutes. Is there a second? I'm so moved to second that. Thank you, Steve and Dwayne. And I had one question after reviewing the minutes. And that was, there was a note that we were going to see some examples of other town. Websites or dashboards. And I missed. We got a link for that or not. Yeah, I haven't said that yet. Sorry. It's green communities reporting. So. Everything's kind of been on hold because I've been trying to focus on that. So sorry. I'll get it out. And I think that's when we plan on having Brianna back, that might be better to time it with when she's coming. Great. So I also realized I forgot to. To pick somebody for minutes. And I don't remember who took these minutes. Okay. It was kind of a combination of Andrea and Jesse and myself. Okay. For these. I didn't really do it. I'll do it today. Okay. Thanks, Andrea. Okay. So with that, let's. Vote on the minutes. Stephanie, do you want to do. Sure. I will. Rose. Drucker. Hi. Hi. Salman. Hi. Demont. Hi. Der. Right here. Hi. Roof. Hi, yes. Hi, I guess. Okay. Okay. Minutes are approved. Great. Do we have anyone for public comment today? No. Hi. Let me look again, but. Okay. I'm just going to give you a moment. Okay. Okay. Um, so staff updates. Um, just give me one minute. So, um, I just got notification yesterday that. My statement of interest to apply for. Brick Grant funding was approved, which means I've been invited to. I did not really expect that totally so but excited so that will be something that I will be working on. It's due December 11th. And I did coordinate with niche engineering and Jim regarding doing some kind of a sort of like a just a kind of baseline from the desktop kind of reporting. So I'm going to be I'll reach out to Isabel probably tomorrow to let her know about this and then also to coordinate with her about what she's working on. And then we'll be sharing that information with you all probably prior to submission. Is that two different grants. No one's just the grant the thing that we're doing with niche engineering as part of the MVP grant that we currently have so. It was just something that is going to be useful to have to submit as part of this will crest for a deeper dive for a for a study for planning study. It's just good to have that support, you know, supporting document that sort of shows we're serious about this. So, this is just kind of a baseline desktop report the other one is going to be like a deeper dive. We're looking for funding to do a deeper dive. In terms of identifying opportunities for solar with battery storage within the community, community wide. I have two thoughts on that or comments and happy to do as you know Stephanie we're working on solar siting in rural communities with NREL. So, at least some mention of that work and overlap and collaboration might be helpful for your proposal and really keen on collaborating in some way on that. The second I'll mention is we had a conversation, I should say a zoom zoom conversation with the keep cod commission. Last week I think it was earlier this week on a GIS tool that they've developed on solar siting on the, you know, for the, for the Cape, more from their planning agency role. I'd be happy to get you in touch with. Jennifer or Jennifer or something there really we it was really impressive tool and they've only done it for the Cape they don't really have all the layers they would need to do it statewide but just as an approach. It seemed like a an interesting approach that they had and capabilities with this GIS software. Yeah, that's great. I definitely will be reaching out to you, Dwayne because and I think you know collaboration is something that they certainly want to see. Yeah. And also because I referenced CCA as part of this statement of interest I think the fact that will be coordinating on a broader scale with Northampton and Pelham is also attractive to them. So I think this has, you know, it's, we're not asking for huge amount. I mean this is like a $40,000 grant but it's super competitive. And if we do get it, it's just going to move us. It's going to move the needle a little further on with our CCA effort I think. Yeah, absolutely. So that's my hope anyway. Yeah, this sounds like a great possibility. And Andrew, do you have anything to suggest about whether how it. I mean, great to integrate it with what Dwayne is doing and what the CCA group is doing and then there's also the resident capital request that what is happening with that Andrew. We are recruiting one or two younger high schoolers to be co-submitters for it because our two students are seniors. We'll just keep it active, you know, until this fulfills, you know, all of its purposes but it's possible that there would still be some things in the resident capital request project that was, you know, not covered and we could ask for a little less and still get something. There may be a way to sort of fold it in somehow, you know, so I, you know, we can again, Dwayne and Andrew, I will absolutely want to talk with both of you, you know, there's, it's due December 11 so it's not really a whole lot of time. Honestly, but I think it's these are all important projects that are happening that can be tied together under one umbrella, which would be kind of nice. So I'll definitely reach out to both of you to follow up and see what we can, what we can do to add to this. Great. Very exciting to hear. Yeah, I was kind of surprised. I would say like other things right now I'm remaining very cautiously optimistic, not trying to get too excited, trying to be hopeful. I think that's the big thing I, you know, with the CCA effort where we're, we've reached out to the to a law firm to help us work on a joint powers agreement. So we've sent a draft agreement and we're just going to wait back we haven't that agreement hasn't been signed yet so we haven't engaged them fully in a contract yet but I expect that will happen within a week or so. And that will also be another thing that's sort of moving the CCA effort, you know, a little farther along. And then we're also going to hopefully engage a broker and a few of the people on the committee are meeting to sort of, because Amherst is kind of serving as the lead for that in terms of putting together a request for quotes. So it's going to actually be reviewed by the town, you know, the RFQ will be reviewed by the town manager, but the committee will be reviewing it so it's one of those things where I think whatever the committee sort of leans towards is, you know, probably going to be fine with the town manager. He's been really looking to that group to, you know, with their expertise to guide that process. So those are my big updates. Thanks Stephanie. So, moving on to ecac member updates. I know, maybe we can start with with Andra. So I updated the ECAC statement on zoning. We wanted to send to the community resources committee. Is that right? I'll see if I can get it up there Andra for you. Oh, okay. Unless you've got it handy already. So, and there were a few comments from Sarah and Dwayne that I incorporated as suggested. And so it's not very different. I've got it right here if you'd like me to. Okay. If you looked at it before. Same things that were added are in the examples. So, yeah, the first part is pretty much the same but the examples Dwayne suggested a bunch of the middle bullets on zoning. I'll have to fix the text size. Sarah rewrote the one on green roofs. I was hoping that we could just say yay and set it off. Yeah, this looks great to me. Thank you Andra for taking a lead on writing it. And Sarah and Dwayne for providing input. I don't know if we need to do any type of official vote about it or if we can just not heads. I mean, if you want to do an official vote, I can. I see a lot of nodding heads. So I think we're good. Yeah, okay. That's fine. So, I think you, I guess we can figure out, hold on somebody's knocking on my door. I could send it and say it's for me and I thank you, Stephanie. Sure, just be sure to, sure to copy me when you send it, please. Yeah, yeah. Thanks. See has something. And Andrew, could you, could you send it to the planning board as well as the CRC. A new topic. If that one. Can I just jump in one second. Andra, if you're going to send it to the planning board, can you do that through me? Okay, send it to me so I can send it to the planning director. Okay. It's just one of those procedural things that would be great. Thank you. Okay, great. And other ECCAC member updates. I have agreed to, on. Thursday, November 19th at 430 p.m. Give a brief and casual presentation to our local. Coke chapter. That's the committee on the environment. That's a. Organization. Giving them just a sense of the work we're doing. we're doing and particularly around just the overall process and some of the community stuff. I think it'll be about 10 or 15 minutes. Stephanie has agreed to join me. That's about it. Anybody feels strongly about something you want communicated to a group of probably three to 10 architects who I would say there is in this group there are some very passionate people who I think are great allies and so if anyone thinks of any sort of messaging or just shoot me an email or Stephanie an email and then it'll come to me or whatever. Sounds good. Jesse if you want some you know material support for that we can easily provide some. Yeah, no I think I'm more comfortable rambling on than showing slides. I wasn't going to say that but yeah. If you want to come and cut me off at the appropriate point that would be helpful. So Jeff, what's the committee? It's the committee on the environment. There's a Nash, it's part of the AIA, American Institute of Architects and it is to the credit of the AIA it was the kind of the wing that cared about the environment and to the credit of the AIA it is slowly kind of merging and in fact for the first time I think this year instead of doing that you know these awards and those awards there all of the environmental standards are going to be part of all of the architecture awards for the year so it's kind of it's a it's a it's a national organization this is the western mass chapter. And you're giving a talk about I'm sorry I'm trying to get for the notes oh yeah um you got it's it's called a green bite and it's work with the Amherst energy and it's work it's my work as an architect with this group and and what I'd like to to share in particular is is some of our community outreach efforts and and how that's you know what our intention is and how successful we're not we've been great look forward to update on how it goes yeah Wayne. Yeah a couple quick updates one is that I just wanted to bring two people's attention the next lecture or actually in this case a panel in this Feinberg series that the history department UMass is offering all on on climate change and environmental issues this one's actually might be particularly of interest because it's a panel discussion with some local folks but also Bill McKibbin, Bob Pollan who's some of you may know he's an economist at UMass and very progressive if you will and does a lot of work on on climate and climate planning for cities and towns. Ashwin is is on this panel as well I was hoping he'd be here but Ashwin's on the panel Eve Vogel who some of you know from from from Amherst as well so I wanted I was going to chat the link but I don't see chats it might not be available to us we don't have chats yeah okay so might I send you send you an email Stephanie and you can distribute it yes I should mention it's November 12th at 6 p.m. and it's open to the public for sure the second the second update or I want to just bring forward is as I think you know I also work on the co-chair of the UMass carbon mitigation task force which is coming towards an end or at least a milestone in with our consulting team to develop and recommend a carbon mitigation plan to the campus and to the chancellor basically we are in the process of quote-unquote going on a road show with the plan to get feedback as well as support in various forms from community members this is focused mainly on community sectors of the community on campus but it also struck us and we talked about this with in the group we had a meeting this earlier today that it might also make a lot of sense to reach out to the town and just bring you up to date and inform and gain your interest and support and any learning that can be done I will say this is a high-level plan it's not an engineering plan it's also nothing that the chancellor has committed himself to in terms of actually implementing but he wanted to know technically how to get there roughly how much it would cost and whether he had the support of the campus to talk to people to see how this might actually be implemented but it's it's pretty interesting plan and so I was wondering whether there was some form and I'm thinking through this committee which seemed to be the most appropriate committee of the town to provide a presentation or whatever would make sense it would probably be myself and Ezra Small who many of you may know and maybe maybe one of the consultants though their time is limited at this point to bring you up to date sort of on where we're at yeah that sounds great I think we should um put that on a future agenda uh so Dwayne maybe we can connect offline with Stephanie to figure out based on your and Ezra's schedule and the schedule of the committee when the best time to do that would be yep that sounds great so your timing on that Dwayne uh well we're we're um actually tomorrow's our first uh first gig on the road uh with our first uh council of the faculty senate uh tomorrow so our our slide deck if you are our presentation is in is in pretty good shape at this point um and so it could be any time but at the same time there's no rush um and so I think whenever it makes sense for this committee uh to have time in its agenda um I would think you know maybe not even the next one but the next in a month or so from now would make sense um the the plan itself will be sort of finalized in a final report at the end of the calendar year um uh so we you know we would look for feedback but I don't think that's essential um whether it's um you know we get that feedback before or after the the final reports done could you share it with us now Dwayne can I share what with you now the slide deck or whatever is shareable um yeah well I can share you I can share you a link to a video that provides some of the context and scope I'd have to sort of ask others in terms of sharing sharing the slide deck not that it's top secret or anything but whether we will want to do that or just you know find 20 minutes in an agenda to go through it just would be nice since we're in the process of you know thinking about climate planning it would be nice to see from my perspective I'd love to see it yeah I mean do keep in mind I think it's very different from what the strategies are for the for the for a town uh because we're essentially focused on the campus system and so I think this this I mean some of the technologies are are similar but the way it's all organized together and you know through you know the the primary the primary aspects of the plan is to transfer the campus to low temperature hot low temperature hot water heating convert the buildings to accommodate low temperature hot water heating and then to electrify and renewabilize the heating sources that that that are enabled by the low temperature heating system I should also mention the there there's really interesting strategies to um really trade off the simul the campus has opportunities during the winter sorry during the summer and shoulder seasons where we're simultaneously heating and cooling parts of the campus so really looking at at um uh trading essentially energy trading across those spaces on campus as opposed to um heating some buildings and cooling other buildings thanks join um any other ecac member updates Darcy yeah I just wanted to um I I had sent out I don't know a couple of weeks ago links to the what's happening in the town budget process and the timeline um and uh I don't know if you I think I I resend it to everybody and I don't know if we need to pull that up but uh basically in the next two weeks the the the finance can or the we're going to have um the budget forum on the 19 which is sort of on the 9th the the town manager is coming with the financial indicator report which is this upcoming Monday so that sort of kicks off the budget season and um then the the public forum is on the November 19th and um so in any event this all means that um we and I know that Laura had said in her timeline to us um that we were going to be looking at the whole budget issue coming up this month in our while we're looking at our priorities so my suggestion is that um maybe we get a small group of us to meet with um the finance committee um uh next week to get some feedback about um our what our timeline should be what are you know maybe our tactics should be uh the finance committee pardon meet with the finance committee next week well we were I was thinking Kathy Shane um to meet with not the finance committee as a whole but to meet with like Kathy she's the vice chair and she's um met with us before about um budget issues but anyway have a meeting uh to to orient us and then maybe come back to the our next meeting on the whatever the 18th with some kind of a um loose proposal as to what we could say either at the public forum which is the next day or just to send out to the finance committee you know within their period of time that they're looking at public comment Darcy I'm trying to understand I don't think I understand this process um so maybe you could give me some more insight um at what point does because I think there's there's a couple ways as ecac we would go about proposing budget items and I think the most direct way if I understand it correctly is through departments of the town as part of their departmental budgets that is one way that we could do it yes um which feels to me more it may be more difficult to do it that way but it seems to be the only the like the only way to gain traction on a larger scale as opposed to smaller scale asks um I think we have to go through the town manager regardless um and I think that you know we were given advice by the finance committee already that we we should to the extent possible get whatever um you know start making whatever requests we think we want in November and December when the finance committee is coming out with its guidelines so what are those guidelines impact what the departments so where's where is the department presenting budgets to the to the town manager on this timeline the departments present to the finance committee over the period of the winter and early spring um and they emanate you know they they are it's hard to really tell what's happening whether it's the chicken or the egg but um uh obviously the the department requests are they also come from the town manager so um and then the finance committee looks at them and normally they ask a lot of questions and then they approve them um so so what is the financial indicators report to my knowledge uh it's mostly the time manager coming and saying um what is the financial status of the town at this time what's our bond rating um how how we're doing and what he's and he's going to be saying things like we don't know what our financial status is over the next year or so we're you know we're in kind of a precarious state we're not going to be asking for new funding etc etc that's the type of thing he's going to say on the ninth probably um what is the public hearing for that's for the public to weigh in um public hearing on the the budget and at the beginning of the budget process and um in the last two years the public has not shown up to that form um but it's and it's not necessarily a time when we would um have to weigh in but it would it's it's generally the time period when if we're going and you know we had said that we're going to to publish an annual report and in the annual report that's that's when we could we would make our funding request so and that that would be in November December type time period the the point of going to the um 19th is not to be like official or anything but just to have it put it out there you know climate climate right right and our the the memo that you sent out last year Laura was actually seems like a good start to look at what we would ask for this year um because it's it's kind of small in general and we may want to add some more things that um that are on the list that we suggested might be zoning examples um but uh it just made sense to me for for a small group of us to meet with Kathy next week to ask you know like is what's the timing of this what's the best time to to get something in and um and then come back to the committee on the 18th with something if we're going to have something to say at the forum shouldn't we be doing some preparation for that the forum is to have input into the budget now we have to but there's no budget yes that's why I'm confused why there's a forum before there's even a budget proposed it's where the public it's just like the the the public it is um the timeline for the capital requests that the public can make is the deadline is november 13th so the public forum is just anybody in the public can come to the public forum and say I think we should be spending money on this um operating or capital um and uh so yeah it's supposed to be the budget process is supposed to be open to the public to residents so ahead I think I'm reading the ahead of that is uh sorry let's Sarah there's a financial indicator presentation on the ninth right and then the committee or the public forum is the 19th yes right and so will the information in the indicator presentation be informative for us at all should be what do you know what the scope of that is yeah no I think I don't think they're the right sorry just to clarify the public hearing is on the 12th correct oh no 19th I think you're looking at the CPAC uh whatever it's called I had that up the only thing I see on the 19th is voting recommendations did they move it no I'm pretty sure it's on the 19th because I had to move a meeting to for it to be put there yeah I said it's the 19th I saw an email today from Buckleman from a different group that I follow okay I was just gonna say and it may not be put it just might not be so one of the links that you put you sent Darcy had the old information on it I guess that's possible and I clicked on a different link and I got it with the CPAC has a public hearing on the 12th but that's not for a budget forum right so we'll be getting the packet whatever memo from the from the town manager on the financial indicators um if if you put something out in the packet otherwise it might be a slide deck or something like that at the meeting so yeah it would make sense for us to refer to that and whatever it is that we put out um so could um Stephanie you circulate the memo that Laura sent last year and we can look and see what we would add I'm thinking this is the time we should be looking back at our sector plans to make sure we're not leaving anything off the table that we really want to get into the budget for fiscal year 22 you know that's like a long time into the future um yeah so we can resend them the memo I sent it was very vague um and the the idea I guess where I'm feeling a little cautious is we've just been spending months going through this climate action planning process which I hope is going to give us some really more concrete budget ideas and I don't want us to rush that too much um I still don't I do think meeting with Kathy makes sense although I don't I still don't personally understand the role Kathy plays in all of this um and I don't know if it makes sense for ecac to go to a public hearing as ecac I think we I think we have a different but potentially we might want to let everybody know that's been involved in our process that this public hearing is happening and if they want to say anything about the budget they should feel they should go and say that but I think that's something we can talk about as we as we move forward um so I think the timing is actually good because we have the plan for our next meeting is to spend the majority of that time developing um sorry I had the email open and then I went back to something else here um drafting the initial budget requests because we stated that we wanted to submit these in late November early December so I think we're still on that timeline um I think who we submit them to and how we submit them is something we can talk to Kathy about and maybe also Paul about um because ideally this is all going to feed into the departments and be part of the town the way the town gets funded I think the quicker we can do that the easier it will be to continually have budget for the work we need to do um that doesn't mean we also don't want public support for funding this work as well as resident requests like we had last time you know that we can we can support yeah Jesse I just like to reiterate I think what one thing you just said I love the idea um we've just been working with a lot of people and this suddenly we have something we can say to them hey here's something you can do go to this meeting that no one has showed up to for two years and tell them to keep an eye out for this climate action plan and put aside a discretionary 20 million dollars to do everything we want to do or whatever it is but like send them bombard them with with our crew and give them something to do I think I think it would feel really good to people to to hear from us that would be a wonderful thing to do yeah I love that and so I also feel like we need to know what it is like what maybe and maybe Kathy can illuminate a little bit more on what they're hoping to get out of that meeting so that we can inform people and that meeting is in the charter and it was the answer to how are citizens going to have input into the budget now that we don't have town meeting and I think there's two a year that are supposed to be these opportunities that nobody comes to right I guess it's because people aren't aware they aren't they are very well publicized and we've actually had somewhere there was literally no one spoke so it would be great if we had 20 people if we had our community members especially coming and saying you know that we need to set aside funds for this but I've got you can send information to me to send out to the to the task groups how are we going to do this draft an initial budget request um what do you mean how are we going to do that like um do we need to assign a couple people to draft something do we need to set some I don't know just like we're going to do it in our meetings all together so that's actually good segue to share what I sort of identified as our next steps that I sent to you all in email and then turn it over to our next agenda item which is um cap outline and framework and sort of getting getting on with the next steps so I we're in our meeting now we finalize the statement on zoning great um and now we're going to work on the outline and strategies I think at our next meeting we're going to need to do a working session on starting to to flush out the initial budget request but I agree we're going to need to assign some of that as well as begin outlining and assigning pieces of the annual report that we need to submit to the town council right yeah there's the does it make sense for um the co-leaders of the task groups to um to touch base with each other before the next meeting to to come up with proposed budget requests in each separate area you know comparing with the sector plans that they had and so on so they'll come they'll come to the meeting with those the next meeting potentially maybe let's see what Lauren and Jim have to say and then we can finalize that later in the meeting um so let's just hold hold that thought because it's an interesting one um yeah so so so the answer andra is yes I think we're going to have to to assign or figure out how we're going to make that happen because I think we would need to have a finalized um initial budget request document that we could approve at our December 2nd meeting um and then the same thing for our annual report at the December 16th meeting we don't really have that many meetings left in this year so the budget requests on December 2nd yes the annual report on the 16th so unless anybody has any any specific questions on that but but I think that my intent is that our next meeting be focused almost solely on beginning to flush out the budget requests specifically but also the the annual report which of course will be overlap I do you think it it would be great to have um the co-chairs meet and pull from both the sector plans maybe they didn't write them but you know that that deal with the things that were in their task groups um you know area of topic area and pull from the task group feedback I think I think we're putting the cart way before the horses here that we don't have a plan we don't have specific action will act actions yet I think it's way early to be asking for money until we have more specific elements to our plan so I think yeah let's move on to talk about the plan and go through the outline that Lynane has provided and start to build that plan I think we can come up with budget items um and we can also say something Steve like um that you know the the plan isn't fleshed out yet we want the town to um look at integrating whatever they do with a climate lens and to keep keep placeholders open um as the year goes on anticipating that we're going to have a number of other things that are going to be requested yeah that sounds good let's move on to the plan otherwise we're going to be talking about vague budget requests for the next two or three meetings agreed um so I don't let's just to close this up who wants to meet with Kathy if it's more than one of us then it needs to be a posted meeting correct Stephanie no not unless it's an official subcommittee you're doing business of the committee so it's you're doing a sort of official work of the committee so yes it would count if one of you wants to meet with her specifically then but I don't think two of you can meet with her well I I think it should be more than one so let's just have a public meeting okay so anybody who wants to do that or has the capacity to do that let us know and we'll we'll set something up I can coordinate for you I can uh and what's Kathy's role again in all this she's the vice chair of the finance committee also a you know she's a oh what sorry I said she's an ally an ally okay um okay so let's move on to the climate action plan I think this is where we're supposed to jump in Ron yes Ron awesome so I'm going to share my screen and go through the slides that Stephanie sent out in advance and just sort of start with um taking a more holistic look back at the task group process and and sort of reviewing what came out of that process which is something that uh Laura had suggested and then we'll talk about our current timeline and next steps and then discuss some of the feedback on the draft outline that was sent out and yeah some of the big themes and sort of outstanding questions there so can everyone see my slides okay yes great so let me just skip to the next slide okay so the task group process really started off with the articulation of a set of principles um that were intended to guide our work um and sort of deliberately rooted in the lived experiences of the diverse participants in each group so perhaps not surprisingly for the co-chairs there were some pretty clear overarching themes that came out of that first round of meetings um and that are worth bringing forward so we'll go over some of that then the second and third task group meetings really focused on identifying community priorities for climate change and translating them into these major actions that we then used as the springboard for discussions about implementation and how to prioritize the actions that we want to take so then we'll talk about timeline and next steps um and then go into the the feedback after that um and yeah some of the outstanding questions so each group really started off by um discussing how their lived experiences related to the topic of the specific task group that they were part of and the aim of that was sort of to elicit the important values that pointed to principles that would be important for this plan to embody um so I'm going to go through the principles that came out of each group quickly and then I'll leave some time for thoughts reflections questions and then we can keep going so for buildings the principles that came out were to prioritize accessibility of buildings for all residents including physical access and healthy supportive spaces um so this was talking about sort of the experiences of being in buildings how they work for us how they support us in the various activities that we want to use them for as a community then prioritizing accessibility within governance and decision-making structures and processes to support inclusive community participation and help us meet our goals so this was really sort of about making the governance and decision-making process more accessible more inclusive and reflecting the community a little bit more um then we had prioritize actions that improve quality of life for all residents especially those most vulnerable while reducing carbon emissions and there was this real theme of sort of quality of life and carbon emissions as being the two sort of pillars for the buildings group that that carried throughout the conversations and then we have connect clean energy and carbon neutrality to all aspects of life and amours so that everyone has a reason to care and get involved and these are really broad principles but they they came out in examples like you know connecting the clean energy economy to workforce development to economic opportunity in town to create sort of a vibrant local clean energy economy for instance that's that's in the renewables group that that came up to but it came up in the building's group too um and is really just sort of about connecting carbon neutrality to the ways that we live our day-to-day lives so that everyone sort of has a reason to to feel connected to it and to our renewables electricity and cca and principles that came out or to reduce carbon in an equitable and inclusive way to create systems that enable all members of our community to participate in climate action meaningfully and this sort of the the bulk of our conversation really focused on community choice aggregation um and there was just a lot of opportunity a lot of talk about creating opportunities for folks to both capacity to be able to participate in in different types of climate action that they maybe would not have then we had design solutions in ways that don't advantage landowners or exclude people without the means to support certain clean energy activities so again really this focus on sort of big picture they're creating inclusive systems that that that increased equity I guess next we had emphasized working with landlords and property managers particularly around multifamily housing and that was a very resonant theme I think within the building's group as well but um that's the idea of sort of the need to work with large property owners and managers because they they sit in a a role that has a lot of potential to have a major change or lots of people um at at a sort of meaningful scale within town because there are so many apartment complexes in town um and then we had create policies and systems to allow in business owner and property manager incentives with ecological and human health and wellness and for land use and natural systems we had foster stronger connections to nature for all residents and visitors through our local lands especially youth of color and that sort of reflected this theme that connecting to nature helps people to feel like they belong and like um they can engage with the land in in more meaningful ways um and are more interested in stewarding and I think is an important theme prioritized equitable and community access to green and open spaces where people already live work and play and work to dismantle barriers to access and use of natural lands and some of those barriers included things like information like just not knowing what lands were accessible or where lands were located but also things like transportation and thinking about how our transportation network creates barriers for opportunities for folks to be able to access the abundant open space resources in Amherst and also how our land use planning is is thinking about locating those types of resources relative to population centers and especially to folks who traditionally don't have as much access to those types of spaces especially in the context of the pandemic where access to open space can be a lateral lifesaver and then we have use incentives strategically to encourage the things we do want and discourage the things we don't want. This came up a lot around competing land uses for things like agriculture, solar development, recreational spaces, community gardens and encouraging responsible stewardship of our natural areas and systems especially our farms, rivers and wetlands and so that's really just about adopting and encouraging practices that really do regenerate and restore our natural lands and resources. And then for transportation and non-building infrastructure we had do things together as a community build empathy and perspective to understand what each other is going through and help where there's clear need and I think that that general theme of sort of empathy and and thinking across the community to understand what the different perspectives are was really something that came up in all the groups. And then build plans and actions based on the needs of those who will be most negatively impacted by those plans and actions as a sort of principle one of our community leaders articulated this really well this idea that by thinking about who will be most negatively impacted and improving conditions for them the folks who are in are better able to weather consequences won't be won't experience as much of a burden as those who are going to be most negatively impacted so let's let's put those people first and then connect people to jobs and amenities through equitable transit options that promote public health especially in areas of low car ownership and high renter occupancy and I think we might even modify some of these principles now based on the final round of task groups but the idea here was really to make that connection between the transit options that folks have and their ability to access things like employment and recreational areas and various other amenities and and essential services things like going to the doctor's office or going to get groceries and and how access to transportation can really change painful experiences of those daily activities. So as I mentioned there are really some overarching themes here I wanted to just call out a few that stand out for me I suppose and I hope that resonate for folks here there was really a desire for more representative participation in local governance and decision-making I feel like these principles point to the importance of institutionalizing equity and anti-racism into those processes also to the potential for economic empowerment through climate action and the value of organizing and coalition building to bring that potential to life. So I wanted to just stop here for a minute maybe I'll stop sharing my screen and just ask if there are any sort of questions thoughts reflections things that are coming up for folks as as we're going through some of this stuff okay I can keep going to I guess the the thing that these are all great but what I see is completely missing are strategies for reducing greenhouse gas emissions where and when will those come into play in discussion? Yeah so we're going to review the the sort of major actions that came out of each of the task groups just after reviewing the principles. I thought here was just sort of to give everyone a picture of what each of the different task groups went through and what came out of each of the different ones but yeah we will go to the major actions that came out just so that everyone is sort of aware of how those conversations went forward and and then in the the conversation about next steps we'll also talk about next. I guess I have another concern in that looking at many of these things lots of excellent goals but an awful lot of them seem to be things that other existing committees or departments or community organizations have been tasked with doing affordable housing, transportation, equitable access to communication infrastructure. I worry that ECAC is reaching way too broad with many of these and will be seen as stepping on the toes of other organizations that have been working on these issues for a long time but I want to make sure that we one try not to do too much and for those things that we do I think we need to be very careful to work with those other groups and agencies that have been working on these issues for a very long time so that we're not perceived as just kind of jumping in with what might be great ideas but without the background that has an experience that's been generated or created or exists in these other groups. Steve, I think that's a great comment and one of the things that it points up is the need to which lots of things point up in lots of ways but I think that's actually in a way what you're saying is actually an asset that the plan that as the plan gets developed it is in line with other activities in the town so there's not a process of like okay well these guys are talking about you know human rights it's like that's fine they're the human rights people it's like no we're all talking about human rights but we're talking about it relative to energy infrastructure and relative to carbon emissions you know that things are lined up and that they are consistent across the town and across a different number of different things so we just have to make sure that that is actually the case. I think it also creates an opportunity to map that out in the in the plan so that we can show where all those overlaps lie and sort of I think to Steve's point help recognize where we fit in and also so we're not sending a message that we're trying to take over everything but rather that this is a piece in this larger puzzle and it's going to require collaboration. I think that's a really important point Laura. Yeah my concern is I see a lot of these broad goals I don't see specific carbon emission strategies yet. Remember we've just been talking about principles we haven't gotten to strategies. Well yeah but remember our principles include carbon reduction. I have a very similar concern that even when we get to the actions you know I look through this there are things that don't even mention climate or energy or anything and to me those need to be passed on to another committee and don't fit in our climate action plan. Under I missed most of the last part of what you said. Oh sorry I think there's things that we will want to take out that and give you know in some way you know have another committee take this you know pass this information on that this is something that community members care about. Yeah so I had the same reaction but of course then hearing someone else say it I'm thinking about the counter I think one of the strengths of what we were just shown and finding a way to appropriately weave this thinking in it's just maybe to reiterate what Jim's saying is we run the risk of being seen as a group that just cares about energy which is a white problem. I know it's not but it can I think we run that risk of that perception so I think a strong series of statements of acknowledging this and finding the right way to communicate is that it's important I just want to I see the value in these things and I just want to make sure we don't lose it. No no there's no way we can lose it it's embedded in everything that we got from the task groups but every sentence has to have the word climate or energy or you know public transportation or something that's relevant not just general. I think we should go through and I think Lauren you should continue and I think we should go through and if there's truly pieces that we feel like have to be don't do that then I think let's talk about them specifically. Yeah I think sort of the question of how the committee wants to handle that is sort of not one for us to answer but I would just argue that one of the strengths of the process so far has been that it has connected climate action to all of these different highly interrelated issues and I think it would be a shame to lose sight of that. So moving on I'm sharing my screen again so the next few slides are really an overview of the major actions that were discussed in the task groups that will form the basis of strategies for the plan not sole basis but unimportant basis. So just one quick note where you see teal text that means an idea was either modified or added as a result of the group discussion during the third round meetings otherwise they were taken from the discussion from the second round and then discussed in the third meeting and there were no immediate modifications from the group that came out but no better or worse. So for buildings we had begin to convert different types of buildings to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions through building electrification or energy. I don't want to be too difficult. I think we can read these quick and if I don't want to I just think myself included have used up a lot of your time. I wonder if haven't we all read these? I want to give us time. Tell me if I'm wrecking your process but I'm throwing out the idea that we read them up to ourselves quickly and put our hand on our head when we're done or something. Just an idea. Sure. I think that's fine Jesse however I think we should at least look at them now because while everyone may have looked at the slides previously the working your way through them actually takes you to a slightly different mental place. Okay so just an idea to ourselves right now. Go for it. Okay. Does everyone have the slides downloaded from the packet? We'll just go through them. Okay. You can you can read it. People can give us a thumbs up when you're done. Yeah. I'm having trouble seeing everyone's faces are raised hands meaning that folks are done as well. Yeah I think you can move on. Okay. Don't you want comments about them now? No let's save them. Save them for what after I think once maybe once we get through all four sets. Yep. I think part of what you were doing earlier Lauren was not just reading them which I don't think you need to do but also giving some overview to these. So I think if you have that overview commentary that is still useful for you to express while we are looking at these. Okay. I'm a little hesitant to talk on top of while people are reading if folks really do need the time to review these. But certainly I can add in a little bit of context there. I think I'm just going to step inside real quick because the sun is blinding me. All right well you do that I'll ask guys. The renewables and electricity and CCA task group spent most of the second and third meeting really talking about the CCA structure and process and what was going to be important in terms of actions relative to that knowing that the CCA itself was moving forward in its own inexorable path. So this was sort of more about how that worked. Okay I'm back. All right we could probably move on to the next one. I was just talking about what's going on with this one. Perfect thanks. This one's kind of a good one to comment on because I think the things that got added as a result of the third round of meetings were really relevant and sort of really indicative of how the community leaders viewed the application of the principles to the major actions that were presented in the second round of meetings. And so for instance in the land use and natural systems task group there was a decent amount of conversation about the value of incentives for solar hot water and battery storage and sort of the importance of those things in addition to solar PV because solar hot water is well incentivized and battery storage is going to be essential for a bunch of different reasons but notably for resilience. So that was sort of the discussion behind that particular action. I think number two especially the sort of idea of providing incentives for folks to access land especially for folks who don't already have that access and thinking about how to relate increasing that access to also encouraging carbon sequestration on those lands. And so there was a really interesting conversation about connecting there's a desire to have support for public access to private land and could incentives for providing that access be tied to land management and carbon sequestration. We could get into that more but I think there's a lot of merit to that idea there. And then new recreational areas tons of interest in community gardens and it seems like lots of different settings so that's worth noting and sort of both as a climate resilience and quality of life kind of activity but also as a way of getting folks involved in land management stewardship and regenerative agricultural practices and sort of increasing people's knowledge about those things. And then again sort of access to open space in the context of the pandemic was really a big theme and sort of what regulations and incentives might look like to tie green space to where people are. So next slide. And then transportation and non-building infrastructure this was just great because obviously this task group had sort of the broadest range of topics to cover and everything from transportation to communications infrastructure to waste and public health. And so so many additional actions came out as a result of folks sort of taking a look at that first proposed list of major actions and saying well there's a lot to add here especially around sort of EV infrastructure and infrastructure for walking and cycling more generally and around communications infrastructure access to internet and also access to town information that is inclusive and reflective of the multiple languages that are spoken in Amherst. So that was a list that got significantly broadened. So I guess we can pause there if folks wanted to have that conversation about keeping versus dropping specific actions. I was going to just sort of give a quick this is what we'll be up to for the next two months and then this timeline sort of looking out to the draft plan which is slated for presenting to the ECAC on the 12th of February or sorry 18th of February and and then the final plan in the spring and the community meeting meeting up to that. But essentially from here we're going to be spending the next couple of months really focused on developing these actions into strategies developing the full plan. So using the strategies that have evolved from the task groups as well as research and best practices from the field and we're going to include an updated outline in your next meeting packet for the plan that will start to include some of those strategies. And then I guess I'll just say I think it might work best for me to just talk about the the feedback from the plan first and then we can circle back to the actions lost my screen. So thank you all for your very thoughtful feedback on the draft outline. It was a lot and wonderful and I wanted to just kind of summarize some of the bigger themes that folks expressed and then on the next slide I have a few questions that came up that folks had included in their response their feedback on the plan that feel like things that are really things that the ECAC will want to grapple with but not necessarily things that we can determine. So themes from the outline feedback were just that there's a really strong desire for bold commitments from the town and sort of embodied in the letter from the town manager and from the ECAC and clear calls to action for the private sector. So sort of clearly calling out who are the people being asked to step up what are they being asked to do on what timelines. Leveraging the lessons from COVID that's sort of a clear theme as well that folks want to sort of treat this as an opportunity to chart a new course. Going out at this one focusing on effective efficient and sufficient actions to meet emissions reduction goals in the short and long term. Focus on local wealth creation and fair distribution very consistent with the principles that came up. Make data relatable and use it for benchmarking and visualize emissions reductions and timelines. So sort of make visually clear what's happening when and what the associated emissions reduction potentials are. And sort of the idea of benchmarking I think is a really valuable one that comes up quite often in the process of developing climate action plans and one that I'm sure this committee will want to consider for the budget request. And then a suggestion to reframe priorities as immediate actions and potentials as preparing for long term action or sort of variations on that theme of the language of priorities and potentials makes sense but we want to be more sort of targeted with it and talk in terms of immediate versus long term actions. Also planning ahead to involve the community in the implementation of the plan and I think that's somewhere where the ECAC really has a lot of potential to do some really important thinking about your role and sort of the broader implementation and outreach that will be involved outreach that will be involved in implementing the plan and then just a note to include key definitions and appendices with additional materials which we'll for sure be doing. So some of the questions that folks expressed in their feedback to the plan the draft outline where things around what should our methods be for weighing which measures to take first given our ambitious net zero targets and guidelines for future decisions. So we sort of went through a process of prioritizing the actions that came up in the task group and asking folks for sort of how they would prioritize actions to understand where community priorities lie. But there's also sort of the question of how the plan will treat prioritizing and and weighting different factors. We talked about ideas of cross cutting priorities sort of what are the different opportunities and needs that an action addresses what are the systems that will be impacting what is its carbon reduction potential and things around the ease of implementation sort of are there pathways that exist do we know who the partners are and what are the costs and I think an important thing to note too about the task group process is that participants did have a strong focus on costs costs of implementation and thinking strategically about how we how we connect funding to actions and how we leverage partnerships for funding and doing things that are low cost but that can have higher impacts. So something around sort of ease of implementation might be might be one way to think about prioritizing actions. Folks also ask questions about sort of who is the audience what is the voice of the plan and how can we make the plan an instrument for trust building and growing engagement not just a report on the shelf as Jesse has often said and I feel like that's really that's really where the ECAC comes in. It it's sort of what is your role as this plan moves forward and gets implemented and how I think Steve was the the one who was asking like how can we continue to involve the community through the implementation of the plan and these feel like important questions for the committee that I wanted to reflect back but that aren't necessarily decisions that we're going to make but just important things that that came up through that process of feedback that I thought would be good for the group to to see. And that was that was really it for today. As I mentioned we're going to include an updated draft outline for the next meeting packet as well as hopefully the beginnings of some some strategy development. Could you talk more about strategy development? I'm not clear on what you all are doing and what we're doing. Yeah sure um that's a a really good question Andra. So how the process will work from my perspective at least and Jim please jump in if this is going off the rails but so we have this huge list of ideas that came out of the task groups we also have a lot of precedent plans that the committee has expressed ideas about we also have sort of existing initiatives in town that we're researching that we want to connect to climate action so it'll be a process of both sort of taking what came out of the task groups and turning those into clear actionable strategies that have associated you know co-benefits or for lack of a better term that we have analyzed in a way that makes them actionable um and add to the strategies that came out of the task group sort of other clear actions that Amherst can take given its existing conditions initiatives that are sort of underway and where where a lot of municipalities and towns um have had success already or strategies that we know um are effective in the municipal context um so it'll be sort of a combination of research on Amherst specific situation and what the potentials are there in terms of best practices and then also sort of community priorities um coming from the task groups and how to make those actionable okay yeah um just to um expand on that um I'd be I'm curious in terms of in terms of the the analysis that goes into these different strategies and linking up um uh you know not just sort of the feasibility and best practice of how to get these actions done but what are the um likely greenhouse gas emissions that may result from those actions over what time frame um at what at at least a high level at what cost or or um uh you know financial obligations or whatever um or capital investment that would be necessary and and some ability to then demonstrate through that sort of analysis that we have in fact develop a plan that gets to the goals that we've set out for ourselves that makes a lot of sense to me so um we'll we will be able to do that to some extent and through both our experience and some previous work on you know what things like like what greenhouse gas effect a benchmarking law has something like that which it does in fact have an appreciable greenhouse gas effect um you know we it's difficult to really clearly make that case with relatively bulletproof numbers because we don't have a greenhouse gas inventory and we were specifically asked not to do that um and so uh but we can do it in a general sense and give you know we're not going to have a wedge diagram in a sense that that uh gives you actions that says okay well this one is three percent and this one seven percent however there is a lot of information both information that we have generated and information outside of our you know of us that um that feeds those those pieces of information so we absolutely want to talk about that stuff you know things like uh there was a one of the suggestions was a thing about a soil overlay uh a soil carbon overlay or something like that um you know that's we're we're probably one of the few organizations in the state that could actually come up with numbers for that uh and uh and absolutely those are the kinds of things that um we'll want to be pretty clear and and that's going to be a key way in which actions are prioritized right I mean we have to be able to have a mechanism to say okay here's our list these three are number one you know these five are number two and everything else is number three and you know if we're only going to do two things then we're picking two number ones uh so that's that's a key key action yeah um let me say something then Darcy I'll hand it over to you so I really appreciated this Lauren I really liked reading the priorities I liked the way you frame them I think they cover in large part almost all if not many of the things that we've talked about but I think we would have never had them framed in this way without this process and without your work because I think we're all a little bit too tech technical um maybe Sarah you weren't involved before so I'm not gonna I'm not gonna throw you into that but um something that lit up when you were talking for me was the comment about COVID and how we um sorry okay my thing went away um and I really and so I want to make one point to the committee which is that I don't think we've ever as a committee wanted to have a stagnant report um I think that we should think about how we use this current opportunity to not do that I think it's gonna come across it's completely tone deaf if we come out with a report with a lot of actions that cost a lot of money and and present this as like this is our plan for the next five years what I do think we need to do is actually push push almost push back to the the town and the committee like how are we gonna build back better like what's our green recovery plan for Amherst and how are we going to make sure we benefit from what will need to be a reinvestment in our community in our town and our infrastructure all of those things right um and so I this is just kind of connecting back to the discussion about the budget like I almost feel like there's a few things in here that I think we could potentially take and say okay this is gonna cost X amount of money some of this stuff is gonna cost time like us doing it some of it could be completely free like we may be able to get one of the management companies to pilot the EV thing in the in the building like that could be a no cost easy public thing or private public partnership so I think back to the original idea that Darcy you had about the task group leads getting together um I would like to see us as a task groups take these priorities and do the ranking that we've talked do do the analysis that we've talked about of showing what has a GHG reduction potential and maybe just like thinking like medium high or low like your own thoughts what has a resiliency angle and what has an equity angle and just start with those three things um and maybe I hesitate to even add anymore but maybe the fourth one would just be like cost slash ease of ease of implementation general thoughts um and through that process if there's anything that's coming out as like a very easy budget item or a very easy thing that we could do if we had three more Stephanie's or a very easy thing we could do if we got one of the rental companies in town to spearhead I think those are all helpful things we could bring into this budget discussion but I think we need to come into that budget discussion with the very clear and approach this plan with this very clear recognition that COVID has has messed everything up our budget for next year is not going to look good um and you know but we want we have to move forward with this plan the climates can't wait we had this great process we have these great priorities these are the ones we're going to work on this year and we're going to update this next year and we're going to keep working to refine the reductions and refine the actions and the town needs to really start embedding this stuff into their budget planning and the path forward for how how the town's going to grow and recover um so I was kind of inspired so thank you um and I do think we have on this I just think we might have to rethink slightly how we approach the next two months I missed the fourth thing that you were hesitant to add but what was it oh like the cost perceived cost slash ease of implementation there's there's like a succinct way to say that I don't know what it is but our next meeting yeah I think if folks can take this list for I mean there's not that many for each task group take this if you have things you want to add from the sector plans or from the other things add them but then and you can do it over email if that's easier or have a quick meeting but just like start to do that process um and maybe and you guys can do that as well and we can make sure we're we're not missing something you've probably already thought about it um but I think that will really feed nicely into the budget discussion for next time can you send us an email Laura that just sort of confirms what you'd like us to do because that would be good yeah that sounds like a really good idea and for those who didn't write the sector plan maybe we could just have all of the sector plans in a one document you know not one document necessarily but if we could be sent all of them that would help I'm sure Stephanie can find them or if we could they might be in one document yeah they might be we should we can take them back up though um and I think you know some of these things priorities are you know massive right like beginning to convert or prioritize rental housing like how are we even going to do that so there's going to need to be like very specific things we need to think about doing and it may be as simple as having a meeting to start the conversation or maybe there's some other and I think this is where Steve's earlier point also comes in like is there another group either within the town government or within community orgs that can that we can partner with or that that should lead this work and we're just merely showing that it's related to the climate action work and resiliency work yes Stephanie sorry um so you know some of this work is going to be very specific to some of the town departments especially resiliency work and I had a conversation with Amy Rusecki who is the assistant DPW superintendent and who attended some of the I believe it was land use group meetings uh actually no I'm sorry I think she actually attended transportation um and we were just talking about some of the things that she you know she's looking for some funding for specific projects as well and so we just sort of talked about well there are things that relate specifically to impacts you know climate impacts that are resiliency measures like you know when we talk about green infrastructure what would that look like what are there are there projects that you can identify that would be something very you know very specific so um I suggested that she just sort of look at the MVP planning list and the the four areas of vulnerability that were identified in the sort of initial round of this work because for her I think it was easier for her to sort of you know she was trying to understand how this climate action process works with the vulnerabilities that we identified before and I sort of talked about in the bigger picture that it's all connected but for her to look at the vulnerabilities and that she could actually come up with some very specific items that we may want to include in the plan and you know again those are things that you know will address resiliency and so not everything is just going to come from all of you there's obviously the the things that the town sees um and are going to want to include as well because they're very they are the sort of specific projects and I think especially DPW it's critical I was really excited that they even were going to spend time thinking about this so I think it's a really good thing yeah and I think that's where we need to be right like that's the the end goal is that ECAC itself is not doing all this work because we can't we'll never get the money and we don't have the timer it's embedding it into the departments of the town into their budget decisions into their funding decisions into their staffing decisions and right helping to navigate that right exactly and I want to add to that like you know the you know when the BRIC grant funding opportunity came around you know it was actually Paul Backelman who was inquiring about the about you know a solar study he was just sort of inquiring generally but nothing you know he wasn't necessarily pairing it with battery storage or anything he was just sort of like he'd heard there you know from this group that that was something this group or the CCA effort kind of was looking for and so he kind of brought it up which I thought was fantastic so exactly what you're saying Laura I think when we have this information in this plan it gives us an opportunity to start flagging funding you know grant opportunities when they come along so that's how we fund some of these things so we start the town starts really actively looking for opportunities to fund these actions but more proactively than has probably been before and not just me it's like like you said other departments see it and think oh you know that's in a plan we can maybe get a grant to cover that piece so I guess I'm in a long-winded way agreeing with you Laura. Great any other comments or thoughts? Yeah Steve. Yeah the timeline as I look at that it on the page it shows the chart there we've got until the end of December to research the strategies developed in and presumably at least take a stab at prioritizing them. When I look at the sort of the the rough agenda Laura that you sent out by email last month I see the next meetings through December draft budget request writing the annual report and then a status update for the for the CARP. I think we need to have more time in our meetings working on those specific strategies if we're going to have them even in a draft form by the end of December. So just as a note a lot of those strategies are things that will do a lot of digging in and crafting that it'll make your life a lot easier and so that's time for where we're doing that as well but yeah you may want to have some time to spend like in the particular ones that that really are key parts of the ECAC sort of charge and focus that you that may be something that you want to put some time into that. Good and Jim when would we start to see some of those lists of the things that you guys are creating and putting together? Well probably they'll sort of trickle out but it'll take us a I don't know what we think it's going to be a month of sure of working on it to some month and a half or something like that. I remember it'll be a little while the timing that timeline is sort of there's a lot of research to to make sure that things work and what they actually look like and what how they fit into what is already happening in the town and things like that. How can we be part of that? How can we be in dialogue? We want to know what you're learning and we might be having conversations that we want you to you know be reacting to and integrate. I think we don't want you to go off for a month and then come back with the finished product but really work together. I think that makes sense. I just note a month is not very long and in this process a month is nothing and I think that sounds good and that's sort of the whole idea of the the check-in the keep continuous checking in with the committee as that that's spelled out in that schedule so that we can bring things up as they come up for us. You can bring things up as they come up for you. We can share information and then we can each go back and work on the things that we're working on. I think that makes a lot of sense. Stephanie and Darcy. Yeah just to say you know at least my understanding for this process is you know coming back in a month with a draft is a draft. I mean you need and I think we've experienced I'm thinking back to like the CCA process of developing the consultant reports. You know there's going to be the information compiled in a place where you can all read it and there's probably going to there's going to be opportunities to sort of add to it and build on it so I don't think it's I just don't want you all to sort of feel or see it as Linnean's just writing this report and it's just their report. It's all the work you did there. They're compiling all the information and all the work and putting it in a cohesive format so that you all can then take a look at it and say right okay and then this is what we'd like to see where it goes from here so you know a month isn't a lot of time and it's certainly not going to be a final or complete product by then. Darcy. I think we also just decided that the task group co-leaders are going to meet next week and come back to the next meeting with with like sector plans and priorities with all those subheadings that Laura is going to send out to us and suggest so that will be something that Linnean will be able to use in putting together the plan right. Yeah absolutely yeah and I see next next meeting as an opportunity sorry Jesse I'll get to you in just a second um I'll send that email out I think next meeting is an opportunity as we do that initial or that think as we do that as task group leaders if there are things that are coming up that we really are like we need Jim and Lauren to dig into this more or whatever you know I think that's going to be time for that discussion next time and I think Jim and Lauren are also going to come back to us next time with the climate action or with the outline um so I do see every meeting that we have being a back and forth discussion um in that way yeah uh Jesse. Uh quick comment that yeah having something to react to has been great very this you know having that outline was just I thought very fruitful is what we're Lauren and Jim can you guys confirm that what we're proposing to do in our groups is useful to you and it's the you know do you want to tailor it anymore to really make sure that we're filling a niche that you wouldn't otherwise be doing. No I think it is useful that the my perspective on this and it has always been my I mean this my my view on this process has not really changed much um uh I have learned a lot which is sort of a whole idea that crafting the plan is a is a is a joint process right that there are there are parts of the plan that you guys and clearly have made it clear you don't really care that much about but they're going to have to be in the plan we're probably going to do most of that work uh there are parts of the plan that you care a lot about and bring a lot to and it's like those are parts that you know you're gonna do a lot of the work in in uh preparing it for the plan it doesn't mean you're gonna do all of it because I don't think that's a realistic way to think but um uh so I think that process of going through sector plans going through the stuff that came out of the task groups and to understand that stuff all together from your perspective is going to be key and I think that's a super valuable thing to do as we go into the process of actually crafting you know a draft does that make sense yeah yeah andra so I I just want to make sure because I didn't see my main concern addressed in in today's presentation um and I would really like I think would be very helpful for us in doing our next step to see each other's feedback in the raw form um because I think there will be some rich stuff for us to draw on um for the parts that we're going to be other work part of the work we're going to do um but um you know one of the main things I wanted to know is is where the analysis um happens where the strategizing happens and you know to me this is a plan and it's much more than most of what I saw in the outline and still today which is a report on the task group work um the plan's just way more than that and so the reason I ask about how can we have more interaction is because so far I'm feeling unsure that about what you see your task as you know maybe I'm imagining something much bigger than what you see you're getting paid for um but I did think that it was going to be a plan not the finished and never go back to plan but you know not everything that we did and not the whole you know digging into the process which was great but that's not as important for our plan as a lot of other things yeah I'd argue that actually it is but the the process is is not the plan right the the we went through that process to as the first maybe second sorry I'm gonna stop you go ahead yeah if four minutes left and so I actually think it'd be more productive to sit on that and come back next time and provide that info to us that's right um can we all wonder I think we all want to move this forward and we're I feel like we're just right almost right there to have a clearer picture and we and we're not going to get it in four minutes so and can we get each other's feedback so that we can all see specifically on the outline sure we'll email that that's easy um I'd like to see that okay that's fine so I will email out what we discussed about looking at our looking at the priorities from this presentation as well as anything else you might want to add but I think we really want to focus on this presentation because I think it really concisely um consolidates this process we've been this journey we've been on together um and then we will be prepared to talk about that and budget ideas that bubble up through that process um and we'll get a another report back from Lauren and Jim with the outline we will email out the comments on the outlines was there a public comment Stephanie um I just wanted to welcome Navva who is one of Ashwin's students and Navva if you want to unmute yourself um actually I want to allow you to talk so if you want to say something um hi uh yeah I was just here to listen in to kind of the process that was going on I'm writing my thesis on municipal climate action plans and particularly their implementation um I'm looking at um not ever specifically but I thought that this would be some good insight so I might be popping into some of the meetings but um I think it was nice for me to see I think my understanding of the lanae and presentation was kind of to outline for the committee like the logistical process of what was going to be happening and for me like that gives me insight into what I should be looking into and other committees um and then I'm excited to see what you all come up with for your climate action plan itself and um what kinds of things it'll entail I thought it was exciting to see kind of how it's interdisciplinary and how you all are focusing on equity as well as sustainability and reducing carbon emissions so um just keep up the good work and I thank you for having me today and we want you to share your thesis with us exactly thanks tava great to see you in the in the meeting okay any last thoughts folks before we close up okay let's think positive thoughts yeah I want to reiterate this is a very stressful day yes for democracy and I want to I am really grateful that you guys took two hours and were super focused and every week so sorry to take more time but I I'm really impressed with every face in this group and I am every two weeks so thank you all so much I'm I've been habitual about this all day I'm sorry and I couldn't help myself but I checked my phone and um Biden just took michigan yeah my my son said we'll get an answer by noon tomorrow all right I'm holding him to that Darcy so just in terms of our you know our work and you know our desire to see climate be at the forefront again I just thought was a nice way to end the meeting so all right all right all right all right bye


So the AdWee crew tell me that these words have been added to the Webster Dictionary. Now that they haven't been added to the really good dictionaries, the Oxford Dictionary or the Cambridge Dictionary. These are awful, awful words. Words like pie in, I don't wish I don't like. Tweet storm, okay. Impression, just to show you that we're being transparent. On brand, I'm not so sure about that either. It's not a word either. It's hyphenated. Influencer, yeah, that's important. We use influencers in our day-to-day content operation at Media Months. And indeed, in our programmatic operations at Mighty Hive, we come into contact and are using influencers to a significant degree. So I think it's a very interesting part of our new business, of our new digital business and the new digital economy. And buzzy, I'm not so sure about that either. Why that would be a new word, I don't quite know. And gig economy, okay, we'll go with that. But that's two words, according to my reckoning, not one. I mean, some of these things are trite. I think buzzy is trite. On brand has been around, I think, for a long period of time. Obviously, impressions are important in the context of the change to digital as is tweet storm buy-in. You know, we've had for years, buzzy we've had for years, gig economy is important. So some of those words, I'm a little bit surprised they've only just crept into the Webster dictionary. I thought they would have been there before. But none of these words are really important words, actually. The important words are purely digital, the holy trinity, faster, better, cheaper, and last but not least, a unitary structure. That's what's really important and should be added to all dictionaries.


Okay, so I've extracted the last five years of the simulation, the period 2008 through 2012, the average for that five-year period, and I'm now going to read it into the data browser, where it's available to plot. Then as a baseline, I am going to take the first five years, the average of the first five years of the simulation, read that into the data browser. And you can see that I've got each of these five variables now, ocean mixed layer temperature, precipitation, snow cover, soil moisture, and surface air temperature. All annual averages for each of these two five-year periods. What I'm going to do next is to take the difference. Let me select surface air temperature. We're going to take the difference between the last five years and the first five years of the simulation, and that'll give us the spatial pattern of the trend in temperature over the globe. So I want data one minus data two. It's going to plot that out for me. Unfortunately it uses a nonsensical color scale, so I am going to change the color scale so that it is more meaningful. Okay, so that the warm colors all indicate warming. The cold colors would indicate cooling. Of course, the entire globe is warming in this simulation. Warming more at high latitudes, particularly in the northern hemisphere, whereas we know sea ice is decreasing markedly, and so that ice albedo feedback is kicking in, giving us that additional warming at high latitudes in the northern hemisphere. And there's some interesting structure in the southern hemisphere as well. Perhaps a little bit more warming over the land regions than over most of the ocean regions, although the variations are fairly small. So that's the projected surface air temperature pattern. Of course, as I've said before, this is a fairly primitive climate model by modern standards, and a lot of the more interesting variations in ocean circulation and atmospheric circulation that give us more complicated patterns of surface temperature changes in the projections of current state of the art climate models are not really resolved in this relatively primitive model. But that's what the surface pattern of warming looks like, and we can now look at the patterns of some other variables.