On August 6, two women were arrested for non-violent civil disobedience to stop logging at Wendell State Forest in Massachusetts, near Greenfield. State police took them to Athol, Massachusetts, where they were released with court dates. The two women are Pioneer Valley residents Gia Neswald and Priscilla Lynch. In a phone interview on August 7, Neswald told the Valley Post, “We were arrested for peacefully protesting on public land. The state police told the loggers to drive a huge logging truck toward us. The truck stopped about 10 feet from us.”

The U.S. is losing 6,000 acres of open space to development every day, according to the Trust for Public Land. The Vermont Land Trust (VLT) is working to protect open space, which is one of the best ways to stop climate change. A Valley Post special investigation reveals that, over the past decade, VLT -- which gets most of its funding from taxpayers all over Vermont -- has focused its efforts much more heavily in the northern part of the state, versus the four southern counties of Vermont.

In Springfield on June 5 there will be a rally to protest a plan by the governor to make more electricity by burning trees. "Burning trees to produce electricity is dirty and destructive. It creates more carbon pollution than coal, gas, and oil. It destroys forests and our heritage along with them." That's according to:

www.nrdc.org/resources/our-forests-arent-fuel

The rally will start at 5:45 p.m. outside 1015 Wilbraham Road. Details are at:

www.facebook.com/events/1529223160542281

Local activists are praising a proposal by a state senator to create a passenger train line between Greenfield and Boston. “It would parallel Route 2,” Jared Freedman told the Valley Post in a phone interview on January 28. He is a spokesman for Senator Jo Comerford, who made the proposal.

Critical Mass bicycle rides started in 1992 in California and have since spread around the world. Hundreds of people ride together in a group on roads, forcing cars to go at bicycle speed. They often chant, “Critical Mass, don't use gas!”

In the past 17 years, Brattleboro police shot and killed two men in the town. During that time in Brattleboro, five other people were killed by people who were not police. So 29 percent of these people were killed by police.

In 2015, the most recent year for which data was available, in the USA there were 15,696 or so murders. That year, police killed 1,186 people in the USA. So 8 percent of these people were killed by police.

These photos were taken on June 16 in Keene. The first photo shows a footpath through a forest that was protected on June 4 when a judge ruled in favor of activists who said the city could not clearcut a 12 acre forest that it owns. The second photo shows part of a five mile long bicycle path, the Cheshire Rail Trail, that passes through downtown and goes to Stonewall Farm. That's an organic dairy and vegetable farm that is open to the public. In the photo a man rides past the food co-op. The third photo shows birch trees alongside the rail trail.

In Keene, activists marched to stop a proposed fracked gas pipeline. They won last year when the pipeline was canceled. Now the activists are fighting a plan by the corporation that holds the city monopoly for gas used for heating buildings to switch from propane to fracked gas. Both are fossil fuels that cause climate change. “But fracked gas is full of chemicals that are even worse for people's health,” Terry Clark told the Valley Post in a telephone interview on November 25, 2017. He is a member of the Keene city council.

Activists are working to improve passenger train service in the Valley. “Our two main goals are more frequent train service between Greenfield and Springfield, and faster and more frequent trains between Springfield and Boston,” Ben Heckscher, Jr. of TrainsInTheValley.org told the Valley Post in a November 7 telephone interview.

Traveling by train rather than by car is better for the environment, and safer.

Ten people were arrested for non-violent civil disobedience in the Connecticut river valley town of Sandisfield, Massachusetts on September 13. The activists blocked construction of a fracked gas pipeline. Fracked gas causes climate change, which the world's leading scientists say is a major threat to earth's ability to support human life.

Dennis Carr was arrested at the protest. He lives in Cummington, Massachusetts. Carr told the Valley Post, “It went well. We intend to continue to resist." The activists have a web site at www.SugarShackAlliance.org.