Thanks to peace protesters, on March 19, the Greenfield city council voted to call for a ceasefire in Gaza. The day before, about 25 people attended a rally in Greenfield for this cause. The organizers have a web site at www.traprock.org.

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On March 19, an Amtrak spokesman told the Valley Post of the new, $10 million Brattleboro Amtrak station, “We anticipate starting construction this summer.”

The same day, Brattleboro's town manager told the Valley Post, “The Amtrak contractor is getting started today on the station with soil borings to find bedrock. It should be between 12 and 18 months for construction.”

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Last summer, many vegetable farmers in the Valley had their worst season ever due to climate-change caused floods. A major cause of climate change is overpopulation, according to:

www.biologicaldiversity.org/programs/population_and_sustainability/climate/

That web page says one of the best ways to stop overpopulation is to increase women's rights. The USA is 37th best out of 177 nations ranked for women's rights. Nations that are better than the USA in the ranking include the United Arab Emirates, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Hungary and Latvia. Details are at:

https://giwps.georgetown.edu/the-index/

The average American produced about 15 tons of carbon dioxide last year. The average Ugandan produced about 0.1 ton. The average Swede produced about four tons. That data is from:

https://ourworldindata.org/co2-emissions-metrics

On March 21, Stephanie Feldstein of the Center for Biological Diversity told the Valley Post, "We absolutely need to address emissions from fossil fuels and agriculture, but we can't ignore the connection between climate change, population pressure, gender equity and reproductive freedom. This isn't a problem happening far from home -- reproductive health care and women's rights are under attack here in the U.S."

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The Deerfield river valley goes from Stratton, Vermont (which is in the same county as Brattleboro) to Greenfield, Massachusetts. On March 8 the federal government said it will do a study about whether to do more to protect this valley. Michael Kellett runs a group that has a web site at www.restore.org. On March 18, he told the Valley Post, “The designation of the Deerfield river as a National Wild and Scenic River would be a vital step in keeping the remaining intact sections of the river free-flowing and gaining public funding to better prevent harmful recreational overuse and abuse. We also should pass Massachusetts bills H.4150 and H.904, which would protect state public lands in the river corridor. In addition, we should remove unnecessary dams that disrupt natural river flow, devastate river ecosystems, and degrade water quality."

Janet Sinclair grew up in Greenfield and lives in Shelburne, Massachusetts, through which the Deerfield river flows. On March 18, she told the Valley Post, “As our river and surrounding forest resources become more popular to visit, there is more and more human-created damage happening. Right now, there is little help for us to mitigate or prevent that damage.”