Feeling pretty good!

Today has been a pretty good day.

I walked from Newton Centre to Waban trying to facilitate the plastic bag ban in Newton. While I only got two businesses to sign on, several individuals who were working said that they personally supported the ban. I told them to go ahead and email their alderman and tell him that they wanted the ban. So overall, that went really well!

When I got back to Winter St., I had my end of internship review. They've been impressed with my work, and offered me a summer internship. It's more of a position as an internal organizer within Environment Massachusetts instead of as a policy intern, but I'm not sure if I'm going to take them up on the offer. I did tell them that I had several friends who might be interested, so if you're reading this and think you might like a summer internship in Boston, hit me up and I'll give you the connect! My adviser told me that anyone I send in will get an interview, which is nice because they don't even reply to a lot of the people vying for an internship.

After my review, I was going through and trying to figure how many LTEs I've spawned out into the world. I was really confused when some newspaper I'd never heard of before came up when I Googled myself. Come to find out, they ripped my first printed letter out of the Salem newspaper and printed it in their own!

As I type, I'm working on research for Environment Maine. The Land and Water Conservation Fund expires on March 27th. I spent a few hours yesterday phone banking on this issue. We are asking concerned members to call their senator to tell them that they want full funding for this issue, however it's getting a little scary because a lot of big corporations are lobbying against it. Part of the Fund allows for private chunks of land around a national park to be bought so that they can't be developed... you can imagine that a lot of corporations are less than pleased with it.

Tomorrow, I'm finishing up my final projects at Environment Massachusetts. 

The email that I hope will change the mind of the President of Aldermen in Newton.

Alderman Lennon,

My name is Morgan Dean, I'm a policy intern at Environment Massachusetts. I am also a citizen who wants our rivers and ocean to stay pristine. Everyone in Massachusetts wants a more beautiful state and healthier waters, and I am writing to tell you that a ban on plastic bags is needed.

Retailers spend hundreds of millions of dollars annually to provide single-use bags to customers. Supermarkets can spend up to $6,000 a month just to provide single-use bags to their customers at checkout. Even major retailers such as Target and CVS are realizing this significant cost burden. Stores typically pay 2 to 5 cents per plastic bag, and these costs are then passed on to consumers.

As a member of Environment Massachusetts and a citizen of our world, I am also concerned with the environmental impacts of plastic bag pollution. Plastic bags are one of the leading components of plastic pollution in our waterways, threatening our marine environment. Plastic bags clog drains and gutters before they make their way into our streams and rivers, eventually entering the ocean. Wildlife, like turtles, birds or whales, can choke or starve to death with a full stomach when they ingest plastic bags. The bags do not biodegrade; rather, they break down into tiny toxic pieces of plastic that circulate through the marine food chain- which includes us.

Our state depends on the ocean for everything from fishing to tourism. Protecting our water is vital to our way of life.

Nothing we use for just five minutes should fill our waterways with trash for thousands of years. Newton can be a leader for the environment and set a precedent for the rest of Massachusetts to follow by getting rid of plastic bags.


Please, help save our environment by supporting a ban on plastic bags.


Thank you,

Morgan Dean
Policy Intern, Environment Massachusetts
www.environmentmassachusetts.com

The Meaning of Life (or at least as it pertains to this internship).

I've been trying to think about the big life meaning of this internship. I don't really think I want a job like this- to me, it seems like I just bug people and they sign things to make me go away. I'm not sure if people are really understanding the key issues. I believe that the advocacy I am doing is actually missing a key step... Education. I'm not exactly sure how this could be carried out, but we need to really make people understand the faults of something before they can be convinced to make changes.

Sometimes, I feel that a lot of the reasons given for the ban don't barely scratch the surface of the problem. Plastic bags and the problems that they are causing for our environment represent a much deeper problem within our society. We relish in the notion of existing in a disposable world. Americans, who base a lot of their worth on materialism, are constantly giving up the old in order to get the new, whether the old was fully used up or not. It's frustrating to not just see this, but be part of this. It's frustrating that I'm aware of it, but have little power to stop it. Plastic bags show how humans abuse convenience, taking something that was meant to improve the world and using it until the opportunity cost is outrageous. This type of consumerism creates a vicious cycle; the more we get, the more we want. How can we ever be happy?

I keep thinking of the Simpson's movie, where the lake is so polluted and Lisa keeps trying to tell them. When the lake is so polluted that one more piece of trash will cause it to be an absolute hazard, the town finally takes action. But Homer, who doesn't have room in his head for anything besides what he wants, screws it all up.

Friday! (one week left)

Today, I worked mostly on LTE's. It's really interesting to me how many times I can edit 200 words and still not be content with it.

My current plan with LTE's is to target the university newspapers that are close to Boston. Tufts, Harvard and MIT have school newspapers and they'll all received an LTE from me about plastic bags. Additionally, schools along the coast and in the cape are targets of plastic bags LTE's. I'm choosing college students because I think that this is the age where you have the least amount of limiting responsibilities while simultaneously having enough naivety and gumption to actually act and get results.

This weekend, I'm headed out to Amherst again. On Sunday, I only have a week left until I'm back to Virginia!

A New Mission.

I got orders from my boss all the way in Africa to abandon my attempts at the bag ban in Cambridge and transition our forces to Newton. Newton is currently considering putting a ban on plastic bags, however the outcome isn't starting to look so hot for our side of the efforts. So we're sending in back-up. Hopefully, I'll be able to get about a dozen businesses signed on, maybe do a little petitioning, and pull the bulk of the people back onto our side. It'll definitely be better than traipsing around Cambridge to the nth time....

My new job starts Monday. And I'm going to be laying out the plan of attack today and tomorrow.

NEWTON

Call Backs.

Basically, call backs are my least favorite part of this.

Sometimes, people seem hesitant but willing to sign on to my letter about a plastic bag ban. In this case, I leave a copy of the letter as well as contact information. However, they rarely contact you back. And that's when I have to go back and continue to pester them...

I haven't gotten any signatures from a call-back yet.


Other than call backs, I worked on some LTEs. I'm thinking I'm going to start sending an LTE or two on fracking to Western Massachusetts (can't remember if I told you that earlier or not).

Check out some raunchy facts about plastic bags. 

Back to the Streets.

When they handed over the campaign on banning plastic bags to me, I was feeling a little overwhelmed because of simply how big this thing was. I don't know if there was much preparation they could give to me, other than to have me research. But slowly, I'm taking Cambridge in bites.

I like maps. So I try to use them. Right of the bat, I was checking Google Maps. I decided that I would take Massachusetts Ave first. I spent one day reaching all the businesses between tube stations. So the first day, I did Harvard Square alone. The second, I walked from Harvard Square down to Central. The third day, I walked from Central to MIT, at Kendall. I moved farther north on the fourth day, today, covering the area from Porter to Harvard. So far, I've talked to a lot of businesses, but have only gotten a total of 12 businesses that agreed to support a plastic bag ban in Cambridge. 

Tomorrow, I'm going to do a few call backs and try to figure out where my next plan of action will unfold.