Yesterday was my first opportunity to take part in the Mass. Climate Action Network as a member of its steering committee; there hadn't been any events since I volunteered to take part as Sustainable Arlington's representative a couple of months ago.

I'm not sure how I'll end up, but I think it's worth two posts, one on the presentation by Jim Laurie (see here), and one on the reports of activities by the town and regional climate-action groups. I'll do the latter first, to fulfill my liaison role with SA. (Info in the bulleted items is from group representatives; I'll post with MCAN and make corrections if necessary.)

* Keren Schlomy of Cambridge reported on the weatherization barn-raisings that Jeremy Marin wrote about here. She said participation has been fabulous, to the extent that their chief constraint has been a shortage of people who can lead all the volunteers who have showed up. She said they have won an $8,700 grant to train more leaders. (BTW: Jeremy tells me today that he took the training last weekend.)

She also said that Green Decade Cambridge will host a global warming cafe (I suppose similar to this one) May 2 as part of Cambridge's science festival.

* The Lexington Global Warming Action Coalition is hosting a "Go Green" dance from 7-11 p.m. Saturday at the Knights of Columbus Hall, as a fundraiser for a rally it's helping to plan for Oct. 24, the climate-action demonstration day I mentioned here. Tickets are $15.

Later, Roger Shamel, president of the Lexington-based Global Warming Education Network, gave further details for the planned "regional energy revolution rally," which would be at the Old North Bridge in Concord, cosponsored not only by Lexington GWAC but by counterparts in Concord, Bedford, and Carlisle. Shamel said a number of luminaries have been invited, and that John Kerry spoke at a similar rally two years ago.

 * Sustainable South Shore has a thermal-imaging device that has been used on behalf of 6-20 homeowners and town buildings per week in its member towns.

* Carlisle's first affordable housing development will be "LEED-Silver, at least."

* Green Needham has a "10 percent challenge," trying to get people to reduce there energy use by that amount, and it has now commitments for 1 million pounds of carbon reductions.

* Maynard is starting a "Low Carbon Diet" effort next week, and one of its members is training with HEET, "so we can move the barnraisings out there."

* Bedford is having a kickoff meeting for energy audits of town-owned buildings next week, after having begun the state-funded process in January. 2008. Additionally, Bedford's rep. reported that its library has five electricity-monitoring meters available for loans to allow homeowners to measure the power draw of specific appliances. He said anyone in the Minuteman Library Network can borrow them.

* Medfield is switching to LED traffic lights.