About Climate Summer
New England Climate Summer is a summer internship program for college students, graduate students, and recent graduates. Climate Summer riders travel exclusively by bicycle in small teams across New England, spending approximately one week in a community before biking on to the next. While in each town, riders connect with community leaders who are actively addressing society’s addiction to fossil fuels by crafting local solutions that strengthen communities. Riders bring with them a movement-building perspective, empowering those they meet and helping to highlight the important work of local organizations with the local press and in our digital Movement Map, which will catalogue the efforts of groups in each community visited. Program Dates for 2013: early-mid June through early-mid August (precise dates to be finalized before January 1, 2013).
About the Teams
Climate Summer has five teams riding across New England in 2012:
About Better Future Project
Climate Summer is a program of Better Future Project, a new organization focused on helping people envision and build a future free from the burning of fossil fuels. Better Future Project is fiscally sponsored by the Open Space Institute, Inc., as part of their Citizen Action Program. OSI is a nonprofit public charity exempt from federal income tax under Sections 501(c)(3) and 509(a)(1) of the Internal Revenue Code. For more information on Better Future Project, please visit www.betterfutureproject.org.
Our Team
Craig Altemose, Executive Director, Better Future Project
Craig holds a Juris Doctorate from Harvard Law School, a Master in Public Policy from the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University, and a B.A. in International Relations and Global Affairs from Eckerd College (where he served as student body president) . He has served on the governing bodies of a number of different statewide and national non-profits, he wrote and led a successful effort to pass the nation’s most ambitious call for climate action by a state legislature, and he co-founded and led Students for a Just and Stable Future, a network of students dedicating to promoting climate stability.
During his graduate studies, Craig was appointed by Harvard’s president to a commission to recommend a climate action plan for the university and was appointed to the Massachusetts Climate Protection and Green Economy Advisory Committee by the MA Secretary of Energy and Environmental Affairs to assist in the state’s development of its climate action plan. After graduating from Harvard Law School, he was awarded an Irvin Kaufman Fellowship to launch his public service career. A native of Morris Plains, New Jersey, Craig’s Presbyterian faith has led him to involve himself in a wide variety of issues to advance progress and reduce human suffering, and he ranks building a better world free from fossil fuels as his foremost priority in that continuing struggle.
Marla is a native of the Missouri Ozarks and a graduate of Sewanee (The University of the South in Sewanee, Tennessee). After college, she served as an Americorps*VISTA member and VISTA Leader with Utah Campus Compact. The highlight of Marla’s VISTA service was the opportunity to plan and organize a new initiative, called “Building Campus-Community Partnerships that Work,” in which member campuses and community organizations forged strong partnerships in order to create better learning opportunities and stronger communities. Knowing that what seems impossible can be accomplished through collaborations by unlikely allies, last year Marla took a leave of absence from her doctoral program in Social and Ecological Ethics at Boston University School of Theology to help develop networks of people emboldened to reject subtle climate compromises and to both demand and continue to create the bold solutions we need. Marla has been with Climate Summer since June 2009, working first with Community Outreach (particularly finding housing for the teams), and later as the 2010 Coordinator. As the Director of New England Climate Summer, Marla is excited to continue working with people all over New England who are raising the clarion call for social and ecological justice.
In addition to being the Director of Community Engagement for Better Future Project, Vanessa has been the lead coordinator Somerville Climate Action since January 2007. As an organizer, she focuses on building relationships across stakeholder groups to develop collaborative actions and projects at the intersection of climate change mitigation and adaptation. Prior to fully devoting herself to climate issues, she worked on watershed management and multi-stakeholder involvement to address ecological issues across municipal boundaries in the greater Boston area. She holds a B.A. from Bryn Mawr College and a Master of Environmental Sciences degree in Resource Management and Administration from Antioch New England University.
Organizational Partners
Climate Summer’s organizational partners include 350 Connecticut, 350 Vermont, 350 Maine, and Maine Interfaith Power & Light.
Sponsors
Better Future Project is grateful for the support of a number of sponsors and individual donors, including:
and
Like what we’re doing? Want to help make it better? We invite you to make a donation.
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