In Vermont, February 2015 broke records for coldest temperatures ever recorded. During that month hundreds of workers stood outside on picket lines, all day, every day. They were on strike for justice. They work for the monopoly landline phone company in the state. Eventually the workers won the four month strike, and a good union contract.

In 2021, when it was time to negotiate a new union contract, the company was more reasonable. On August 9, 2021 the company and the workers' elected union leaders reached a tentative agreement. The deal will be official if workers vote to approve it.

With 4 percent of the world's population, the USA spends as much money on war as the rest of the world combined. This year the USA will spend $1.7 trillion on war. That's 48 percent of the federal budget, meaning about half your income taxes go to war. This data is from:

www.warresisters.org/sites/default/files/fy2022pie_chart-low_res.pdf

On August 6, there will be peace rallies:

--in Brattleboro at noon outside the Main street post office. The organizer is Daniel Sicken (pronounced SEE-kin) dhsicken@yahoo.com or landline 802-387-2798;

In Greenfield on July 31 there will be a rally to protest cutting down forests in Massachusetts to put up solar panels. The panels can go on roofs of big box stores, warehouses, and other buildings, and on top of parking lots. To see a big photo of seven acres of solar panels over a parking lot in Amherst, click on the small photo of "Lot 44" at:

www.umass.edu/dcm/campus-solar

The Greenfield rally organizers said, “To date, the state has lost 4,000 acres to large ground-mounted solar, much of it pristine forest.”

They have a web site at https://savethepinebarrens.org.

The Connecticut river valley town of Dublin, New Hampshire is five miles from Massachusetts. On June 16, a local land trust announced it had saved 132 acres of forestland in Dublin from development. The USA is losing 6,000 acres of open space to development every day.

Dublin is six miles east of downtown Keene, population 23,000. The town of Surry, New Hampshire borders Keene. June 10 was Surry's annual town meeting. Voters there created a 115 acre town forest.

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On June 8 in Springfield there will be a rally in support of raising taxes on rich people and giving the money to public schools and publicly-run buses and passenger trains. On average, even electric cars are worse for the environment than buses and trains, on a per-traveler basis. The rally will be outside city hall at 6 p.m. Details are at:

https://actionnetwork.org/events/springfield-for-the-fair-share-amendment

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Two years ago, 17 people were arrested for non-violent civil disobedience at Wendell, Massachusetts state forest near Greenfield. The goal was to stop logging of 80 acres of 110 year old oak trees on publicly owned land. The USA is losing 6,000 acres of open space to development every day. Stopping logging on publicly owned land forces logging companies to buy their own land. If the loggers want to grow new trees after logging, the land can't be paved.

About 100 people attended a Northampton rally in solidarity with Asian American women following a racist, sexist mass shooting in Atlanta. The Northampton rally was on March 19. Organizers have a web site at

https://ValleyWomensMarch.org

About 25 people attended a Brattleboro rally about the same issue on March 23. Tracy Donahue organized the Brattleboro rally. She told the Valley Post, "It's important that all of us are educated on this history of violence."

There be a peace rally in Brattleboro on May 17. The rally will be outside 2 Main Street from 10 a.m. until 6 p.m. With 4 percent of the world's population, the USA spends as much money on war as the rest of the world combined. This year the USA will spend $1.7 trillion on war. That's 48 percent of the federal budget, meaning about half your income taxes go to war. This data is from:

https://www.warresisters.org/sites/default/files/fy2022pie_chart-low_res...

More information on the Brattleboro rally will be posted soon at:

https://nwtrcc.org/tax-day-actions-2021

On April 17 in Brattleboro there will be a march calling on local, state, and federal politicians to do more to address climate change. Marches are a big part of the reason Vermont Yankee closed, the civil rights movement had the successes it did, apartheid ended, women won the right to vote, and the labor movement built the middle class.

In recent years, 9 million people a year have died of starvation. Droughts, floods, and unseasonable heat and cold -- all caused by climate change -- make it harder for farmers to grow food.

In a major victory for bicycle and pedestrian activists, construction is underway on proper sidewalks and physically-separated-from-cars bicycle lanes in two cities, both of which border Springfield. The work is happening in the cities of West Springfield and Agawam. Springfield is home to 154,000 people, 69 percent of whom are people of color.

“This area has been a desert of bike infrastructure,” Galen Mook told the Valley Post in a voice phone interview on March 1. He runs the Massachusetts Bicycle Coalition.