GREENFIELD — State Rep. Paul Mark and folk singer and Unitarian-Universalist minister Fred Small will be among those participating in a climate-change conference Saturday that is open to the public at All Souls Church, Unitarian-Universalist.
The conference, which will bring together social justice directors from 14 Unitarian-Universalist churches across western Massachusetts, will present three simultaneous workshops from 1 to 3 p.m. looking at the state’s omnibus energy bill, using community meal programs like Stone Soup Cafe as a way of bringing people together across races and classes and the role of raising grass-fed beef to reduce climate change.
A panel including Mark, Small — an environmental UU minister based in Boston — and Nancy Hazard of Greening Greenfield will examine what was won and lost in the recently approved state energy legislation, and how to finance renewable energy alternatives through Mark’s proposed “Green Bank” legislation, carbon pricing and the campaign to divest from fossil fuels.
Another workshop on “How to Create a Pay-What-You-Can Cafe” will look at ways that congregations can set up variants of Stone Soup Cafe, a weekly meeting ground that organizers say works as a cross between a gourmet restaurant and a community supper.
While both those workshops are planned for All Souls as part of a longer, 10 a.m. to 4:30 p.m. workshop for Unitarian-Universalist congregation leaders, a third session, “Beyond Sustainability: Beef in a New Agricultural Model” will be presented from 1 to 3 p.m. next door at Greenfield Community Access TV studios.
Presented by Hardwick farmer, Ridge Shinn, who is developing a marketing system for grass-fed beef, the workshop will discuss using a rotational grazing method that provides carbon sequestration, one of the most promising methods to suck carbon out of the atmosphere and pull it into the soil, where it adds to soil vitality.