University of Massachusetts Amherst
PAE-24: Sustainability Policy Advocacy

Raymond S. Bradley, director of the Center for Climate Change, is one of many researchers affiliated with UMass Amherst who contributed to reports issued by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) in the past year. The reports earned the panel the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize, shared with environmentalist Al Gore. The Nobel Committee granted the prize to the IPCC and Gore “for their efforts to build up and disseminate greater knowledge about man-made climate change, and to lay the foundations for the measures that are needed to counteract such change.” The three assessment reports issued this year explained the physical science basis of global climate change, predicted future impacts of climate change and suggested steps toward mitigation. Research conducted by Bradley and Michael E. Mann detailed substantial human-induced rates of global warming in a 1999 paper that was the major highlight of the third IPCC assessment report. Mann, a former UMass Amherst post-doctoral researcher, is now a faculty member in the department of meteorology at Penn State University. Several former members of the UMass Climate System Research Center in the department of Geosciences also contributed to the reports.

AMHERST - Raising backyard chickens and rabbits in Amherst will become easier for residents interested in pursuing the activity. Under a zoning bylaw approved by Town Meeting at Wednesday's eighth and final session, people living in the neighborhood residence and general residence areas would get to keep up to 12 chickens and 12 rabbits by right, rather than having to go through the more expensive and time-consuming process of obtaining special permits from the Zoning Board of Appeals. Bernard Brennan of Precinct 9, a member of the Friends of Backyard Chickens who helped craft the bylaw, said raising chickens and rabbits is a quiet endeavor that will have no impact on neighbors and that Town Meeting's support will help foster the local food movement. "I think it will improve the standard of care and expose more people to this as an option," Brennan said. John Gerber, a professor of sustainable agriculture at the Stockbridge School at the University of Massachusetts, said the intent was to have a more rational process for raising backyard animals. The bylaw, he said, will better protect the welfare of animals and neighborhoods from the underground practice of raising chickens and rabbits, something he was doing at his Harlow Drive home until he obtained a special permit last summer. "Most of the poultry toward town center is under the radar and not seemingly causing problems," Gerber said. Morgan Brennan, 8, and the daughter of Bernard Brennan, told Town Meeting that raising egg-laying chickens is a good venture. "I really like their great eggs, they're awesome pets, they eat some of the pests you would have in your backyard, their poop is wonderful fertilizer," she said. Town Meeting also approved, by voice vote, an accompanying general bylaw that offers a process by which residents can install chicken coops and rabbit hutches on their properties. It includes formal abutter notifications and oversight by Animal Welfare Officer Carol Hepburn and Health Director Julie Federman. All poultry is now expected to be registered and inspected. http://www.gazettenet.com/2011/05/26/amherst-tm-oks-raising-chickens-rabbits?SESSefbaabab6f47545c8b8c74ce3aa080d4=gnews