Climate change post brings big picture home | Local News | miltontimes.com - Milton Times

Climate change post brings big picture home | Local News | miltontimes.com

Milton resident Ron Israel has long been committed to the environmental movement whose slogan is think globally and act locally.

Typically, however, his approach has been to think globally and to act globally as well.

But about a year ago, Israel, who has worked most of his life in the global development of educational and environmental initiatives, saw a way to act locally in Milton as well.

He is one of eight members of the recently formed Climate Action Planning Committee.

“I saw an ad in the Milton Times. I thought, I’ve done all this stuff in different countries, but I’ve never done anything in my hometown. I applied and they selected me,” said Israel at his home recently.

“In my other work I deal with things at the national or international level. Here we’re dealing with the Neponset River, the Blue Hills, really nitty gritty issues. It’s equally interesting, but the scale is different,” he said. “It’s kind of a lot of fun.”

He said the group of diverse and impressive people that includes community leaders and experts in energy related fields is getting started on the goal of developing a climate action plan for the town.

“It will be challenging because it means getting people to change their behaviors, which people hate to do,” he said.

Israel said his involvement has allowed him to get to know other volunteers who are interested in helping the town and the environment.

Israel is co-founder of the Global Citizens’ Initiative (GCI), a member based organization that seeks to strengthen the practice of global citizenship (www.theglobalcitizensinitiative.org).

Israel said he has a home office and a handful of remote coworkers including those working on a project called Climate Scorecard.

Although his wife Fern and his three children, Katie, Eli, and Anna went to Milton Public Schools he said he traveled too much to feel connected to the community.

A committed activist and folk/rock musician at heart and in practice, Israel did break out his guitar about a year ago for a rally for peace at First Parish Church.

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