On the evening of August 20th, the Greenfield City Council voted to pass a resolution in favor of the Make Polluters Pay campaign! The resolution was submitted by Councilor Patricia Williams, with support from Greenfield residents and groups like Dayenu.

Greenfield joins 8 other cities, from Northampton to Boston, which have passed similar resolutions in support of H.1014/S.588, “An Act establishing a climate change superfund,” also known as the Climate Superfund Bill. This is a powerful show of support from the Greenfield community that communicates clearly to their elected officials in the statehouse: we need to be resilient, and the worst fossil fuel companies have to pay. The passage of this municipal resolution prompts the city clerk to send a letter from the city council to their state congressional delegation urging the passage of the Make Polluters Pay bill.

Greenfield leaders hope that this victory will encourage other towns in Western Mass to support Make Polluters Pay because the region already feels the impacts of climate change and is already practicing resilience–but it all takes money! That money should not come from residents, but from the worst carbon polluters who have done the most to change our climate.

City Councilor Patricia Williams said in an interview with the Greenfield Recorder, "Somebody who does harm should be held accounrable -- that's called justice. We want to make sure that those that cause the problem are held accountable... taxpayers' money should not have to be used for this. We need the money for good things like education, housing, etc., not to clean up somebody else's mess."

Bram Moreinis, Western Massachusetts Educator and founder of Resilient Greenfield, said, "Greenfield could be a great model for finding ways to adapt to the climate crisis.  Our Sustainable Greenfield Master Plan has been in place since 2012, shepherded by an implementation team of public employees and action group volunteers for over a decade.  We are surrounded by arable land and fed by many rivers, with permaculture farmers and educators leading the way. We have recently been working to make state policy more equitable in education funding and affordable housing  support for rural communities.  I am glad to see us adding environmental justice to our platform, and hope our council and citizens will remain proactive in helping Massachusetts communities weather our future, hopefully funded by corporations that sacrificed that future for shareholder value and executive compensation."

City Councilor Marianne Bullock spoke in favor of the resolution as the city council debated. She is quoted in the Greenfield Recorder: “The idea [isn’t] that this would be a punishment or a harm to a corporation that makes multi-billion dollars a year versus specific cities and towns and people that have been targeted... When billionaires are making billions of dollars and people are getting sick and dying and hurt because of their actions, you’re not being punished. You’re being held accountable.”

The Greenfield City Council has taken a huge step to support a climate resilient future, and it is a testament to the community of Greenfield, and its leaders, both elected and from the grassroots!

Read the Greenfield Recorder article here: https://recorder.com/2025/08/22/greenfield-council-climate-change-resolution/