Extinction Rebellion Boston Disrupts Governor Healey's Commonwealth Environmental Leadership Award
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Contact: Alex Chambers (they/them) | 774-804-2270 | xrboston.media@gmail.com
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Extinction Rebellion Boston disrupts Governor Healey's Commonwealth Environmental Leadership award, calls on her administration to stop private jet expansion at Hanscom airfield
Climate activists disrupt business as usual at a greenwashing award ceremony, demand that the Healey administration ban new fossil fuel infrastructure as the first step to a rapid and just decarbonization.
Massachusetts must place the well-being of every present and future human being above the fossil fuel industry's profits. We demand that the Healey administration stop allowing new fossil fuel infrastructure to be built and cancel all current fossil fuel projects.
Extinction Rebellion condemns new fossil fuel infrastructure that will be in operation for decades, preventing us from achieving decarbonization and threatening us with runaway global heating and an uninhabitable Earth.
BOSTON, MA — On Thursday, May 1, ten climate activists from Extinction Rebellion Boston (XR) disrupted Governor Maura Healey's Commonwealth Environmental Leadership award, at the Earth Night 2025 award ceremony to demand that the Healey administration stop private jet expansion at Hanscom airfield. The ceremony, hosted by the Environmental League of Massachusetts (ELM), advertised that "Massachusetts’ climate leadership matters now more than ever. At Earth Night, we will focus on building the crucial momentum needed to meet this moment. Join us to celebrate ELM’s work and to build relationships that will help advance climate solutions for our Commonwealth."
Gina McCarthy, former White House national climate advisor and Administrator of U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) introduced Governor Healey to the ELM crowd. McCarthy is another supposed "climate champion" that the environmental movement props up. As EPA Administrator, she went to bat for the fracked gas industry during the Obama administration, pursuing an "all of the above" approach to energy. The XR activists starting disrupting Governor Healey as soon as she began speaking. They asked her, "Governor Healey will you oppose the Hanscom Airfield expansion that reverses decades of climate progress in Massachusetts? Yes or No." Two of the protestors who disrupted tonight's conference are currently facing trial for their involvement in an April 2024 action at Hanscom Airfield, which resulted in a four-hour shutdown of aviation activity.
"When you find yourself stuck in a hole the first step is to stop digging," said Alex Chambers (they/them), spokesperson and one of the Hanscom 21 defendants. "Governor Healey entered office more than two years ago, yet we witness no progress from her administration toward halting new fossil fuel infrastructure, including opposing new private jet hangars at Hanscom Airfield." Chambers has been arrested eleven times over the past five years to pressure the Commonwealth to decarbonize.
The activists communicated that they would cease targeting and disrupting the Healey administration, once Governor Healey made a public statement committing her administration to opposing private jet expansion at Hanscom airfield. Rebels held two large white banner with black and red font reading "No Hanscom Airfield Expansion: Stop Private Jets" and "Fight Fossil Fuels: Fight Fascism." They chanted "Governor Healey, you make the rules, time to ban new fossil fuels," "Private jets cause more emissions, we demand a just transition!"
“It’s embarrassing that the environmental movement is honoring Governor Healey as an environmental leader. She has refused to oppose the expansion of private jet hangars at Hanscom Airfield — a project that directly serves the ultra-wealthy and accelerates climate breakdown," said Martin Gioannetti (they/them), event organizer and spokesperson for Extinction Rebellion Boston. "Why is the Environmental League of Massachusetts rewarding inaction? Real environmental leadership means standing up to the billionaire class, not protecting their luxury emissions — which are killing the prospect of a livable future for my generation.”
The plans for private jet expansion at Hanscom Airfield include 17 new private jet hangars. This expansion would accommodate a 300% increase in private jet services and is currently under consideration by the Massachusetts Port Authority. Based on a comprehensive analysis of private flights traveling to and from Hanscom Field over an 18-month period, the expansion would primarily serve the wealthiest travelers in the region, many of whom frequently take short-hop flights to recreational and luxury destinations. Many flights are as little as 15 minutes, traveling from Concord to Boston Logan International Airport.
The Hanscom community and taxpayers of Massachusetts are overwhelmingly demanding the end of this development plan. Local organization Stop Private Jet Expansion delivered a petition with more than 10,000 signatures to Governor Healey on October 2, 2023. The petition now has over 13,500 signatures. The group has also organized and hosted over 50 stand-outs in nearby towns. Members of Stop Private Jet Expansion have attended every Massport board meeting since May 2023 to deliver public comments. Meanwhile, climate activists with Extinction Rebellion Boston have directly confronted the Governor about the expansion multiple times since May 2023 by calling into the "Ask the Governor" segment on WGBH's "Listen To Jim and Margery" radio show. XR Boston members have also intercepted Healey in person at the State House, demanding a response.
Independent research (1) found that the planned Hanscom expansion would cancel up to 70% of the climate benefits from all the solar capacity installed in Massachusetts.
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Extinction Rebellion Boston is an autonomous chapter of the international grassroots movement, Extinction Rebellion (XR), which started in London in 2018. The purpose of XR is to tell the truth about how dire the ecological and climate crises are and spark immediate action in order to prevent climate and ecological collapse. We aim to mobilize people around the world to utilize nonviolent direct action to demand that governments take radical action to avert societal collapse caused by widespread climate and ecological disaster and to protect frontline communities, biodiversity, and the natural world. This movement is non-political and unites all of humanity behind a singular goal of a just and livable future for all. Learn more about Extinction Rebellion at: xrboston.org
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