Eve Zuckoff

Climate change activists are organizing protests all over the world, starting on Friday, and the Cape is getting involved. Here's what our reporters are seeing locally. Keep scrolling for a schedule of events.

Youth climate activists are in Washington, D.C., to drum up support for their cause ahead of a global climate strike on Friday. 

On Wednesday they testified at a joint congressional hearing held by Massachusetts Congressman Bill Keating.

In his opening statement, Keating described the challenges climate change is posing to the Cape, coast, and islands. 

The four Catholic bishops of Massachusetts co-signed a letter calling for immediate and wide-ranging action against climate change.

The leaders are urging parishioners, businesses, and schools to take what they call "meaningful steps to protect the environment” and “take better care of our common home” by curbing the impact of toxic pollution and climate change.

Several hundred people attended the first ever Electric Car Show at Barnstable Municipal Airport in Hyannis on Saturday.

The event was designed to introduce potential electric-car owners to current owners and their vehicles.

Attendees were also encouraged to test drive dozens of electric and plug-in hybrid vehicles.
 

The carcass of a critically endangered North Atlantic right whale was found off the coast of Long Island, New York on Tuesday, bringing the 2019 death toll to nine.

Announced by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), it's the first documented carcass found in U.S. waters this year, with the remainder discovered in Canadian waters.

On a recent morning, half a dozen volunteers headed out in search of newborn turtles at the Mass Audubon Wildlife Sanctuary in Wellfleet.   

Leading them on the three mile walk around the marsh and woodlands was Bob Prescott, Sanctuary director of 32 years.

Scientists from the Woods Hole Research Center and IPAM-Amazonia say the amount of carbon dioxide released into the atmosphere by fires burning in the Amazon rainforest could hasten the effects of climate change. 

New estimates suggest the fires have produced as much as 140 million metric tons of carbon dioxide. That’s the equivalent to the annual emissions from about 30 million cars.  

Heading east on Surf Drive in Falmouth, a postcard-ready vista unfolds: a mile-and-a-half-long stretch of sandy beach with narrow dunes, osprey nests, the Shining Sea Bike Path, and the landmark town bathhouse that’s survived every hurricane since 1930.

Many of us like to swim in any one of the thousand-odd ponds on the Cape. But around the country, blue-green algae blooms have overtaken many of these waterbodies and exposure to the blooms can cause health problems in humans and pets that range from headaches, fevers, organ damage, even death. So how big is this problem on the Cape right now? 

The effort to protect endangered whales is taking federal officials on a listening tour from Maine, to Rhode Island, and Wednesday night, to Bourne, where nearly 200 people gathered in a high school cafeteria.

“March, march, march, march!”

On a hot August night in Falmouth, fitness coach Anne Curi Preisig leads a group of women through a workout in her backyard. 

Even after 7 p.m., it’s still 80 degrees Fahrenheit. 

The Trump administration announced plans on Monday to roll back some protections laid out in the Endangered Species Act. The changes include reversals on habitat protections, and removing some safeguards for species that are considered “threatened,” the status below endangered.

In the wake of last week’s tornadoes, local leaders and state officials gathered at the OneCape summit in Harwich to talk about the environmental and economic challenges facing Cape Cod.

The tornado that touched down on Cape Cod on Tuesday was only the third ever reported in the Cape’s history, according to the National Weather Service.

So how – and why – did such a rarity occur?   

At the Center for Coastal Studies in Provincetown, Christy Hudak, a researcher in the Right Whale Ecology Program, leaned over a microscope looking at a water sample, counting and categorizing different kinds of plankton.  

“Right whales love specific type of plankton, which are called copepods. They are more of a tiny  crustacean plankton—think of crabs, or shrimp,” Hudak said.