Newton's green gang

Everybody talks about the weather but nobody does anything about it -- except in places like Newton.

Here, climate change has sparked a political movement, an eco-army of residents for whom the fight against global warming is not simply a matter of slogans or cocktail-party chatter but a passion, a way of life.

"I was really in despair at the thought of what was happening," said Louise Bruyn, 76, a pioneer in the local movement. "I felt, personally, if people worked together, they wouldn't feel so despondent."

This is the story of five people who have taken Bruyn's creed to heart. Their names keep coming up as the go-to people in campaigns to prod City Hall, the business community, and residents to combat global warming. They have inspired residents in other cities and towns to take up the clean-energy challenge.

They will be the first to tell you that many others in the city have made huge contributions to the cause. But focusing on this informal network shows how a few people have mobilized many to wage the battle from the bottom up.

A plumbing problem set David Del Porto on the path of environmental activism.

When his septic tank overflowed in 1972 , he said, "I didn't even know I had one."

Soon it dawned on Del Porto how his own home was helping to pollute wetlands and creeks. Rather than just feeling guilty, he acted. He took leave from his job as a stockbroker to learn more about the environment.

"I'm still on sabbatical 30 years later," Del Porto said.

In 1980, before it was fashionable, Del Porto transformed his home by installing a two-story solar greenhouse. It supplies not only food and flowers but heat for his entire home. In the cellar is a toilet composter that produces fertilizer.

Tours of his home, dubbed the "Urban Ark," have drawn thousands of visitors, he said. He hopes that he has inspired them to incorporate green technology in their homes and businesses: "Then you've really made some difference."

Besides being a major landmark on any Newton eco-tour, Del Porto's home holds another distinction: It's the birthplace of the Green Decade Coalition.

Dawn of Green Decade

The coalition's story goes back to the summer of 1988, when it was so hot that Bruyn -- a veteran organizer of civil rights, anti-Vietnam War, and anti nuclear protests -- became an early and ardent believer in global warming.

Her first instinct was to see what the state and federal government and the United Nations were doing about the problem. Nothing, she was dismayed to discover.

"I just kept thinking, 'What can we do, what can I do, to deal with this,' " said Bruyn, whose style is to start campaigns and find others to lead them.

By 1990 , Bruyn had pulled together about 20 people who shared her concern, and she asked Del Porto to host a meeting. He became the group's founding director.

Since then, the coalition has linked up with a number of private and public groups across the city, served as a model for other communities, including Cambridge, and enlisted scores of residents in the cause.

Among them is Daniel Ruben, who helped organize Boston's 20th anniversary Earth Day celebration in 1990.

After Ruben lost his job as a Harvard Community Health Plan administrator when the health insurer went into receivership in 1995, Bruyn asked him to organize Green Decade's Household EcoTeam program.

Over the last dozen years, Ruben has launched more than 25 teams to spread the message. Each team numbers five to eight residents trained in techniques for reducing household use of energy, water, and toxic products.

Now Green Decade's vice president, Ruben plans to extend the team concept to schools and religious groups. Tapping into a nationwide movement of Low Carbon Diet Teams, he will encourage students and congregations to brainstorm ways to lower emissions of carbon dioxide -- the chief component in the greenhouse gases blamed for global warming -- in their institutions and personal lives.

Ruben also has pushed the city to get its environmental house in order. Prodded by him and others, Newton will soon hire a company to conduct an energy audit of all municipal buildings, and then refurbish or replace all wasteful equipment. Ruben is now campaigning for other communities to enter into similar energy-performance contracts.

Pushing to go solar

When Katherine Gekas moved from Somerville in 1998, she literally brought a burst of energy to Newton -- solar energy.

Gekas, who had left a wind energy company to raise two children, was looking for a way to put her experience to work as a volunteer.

She caught the eye of Bruyn, who helped her start an energy committee at Green Decade. Gekas decided that solar, not wind, was the best way to go in Newton. She organized a survey of Newton houses that found 113 sporting solar arrays, and she persuaded some of the owners to give home tours.

Now the tours are held every October.

While Gekas has stepped back a bit in the past year to start up a company promoting the use of methane as a fuel, she still holds an annual family "energy action day" with her husband and their two sons, ages 7 and 9.

Kevin Dutt mixes environmental activism with business. Now a consultant, Dutt has played a role in several startup companies, including Seahorse Power Co., which makes solar-powered trash compactors.

"It turns out that from my perspective, most often, being environmentally smart and responsible is also being fiscally responsible," Dutt said.

He cochairs the High Performance Building Coalition, founded in 2004 to lobby Newton to include as much "green" technology as possible in renovations to Newton South High School and construction of the new Newton North.

The coalition persuaded Newton North planners to switch to a heating and cooling system that will be more expensive up front but pay off in the long run by using less energy.

Exceeding the minimum

A relative newcomer to the eco-army is Verne Vance, alderman at large from Ward 7 and a member of Green Decade.

Vance's energy epiphany occurred at a Harvard University conference, where he learned of Cambridge's efforts to regulate development.

He has proposed amending Newton's zoning rules to mandate that all developments larger than 20,000 square feet include in design, building, or operation at least one element that goes beyond the city's minimum standards for energy efficiency.

Vance acknowledges that this is only "a first step," and, indeed, many in the city wish the measure had more teeth. They want to see the city mandate the use of recycled building materials and enact a solid-waste plan that emphasizes recycling, among other measures.

"It's really hard to move a government, because they don't like to constrain economic growth," Del Porto said. He said he hopes that if Vance's proposal passes, the city would strengthen it through administrative action.

The activists say they have a friend in the corner office at City Hall, noting that Mayor David B. Cohen has appointed several of them to environmental panels.

Cohen revived the Newton Citizens Commission on Energy, which was established in 1979 but had long been dormant. With Gekas as chairwoman, the commission wrote an energy action plan that aims to reduce municipal emission of greenhouse gases by 7 percent below 1998 levels by 2010.

Gekas also serves on the mayor's Advisory Committee on Renewable Resources, which with others lobbied for green technology for Newton South High School.

Cohen named Del Porto to co chair the Solid Waste Commission, which is working to beef up recycling, and to chair the Advisory Committee on Sustainable Newton, which is drawing up long-term environmental policy.

The eco-brigade also has linked up with other state and national organizations. Del Porto, for example, intends to hold a pair of fund-raisers at his home March 23 on behalf of the Massachusetts Climate Action Network, which is promoting wind power and other alternative energy sources.

The eco-brigade also has linked up with other state and national organizations. Del Porto, for example, intends to hold a pair of fund-raisers at his home March 23 on behalf of the Massachusetts Climate Action Network, which is promoting wind power.

He also is hedging his bets. The man behind the Urban Ark said that people also have to prepare for the worst -- horrific storms, rising seas, a dramatically receding coastline.

"If we can do something about global warming, that's great," Del Porto said. "What we really should be doing is preparing for it. What are the low-lying areas in Massachusetts? What is the impact on the city of Newton?"

Connie Paige can be reached by e-mailing cpaige@globe.com.