From the beginning, the proposed NED pipeline had the classic characteristics of a bad idea. The closer you look, the worse it seems.

Finally, Richard Kinder concedes. This complex threat was defeated with the collective effort of myriad concerned citizens, affected landowners, supportive legislators, and really great grass-roots organizing.

The writing has been on the wall all along that NED was a sketchy plan and we won’t ever really know how much the April 20 release of a weak Kinder Morgan first-quarter earnings report or the catastrophic floods in Richard Kinder’s hometown of Houston the same week had on the timing of the announcement. What we do know is that our community cares about our land, water, and air and we are willing to go to great lengths to defend quintessential New England landscapes and values — and our neighbors.

It is important to keep in mind that many legal and regulatory threats remain. The NED has not been formally withdrawn from either the FERC or the DPU dockets. Constitutional protections for Article 97 public conservation land are being litigated right now in Berkshire County regarding the Connecticut Expansion Pipeline project.

Even though there are many differences between the NED and Connecticut Expansion, the outcome of the Sandisfield case will directly affect whether and how the NED resurfaces as a project.

FERC issued its Certificate for the Connecticut Expansion on March 11. Tennessee Gas sued the Commonwealth the following week on March 17, one day after H.3690, a bill to grant a pipeline easement across two miles of the Otis State Forest, was sent to a study committee rather than being recommended favorably or unfavorably and forwarded for a vote. At any time, we expect the first court decision on whether the Natural Gas Act preempts Article 97 of the Massachusetts Constitution, or not.

In addition to requiring a two-thirds legislative vote to release conservation protections, Article 97 includes these broad legal statements: the people have the right to clean air and water; the people have the right to the natural and historic qualities of their environment; and conservation of natural resources is a public purpose. These rights of ours are becoming increasingly urgent to uphold.

In the last two years, according to NOAA, average global temperatures have broken consecutive records by increasingly record-setting margins for 2014 and 2015 and are heading toward another record for 2016.

In the last two months, Harvard University researchers published findings that U.S. methane emissions have increased by 30 percent over the years 2002 to 2014. This is a big problem because according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) methane (aka natural gas) is 84 times stronger a heat-trapping gas than CO2 over a 20-year time scale.

In the last two weeks, the U.S. District Court, 9th Circuit, in Oregon, issued an order allowing a group of youth, ages 8 to 19, to sue the United States for knowingly “violating Plaintiff’s fundamental constitutional rights to life, liberty, and property by substantially causing or contributing to a dangerous concentration of CO2 (equivalents) in the atmosphere. The nonprofit, Our Children’s Trust, is organizing this effort.

As we celebrate the suspension of the NED we do so in quickly changing circumstances. The dramatic changes described above have occurred just since we first heard about the NED. Because of the imminent threat of the NED, more people now seem convinced that to avoid land destroying projects like the NED, individual and policy-level actions on efficiency, repairs, and renewables must be taken now. The voices I’ve heard at hearings across the state have given me a very strong sense of being part of a community of thoughtful and caring people. I urge everyone to stay tuned and to take proactive steps to help avoid further flimsy claims of need from those desperate to sell more fracked gas no matter the cost to landowners, communities, our Constitution, and our planet. Happy belated Earth Day!

Leigh Youngblood is the executive director of Mount Grace land Conservation Trust and resides in Warwick.