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The Climate Minute examines current news on global warming, climate change, renewable energy and the prospects for progress on international negotiations, carbon taxes and clean energy policy.
Episodes
Friday Oct 02, 2015
Just Four Cape Winds: The Climate Minute Podcast
Friday Oct 02, 2015
Friday Oct 02, 2015
The real possibility of a shutdown of the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station creates a crisis (or perhaps an opportunity.) It means that Climate Hawks should demand clean energy to fill the gap. It would take only four projects comparable to Cape Wind to fill that gap. There are bills in the Massachusetts Statehouse that relate to clean energy, and they are the being debated. Further, now that KXL is in deep trouble, and Shell has withdrawn from the Chukchi Sea, what is next for Climate Hawks? Our next big push should be for a ban on the extraction of carbon based fuels from federally owned lands, whether they are in the American West or off our coastal shores.
The reading list:
• Pilgrim Nuclear Station on the ropes
• An energy showdown in the Statehouse?
• Is this about electricity prices or true leadership?
• Is offshore wind a possibility?
• Climate Hawk focus: Fossil fuel on Federal lands
Check out live links at our blog, http://www.massclimateaction.net/blog.
Because we recognize the necessity of personal accountability for our actions, because we accept responsibility for building a durable future and because we believe it is our patriotic duty as citizens to speak out, we must insist that the United States put a price on carbon.
Thanks for listening.
…Ted McIntyre
Friday Sep 25, 2015
The Pope and signs of hope- The Climate Minute Podcast
Friday Sep 25, 2015
Friday Sep 25, 2015
Pope Francis came to town this week and spoke openly about the need to address climate change. That was remarkable all by itself, but there were several other heartening signs- from new Senate bills to promises from China it has been a good week.
The reading list:
• CSPAN video of the Pope in the Joint Session. His climate related remarks start at about 37 minutes.
• InsideClimate News' Begley comments on the Pope
• Climate Hawks and Keystone- take pride!
• A Climte Bill in the Senate!Action from China!
• Attend the 9/29 hearings at the Statehouse on important energy legislation
• Attend a hearing on the Governor's Executive Order 562!
• Sign up for an October 14 event!
Check out live links at our blog, http://www.massclimateaction.net/blog.
Because we recognize the necessity of personal accountability for our actions, because we accept responsibility for building a durable future and because we believe it is our patriotic duty as citizens to speak out, we must insist that the United States put a price on carbon.
Thanks for listening.
…Ted McIntyre
Monday Sep 21, 2015
Who's intruding on who? The Climate Minute Podcast
Monday Sep 21, 2015
Monday Sep 21, 2015
The political battles over clean power continue, and Climate Hawks need to stay in the game. We discuss.
The reading list:
• Eminent Domain in West Rox
• Baker accused of 'market intrusion'
• Hearings on Kinder Morgan in Western MA
• Dirty money fighting solar
Check out live links at our blog, http://www.massclimateaction.net/blog.
Because we recognize the necessity of personal accountability for our actions, because we accept responsibility for building a durable future and because we believe it is our patriotic duty as citizens to speak out, we must insist that the United States put a price on carbon.
Thanks for listening.
…Ted McIntyre
Friday Sep 18, 2015
Friday Sep 18, 2015
In an ironic moment, the California Assembly tip-toed away from aggressive climate legislation, at the behest of Big Oil, even as climate-enhanced wildfires marched with a heavy footprint through various towns outside Sacramento. Further, the destructive behavior of the oil industry was highlighted by a report that Exxon realized even in the 1970’s that their petroleum products were creating a serious global problem. The report might be the ‘smoking gun’ equivalent to revelations in past decades about what the tobacco industry knew about cancer even as they denied the medical evidence.
Check out live links at our blog, http://www.massclimateaction.net/blog.
Because we recognize the necessity of personal accountability for our actions, because we accept responsibility for building a durable future and because we believe it is our patriotic duty as citizens to speak out, we must insist that the United States put a price on carbon.
Thanks for listening.
…Ted McIntyre
Monday Aug 17, 2015
Presidential Climate Hawks - The Climate Minute Podcast
Monday Aug 17, 2015
Monday Aug 17, 2015
The President announced plans for a historic visit to the Arctic, to highlight the issue of climate change. Will he visit the Chukchi Sea oil rig? Mr Obama, along with most of the Federal Government has been sued by youngsters under the Public Trust Doctrine .
The reading list:
• President Obama announces a trip to the Arctic
• Is he sincere or cynical?
• Jimmy Carter as the first Climate Hawk President
• EPA and the Colorado spill
• A new lawsuit under the Public Trust Doctrine
Find the live links at our blog: http://www.massclimateaction.net/blog
Because we recognize the necessity of personal accountability for our actions, because we accept responsibility for building a durable future and because we believe it is our patriotic duty as citizens to speak out, we must insist that the United States put a price on carbon.
Thanks for listening.
…Ted McIntyre
Friday Jun 05, 2015
Supply and Demand for Climate Hawks - The Climate Minute Podcast
Friday Jun 05, 2015
Friday Jun 05, 2015
If our efforts at reducing emissions represent control of the “demand” for fossil fuel, what about the “supply?” Should Climate Hawks push for reductions in greenhouse gas emission from, say, coal plants, or should we focus on reducing the supply of fossil fuels, such as the KXL pipeline or stopping Royal Dutch Shell in the Arctic. We discuss. Listen in!.
The reading list:
• DR on the Bradcast
• Big coal leases
• Dave Roberts on the Powder River leases.
• Bill McKibben on approval of Royal Dutch Shell's artic exploration
• Bill McKibben's groundbreaking "Do the Math" article
• Oil CEOs call for a carbon fee
Check out live links at our blog, https://massclimateaction.wordpress.com/2015/06/05/supply-and-demand-for-climate-hawks-the-climate-minute-podcast/
Because we recognize the necessity of personal accountability for our actions, because we accept responsibility for building a durable future and because we believe it is our patriotic duty as citizens to speak out, we must insist that the United States put a price on carbon.
Thanks for listening.
…Ted McIntyre
Monday Jun 01, 2015
Democracy and Climate Intertwined - The Climate Minute Podcast
Monday Jun 01, 2015
Monday Jun 01, 2015
“Want climate action? Don’t be a fool;
It’s never gonna happen under corporate rule!”
“Want climate justice? Here’s step one:
Build a democracy to get it done!”
Those were among the slogans we chanted as we marched down Central Park West last September. From the moment the march was announced, I knew I would make the trip down from Boston, and I also knew that there among the scores of climate activists of every imaginable stripe, from anarchists to educators to evangelicals, from scientists to socialists, I would be marching with a cadre representing the growing “democracy movement.”
I see the battle for climate action as being waged basically on two fronts, reflective of the twin root causes of the crisis. On the one hand, at the heart of all the drivers of climate change we find a short-sighted and rapacious consumer culture, global in scope but distilled most clearly here in America. The work of addressing this fundamental malaise is a “hearts and minds” campaign of sorts – educating and shaping the habits of the general public – and it’s absolutely critical; from buying efficient light bulbs and hybrid cars to eating locally and turning down the thermostat, the choices we make in our individual daily lives add up to make a real difference.
But we cannot ignore the profound impact that public policy decisions have on our energy use. Even in the world’s freest markets, the invisible hand is constrained and influenced by the rules set in place by governments. In theory, that means that you and I – all of us, collectively as citizens – have a say in determining the incentives and restrictions that give shape to U.S. energy policy on both the supply side and the demand side: Should we be giving subsidies to Exxon and Shell because it’s somehow good for the economy? Tax credits to homeowners who install renewable capacity or upgrade the energy efficiency of their homes? Both? In what amounts and for how long? Should we be capping emissions on CO2 from power plants? Loosening rules on fracking to provide jobs and lower energy prices? Or providing low-cost loans to companies developing renewable energy technology? Perhaps most significantly, should we be pricing carbon at a level that reflects its true costs, to make up for what will likely be viewed in hindsight as the most costly market failure of human history?
Most of these questions, to me, have clear answers, and many of them we continue to get wrong. While some progress is made in fits and starts, at the margins, I can’t imagine anyone who understands the climate crisis making the case that the U.S., no longer the top emitter but still firmly in the #2 slot and a leader on world policy, has developed anything remotely resembling an adequate, comprehensive climate policy. Some of the inaction, or the actively destructive policy, is enabled by misunderstanding and complacency among the public. But much of the mess we’re in today can be traced to a gradual consolidation of power, over the last few decades, in the hands of fewer individuals and, most notably, global corporations. As these forces representing the production and accumulation of tremendous private wealth among CEOs and the investor class exert more and more control over public policy, the chances for effective action on climate, in the name of the public good but at the expense of some of the lucre being raked in by industrial titans and investors, become vanishingly slim.
There is, however, hope in our history! The American experiment has been punctuated by moments that have clarified crises and exposed injustices, and in those moments people have mobilized to force action, to right wrongs, to continue the work of building a more perfect union. Grassroots campaigns have emerged to tackle the darkest problems we've faced, from the abolitionists to the suffragettes, to the protests that eventually forced reconsideration of the Vietnam War. Out of the disparity of the Gilded Age arose a tide of progressive reforms, including the labor movement that fought a bloody campaign to win rights for workers. And of course, the 20 million Americans who took to the streets as citizens and stakeholders on the first Earth Day spurred a raft of legislation that still forms the framework of our environmental protections today.
As the crisis of our unresponsive and unrepresentative political system comes into sharper focus, a new movement is rapidly coalescing to take the reins and build a better system, closer to our American ideals, equipped to tackle our biggest problems, foremost among them the disruption of the planetary systems that support our civilization. And as that movement for democracy grows, there's a concrete opportunity to help it along here in Massachusetts.
There’s a bill pending in the Massachusetts legislature, H. 3127, called the We the People Act, that would take a bold step toward reversing the erosion of our democracy and putting all of us, not just those with the most wealth and power, in the driver’s seat to set our nation’s policies.
The We the People Act is the product of a homegrown democracy movement, the local expression of a growing national movement to address two fundamentally destructive legal doctrines created by the Supreme Court, in the Citizens United decision and a long string of cases that came before it, that have enabled today’s unresponsive political system. The bill calls on Congress to pass a constitutional amendment asserting that the rights protected by the Constitution are the rights of actual human beings, not corporations, and also that we can and should place limits on the way money is raised and spent in our elections, because money is not speech, and campaign finance rules are not incompatible with the First Amendment’s protection of free speech.
Massachusetts has already called on Congress for an amendment, with a near unanimous resolution in 2012 (joining a list of 16 states and counting), but the reality is that the prospect of action in today’s Congress is basically nil, so the We the People Act brings out the big guns – a tool that has been used successfully in the past to pressure a corrupt and intractable Congress into constitutional reform. The tool is a convention of the states, outlined in Article V of the Constitution, and it’s the only way that we, as citizens and state legislators, can exert the kind of leverage that will force Congress to listen.
Once corporations can no longer overturn environmental regulations and other public health and safety laws by claiming constitutional rights, and once our elections have been wrested away from the system of legalized bribery that has been codified in recent years, a whole new realm of positive change becomes possible. To address the climate crisis, we need a revolution in our energy policy. That change depends on the success of a political revolution to build a functioning democracy.
- Taylor Gaar, volunteer, Greater Boston Move to Amend
Read more at www.wethepeoplemass.org
Sunday May 17, 2015
Kayaktivists challenge Shell, Obama misses boat- The Climate Minute Podcast
Sunday May 17, 2015
Sunday May 17, 2015
The Obama Administration’s decision to allow oil exploration in the Chukchi Sea shows passivity where leadership is required. Climate hawks, like the “Kayaktivists” in Seattle, will just have to stop Shell by themselves. The framing of the TPP on the news is inaccurate. Instead of endless discussion of winners and losers, we should ask “Why can’t an environmental group have the same access to the negotiations as Exxon?” Finally, consider if the current global refugee crisis is a harbinger of the future in a warming world.
The reading list:
Obama approves Arctic drilling
Seattle votes for a delay
Kayaktivists say "Shell No!"
Bill McKibben blasts the Administration on the Shell decision
Naomi Klein on Free Trade and Climate
How to connect climate damage to immigration
Check out live links at our blog, https://massclimateaction.wordpress.com/2015/05/17/kayaktivists-challenge-shell-obama-misses-boat-the-climate-minute-podcast/
Because we recognize the necessity of personal accountability for our actions, because we accept responsibility for building a durable future and because we believe it is our patriotic duty as citizens to speak out, we must insist that the United States put a price on carbon.
Thanks for listening.
…Ted McIntyre
Friday May 08, 2015
Elections threaten KXL, TPP inches forward- The Climate Minute Podcast
Friday May 08, 2015
Friday May 08, 2015
Voters in Alberta elected a government that seems to be environmentally friendly. What does it mean for the iconic Keystone XL pipeline? Meanwhile in Washington, the US Senate plans to take up the debate on allowing secret negotiation on the TPP treaty. As Senator Warren said "A rigged process will produce a rigged result." We discuss.
The reading list:
• Canada's Globe and Mail on the Alberta elections
• Some American Climate Hawks on the Alberta Elections
• A vote on 'Fast Track' authority for the TPP to come up soon in the Senate
• Senator Warren explains the secrecy around the TPP.
• The planet's latest milestone: Greater than 400ppm for a month.
Check out live links at our blog, https://massclimateaction.wordpress.com/2015/05/08/elections-threaten-kxl-tpp-inches-forward-the-climate-minute-podcast/
Because we recognize the necessity of personal accountability for our actions, because we accept responsibility for building a durable future and because we believe it is our patriotic duty as citizens to speak out, we must insist that the United States put a price on carbon.
Thanks for listening.
…Ted McIntyre
Friday Feb 27, 2015
Should you pay for the Governor's new pipeline? The Climate Minute Podcast
Friday Feb 27, 2015
Friday Feb 27, 2015
Between the veto of the KXL bill and efforts to make people pay for pipelines (instead of solar panels or wind turbines) there is a lot to discuss.
This past week, the President vetoed the KXL bill, but don’t worry- its not dead. As oil trains proliferate, we could see ten explosions per year. Over in Europe, they have big energy plans. Here in Boston, the new Governor is considering asking electrical ratepayers to foot the bill for a new gas pipeline. Really? What about paying for clean energy?
Don’t forget to sign up for the Local Environmental Action Conference. Sunday, March 15, 2015, 9am-6pm, at Northeastern University's Curry Student Center.
Local Environmental Action 2015 is a great opportunity to join community leaders, environmental advocates and activists from across New England for an exciting day of skills training, networking, and inspiration. Whether you have been to every conference or are attending for the first time, be sure not to miss this amazing opportunity to connect and grow our grassroots movement.
Check out live links at our blog,https://massclimateaction.wordpress.com/2015/02/27/should-you-pay-for-the-governors-new-pipeline-the-climate-minute-podcast/
Because we recognize the necessity of personal accountability for our actions, because we accept responsibility for building a durable future and because we believe it is our patriotic duty as citizens to speak out, we must insist that the United States put a price on carbon.
Thanks for listening.
…Ted McIntyre