The Climate Minute

How to think about our rising electricity rates

Electricity providers are raising rates. How should you think about this? From a climate perspective, we should recognize the long term problem and build more renewables.   

Manchin folds. Now what?

In a big win for climate activists, Joe Manchin withdrew his flawed permitting bill. Climate folks should be impressed with their growing political clout, but what comes next? How does our country, in an equitable way, build the urgently needed transmission infrastructure that we need?

From Maine to Manchin

The Inflation Reduction Act is good climate bill, but in the sausage making  process, a companion bill that pretends to improve the ‘permitting process’ was needed. Now the ‘Manchin side deal’ is moving to a vote. For greens, permitting reform relates to what is happening in Maine, but for Manchin (read Big Oil) it about rolling over local voices for faster pipeline construction.   

Words to Watch

Embodied Carbon', 'Net Zero Building Codes' and 'NEPOOL' are words to watch for in discussions around climate action here in Massachusetts. We explain.

From green consumers to green citizens

A new book makes the case that we should all become green citizens and demand action in our own towns.  The Big Fix offers ordinary people a guide to the seven essential changes our communities must enact to bring our greenhouse gas emissions down to zero—and shares stories of people who are making those changes reality. We discuss with the authors.

Is the new MA climate bill an end or a beginning?

Massachusetts has passed a historic climate bill, but it is only a beginning of the work we must do. Representative Jeff Roy talks about what come next.

Jeff Roy on the new MA climate bill, Part 1

Representative Jeff Roy explains the motivations for the new climate bill.

The making of a River Keeper

We talk to Maya Van Rossum about how she came to be an environmental activist.

You have a right to free speech, why not a right to clean air?

Our Constitutions, at the state and Federal level, explicitly lay out protected, enforceable rights. You have a right to free speech, to have a gun and to practice your favorite religion. Your 5th Amendment right is currently in vogue. Why not a right to clean air and water?  We speak with the leader of an effort to put enforceable rights to a working environment into our fundamental law.  Her galaxy brain idea is a constitutionally protected individual right to a safe environment.
GREEN AMENDMENTS are self-executing provisions added to the bill of rights section of a constitution that recognize and protect the rights of all people, including future generations, to pure water, clean air, a stable climate, and a healthy environment. 

Equity v Profitability

As the world warms, our economy grinds forward on the assumptions of infinite growth and endless inputs from the natural world. Is capitalism the friend or foe of climate solutions? How do we move to a world of economic equity and long-term sustainability? What form of capitalism would be beneficial?  Is there a way to tame capitalism to serve the needs of humanity? We discuss big philosophical questions with an author who has studied corporate sustainability.