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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
Wednesday Nov 23, 2022
The People’s Hearing on Equitable Building Decarbonization
Wednesday Nov 23, 2022
Wednesday Nov 23, 2022
Recently, MCAN and a coalition of elected officials, as well as public health, consumer, and climate advocates, held a People’s Hearing calling on the next administration to prioritize equitable building decarbonization and amending the specialized stretch code to be truly net-zero. Prioritizing decarbonization among new and existing buildings is critical to lowering the cost of utility bills, reducing the health effects of burning fossil fuels in homes, combating the climate crisis, and supporting the creation of new, good-paying jobs.
At a time when Massachusetts residents dependent on natural gas for home heating are facing an average 24% winter price spike, we need immediate assistance as well as longterm solutions that will protect our residents from rising costs while also rapidly transitioning our communities away from harmful and polluting fossil fuels.
By prioritizing significant investments in deep-energy retrofits for existing buildings like affordable housing and Environmental Justice Communities, and implementing an all-electric net-zero stretch code, the Healey administration and Massachusetts leaders can begin to wean the state off the expensive, volatile gas system and lower utility bills.
This past Tuesday, MCAN and a coalition of elected officials, as well as public health, consumer, and climate advocates, held a People’s Hearing calling on the next administration to prioritize equitable building decarbonization and amending the specialized stretch code to be truly net-zero. Prioritizing decarbonization among new and existing buildings is critical to lowering the cost of utility bills, reducing the health effects of burning fossil fuels in homes, combating the climate crisis, and supporting the creation of new, good-paying jobs.
At a time when Massachusetts residents dependent on natural gas for home heating are facing an average 24% winter price spike, we need immediate assistance as well as longterm solutions that will protect our residents from rising costs while also rapidly transitioning our communities away from harmful and polluting fossil fuels.
By prioritizing significant investments in deep-energy retrofits for existing buildings like affordable housing and Environmental Justice Communities, and implementing an all-electric net-zero stretch code, the Healey administration and Massachusetts leaders can begin to wean the state off the expensive, volatile gas system and lower utility bills.
Friday Nov 18, 2022
Climate politics in the mid-terms
Friday Nov 18, 2022
Friday Nov 18, 2022
The midterms are over. What are the take-away lessons for climate hawks? What comes next?
Monday Nov 14, 2022
Helping Hospitals Reduce their Carbon Pollution
Monday Nov 14, 2022
Monday Nov 14, 2022
Medical care in the US generates a lot of carbon pollution. Part of this pollution comes from the manufacture of very sophisticated and expensive ‘one-use-only’ medical devices. A good way to reduce CO2 emissions from medical care is to carefully re-process those currently discarded medical devices for repeat usage. This saves on both medical costs and the planet.
Monday Nov 07, 2022
Growing a backbone for clean energy
Monday Nov 07, 2022
Monday Nov 07, 2022
The MA DPU is slow to approve electric power ‘community aggregation’ plans. How come? Plus we talk about microgrids, community design and an undersea cable ‘backbone’ to connect the multiple proposed wind turbine farms off the East Coast.
Wednesday Nov 02, 2022
Explainer: What to know about ‘Beyond Catastrophe’
Wednesday Nov 02, 2022
Wednesday Nov 02, 2022
The climate future is coming into focus. It is better than the 5C hell-scape we have feared, but much worse than our hoped for 1.5C. How we build that tumultuous new world is up for grabs and is the heart of a recent article (Beyond Catastrophe: A new climate reality is coming into view, by David Wallace Wells) that gives lots of food for thought. Listen in are we process some of the ideas in order to give you a head start when you read it yourself.
Wednesday Oct 26, 2022
Souping Van Gogh
Wednesday Oct 26, 2022
Wednesday Oct 26, 2022
Climate activists threw tomato soup at Van Gogh’s sunflowers. What did you think? Was the protest effective? There are many perspectives and few correct answers. We discuss.
Sunday Oct 23, 2022
Explainer: “Loss and Damage”
Sunday Oct 23, 2022
Sunday Oct 23, 2022
COP27 (the Conference of the Parties) will be held in Egypt in November of 2022. One of the topics of discussion will likely be ‘loss and damage’ suffered by countries and people who cannot afford to adapt to climate damage they did not cause. We take a moment to explain some background for this subject.
Thursday Oct 20, 2022
Glimmers of a just and rapid transition
Thursday Oct 20, 2022
Thursday Oct 20, 2022
The IRA provides money for building clean energy generation, but the permitting process could slow progress. We look at several interesting proposals that show a path to an energy transition that is both rapid and just.
Thursday Oct 13, 2022
Rep Roy on what comes next for climate in MA
Thursday Oct 13, 2022
Thursday Oct 13, 2022
We talk with our special guest, MA State Representative Jeff Roy. The last time Jeff was with us we were all waiting for the governor to take action on the recent climate legislation. Now that it is on the books, what is next for our journey along the roadmap?
Wednesday Oct 05, 2022
How to think about our rising electricity rates
Wednesday Oct 05, 2022
Wednesday Oct 05, 2022
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.