The Climate Minute

On March 15, six activists began a hunger strike to protest the construction of the Peabody peaker plant. The six have protested, rallied, marched, lobbied, or even gotten arrested, without halting the juggernaut of business as usual.  So they are taking this more extreme step. Listen in as we hear the stories of the motivation, intention and hopes of these courageous citizens. 

In this modern age of on-line meetings, you can even get a MassSave home energy assessment using your phone. The assessment will begin the journey to energy and cost savings. Listen in as we talk to an expert on just how virtual home energy assessments work. Welcome to the future!

What happens in a home energy assessment? What is the energy specialist looking for and how does she find it? As the website says: “Whether you’re a homeowner, renter or landlord, the Sponsors of Mass Save® offer no cost virtual or in-person Home Energy Assessments to help you learn about your top energy-saving opportunities in an easy, convenient way. An Energy Specialist will assess your current energy use, help you develop a plan to make your home more energy efficient, and educate you on rebates and incentives you may qualify for.”

We talk with an energy specialist about the details of what happens when you have a home energy assessments.

The Granite State is on its own path to addressing the climate crisis. We talk to an expert about what is going on.

The state of Rhode Island is on track to make climate progress through new legislation. We talk with an expert on what is going on in the Ocean State. Note the upcoming opportunity to get involved on March 8.

Buildings like your home emit significant greenhouse gases. Better building codes could make new homes green, with #netzero carbon emissions. The new state roadmap for 2030 and 2050 calls for aggressive building codes, but MA DOER recently proposed revisions that fall short of mark

ISO-NE (whoever they are) extended the life of the obsolete MOPR rule (whatever that stands for.) The decision makes it harder for renewable energy systems to get on the grid for several more years- thru 2025 and 2026. Why and how was this decision made?  Follow our guest down the rabbit hole of the FERC Docket E22-391. Instead of the Mad Hatter, we encounter the Internal Market Monitor and the External Market Monitor who collectively monitor…stuff.  

The people who manage New England’s electrical grid seem to have rigged important auctions to favor fossil fuel interests.  The alphabet soup of committees and commissions make it hard to understand, but ISO-NE should rescind the MOPR, and FERC should make them. Listen to hear an expert de-mystify that jargon. You can email FERC at [email protected]

A new peer reviewed study shows that methane leaks in environmental justice communities take longer to repair than in other communities. What can be done to lessen this inequity? Listen to the report’s authors discuss some pragmatic recommendations.

Gas leaks at the distribution level (that is, under your street) are related to overlapping issues.  Activists recognize methane as a greenhouse gas leaking from long-lived infrastructure, but real people live with immediate impacts. By matching leak location data to a community’s population characteristics, a recent paper provides new facts. The observations are not surprising- environmental justice communities live with larger leaks that wait longer for repair. We speak to the authors of the paper to learn more.