The Climate Minute

Thoreau’s cabin is only a few miles from Weymouth, but his ideas are becoming important to the discussion. The unwanted Weymouth Compressor Station is close to obtaining it’s last permits. Deadlines loom in early November. If you want to do something about it, call Commissioner Suuberg and urge him to deny the permits. It’s 617-292-5500, ext 7882.

Pacific Gas & Electric invented a new kind of climate problem this week.

The burner tip on your gas stove is the endpoint of a complex system of gas delivery that starts at a wellhead out in a gas field out West and runs under the streets of your town to your home. Unfortunately, the system has some inherent problems that range from climate effects to health problems and explosion risks. Listen to an expert discuss some of the problems with our gas infrastructure.

The crisis point of the proposed natural gas Compressor Station in Weymouth is coming in early November. Recently, an activist was arrested during a protest against the station. We speak with Nathan Phillips about his experience and rising stakes in perhaps the most important climate issue in Massachusetts’ politics.

UN leaders met in NY to prepare for next year’s new commitments to the Paris Accord goals. Some small nations are doing their part, but leadership from the US is absent. An IPCC report on the oceans is sobering.

Greta Thunberg’s speech at the UN contained the line “We are in the beginning of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of eternal economic growth. How dare you!” In a warming world, can we continue to pursue higher and higher GDP? The “Doughnut Economy” gives us a new way to think.

The fossil fuel industry needs the finance industry- banks, asset managers and insurance companies- the way humans need air to breath. That is why Bill McKibben says ‘money is the oxygen that fires global warming.’ He makes a cogent argument that the oil industry would be crippled if banks decided not to provide loans. If crippling the oil-extraction industry sounds good to you, listen in.

We chat with some of the thousands who attended the Climate Strike in Boston on 9/20/19.

The School Strike for Climate will happen on Friday 9/20. Greta Thunberg is the spark, but young people around the world are driving a massive global movement. Listen in for some insight and perspective.

The New Yorker is a cultural bellwether and Jonathan Franzen is a famous author. The magazine has published pieces by climate hero Bill McKibben. Unfortunately, this prestige did not prevent them from publishing a technically inaccurate and morally vacuous 'think piece' about climate. Franzen's complacency is that of an aging well-to-do white dude who looks out the office window on the 38th floor of One World Trade Center and sees not too much to worry about. Eustace Tilley examining butterflies pretty much sums it up.We should be listening to the voices of the dispossessed and marginalized, those indigenous tribes losing a way of life, those Bahamians suffering from environmental injustice, and those youth who will live their lives in whatever world we are choosing now. Franzen and the New Yorker demonstrated their disconnect from the real world. Let's hope they work to find the connection.