A massive gas compression and storage facility has been proposed for the small town of Acushnet Massachusetts. In protest, local residents, lead by South Coast Neighbors United marched between two schools that would be close to the facility.  Listen in as we hear voices from the march. (Special bonus: some whaling and literary history!)

The Climate Action Business Association’s (CABA’s) summer campaign is called Businesses Acting on Rising Seas (BARS2016). For eight weeks, the CABA team will be educating local small businesses across the coastal region of Massachusetts about the impacts of sea level rise. BARS2016 campaign leaders engage into face-to-face conversations with business owners and managers providing small business resilience guides that outline a quick-and-dirty, 8-step approach to resilience. CABA believes that resilience is a crucial aspect to conducting business when it comes to sustaining long-term economic growth, vitality and business continuity in the region with the threats of climate change looming. The ultimate goal of BARS campaign is to prevent the loss of locally-owned businesses and support a secure economy for Massachusetts in the event of a natural disaster. Moreover, the BARS team seeks to build a better understanding of climate resilience and a sense of community both within the City of Boston and in coastal Massachusetts. Listen in as we discuss.

What are the implications for climate progress of the UK’s decision to leave the EU? As with any profound historical event, there are already contradictory ideas. We discuss.

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The Massachusetts Senate passed an Omnibus Energy bill that mandates 2GW of wind power, increases the use of renewables by 2% a year and bans the ‘pipeline tax.’ This is good news!  Next comes joint work between the House and Senate to reconcile the two different versions of the bill passed by each body.  Climate Hawks should urge their legislators to put the Senate’s vision into the final bill.

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Both security and sustainability can be defined many ways and there are many organizations that address each. How can these groups make the connections between the underlying common issues they face? In this show we explore the concept of a Global Security and Sustainability Guide with Michael Sales, one of the leaders of the project. He says:

We believe that mapping the system will change it by demonstrating how vast the effort is to address two of the key drivers of the world meta-system: sustainability issues are creating conflicts of all sorts and the need for security so that people have the mental bandwidth to make strategic sustainability choices.  Seeing the whole system more clearly will empower actors who care about it to take more creative, informed and high-leverage initiatives and to lend support to one another.  We have already identified 1,400 organizations active in these increasingly overlapping domains, and anticipate that we will discover many hundreds more as we continue digging. 

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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

A new report says that Boston is at greater risk of sea level rise than previously thought, with the possibility that places like Faneuil Hall could go below sea level.  Even with that looming possibility, Exxon is contesting the subpoena issued by the MA Attorney General. Locally, there were new arrests at the West Roxbury pipeline site, and our Senators sent a letter to FERC.  On top of all that, you can RSVP to the MCAN’s really cool tour of the Deer Island renewable energy installations at the link below. Listen in!

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In this episode, we meet a young Climate Hawk who is just beginning her journey of activism. Rachel Geiger is committed to fighting climate change, and her story is both a template and inspiration for others.  Listen in!

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Rachel’s – and other’s -work with the Mount Holyoke College's Climate Justice Coalition and Fossil Fuel Divest campaign can be tracked at this link to the Facebook page, Instagram, tumblr, and  twitter! As usual, the Facebook page is a good place to start.

Rachel gives this recommendation:

Advice to fellow activists, especially youth and young adults, since the young tend to think we are invincible. Find any way you can to get involved, but also, take care of yourself. Take breaks when needed and do not take on too much, so you do not burn out. Look out for each other and connect as people, not just activists. We need to build networks of people, because no one can do this alone-we need a society shift! We need to build these networks based on care and love for the earth, the people who inhabit it, and each other.

We speak with Grady McGonagill and Judy Weiss about a new climate group: Elder Climate Action .  Their website says “We are grandparents, we are baby boomers, we are from the Greatest Generation.  With age has come the wisdom, the perspective and the understanding that we are the guardians of future generations.  We have arrived at the undeniable realization that if we don’t do something now, our grandchildren and future generations will suffer from our inaction.”

Elder Climate Action members will participate with the Citizen's Climate Lobby conference in DC.   The CCL national conference is 6/19 and 6/20, and on 6/21 participants meet with every member of Congress or their aides. Portions of the conference will be live streamed, including Michael Mann’s Keynote address.

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There will be a summit of the globe’s big cities to discuss climate change, slated for next year in Boston. Perhaps they will discuss the progress in India’s cities.  Listen in.

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This week, the Massachusetts House of Representatives passed what they called an Omnibus Energy Bill. At best it is a half-loaf, where many useful amendments were quietly withdrawn. The bill now goes to the Senate. A recent report shows that many methane leaks in MA we dropped from the utility tracking list. How can that be? Finally we discuss the latest #OilBomb train. Listen in!

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