Question: What do the Las Vegas shooting and this season’s hurricanes have in common? Answer: It is always too soon to discuss the ‘politics’ until it is too late to bother. The common refrain to ‘be sensitive to the victims’ following disasters needs to be challenged. In the immediate aftermath of these events, we can and should focus on the causes and possible responses.  One way to do that is to propose bold new ideas, and allow them to move to the mainstream of our national discussion. Listen in!

We take a deep dive on a recent controversial article in Nature Geoscience. It suggests that we have more time and thus a more realistic chance of keeping global temperatures in check. While climate deniers are holding the article up as proof that environmentalists exaggerate the concern over climate science, it turns out—the concern and urgency is still very real.

Climate-assisted hurricanes Irma and Maria have devastated the lives of American citizens in Puerto Rico. Reports tell of an entire American island of three million people without either power or fresh water some six days after the storm. This circumstance has set up a test of our national character. Will we turn our backs on our own citizens, or will we meet the challenge of new climate driven weather patterns? Listen in as we discuss.

This was a big week for climate news! Cities are leading the way to curb dangerous fossil fuel emissions. Two cities in California, San Francisco and Oakland, are suing five major oil companies to recoup the damage inflicted on their cities by carbon pollution. After the devastation following climate assisted hurricanes Irma and Harvey, we can’t help but wonder - will the cities of Houston and Florida decide to jump on this bandwagon? Boston’s Mayor Marty Walsh announced that the international climate change conference will be held in Beantown sometime in 2018, likely close to the US Conference of Mayors in June.

As our nation contemplates the rebuilding of Houston and South Florida, what principles of sustainability and clean energy should be included? The price tag will be discussed as trillions. Is this a time to push new ways of thinking? Listen in.

Can we have capitalism and a stable environment? Is capital at war with the planet? Which is the problem- consumers or corporations? These are big questions, so we look to recent article by Klein and Monbiot to help us figure out what to think. She writes “In short, climate change detonates the ideological scaffolding on which contemporary conservatism rests. To admit that the climate crisis is real is to admit the end of their political and economic project. That’s why the right is in rebellion against the physical world.“ He writes “Even the social democratic (Keynesian) kind  (of capitalism) depends on perpetual growth on a finite planet: a formula for eventual collapse.” Listen in.

This episode focuses on the economic impact of repeated hurricanes, the need for a new rating system for these climate-assisted “unnatural disasters,” and the new head of NASA who claims that climate change ended ten years ago. Also, join co-host Mariah Tinger for her book talk and MCAN fundraiser on Wednesday, September 13^th at 7 pm – details below.

We discuss the connection of DACA to climate change. Dreamers have helped, and died doing so, in Houston even as it’s undocumented hide in shattered homes for fear of ICE agents. These events are a dress rehearsal for a warming world with increasing numbers of refugees. Climate Hawk recognized the link to all the progressive issues of our time. It’s the shared vision of a better world, and the need to support each other’s efforts. Listen in!

For part two of our Hurricane Harvey coverage, we explore the aftermath and future of this and other “climate-assisted catastrophes.”  We probe how Boston would fare in the face of a similar hurricane, and how the country as a whole could function if catastrophes like Hurricane Harvey occurred regularly.

Of course, our focus is on Houston, Texas and the devastation incurred from Hurricane Harvey. Due to the enormity of the event, we will cover this topic in two podcast sessions—this week we focus on the human scale of the suffering, what you can do to help, the climate change assist given to this storm, and the implications of what is happening. We state, unequivocally, that Hurricane Harvey and its destructive nature is the sort of extreme weather event that climate scientists have warned about for decades.