The Trans-Pacific Partnership is mostly an agreement among corporations, not among real people or even nations. The text was finally opened for public scrutiny last week. Let’s just say there is a lot of discussion that needs to happen! On top of that, Exxon-and the fossil fuel industry in general- is suddenly at legal risk over their efforts to obstruct climate progress.  We discuss.

Big news this week- Trans Canada blinked first and has asked for a ‘suspension’ of the Keystone XL pipeline applications. Climate Hawks should be proud of leading this fight.  Keystone is part of the ‘supply’ of fossil fuels. Carbon emissions result from the demand for (or use of) fossil fuels. Should activists target one or the other, or both? Good question. We discuss.

Recently, the World Health Organization (WHO) said that various meats are bad for your health. Did you know they are also bad for the planet? The carbon footprint of meat is very large. According to the Guardian, “The global livestock industry produces more greenhouse gas emissions than all cars, planes, trains and ships combined..”  So eating less meat is good for you and the planet.

There a lot of other meaty stuff going on for Climate Hawks, so we make a lightening review of TPP, CPP, COP21, Solar caps and Pilgrim. If that alphabet soup makes no sense to you, listen in and we’ll catch you up!

Halloween is very scary for climate scientists this year. In Washington, the House “science” committee is on a witch-hunt for researchers who publish inconvenient truths. With nearly unlimited subpoena power, these new inquisitors are intimidating individual scientists by demanding years of unrelated emails and internal documents, demands that come with associated legal costs and career disruption for each researcher. This effort to ‘chill’ the work of scientists is destructive in many ways. We discuss.

Moral imperatives aside, exactly what will it take to bring society to a clean energy system? Venkatesh Rao in the Atlantic Monthly argues that only a “World War II” scale effort will suffice, but goes on to point out that war was won by many faceless bureaucrats who carried out wise policy. If there is no single technology or super-human leader to guide us, can we trust ‘the gu’mint’ to do the right thing? 

“Back to the Future Day” happened this week. The Chicago Cubs play off bid notwithstanding, the movie nostalgia gives clear-eyed Climate Hawks a chance to think forward thirty years and imagine what 2045 might look like. It is important to remember that what we do now will influence what happens in the future, just as we wish that someone had taken bold action back in the '80s. It is our turn to be that someone.

Does climate change constitute a threat to our national security? That begs the question: What is “national security?” If you think national security is about the functioning of our government, or if you think it is about a citizen’s personal security, a pretty strong case exists that climate change is a real threat.  We discuss that, plus Bill McKibben’s most recent act of civil disobedience.

In Massachusetts, the Pilgrim Nuclear Power Station will shutter in 2019,  depriving the state of a big chuck on carbon-free energy. What should be done to fill the gap? Build more pipelines for carbon polluting natural gas? Import out-of-state power from Hydro-Quebec? Or build a green energy infrastructure right at home? This is a moment where great things can be done, if our leaders hear the call. We discuss.

This December the city of Paris will play host to the 21^st “Conference of the Parties”, or COP21. The goal of the conference will be to hammer out a global treaty intended to address global warming. We discuss the latest developments and try to make sense of it all.

The terms of the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) treaty have finally been concluded in a closed session in Atlanta. While the text is still secret, the arguments have begun. Climate Hawks are suspicious of the ‘Investor State Dispute Resolution” mechanism, which gives enormous opportunities for Big Oil to undermine future climate legislation. Here in Massachusetts, the Governor will allow utilities to charge a fee to electrical ratepayers to cover the cost of new pipelines. Is it fair to call that a tax? Still it is a pretty a sweet deal for Kinder Morgan!