Blog Archive

Saturday, May 25, 2024

A White Mountains National Forest Enviro Show

[Our podcast of the  interview is HERE ] Greetings Earthlings. Have you heard the news?  His Malignancy is now a convicted felon. On with the Show! You may recall we recently featured the potential logging threat in the Green Mountain National Forest with our friend Zack Porter of Standing Trees ? Well, Zack is back this time with Standing Trees active member Jerry Curran. We'll be looking at a similar mindless threat to the neighboring White Mountains National Forest in New Hampshire. The U.S. Forest Service (who actually only serve the logging industry) continues business-as-usual with mind-numbing climate crimes across the nation. Once again, their sights are on New England. We say: No Way!  As usual, we will also introduce you to this week's Fool-on-the-Hill and Those Who Brains Were Small, as well as another Critter of the Week and more but first it's time for........Revenge of the Critters!  They're baaaack! Orcas attack.....again


Let's get right to this Enviro Show Echo Chamber announcement regarding a struggle some of us have been engaged in for nearly four decades here in the Commonwealth. Since 1985 there has been an effort to change the state seal & flag from racist imagery to something respecting the Native people who were murdered and oppressed by so-called Puritans and other Europeans in the 17th & 18th centuries. We've covered this repeatedly on the show and now "The Massachusetts Senate voted 30 – 9 on Thursday, May 23rd to require Governor Maura Healey to take the next step in the historic process of replacing the violent imagery of the Massachusetts flag and seal."  That said, it still needs to get through the conference committee with House members and be included in the final state budget. There is some misguided opposition to this much needed change on Beacon Hill "where good legislation goes to die". Stay tuned to this historic effort. And since we're on the subject of historic flags let's talk about the Pine Tree flag that Washington's troops flew in the War of Independence and the Shaysites flew in Shays' Rebellion. Both were honorable struggles for justice and independence against oppression but that flag has been adopted by MAGA fascists in our time, people who seek the overthrow of the very Constitutional democracy our ancestors fought and died for. One such person is Samuel Alito of the U.S. Supreme Court. History is in the making. Watch this space.


This week's Fool-on-the-Hill is, once again, smarmy fratboy Rep. Matt Gaetz, Repugnican from Florida who showed up with other MAGA toadies at the NYC trial of His Malignancy and stated “Standing back and standing by, Mr. President” thus echoing the infamous phrase The Mad King used as a signal to the fascist Proud Boys during one of the presidential debates in 2020. Another dangerous fascist fool in our midst.


Since we're on about bad players how about we nominate Florida and failed Presidential candidate Gov. Ron DeSantis for our Brains Were Small segment? Like the dino he is, Climate Crisis denier DeSantis fails to see the asteroid of climate chaos coming his way and instead  .."signed a bill that erases most references to climate change in state law, deprioritizes it in policy decisions, and eases regulations for natural gas pipelines while banning offshore wind installations in state waters" reports Common Dreams .


None of the above pay any heed to THE existential threat of the ages but we'll never stop reminding them "It's the Climate Crisis, Stupid!" Maybe they only watch Faux "News"? Maybe they should checkout this from CNN: "Ocean water is pushing miles beneath Antarctica’s “Doomsday Glacier,” making it more vulnerable to melting than previously thought, according to new research which used radar data from space to perform an X-ray of the crucial glacier. As the salty, relatively warm ocean water meets the ice, it’s causing “vigorous melting” underneath the glacier and could mean global sea level rise projections are being underestimated, according to the study published Monday in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences." The article goes on to say: "Thwaites [Glacier], which already contributes 4% to global sea level rise, holds enough ice to raise sea levels by more than 2 feet. But because it also acts as a natural dam to the surrounding ice in West Antarctica, scientists have estimated its complete collapse could ultimately lead to around 10 feet of sea level rise — a catastrophe for the world’s coastal communities." Sound serious? Well.....yeah!  Here's a fascinating piece from Grist that Glen came upon. "Of the millions of enzymes on earth, RuBisCO might be the most important. It’s essential to photosynthesis, and without it, plants would be unable to grow. Without RuBisCO, nearly all life on Earth would starve. But even though it’s everywhere, and has been around for billions of years, RuBisCO kind of sucks at its job. And it’s getting worse as the world gets hotter." It was 90 degrees in the middle of May when I read it. 


This Critter of the Week has been in the news a lot this year. "The spectacular emergence of a double brood of cicadas in 2024, with some 1.5 million of the harmless insects emerging per acre in some places, will result in cicadas landing on people's shirts, arms, hair, and...beyond.......Even on an Air Force base tarmac, a cicada landed on the president's neck. Let's take that as a good sign.  


Our Enviro Show Quote of the Week comes from on of our own in Massachusetts:

"We need new and old trees, solar panels and forests, dense housing and accessible green space."

- Sen. Ed Markey introducing the recent Trees as a Public Good Earth Day forum.


After our conversation with our guests it's on to the Bus Stop Billboard:


Friday, June 7 (starts in the evening) and Saturday, June 8. 2024 Wilderness Renewal Hosted by the Wildlands and Wilderness Grassroots Network Team in Collaboration with the Conservation & Outdoors Campaign’s Land/Water/Wildlife Program. Regina Lopez-Whiteskunk will speak on Friday evening.  Nada Culver of the Bureau of Land Management and Sierra Club Executive Director Ben Jealous will speak on Saturday.  California Senator Padilla is invited to speak.  Workshop presenters will include Sierra Club wildlands activists and campaign staff. Go HERE.    
 
 

June 10-14 Shut Down Citibank's Global HQ every day, all week long. Go HERE!


Wednesday June 12, 10:00 - 11:30am. Join the Salata Institute, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, and climate editors from The Washington Post, Grist, The New York Times, and the Boston Globe for an exclusive conversation about media coverage of climate change. [A good opportunity to call out The Globe for its bogus climate reporting!!]  Haller Hall, Harvard Museum of Natural History 26 Oxford St, Cambridge, MA 02138   Register HERE


Wednesday June 12, 1pm.  Protecting our waters from plastic pellet pollution.  learn more about the impact plastic pellets are having on the environment, hear from the people standing up to plastic facilities that are dumping pellets in local waterways and from advocates about a new bill in Congress that can help stop this pollution in the first place. RSVP for "Protecting our waters from plastic pellet pollution"


Thursday June 13, 12:00 - 1:30 pm.  Taking Action to Confront Authoritarianism. Elders for Social Justice continue exploring what actions that we, as elders, can take to push back against extremist attacks. We’re focusing on right-wing efforts to undermine public education, including restricting curricula, punishing discussion of targeted topics, and eliminating programs (like DEI) that make a school environment safe and welcoming for all students. Go HERE. 


Monday June 17, 4 p.m.  A  conversation with John Perlin, "A Forest Journey: The Role of Trees in the Fate of Civilization."  which chronicles the rise and fall of great civilizations throughout history, paralleling the fate of the forests they depended upon. It offers a compelling narrative through time and serves as a stark warning about the consequences of mismanaging our forests. Please register here.  


Sunday June 23 at 12 noon. BIGGER THAN DOBBS: THE WAR ON WOMEN AND DEMOCRACY RALLY on the Greenfield Town Common, on the second anniversary of the Supreme Court Dobbs decision which took away women's right to abortion and threatens the future of our democracy.


Monday June 24, 7 p.m. World EHS Day.  We are so grateful to colleagues in France who seven years ago established June 16 as the World Day of Intolerance to Electromagnetic Pollution! That falls on Father's Day this year in the U.S. so Courtney Gilardi and Cece Doucette will be hosting a U.S.-based Zoom event.  Go HERE.  



That's all, folks......except to remember to listen to your Mother!



 

 






 

 

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Saturday, May 11, 2024

A Smart Solar Enviro Show


UPDATE: The podcast for this show is available at: https://rss.com/podcasts/enviroshow/ 

Greetings Earthlings. Spring is upon us and the days are getting longer, more daytime to resist The Machine! Those corporados and their enablers are planning yet more deforestation for corporate solar arrays and associated explosive battery siting here in the Commonwealth and across the nation. The struggle for smarter siting continues. Sharon Weizenbaum of Smart Solar Shutesbury returns to the show joined by Eric S Bachrach of Smart Solar Amherst. As always we will also introduce you to our Fool-on-the-Hill and Those Whose Brains Were Small, along with our constant reminder that "It's the Climate Crisis, Stupid!", our new Critter of the Week segment and more but first it's time for........Revenge of the Critters! Elephant herd seeks serious revenge for brutal murder of one of their own.


This week's Fool-on-the-Hill is racist Repugnican Congressman Mike Collins from Georgia's 10th congressional district. In February, he came under fire for proposing that the United States throw migrants out of helicopters into the ocean. As a HuffPost reporter pointed out at the time, Collins was "parroting a meme that's been popular among white supremacists and neofascists like the Proud Boys." Recently he shared a video in which a group of white college frat boys taunted and mocked a Black anti-war protestor with openly racist attacks. "Ole Miss taking care of business," Collins wrote. What's with Georgia? Why so many fools? 


Surely by now everyone knows His Malignancy The Mad King doesn't care that "It's the Climate Crisis, Stupid!", in fact his sorry-ass mind just views it as yet another transactional moment. Common Dreams reports: "According to new reporting, Trump pledged to swiftly gut climate regulations put in place by the Biden administration if the oil and gas industry raises $1 billion for his 2024 presidential campaign. The "remarkably blunt and transactional pitch," reported by The Washington Post, was Trump's latest explicit statement of his intention to give the fossil fuel industry free rein to wreck the planet if he wins a second term in power. Executives from Exxon, Chevron, Occidental Petroleum, and other prominent fossil fuel companies reportedly attended the Mar-a-Lago dinner."  The piece goes on to state Will Bunch, a columnist for The Philadelphia Inquirer, wrote in response to the Post's reporting that "you won't read a more important story today. Trump is willing to literally destroy the planet for $1 billion." Longtime listeners to this show know we are forever praising forests and trees as natural carbon capture climate saviors, right? Guess who wants to crucify those saviors? Here's the headline: "New Forest Service report reveals agency wants to max out logging"! And here's the jist of the report: "It’s hard to overstate just how important our national forests are to our lives. Yet is the Forest Service managing these irreplaceable forests to the benefit of all of us, as they are supposed to? A recent Forest Service report to Congress provides a blueprint of how the agency could increase logging to meet arbitrary, non-science based timber production goals." As you may know by now, biodiversity and climate chaos are intrinsically entwined. Checkout this paper published recently. Sorry, no good climate news today but here is a petition to The Prez urging him to call a Climate Emergency. Yes, we need way more than petitions. Stay tuned!


Time to move on to "Their Brains were Small and They Died" to remind everyone, once again, about the modern-day dinosaurs we call corporados and what they do. We've been talking about this on the show forever, apparently to no avail. The subhead in this Grist piece says it all: "A sobering new study finds that the world's biggest industries burn through $7.3 trillion worth of free natural capital a year. And it's the only reason they turn a profit." Of course, the free pass lasts only so long. The corporado dinos' asteroid is closing in, sadly it will take most of us as well. 


Meanwhile, in The Enviro Show Echo Chamber we echo HuffPo's reporting: "Never missing an opportunity to make life easier for extractive industries, House Republicans passed a suite of bills this week to boost development and dismantle environmental protections across millions of acres of federal land."  Thankfully the report goes on: "The bills stand little chance of passing in the Democratic-controlled Senate, but they give GOP industry allies something to tout heading into the 2024 elections. And since several of the measures closely mirror priority actions found in Project 2025, the 920-page policy blueprint that dozens of right-wing organizations compiled to guide [the] former President"  You might want to checkout their Project 2025 , dear listeners. Think of it as a game plan for a fascist takeover of the U.S. No joke! 😡 Finally, we have a link to the Trees as a Public Good forum from Earth Day eve. Bring out the popcorn and libations, settle down and watch HERE.


Our new Critter of the Week segment comes close to home here in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is the highly endangered Barrens Tiger Beetle. As the name suggests, this beautiful emerald critter must have homes found only in Plymouth County within our state. Their specialized needs for patches of sand within pitch pine-scrub oak barrens make habitat loss one of their biggest threats. This critter has been found near the 104 Tremont mining site and is threatened by the Sand Wars taking place in Southeastern Massachusetts. 


Our Enviro Show Quote of the Week is right in line with this week's show:

“What we are doing to the forests of the world is but a mirror reflection of what we are doing to ourselves and to one another.”

- Chris Maser


After our interview we move on to the Bus Stop Billboard:





 Wednesday May 29, 2024 beginning at 1:30 p.m. — Remote Only FirstLight Power has filed its application for a 401 Water Quality Certification (WQC) with the Massachusetts Department of Environmental Protections (MassDEP). The WQC application is available here: https://www.northfield-relicensing.com/401-wqc-documents?per_page=1000MassDEP will conduct two public hearings on the WQC application. Registration is required in advance https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_n2c7s5dJQqSJZ1ebMhWKNw#/registration 


Wednesday May 29, 2024, beginning at 7:00 p.m. — Remote Only [see above]
https://us06web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_TTGkjrLOT_qBnjxtUiDWmg#/registration 


Thursday May 30, 5pm. Meet outside the John Glenn Middle School Auditorium, 99 McMahon Road, Bedford, MA holding our signs and banners and greeting the Hanscom airfield expansion developers and the public as they arrive at the meeting.  The bigger the crowd of people who oppose this reckless plan, the better! Some signs will be available to borrow, but please bring your own if you can. We will end our demonstration outside shortly before 6 pm and then head into the meeting room for the presentation.  This will be a peaceful and non-disruptive event.  We are coordinating with campus staff to ensure no issues with security. It will be helpful for planning purposes if you can RSVP to the Bedford event (if you plan to attend in person or virtually), so please click here. Thanks for your support!l For questions, please contact adchat@aol.com


Thursday May 30, 5:30-8:00 pm. A fundraiser at LexArt! This fundraiser will be part of LexArt's Animal House Exhibit. Please save the date for a fun filled evening with food, drink, conversation, a wildlife rescue story, a wildlife photo exhibit, and more! Tickets are required. 130 Waltham St, Lexington, MA 02421-5413


Saturday June 110am.   Wachusett Reservoir Walk on National Trails Day! Join us for a walk along the beautiful Wachusett Reservoir on National Trails Day! We expect to walk around 3 miles with little elevation gain and loss (~400ft). Some highlights include views of the reservoir from up on some bluffs and lots of beautiful varied forests. There will be an option to extend the walk farther than this, but we will have looped back to the start by around 3 miles.  RSVP   HERE.


Saturday June 1, 7 to 9pm.  Benefit Ball for Climate Solutions, Education and Advocacy. Blue Rendezvous Band  Retro Soul and Swing.  Northampton Center for the Arts, 33 Hawley St, Northampton, MA.   Dance, celebrate and support: Trees As A Public Good, Extinction Rebellion Western Mass, MA Sierra Club Forest & Plant Based Planet groups And/or make a donation at: abeautifulfuture.com


Sunday June 2, 2pm-4pm. The UnConvention: Uniting Progressive Activists for Change. A virtual event. We are concerned about the loss of 15,000 members in the Democratic Party and want to re-engage those and other people at this critical time in our history. Our goal is to organize around progressive issues that are in the platform but not supported by the Party or the convention.  Please fill out our questionnaire so we can know your thoughts and also register for the event: The UnConvention Activist Survey. While we are not charging a registration fee, we do have costs and appreciate your donation.


Tuesday June 4, 10:00 am – 3:30 pm.  Register Now for Part II of the Western Mass Solar Forum!  The Western Massachusetts Solar Forum is a series of public discussions and information-sharing sessions regarding the opportunities and challenges associated with solar photovoltaic (PV) development and installation in Western Massachusetts. Part I of the Forum was held in the fall of 2023.  It will focus on the recent recommendations from the Commission on Energy Infrastructure Siting and Permitting and their implications for Western Massachusetts communities. For more information, visit ag.umass.edu/solarforum, or click here to register. 


Tuesday June 4, 12:00-3:30pm. ISO New England (ISO-NE) Consumer Liaison Group (CLG) meeting . Holyoke Community College Kittredge Center in Holyoke, MA. This meeting is a great opportunity for New England ratepayers to get some answers to questions we posed last meeting about their demand response markets, begin a discussion about the meaning of “reliability,” hear about new developments at ISO-NE, and bring any other questions we have for the grid operator. It’s also a great opportunity for those who gather in-person to be together and experience the joy we create when we show up together!

IMPORTANT: In-person registration closes at noon on Wednesday, May 29th. Online registration closes at noon on June 4th. The registration system maintained by ISO-NE is frustrating. Please stick with it, and if you have trouble, reach out to Marla for help 781-475-0996 or marla@climatedisobedience.org


Wednesday June 5, 1pm.  National Farm Bill for Climate Justice Webinar.  CCAN Action Fund is hosting a fun and free informational webinar on one of the most important pieces of legislation this Congress will pass: the Farm Bill.  The 2023 Farm Bill serves as a major opportunity to confront the agricultural sector's greenhouse gas emissions. Go HERE.   


Wednesday June 12, 10:00 - 11:30am. Join the Salata Institute, the Nieman Foundation for Journalism at Harvard, and climate editors from The Washington Post, Grist, The New York Times, and the Boston Globe for an exclusive conversation about media coverage of climate change. [A good opportunity to call out The Globe for its bogus climate reporting!!]  Haller Hall, Harvard Museum of Natural History 26 Oxford St, Cambridge, MA 02138   Register HERE



That's all, folks......except to remember to listen to your Mother!