This week's Fool-on-the-Hill is Old King Coal Sen. Joe Manchin who said at an energy conference in Texas recently that "I'm very reluctant to go down the path of electric vehicles... I'm old enough to remember standing in line in 1974 trying to buy gas—I remember those days. I don't want to have to be standing in line waiting for a battery for my vehicle, because we're now dependent on a foreign supply chain—mostly China." 😏 Somebody doesn't quite get it!
Time for our Charlie Baker Good Riddance Countdown Timer!
Senator Joe Manchin is just one of many who missed (or more likely disregards) the memo titled, "It's the Climate Crisis, Stupid!" Our next show will be focusing on carbon capture but we can't resist commenting on a recent piece from Inside Climate News on the subject. The article states: "In a major win for oil, coal, utilities and other industries, the federal government is poised to make its largest investment ever—more than $12 billion from last year’s infrastructure bill—in technologies that capture carbon dioxide from smokestack emissions or straight from the air. ExxonMobil, Southern Company and other oil fossil fuel giants have promoted carbon capture and storage as a tool for cutting emissions for more than a decade, with little to show for it." Exactly, the technology is in its infancy and largely unproven. On the other hand, natural carbon capture was pretty much blown off in the piece, prompting d.o. to fire off a comment on ICN's Facebook page, to whit: "The article gives short shrift to natural carbon capture Nature does for free 24/7/365. Truly protecting & preserving existing forests, bogs, wetlands, plains and oceans (all of which capture CO2 emissions among others) should be our A #1 priority." Meanwhile, the Repugs are busy invoking the “major questions doctrine,” a seldom used judicial principle that in essence says, an issue is too big for any president to tackle without explicit direction from Congress. "In oral arguments before the Supreme Court West Virginia will argue on behalf of 20 states, with support from the coal industry, that the Environmental Protection Agency should be blocked from regulating greenhouse gas emissions from power plants under the major questions doctrine."reports Inside Climate News. Sounds like all those state AGs want to kick the can down the road to ruin.
Anyway, speaking of presidents, we could be Abidin' with Biden if, as The Zero Hour tells us "There are a lot of ways that the Biden administration can take real action on emissions. Commercial heavy duty trucks alone are responsible for 24% of carbon emissions in this country. In fact, heavy trucks are regulated entirely separately from passenger vehicles—emission standards are much lower. In 2021, President Joe Biden signed an Executive Order that moves us in the right direction: “Strengthening American Leadership in Clean Cars and Trucks". But until federal government agencies actually move on these goals and promotes electric trucks, this Order only pays lip service to a crisis that demands action." Here's an Action Link for you on that. Also this: The Prez banned oil and gas imports from Russia recently in one of the most far-reaching sanctions against the country after Putin sent troops to invade Ukraine. The move comes as gas prices soar and some in Congress hope to use the moment to push a clean energy agenda. We'll see how that turns out. Finally this from The Atlantic: "The White House unveiled a slew of policies aimed at overhauling the U.S. industrial sector in order to reduce its planet-warming carbon pollution. Many of the policies have bipartisan backing—they were authorized in last year’s infrastructure bill. These policies are a big deal because they could help solve one of decarbonization’s thorniest problems: how to make steel, concrete, chemicals, and other major industrial products in a zero-carbon way."
In The Enviro Show Echo Camber the World Wildlife Fund informs us, "Countries from around the world took a major step toward ending plastic waste. The United Nations Environment Assembly unanimously agreed to develop a legally binding treaty to end plastic pollution, taking one of the world’s most ambitious environmental actions since the 1989 Montreal Protocol, which effectively phased out ozone-depleting substances." OK, "steps" are good, now how about enacting it! And this from the Sierra Club: Last week "the Environmental Protection Agency heard testimony on one of the most important public health standards of our time: regulating hazardous air pollution from power plants. Many Sierra Club supporters and allies testified that they support the EPA’s proposal to restore the legal finding that this regulation is 'appropriate and necessary.' " Add your voice HERE. And finally this: Why is The Nature Conservancy afraid of controversy? They held a real lovefest on Zoom, " A Special Conversation with MA/EEA Secretary Katie Theoharides" (who dares to refer to herself as "Climate Katie!) and Deb Markowitz, MA State Director of The Nature Conservancy in which any hard questions to the Secretary from the participants were totally ignored. That conversation was "special" alright, we call greenwashing by TNC!
Let's go for a Quote of the Week:
“We must always remember that the fossil fuel era began in violent
kleptocracy, with those two foundational thefts of stolen people and
stolen land that kick-started a new age of seemingly endless expansion.
The route to renewal runs through reckoning and repair: reckoning with
our past and repairing relationships with the people who paid the
steepest price of the first industrial revolution.”
―
On Fire: The Case for the Green New Deal
After the conversation with our guests we move on to the Bus Stop Billboard:
Saturday April 2, 10am. Protest and street theater calling on banks to stop funding fossil fuel companies. Bank of America and TD Bank on Main Street in Northampton, MA. Members of Climate Action Now, Extinction Rebellion, and the UMass Amherst Environmental and Social Action Movement ask you to bring Large signs with messages; giant model of an oil pipeline; money bags CONTACT: Kevin Young Kyoung1984@gmail.com (413) 777-0912
Saturday, April 2, 11 am to 1 pm, Stand-out on the Turners Falls Gill-Montague Bridge!! Participants will be
dressed in black in observance of a Day of Mourning for the Connecticut River.
The public is welcome to participate. Please,
everyone who has ever fought for the truth about this river, the life of this
river—all of you who have marched, stood out, written and shouted publicly “NO
LICENSE TO KILL” for our ancient Connecticut and its living waters, come to the
Gill/Montague Bridge above the River on April 2nd. We will stand in honor of the soul of this
Valley--above FirstLight’s TF dam, controlled from inside Northfield Mountain,
5 miles away. We’ll be across from US Fish & Wildlife Service-funded and MA
Division of Conservation and Recreation-run, Great Falls Discovery Center.
Each one of these entities is culpable for allowing a four-state ecosystem to
be turned into our river’s 23-mile mortuary by Northfield’s brutality in the
Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Come, stand together and bear witness.
Tuesday, April 5th, 4-6pm. DCR's Strategic Readiness Initiative Public Listening Session. As the largest landowner in the state, DCR’s assets will play a critical role in adapting to and mitigating numerous threats of climate change, and we must be ready. Guided by internal
and external engagement, DCR will develop a set of core principles and priorities to fully realize the agency’s mission in the context of the 21st century. These principles will articulate how and why we carry out our mission, and why it matters. This process will incorporate and build off the recommendations in the DCR Special Commission Report. Register HERE. If you have any questions or concerns, please email
Daniel.cushing@mass.gov.
Friday, April 22, 6:30pm. Vigil for Truth. Pulaski Park, NorthamptonAs
we mark another Earth Day, we reckon with both what we've accomplished
and what's left to be done. In a month including a rally, a dance mob,
street actions, and educational events, this Vigil will hold a space for
us to stand together in our truths: what we love about the world we
share, what we worry about for our collective future, and what we
dedicate our action to in the year to come. This will be a space for
sharing and ritual, possibly with an appearance by the ethereal Red
Brigade. Everyone who loves the world and wants to build a better one is
welcome to join us!
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