The Climate Minute - Showdown in Somerset

Hi, and welcome to the Climate Minute; news and reflections on climate change and climate change action from a Massachusetts viewpoint.  Quite a week for the climate conscious in New England!

Last Sunday the groups Better Future Project and 350Massachusetts. organized a march on Somerset's Brayton Point coal power plant.  About 400 people showed their support for clean energy and desire to have this coal plant, one of the last three still running in Massachusetts, closed down.

We did a roundup of the news coverage of the march here, including  a number of YouTube videos of the march and interviews with participants found by the intrepid DR Tucker.  Wen Stephenson also had a good piece on The Nation's blog.

One issue that did provide some degree of amusement was the changing position of the Fall River Herald, which went from publishing rather romantic pictures of riot-gear clad police ready for the inevitable violence of the protest, to publishing a tut-tutting editorial accusing the police chief of over-reacting and his "excessive and expensive" response.

On the one hand, the paper is absolutely correct.  The organizers of the protest had been in close communication with the community and were very explicit about the actions that were going to happen that day, and that there was not going to be any violence.  The folks volunteering to get arrested all went through training on how to appropriately act, and many of the protesters were people in their 60's and 70's -- hardly the "WTO meeting in Seattle" types throwing Molotov cocktails...

That being said, had something gone wrong and a police officer or a protester had been hurt, the paper would have had the chief's hide for not taking the protests seriously enough.  The lesson here is that these days many public officials are in distinctly no-win positions, and a little understanding of the situation they're facing goes a long way.  That and: if a police department has access to $30,000 in drug forfeiture money and they have the opportunity they're going to spend it on frightening-looking equipment...

(This is a pretty interesting issue, the "militarization of the police," and not a topic for this blog, but take a look here for more on it.)

Well, the event at Brayton was just part of a series of protests and actions set for this summer across the country called Summer Heat.  Summer Heat is sponsored by the national 350.org group and includes actions from coast to coast.  The next big one in Massachusetts will be the Energy Exodus march from coal (Brayton) to wind (the shores of Cape Cod).

The march will start on August 28th and go through the weekend to September 2nd and will cover about 60 miles across southcoast Massachusetts.  Walkers will be doing 10-12 miles a day, with stops along the way.  For more info and to sign-up go to their website here.

Here are some links to other things we talked about this week:

For our roundup of the natural gas leaks report issued this week, as well as a rant about gas flaring (also known as lighting money on fire while screwing with the climate), go to our post here.

The letter from four previous Republican heads of the EPA calling for action on climate change was in the New York Times here.

The book "The Attacking Ocean" was discussed in the "Writer's Voice" podcast here.

Your congressperson is about to be on recess (August 5th).  Why don't you give them a buzz and see where they're going to be holding office hours so you can go and tell them just how important climate change is -- and that they should join Rep. Waxman's Safe Climate Caucus.  You can look up your congressman here.

Read more about the offshore wind auctions or listen to NPR's podcast here.

Finally, for the point of view of a NASA Space Shuttle booster rocket, check out this story on the Daily Mail.

Remember, for climate activities near you check out our MCAN climate action calendar.  You can enter events as well as browse for interesting things to do.

As always, it’s been a pleasure sharing climate news and views with you.  You know, you can subscribe to our iTunes feed and get our podcasts automatically here.  Feel free to give us your thoughts on our Facebook page, or through old-fashioned email.  You can even follow us on twitter @MassClimate , so there are lots of ways for you to listen and participate in the dialog.

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So we will close the way we always close, by saying that 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 a patriotic duty as citizens, we insist that the US put a price on carbon. Good bye and see you next week!