The MCAN Climate Minute – Snow Day Edition

Oh my goodness it's snowing!  Winter Storm Nemo is barreling down on New England bringing giddy weathermen (I swear I heard one giggling during his forecast) and between two and three feet of snow.  Being the good New Englanders that we are, Ted and I have stocked up on bread and milk, and are settling in to a leisurely MCAN Climate Minute for February 8, 2012.  As everything is closed and the Governor has practically ordered us to stay home from work today, we had some extra time to chat.  Get a coffee, toast up that bagel, and buckle in for a half-hour of local, state, and national climate talk on this week's MCAN Climate Minute. As always, click on the “MCAN Climate Minute” picture to the right to start the recording in a new window. Here are some links to go along with our talk this morning. The RGGI states have agreed to a new, lower carbon caps bringing the regional cap on emissions from stationary sources (read: power plants) from 165 million tons to 91 million tons in 2014 and 2.5% lower each successive year.  MCAN supported this lower number in our comments to RGGI, which you can see here. This of course isn't the final word, as the proposal has to be accepted by each state. We talked about new proposals to fund transportation infrastructure through various vehicle miles traveled (VMT) proposals.  Politico has a story about the bi-partisan discussions going on in Washington over the need to find new revenue sources for transportation funding.  For an interesting read on "pay as you drive" insurance, a related concept to VMT charges, and their potential impact on miles driven and thus climate impacts, check out this MIT and Conservation Law Foundation report. For an update about what's going on in Falmouth, there are several stories up on the net.  Here's a story that says the cost of removing the turbines could be as high as $11 million!  This story suggests that the average homeowner would face a tax increase of $53 to $66 per month.  Of course, there would ongoing costs to the town in terms of the lost revenue from electricity production.  Interestingly a cross section of responses on the Cape Cod Times facebook page show strong support for keeping the turbines. As I said on the podcast, I was at a meeting where some testimony was read from a Board of Health hearing in Cape Cod.  One person was recorded as saying the her sleep disturbances continued, even after the turbines had been shut off during the night time hours.  To paraphrase, "even the fact that they're there is enough to keep me awake."  In my humble, non-medical opinion -- that's not the fault of the turbines, and that doesn't seem to be a problem just taking down the turbines will solve... For information on buses available to DC for next weekend check out 350ma.org, and stay tuned to our Facebook page for any updates on where we'll be on Sunday the 17th. Well, I'm off to enjoy the snow.  We'll have a separate post up regarding our annual conference (with our announced Keynote speaker -- sorry, gotta listen to the podcast for that little tidbit) and another one about last night's presentation on the Waste-Climate Connection later in the day. Here's a little something to keep you chuckling though the shoveling... [youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rR7A7KRpMe8?rel=0] As always -- remember, for these reasons we have discussed, the United States must place a price on carbon.