The Climate Minute - Start By Doing What Is Necessary...

St. Francis Assisi is credited with the saying "Start by doing what's necessary; then do what's possible; and suddenly you are doing the impossible."  Timely words for climate activists from the Saint.  This week Ted and Rob discuss whether the President is doing what's necessary (never mind what's possible or impossible), and Ted waxes philosophical about the equinox while a new Pope gives environmentalists some hope. As always, click on the “MCAN Climate Minute” picture to the right to start the recording in a new window. To read more about the President's plans to address automobile-sourced greenhouse gas emissions, here is a good piece from the New York Times.  The other new initiative we discussed was the President's proposal to include greenhouse gas emissions impacts in National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA).  As former Massachusetts Energy and Environment Secretary Ian Bowles tweeted out earlier this week, Massachusetts has been requiring ghg impacts as part of the Massachusetts Environmental Policy Act review since about 2007.  Naturally some legislative luddites are trying to get involved and block the President's proposal. For more on the President's Clean Energy Trust proposal, check out Climate Desk here.  On the worrying side of the ledger, you should read about the delay in new source review for coal plants which is a concerning development. As you're aware the vernal equinox is upon us, and while the thing about an egg standing its end is hogwash, it is a time to take note of.  The equinox actually occurred on the 20th, at  11:02am.  As Ted points out, the equinox is an occasion to re-orient ourselves with a view toward nature (and our place in it), something lost in modern times but celebrated throughout antiquity.  Any occasion which causes us to think about our place in the grand scheme of things is welcome, and should work to raise consciousness of environmental issues including climate change. The new Pope of the Catholic Church chose the name Francis, who is the patron saint of, among other things, ecology.  Pope Francis gave his first homily as Pope this Tuesday, and his speech touched on the importance of protecting the environment in a number of passages.  Here's perhaps the most direct: The vocation of being a “protector”, however, is not just something involving us Christians alone; it also has a prior dimension which is simply human, involving everyone. It means protecting all creation, the beauty of the created world, as the Book of Genesis tells us and as Saint Francis of Assisi showed us. It means respecting each of God’s creatures and respecting the environment in which we live. Hopefully he will continue to enunciate these sentiments to the world's 1.8 billion Catholics. Slate's gabfest had an interesting conversation about religion and modernity, which is fortuitously times given the equinox reminding us of our more nature-abiding past, and the installation of a new Pope taking the name of his church's most famous environmentalist.  I guess I would make the argument that a focus on conservation and environmental awareness is actually a move back toward older forms of faith and spirituality.  What do you think? In more temporal matters, Mayor Menino's proposal on building energy labeling will come up for a hearing on March 28th.  Larry Harmon wrote a very critical op-ed about the proposal in the Boston Globe, the state Department of Energy Resources has an illuminating white paper on the concept here.  Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnerships (NEEP) has a very helpful report here. For more news about the pending "de-listing" of the Mt. Tom coal plant, go here.  The great news about DPU's order relative to the proposed new gas plant in Salem is here, and for more discussion about what the sale of Brayton Point may mean, check out here, and Conservation Law Foundation's excellent analysis of the economic circumstance of Brayton here.  Finally, to stay up on all the news regarding New England's remaining coal polluters power plants, friend "Coal Free Massachusetts" on Facebook. Reminder: The website Credo has made it easy to submit an electronic comment on the Keystone pipeline Draft EIS here.  They'll provide you with a generic comment text which you can change, and they'll electronically deliver the comment for you.  They have collected 160,000 signatures toward their goal of delivering 200,000 comments on the pipeline. Tom Friedman (apparently Tom Friedman's Column of the Week is a new Climate Minute feature...) wrote a column last Saturday on the political and economic benefits of carbon taxes. If you're looking for a great conference full of ideas on how you can make a difference in your community, you should check out the Massachusetts Sustainable Communities / Sustainable Campuses conference happening on April 24th at the Worcester DCU center.  More information is available here. Also, don't forget to come back and visit for more details on our April 17th meeting with state officials discussing the Commonwealth's Clean Energy and Climate Plan. It's been a pleasure sharing climate news and views with you as always.  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. 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 -- remember, for these reasons we have discussed, the United States must place a price on carbon.  See you next week.