The Climate Minute - Happy Birthday America, and, hey, us too!

We hope everyone had a great day celebrating the 236th anniversary of the signing of Declaration of Independence.  This week also marks another anniversary/birthday, but we'll get into that later.   With Ted on vacation on the coast we met up at a different Pink and Orange Coffeehouse, this time dining and podcasting "al fresco," so enjoy the street sounds... or more accurately, the tractor-trailer braking sounds. Here's some quick links to the stuff we talked about today: Well, yesterday was the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence.  If you haven't read it in a while it's worth it to give it a read.  Don't cheat yourself'; dig into those descriptions of the acts of perfidy laid at the feet of the King.  Although try not to reflect too much on if any of the litany of complaints against the kind are relevant still today: He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance. Hmm... Anybody want to talk about the growth of the Department of Homeland Security... Anyway, the Declaration sets about some very high ideals at the founding of this nation never quite expressed the same way before. Ted's very interested in Jefferson's core belief in "usufruct" which is an idea of the common ownership we all have in the planet -- and our responsibility to pass down to future generations a planet as healthy and bountiful as the one we were given.  Well, we're putting words in Jefferson's mouth here a bit, he was using the concept of usufruct to argue with Madison about the need to assure there was not the development of a new aristocracy the United States.  For a more indepth discussion of the concept and Jefferson's views on inter-generational responsibility, check out this, or ClimateProgress' take here. As to other anniversaries, it was one year ago that a fledgling little five-minute, forty-two second recording showed up on our blog here, basically giving a list of things to do from our MCAN Calendar. Since that auspicious beginning we've had our fits and starts' like missing several weeks with technological blow-ups, our first "remote" with Ted recording at the Vigil against Climate Silence last fall, and even our own theme music.  We've had a great time learning about podcasting and developing the "program," and we hope you've enjoyed listening. If you'd like to go back check out some old episodes, check out the category page here.  Or you can find our more recent recordings (since we began using Soundcloud) on our special podcast page. So again, thanks for listening, and [message from our sponsors] please consider donating if you're interested in helping support our continued efforts. [end message from sponsors] Here are more links delving deeper on some of the things we talked about today: For the discussion of the President's climate plan on WBUR, go here.  For the Diane Rehm Show episode discussing Keystone with Michale Brune of the Sierra Club, Coral Davenport of the National Journal, and Heritage Foundation analyst Nicholas Loris, go here. You can read an interesting discussion of the jet stream and its impact on local weather patterns on Dr. Jeff Master's (of WeatherUnderground) blog here.  Of course just how much of the jet stream's alterations are due to climate change is up for discussion, but more data becoming available makes it clear that warming is occurring, and accelerating.  According to the UN, land and ocean temperatures rose faster and higher in the 2001-2010 decade than in any other decade on record. For our take on the Fox25 Mark Ockerbloom story on Keystone (and how a little judicisous use of google could have improved it enormously), check out our blogpost from earlier in the week here. Congratulations to 350ma for their very successful People's Action Assembly in Worcester this weekend.  We look forward to working together on a great year of activism. So, if you're back from the beach, here are a couple of things to keep you occupied next week: The Boston Mayoral Candidate's Environmental Forum will take place on July 9th at Suffolk Law School.  The event might be "sold out" by now, but you can check out our calendar note here. Also on July 9th the Committee for Telecommunications, Utilities and Energy will be hearing H. 2741, "An Act further promoting energy efficiency and green jobs," which will create an oil heat efficiency program in Massachusetts.  Learn more about the bill here, or listen to our Climate Hawk Companion edition about it here. 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. When you are on the website, please contribute to MCAN. Every dollar you give will be doubled by a generous backer.  We're at the halfway point in our fiscal year and need help to be able to enter the second half of the year on a strong footing! 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…