The Climate Minute - Nixon is to China as Who is to Climate?

This week we were joined by our friend D.R Tucker, and we cover a range of topics, from the old Vulcan proverb "Only Nixon can go to China," to the frustration of climate activists with the current President.  So strap in, we're getting all political! Kerry Emanuel of MIT spoke with D.R. and Betsy Rosenberg on their podcast “On the Green Front”. Emanuel hypothesized that only a Republican President could pass climate legislation, in the same way that only Richard Nixon had the ability to make a historic connection to China.  In today’s show, we ruminate on those possibilities, and what justification a conservative president could make for climate action. On the other hand, expectations have always been high for action from our current President, Mr. Obama. In a new article in Rolling Stone Magazine, Bill McKibben excoriates Obama for his inaction.  We discuss if it is fair or realistic to expecting Obama to take more action on climate issues. The First Amendment protects free speech, but should climate deniers be allowed to post misleading Op-Eds or even blog comments? Reddit banned irresponsible comments from their climate forum. Very tricky questions. What do you think? Finally, remember that this weekend is the Winter Solstice. If you think about it, it almost become a sacred time of year, heralding rebirth in spring and hot dogs on July 4th. Remember, for more 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. Your generous donations help us continue to bring climate news and views to you through our podcast and blogs, but also help support the Annual MCAN conference (this year on March 2nd, at Northeastern University), and our local climate action. So we will close the way we always close, by saying that because we recognize the necessity of personal accountability for our actions- specifically to pay for the full cost of carbon pollution at the time we create it, because we accept responsibility for building a durable future and because we believe it is our patriotic duty as citizens to speak out, we must insist that the US put a price on carbon.