As the end of the year approaches, it's mandatory that people with websites do a "year in review" kind of thing, so here's ours. Grab a coffee and take a little walk down memory lane with us, won't you?
So let's look back at 2013, was it another "annus horriblus" for climate, or was this the year when the rise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal?
Well, it started out pretty hopeful, as the President dedicated about a minute and a half to climate change in his ...
As the end of the year approaches, it's mandatory that people with websites do a "year in review" kind of thing, so here's ours. Grab a coffee and take a little walk down memory lane with us, won't you?
So let's look back at 2013, was it another "annus horriblus" for climate, or was this the year when the rise of the oceans began to slow, and our planet began to heal?
Well, it started out pretty hopeful, as the President dedicated about a minute and a half to climate change in his second inaugural. Considering the price of real estate in that rhetorical neighborhood, eighty-seven seconds on one's issue isn't something to be sniffed at.
In February, Rob and Ted - and 25,000 to 50,000 of their closest friends, trundled off to Washington DC to march in protest of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline. take a look at our photo gallery from the march here.
Lasting impressions include an overwhelming sense of community and joint purpose, as well as frostbite from the cruel February winds.
March saw more Keystone protests, and the annual MCAN conference at Northeastern University. We were joined by over 300 local activists who enjoyed an afternoon of fellowship and training, including a quite excellent session on podcasting convened by Ted with old friend DR Tucker and Joel Wool of Clean Water Action. In a rather meta-move, we did a "podcast on podcasting" for all your educational needs. You can check it out here. For Mayor John Fetterman's awesome keynote address, and a link to more pictures from the conference, go here.
As spring continued we kept banging the drum on Keystone, including thinking up ways to get your cranky Tea Party uncle to think differently about the pipeline. We also had a wonderful conversation with Natalie Hildt of the Northeast Energy Efficiency Partnership about a proposed oil heat efficiency program under consideration in Massachusetts.
April is also the beginning of town meeting season in Massachusetts, and several communities faced questions about shutting down wind turbines at their meetings. Both Scituate and Falmouth told the anti-wind folks to take a hike, while Falmouth voters had to repeat that sentiment in May when the Selectmen insisted on pushing the point at a town election: where the townspeople once again said they'd rather keep the turbines running than spend millions to take them down.
In May we crossed a Rubicon of sorts, when the Mauna Loa observatory started recording 400+ ppm of CO2 in the atmosphere. This was followed in June by the President making a major speech on climate change at George Washington University, laying out his administration's intent to address the climate crisis, with or without the help of the anti-science wing of the opposition.
Finally in July the Senate did it's job and confirmed the nomination of Gina McCarthy as the Administrator of the EPA, those of us who have worked with Gina before were naturally ecstatic. We discovered a new friend in the land down-under when we stumbled across Gavin Webber's "The Greening of Gavin" blog and podcast. The month ended with a mammoth protest at the Brayton Point powerplant organized by the Better Future Project and 350Massachusetts. We did a roundup of news stories and YouTube videos from the protest here.
Later on this summer Ted also took part in the Energy Exodus march again organized by 350MA. This was a march from Brayton to Cape Cod, highlighting our nation's journey from coal power to clean, renewable energy like Cape Wind. You can hear Ted's interviews with marchers in media res, as they say, here.
Ted did another series of interviews with fellow protesters at the "Draw the Line" protest in Providence in September. The EPA dropped some long-awaited regulations on powerplant co2 emissions that month, while our good buddies (sarcasm alert) on the House Energy and Commerce Committee held a hearing on the President's climate plan. Meanwhile, previously fire-ravaged hills in Colorado were inundated by unusual amounts of rain causing floods and mudslides and taking numerous lives in Colorado. We also managed to sneak in a conversation with our new Australian buddy Gavin and talk all about Australian politics, suburban self-reliance, and making cheese at home. We still haven't tried that mozzarella recipe yet, but we'll get there.
November saw the giddy crowning of champions in New England, as the Boston Red Sox won the world series, and the American Council for an Energy Efficient Economy gave Massachusetts top billing in it's analysis of state efficiency efforts for the third year in a row!
And we closed out the year in much the same place as we started; wondering who was going to make a difference on climate change and get this country moving in the right direction. New guest host DR Tucker and Ted talked about the supposition that perhaps only a Republican can get the country moving in the right direction, much like only Nixon could go to China. Jeez... that's depressing!
Well, we remain hopeful, and we'll keep fighting. Join us next week when we'll talk 2014, make a few predictions, toss around a resolution or two, and generally hope for better times ahead.
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.
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