The Polar Vortex and Heatwaves Downunder, Talking with our Friend Gavin Webber

In this edition of “A Climate Hawk’s Companion”, we compare notes on weather and politics with our Australian friend, Gavin Webber, the engine behind The Greening of Gavin. On his webite, Facebook and Twitter (@GreeningofGavin) he discusses climate and sustainability. The recent cold weather in the US has sparked discussion of the Polar Vortex. (For those of you listening carefully, I finally got to “Vortex” from “Vertex” half way through the episode!) It is a theory explaining how equatorial warming makes the jet stream more 'wavy" letting the cold arctic air dip toward us.   White House advised John Holdren does a great job of explaining is as well.   The same phenomena is probably making Scandinavia unseasonably warm. Of course, the cold weather brought out the   "Snow Trolls"who could barely contain their glee. Fortunately, Jon Stewart was there with his signature "blue" satirical commentary. In contrast, in Australia, this summer’s weather has been very hot. Gavin pointed to a  report from the “Met Office” about how warm the spring has been. The good news is that the Australian people have crowdsourced the money to keep climate information flowing even after the newly elected government cut off funding. On the political front, Gavin reported on the Australian government plan to abolish the carbon tax and offer a 'reverse auction" of carbon.  A blogger at the Guardian calls this totally shamefully negligent. On top of that, it turns our that Australians have a fracking problem of their own- except it goes by the name “coal seam gas.” For reasons explained in the podcast, the grassroots opposition is from farmers who can  "Lock the Gate!" against exploration on their land. You can send us an email to Comment@Massclimateaction.net of find us on Facebook at  https://www.facebook.com/MassClimateAction where you can listen to our show just be clicking on the icon.   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 our patriotic duty as citizens to speak out, we must insist that  the US put a price on carbon.