Blue Mass Group

The confluence of climate concern and NIMBY environmental concerns (not a bad thing) may prove to be the political force that puts an end to fossil fuel infrastructure buildout in Massachusetts for good.

And not a moment too soon: As a new report in Nature Communications states, the only way we can stay below the critical 1.5°C is to cease building new fossil plants immediately.

To do this, the study argues, all fossil fuel infrastructure — from power plants, pipelines, and industrial facilities to vehicles, ships, and planes — would need to be replaced with zero-carbon alternatives at the end of their lifetimes. Delaying this phase-out until 2030 reduces below 50 percent the likelihood that the world could stay under 1.5 degrees C of warming, the study’s authors wrote.

Furthermore, note the broad, deep and bipartisan reaction to the Baker administration’s final approval of the gas compressor in Weymouth: Pure, white-hot outrage.

[Hull State Rep.] Meschino continued, “I mean really, I understand. And what I understand and they didn’t want to hear but I told them was that I was completely appalled that in Massachusetts, that the DEP, the agency that should be looking out for us – you know governor’s administrations come and go, state representatives and senators, we come and go – DEP should be the ones with the strength of their convictions to look out for us and they failed yesterday.”

or Rep. Mark Cusack:

“It’s beyond idiotic what the Baker administration is allowing to happen here.”

Baker himself seems to recognize how unpopular this is, couching the news in reluctant terms: “Our hands were tied.” I don’t have the technical knowledge to know whether this is true. But rules change; laws change in reaction to public input.

I hope that both South Shore citizens and anyone else who’s watching put two and two together, and we can work on making more robust our alternatives to gas — to making this kind of conflict unnecessary. Fossil fuels are no good, neither in the backyard nor anywhere.

I turned off commenting on the Alice Walker thread, since I was very afraid it was veering into excusing Walker’s anti-Semitism. I’ve had a while to think about it.

a. On process: As editor, I’m certainly within my rights to circumscribe discussion that damages the reputation of this site.
b. On the merits, I think I’m right to call it what it is: Making excuses for quite blatant anti-Semitism. And we’re not going to have that here.
(Moving that discussion to another thread is cute, but I will get rid of that too, in due course.)

With regard to a.): There are many things I don’t agree with, but which I think are worth debating, contextualizing, etc.; and then there are things that are just out of bounds and not deserving of any oxygen at all. It’s my judgment that this discussion falls into the second category.

“Alice Walker is a great and beloved author” is context. “Alice Walker’s got a good point in this anti-Semitic poem” is not a discussion we’re going to have.

We do this on a volunteer basis, and at great personal cost in time and money. If this decision isn’t OK with you, Twitter et al are happy to host you, and might be more your speed.

Take it or leave it, as always.

On a broader point, I am afraid — in fact, I know from personal experience and my conversations with others — that the overzealous participation of a handful of people here has driven away good commentary and participation from this site. These folks are the ones most prone to call upon the supposed principles of open debate; even as their own pomposity, verbosity, and hostility shuts down, rather than invites comment in a spirit of inquiry. It’s called sea-lioning, in the parlance — the need to jump into every discussion and inject one’s precious opinion.  (I know because I have been accused of such, myself.) It also takes the form of mansplaining, whitesplaining, general know-it-all behavior. And it makes this site suck.

So I ask you to consider if expressing your online opinion requires you to invest your ego; get into protracted fights with strangers; use absurdly overblown invective; and need to dominate a discussion, rather than learn something.

Certainly there is a lack of good front-page, well-informed, highly-sourced commentary on Massachusetts politics here, which is supposedly our role. I blame myself partly for that; it takes me a long time to put together what I consider to be a well-sourced post. But that’s what we need. Not this.

Bad commentary drives away good. And right now, it’s not good here. A re-thinking is in order.

In Massachusetts, one can discern a relatively small world of people who have outsize influence in our public policy. Their views are reflected as the establishment voice of the Boston Globe editorial page; represented in Commonwealth Magazine; and at countless seminars and hearings. They are serious people, acting on matters of great consequence. And they will tell us that our demands as citizens simply must be balanced with other necessities.

But when it comes to climate, I can only think of my kids, and the survival of our habitat and civilization. All other needs are no competition.

To say the least, our establishment leaders haven’t been sufficiently clear, ruthless or serious about establishing a hierarchy of priorities in climate and energy. In fact, some of the most influential characters don’t even seem to think it’s their job to help out.

If you remember “An Inconvenient Truth”, there’s a portion where Al Gore shows a slide with a drawing of weighing scales, with the Earth on one side and a mass of gold bars on the other.

We have here a scales that balances two different things. On one side, we have *gold* bars! Mmmmmm, don’t they look good? I’d just like to have some of those gold bars. Mmmmm. On the other side of the scales… um… THE ENTIRE PLANET! Hmmmm…

But it’s not just gold bars, outright greed that prevents us from doing the necessary thing. It’s also, well … inconvenience: Having to do things that we’re not used to doing; making trade-offs we’d prefer not to deal with; maybe even a change in job description.

For instance: Should the people in charge of the New England’s regional electric grid (ISO-NE) be solely focused on “keeping the lights on” — in the way that’s easiest and most convenient for them? Or should they be actively involved in guiding a swift transition to renewable energy, on a climate-realistic schedule — ie. the next 10-12 years? At this late date, shouldn’t managing that transition be the very essence of the job?