David and I have been busy with work and family lately, so I apologize for the lack of content; luckily it’s a big community and our contributors have stepped up big time. My thanks.
I hope these don’t read like Larry King’s Twitter feed …
- As has been mentioned: Saving energy saves money ($460 million), creates economic value, and jobs. Duh. Again, to other states who will be trying to work with the Clean Power Plan: Cap and trade works, reduces emissions and does not croak the economy — just the opposite. Joe Stiglitz doesn’t agree that cap and trade is the answer globally. But a carbon tax can be repealed. As Dave Roberts has observed, cap and trade is harder to repeal since it creates a denser web of interests and financial relationships involved: Individuals, investors, and powerful institutions are literally more invested in conservation.
- Unmentioned in jconway’s praise of Katherine Clark was her work on getting law enforcement to take cyber-threats and harassment seriously — especially against women. This is an issue of local interest. Well done and thanks, Rep. Clark.
- Even if we kept global warming to 2°C (which is extremely ambitious), sea levels may well rise 20 feet, says an article in Science. This is the Boston area under just 10 feet sea level rise, which is an eminently plausible scenario under the plain evidence we have.
- The Baker administration is planning to purchase a vast amount of Canadian hydro power to comply with renewable energy goals, consistent with the Patrick adminstration’s plans. This is a mixed bag: the amount of flooding in Quebec necessary to create the dams has a large carbon footprint (destroying forests), and it does undercut the local, homegrown renewables industry that the Patrick administration did so much to cultivate.
- Hey this is seriously great news: More housing for Boston. Was it this easy to unclog the pipeline post-Menino? Why? As I’ve been saying for 10 years, we need a zoning-based regional approach to the housing crunch. May we never become Silicon Valley, a place only rich people can afford to live. Or is it too late?
Please share widely!
jconway says
Her speech on that subject was quite powerful, I have friends in the game programming community and while many folks here may be unaware of Massachusetts resident Brianna Wu or the gamergate controversy, it’s a really big deal. Changing the law helps change the culture, as other social justice issues have shown. Katherine Clark deserves a ton of credit for that legislation, which is getting international attention and has been featured on John Oliver’s program.
historian says
We have entered the era where the moderate response to global warming has become delusional. We cannot rely on natural gas for very long, and we cannot afford to undermine the clean energy sector in the state or anywhere else if we want Boston to continue to exist for future generations.
marcus-graly says
Rural areas and poorer countries will probably be evacuated, but cities in wealthy countries will be protected.
http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/sea-walls-may-be-cheaper-than-rising-waters/
thebaker says
No no no Marcus … Don’t try to back peddle now. Go ahead and say it again … ‘We need to build a what, Marcus? A Wa wa? A wa wa wa? …. a wall? to keep the ocean out?
Happy Friday everyone!
petr says
… in the list of unintentionally hilarious misunderstandings.
“Back peddle“? Does that mean to reverse what somebody else is shilling?
ryepower12 says
The thing about water is… it goes around walls, and when a storm comes… it can, as we saw in New Orleans, break those walls.
As the good doctor says, water always wins.
So the only real strategy in dealing with rising sea levels is to… let it win.
We can’t just build walls, we need to channel water into areas it can go, where flooding will do minimal damage. You can build walls to help steer water in the right direction, but building walls to stop it is a recipe for disaster when we get hit with a Hurricane Sandy or horrendous blizzards.
The good news is I think city planners get that, but the question is if the politicians who write the checks do, and if they’re wise enough to start cashing those checks now to get these projects built ASAP.
ryepower12 says
doesn’t help climate change anyway. Studies have made it pretty clear by now that the extra methane in natural gas makes it as bad as the CO2 in more traditional carbon fuel sources.
Christopher says
…having one of our major political parties questioning the very existence of the problem!
Gary_Rucinski says
A carbon tax could be unpopular and stand a good chance of repeal if there isn’t public support for how the revenue is raised. But most of the carbon tax measures being proposed these days have high percentages of revenue being returned directly to households or, in the case of Mike Barrett’s bill, 100% to households and businesses. Once dividend checks start arriving, you’ll see public support build just as it did in British Columbia.
Cap and trade has been shown to be okay for large stationary emitters, but economists across the political spectrum agree that a carbon tax is the most efficient way to achieve reductions.
Gary_Rucinski says
Sorry. First line should read: A carbon tax could be unpopular and stand a good chance of repeal if there isn’t public support for how the revenue is used.
historian says
Sea walls will not be a viable bulwark long-term under either the drill-baby-drill or even under the responsible moderate approach because there is no worse case scenario to plan for.
ryepower12 says
there are ways to combat it that would work.
The Netherlands has done quite well for itself, for a country that would have long ago been under water if it didn’t have the world’s most advanced levee system.
We need to import their engineers yesterday to get busy designing and building a system that can protect Boston from rising sea levels. It’s going to cost a lot, we’re going to have to make investments we haven’t before… but better to do it now than when the heart of Boston is underwater every time there’s a high tide.
Trickle up says
Smarter people than me say taxes are better than caps. (More-spiritually-anointed-than-me people agree with that.)
I’m willing to be convinced, but i just don’t see us passing a carbon tax any time soon. While the world burns.
So the imperfect cap-and-trade regime (cap-and-dividend, anyone?) will have to do. If we can get it done.
Christopher says
…showing how much land will be lost to sea level rise, I think maybe we need to dust off the colonial era maps!:)
SomervilleTom says
Maybe Charlie Baker has come to the conclusion that it makes no sense to invest hundreds of millions (or billions) of dollars in a public transit system that will be flooded within a few decades.
Trickle up says
.
SomervilleTom says
New waterfront is good for business, don’t you know that?
Just like warm weather and increased CO2 are good for agriculture (because plants like both).
thebaker says
N/T
ryepower12 says
cheaper to invest in a system to combat flooding and rising waters than it would be to build a whole new public transit system.
To Netherlands-ify Massachusetts will certainly cost a lot, but not so much as we may think (especially compared to doing nothing) because a lot of the best strategies for combating high sea levels uses the oldest of tech — building holes in the ground.
Holes aren’t that expensive to build, in the grand scheme of things.
SomervilleTom says
I agree, my comment was almost entirely facetious.
I fear that Governor Baker and our legislature see no reason to have a public transportation system at all. I see no willingness to invest in anything, never mind dealing with the rising waters that are already likely because of our inaction on climate change.
I fear that until the consequences of not having a public transportation system are more immediate, we will see no movement whatsoever. It appears to me that our current government has already successfully blamed last winter’s collapse on “overpaid” workers, “incompetent” management, and the usual nonsense.
It looks to me as though we collectively have to feel a LOT more pain before anybody — and especially the voters in the rest of the state — will do anything.