Blue Mass Group

Reality-based commentary on politics.

“Living on Earth” is a really good show.

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I keep meaning to post this every week: The Somerville-produced, WBUR-broadcast environment show “Living on Earth” is really very very good. It broadcasts at 7am on Sundays, which basically confines it to an audience of probably a few dozen people, mostly those with small children.

Anyway, it's always got a good dose of eco-optimism, like this fellow who makes money from recycled heat:

We've estimated that there could be 350 billion dollars spent in the United States on new, efficient, local power plants that recycle energy, and that that would reduce U.S. energy costs by about 70 billion dollars per year, and it would slash total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent for the whole country. It would put the U.S. below the Kyoto level and we'd save 70 billion dollars. So this has the possibility of solving many of America's problems, not just the environmental problem, but defending against foreign energy supplies and keeping jobs here. One of the things that happens when you do this is that the manufacturer gets an extra revenue stream and cuts its costs. I'm just not willing to say 'well, the Chinese have lower standards and cheap labor and so they're going to do all the manufacturing and we're all going to be Wal-Mart greeters.' We have brains and a terrific entrepreneurial system and this is a way to apply those brains and return our manufacturers to competitiveness.

The fact is that much of the heavy lifting of combatting climate change is not very heavy at all.

Now, about that time slot, 'BUR … 

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      • I’m not a regular listener because I’m usually asleep at that hour.  If it were later, I would listen more because there is nothing else on the radio.

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        p>But I find the host–Steve Kirwood?– to be preachy, and I find their writing to be gratingly PC.  A few years ago, they did a mid-December piece on the holiday traditions of various Indian or other tribal/indigineous peoples.  Trouble was, their phrase of choice to describe these people, generally, was “traditional cultures” as if this term offered some sort of clarifying distinction.

        <

        p>Not a big thing in the grans scheme of things, but indicative of NPR’s sometimes Radio Habana sensibility.

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