The MCAN Climate Minute - Town Meetings on Turbines, Arctic Ice, Carbon Taxes, and Conservatives for

Summary: Town meeting season became all-turbine as Scituate and Falmouth both took up wind turbine related articles this week, while Washington was focused on the nomination hearings for Ernst Moniz and Gina McCarthy for Secretary of Energy and EPA Administrator, respectively. We've noticed it's Arctic Ice Maximum time, and Ted has a bit to say about carbon taxes, and not "go[ing] all wobbly," in the words of former British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, who passed away this week at the age of 87. So grab a cuppa' and hit that orange arrow up there to enjoy this week's Climate Minute. As always, you can also go to our iTunes page and download or subscribe to the podcast. Some links that will enhance your listening experience: On Monday evening Falmouth voters declined to appropriate upwards of $14 million to take down the two town-owned turbines at the wastewater treatment plant. While a majority of town meeting did approve of the article (which would have been funded through a debt exclusion override at town election in May), the article did not garner the 2/3rd support required. The Selectmen offered another proposal the following evening, asking for $100,000 to study the true cost of dismantling the turbines. That request passed after the Board of Selectmen indicated it would be contingent upon the town voting to remove the turbines at the May election.  Last night the board placed a debt exclusion vote on the May 21st ballot, so Falmouth voters will have the opportunity to vote whether or not to tax themselves to remove the turbines. In Scituate, town meeting narrowly rejected an article that would have directed the town to rescind the permits necessary for the turbine to run.  In addition to noise, flicker has been cited as a prime concern of abutters to the Scituate turbine. With the end of winter comes the Arctic Ice Maximum -- the fullest extent of the arctic ice pack.   NOAA calculates that the arctic melt began March 15, and will proceed until we hit arctic minimum sometime this September or October.  Arctic cover heavily affects albedo, or the reflectivity of the Earth.  More ice cover means more solar radiation being bounced back out to space, less ice cover means the planet accepts more heat, worsening climate change.  It's all part of the cycle. The political cycle is on display in Washington, as hearings on President Obama's second term cabinet officials continued.  This week the Presdient's choices for Energy Secretary and EPA administrator, Ernst Moniz and Gina McCarthy, were vetted by the Energy and Natural Resources committee and Environment and Public Works committee, respectively. Dr. Moniz's hearing focused on the secretary-designee's thoughts on natural gas exploration, development and export.  The natural gas boom in the United States is certainly a game-changer, although from a climate standpoint gas is inferior to dramatically upscaling clean renewables.  (Though much, much superior to coal.) Gina McCarthy's hearing focused on other weighty and timely topics like.... phoney email addresses?  Senators took their precious time with the nominee to inquire about the use of email aliases or EPA instant messaging policies.  Well.  Yup.  There you go.  Senator Sanders did try to and refocus the hearing about climate change or other environmental policies, but really all his colleagues wanted to talk about was these super-secret emails, which obviously held clues to the vast international conspiracy of climate change...  Ye Gods. (My opinion is that given the fairly bipartisan support of Gina, and her sterling history of working with regulated communities to ensure government regulations were effective, fair, and sensible, left disgruntled Republicans little of substance to talk about so they had to talk about emails...) (Full disclosure, I had the pleasure of working in two separate state offices with/for Gina, and I found her to be among the finest public servant