Is Climate Delayism the New Denialism?
We weren’t planning on making the Green New Deal a weekly item on the show. Then a video of Senator Dianne Feinstein dropped over the weekend, where she appears to lecture climate-protesting kids. It set off a chain reaction of outrage. The social media fervor has since died down, but some really interesting journalism was left in its wake. This whole affair highlighted the crazy upheaval in climate politics — we’re going to tackle some of the bigger questions raised. Are kids a legitimate constituency? What makes climate politics so different from other issues? Are climate delayers as bad as climate deniers? What’s the end game for Democrats? Then, another ethics conflict for Trump’s energy people. We’ll talk about an EPA official who worked with a secretive utility group that lobbies against air pollution regulations, just months before he took a role regulating air pollution. Zack Colman of Politico joins us to talk about the ties he uncovered. What do they tell us about the state of lobbying ethics and utility power in the nation’s capital? Don’t forget about our live show on April 4 at the MIT Energy Conference in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Listeners get 10% off using the code “energygang” when they buy a ticket. Get tickets: bit.ly/mitenergygang Read along with us:The New Yorker: The Hard Lessons of Dianne Feinstein’s Encounter With the Young Green New Deal ActivistsAxios: Dianne Feinstein's Green New Deal Video Basically Explains the Debate on Fighting Climate ChangeAtlantic: Dianne Feinstein Doesn’t Need a Do-OverPolitico: Documents Detail Multimillion-Dollar ties Involving EPA Official, Secretive Industry Group Support for this podcast comes from Dandelion Energy, the leading home geothermal company. Dandelion is making it easier for homeowners to get geothermal. Customers who switch to geothermal heating save on average $2,250 per year. See if your home qualifies. We're also brought to you by Wunder Capital. Listen to our careers episode produced with Wunder Capital. We talked with Wunder CTO Dave Riess about the framework he used to completely change his career path into solar — eventually co-founding a successful company. Listen to that episode in The Interchange feed or find it here.