CMTI Publishing

07/29/2024

I’m giving a talk of how climate change is likely to affect the Berkshires over the next three decades. This takes place the Saturday after next, on August 10, 2024, at 2:00 p.m.-3:30 p.m., at the Bushnell-Sage Library, 48 Main Street, Sheffield, MA 01257.

I’ve been hard at work on The Steep Climes Quartet, a literary climate fiction thriller series that follows several Berkshire residents as they react to the effects of climate change across the span of nearly three decades. Kill Well, the first book in the series, published in Fall 2023, and takes place only a couple of years from now. Dear Josephine begins in 2029, will be out this Fall. The action in Over Brooklyn Hills occurs in 2035 (coming Spring 2025). Farm to Me takes place in 2047 (due Fall 2025).

The climate change science, technologies, and politics in the books are grounded in long-term and in-depth study, for realistic extrapolation. When it comes to climate change effects in our region, we are already seeing them, but climate change will make our world a more dangerous place and challenge us with difficult choices and surprising costs. But the most important question is this: Can we rewrite our climate’s future?

There’s more information about the series and the upcoming talk at https://davidguenette.com/

07/23/2024

On Saturday, August 10, 2024, at the Bushnell-Sage Library (Sheffield), I'm giving a talk about what Berkshirites can expect in the next three decades from climate change in the next three decades, weather-wise and economically, socially, and politically—as climate change continues to develop. Not surprisingly, the presentation’s title is “The Future of Climate Change in the Berkshires.”

News, The Steep Climes Quartet On Saturday, August 10, 2024, at the Bushnell-Sage Library (Sheffield), David Guenette will be giving a talk about what Berkshirites can expect in the next three decades from climate change By David GuenetteJuly 23, 2024 I’m giving a talk about what we can expect in ...

06/21/2024

Science, YAY! Misuse of Science, Boo!

In my ongoing efforts to keep expanding my understanding of climate change—not to mention policies and cultural reactions—I review many Medium and Substack posts each day that I regularly follow. This habit brings me into contact with some writers on the climate denial side or others who may be confusing issues of science intentionally.

My most recent post talks about how science can get misinterpreted, and on both sides of the climate change issue, and there’s nothing surprising about that given the characteristics of science and the complexities of climate change. Andy Revkin, in his Substack Sustain What, has published some interviews and podcast discussions on this very tension, and in my post below, I comment on these recent pieces.

Unfortunately, there are writers, such as Robert Bryce, who point to such tensions as proof he’s right. He’s one of my bigger bugaboos, and I can’t shake the sense that this guy is a shill for fossil fuels. You’ll find a link in this post below to another recent post of mine showing how climate change deniers and those like Robert Bryce who may not deny climate change but are anti-energy transition misuse scientific research and public intellectuals as authorities with which to argue their point, however unconvincingly.

I’m especially annoyed by Bryce because what he claims to care about—the energy-related issue of economic fairness—is something I care about, but his arguments tend to devolve into conflict about class and culture, and with nary a positive suggestion or policy point in sight. Some people just love to throw shade, even while the world burns around them.

Snips of Passing Interests Climate Change or just Tough Weather? It Doesn’t Matter By David GuenetteJune 20, 2024June 20, 2024 One kind of climate change post I’ve been seeing is the science claim that we can’t assign any particular weather event to climate change. This is a valid conclusion a...

05/31/2024

One Presidential Candidate Works to Cool Down the Danger of Global Warming, while the Other Throws Gas on the Fire

Elections matter, although as a review of American history will show, sometimes elections don’t matter all that much. The 2024 election, on the other hand, is very much in the “Elections Matter.” column. Bill McKibben, one of the best-known figures on climate progress, put our climate future actions baldly in a May 15, 2024, The New Yorker Daily Comments titled “It’s a Climate Election Now.” This piece ran with the sub-title “Trump’s reported billion-dollar offer to fossil-fuel executives shows that this is the key year to save the planet.”

This post was originally submitted for a column in a local paper as part of my effort with Citizens’ Climate Lobby, Berkshire Chapter, where, until this afternoon, I was part of the Media Team. CCL declares itself to be nonpartisan and the team decided that the post was not conforming to this declaration. I find myself hard-pressed to see how that makes sense, especially given the stakes.

I’m a non-affiliated voter who believes both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party have major problems, although I’ll admit that when it comes to climate issues, Trump’s Republicans are the most scary presently and the Democrats have indeed made legislative progress on climate change, with 2021’s IIJA and 2022’s IRA, to name two big accomplishments.

Taking the side of climate change will mean casting votes for candidates who support climate progress legislation. It just so happens that Democrats, and especially Progressives, along with some Independents, are getting the climate change issue front and center. (And no, not Joe Manchin, who just today announced he’s withdrawn from the Democratic Party and is now listed as Independent, and Joe, please don’t let the door hit you on the behind on the way out of Congress.)

I believe that the most effective and productive climate progress will be made through legislation, and partisanship is coincidental to my climate change hopes, but there is the pressing of political reality and elections do matter.

Snips of Passing Interests One Presidential Candidate Works to Cool Down the Danger of Global Warming, while the Other Throws Gas on the Fire By David GuenetteMay 31, 2024 Elections matter, although as a review of American history will show, sometimes elections don’t matter all that much. The 2024...

05/24/2024

No, environmentalism is not dead, and many climate change efforts are simply new and important aspects of environmentalism. We need to call out bad information and misleading arguments, which means that we have to read closely and check if what some people write makes sense. We are all overwhelmed by climate change, but assessing the quality and veracity of what we read can help reduce our stress and confusion. I’ve taken to calling out Robert Bryce, not because he is the only writer to make specious arguments against our need to shift from fossil fuels to renewables, but because he dresses up his arguments with graphs and infographics and statistics that are cherry-picked, and gosh-darn it, that is not helpful, now is it?

Snips of Passing Interests Robert Bryce’s Anti-Environmental Pro-Renewable Energy Transition NGOs Argument is a No Go Argument By David GuenetteMay 24, 2024May 24, 2024 “Environmentalism in America is dead. It has been replaced by climatism and renewable energy fetishism.” So says Robert Bryce...

05/07/2024

It’s too easy to find writing online that is either unintentionally poorly thought out or intentionally rhetorically abusive, and when it comes to issues related to climate change, one of my go-to temptations for such content is Robert Bryce, on Substack. Here’s my response-- https://davidguenette.com/bryce-hyped-focus/ -- to “What The Media Won’t Tell You About The ‘Energy Transition’.” In previous posts I’ve critiqued his thinking, but wondering, too, if his writing is in service as a fossil fuels shill. I’ve been told by one of his readers that Bryce is a believer in climate change—something increasingly similar to believing that water is wet, considering all the scientific consensus around the issue—but I’m hard-pressed to see it in his writings.

Snips of Passing Interests Bryce Hyped Focus By David GuenetteMay 7, 2024 It’s too easy to find writing online that is either unintentionally poorly thought out or intentionally rhetorically abusive, and when it comes to issues related to climate change, one of my go-to temptations for such conten...

05/03/2024

Hopefully, Words Matter
People react to climate change in a bunch of ways. One is the sort of person to declare game over before even suiting up. But there’s a place for talking about how bad things can get. There’s a place for hope, too. Some recent articles address this balance.

Snips of Passing Interests Climate Doom? Apocalyptic Optimism? Climate Change Catastrophe? Hope! By David GuenetteMay 3, 2024May 3, 2024 A couple of articles recently caught my eye, probably because I keep an eye out for Doomer-talk, which I think is at best an unhelpful surrender of hope for addres...

04/24/2024

It can be tough to balance hope and despair when it comes to climate change. Here’s a good news/bad news post that argues that we can worry about climate change amelioration costs now or end up spending much more life and treasure on a whole worse scale later.

Snips of Passing Interests Pay Now, Pay Later, or Really Pay Much More Later By David GuenetteApril 24, 2024April 24, 2024 There’s good news, some not so great news, and some really bad news when it comes to the climate crisis. The good news is that people are doing things to address climate chang...

04/22/2024

Thanks to The Berkshire Eagle for publishing another of my columns, part of a project by Citizens’ Climate Lobby’s Berkshire Chapter Media Team. Today, Aprill 22, 2024, my second column, and close enough to Earth Day to add a extra thrill to seeing my thoughts in print.

Other Writing My Latest Column in The Berkshire Eagle By David GuenetteApril 22, 2024 Thanks to The Berkshire Eagle for publishing another of my columns, part of a project by Citizens’ Climate Lobby’s Berkshire Chapter Media Team. Today, April 22, 2024, my second column, titled “We must make c...

04/17/2024

Thanks to everyone who came on Friday and the lively Q&A.

The Steep Climes Quartet The Future of “The Future of Climate Change in the Berkshires” Talk By David GuenetteApril 17, 2024 On Friday, April 12, 2024, I presented “The Future of Climate Chang in the Future” at Lee Library. I’m thrilled by the reception the talk received, the vigorous and ...

04/12/2024

This Afternoon, at 4:30, Lee Library!
I’m be giving a talk today (Friday, April 12) at Lee Public Library on The Future of Climate Change in the Berkshires. This is a free event from 4:30p.m.-5:30 p.m. There is a post on the event on my website, along with background information:

The Steep Climes Quartet Climate Change in the Berkshires By David GuenetteMarch 20, 2024 Lee Public Library, 100 Main Street, Lee, MA 01238 April 12, 2024, 4:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m. This climate crisis future is terrifying enough, but might this be a future that remains open to our own agency and the pot...

04/03/2024

Snips of Passing Interests Permitting Reform Allows Much-needed Renewable Energy Integration, But Will Big Oil Permit It? By David GuenetteApril 2, 2024 There is an odd game being played by utilities these days, a version of “gotcha” where they say there’s a need for additional fossil fuel gen...

03/29/2024

The Steep Climes Quartet It’s Your Move: Will Rustbelt Cities Find New Life as Climate Migrants Look for Home? By David GuenetteMarch 29, 2024 SPECIAL NOTE: For those readers in the Berkshires area, I’ll be giving a talk, “The Future of Climate Chane in the Berkshires,” at Lee Public Library...

03/26/2024

The Steep Climes Quartet April 12 Talk at Lee Library: The Future of Climate Change in the Berkshires By David GuenetteMarch 26, 2024March 26, 2024 This climate crisis future is terrifying enough, but might this be a future that remains open to our own agency and the potential in working together to...

03/23/2024

Snips of Passing Interests Big Oil in the Dock: Can Suing Fossil Fuel Corporations Answer Climate Change? By David GuenetteMarch 23, 2024 Just because you help carry the guy you beat up within an inch of his life to the ambulance, that doesn’t mean you’re not guilty of aggravated assault or atte...

03/20/2024

Coming up in about three weeks, I’ll be giving a talk at Lee Public Library on Climate Change in the Berkshires. I’ve added my original flyer in the post and the much better flyer for the talk from the folks at Lee Library, who have doe a great job. Can you tell by my version that maybe I’m a word guy?
https://davidguenette.com/climate-change-in-the-berkshires/

03/16/2024

Once in awhile, while writing, it helps to step back and think “Why am I writing this?”

The Steep Climes Quartet Why I Wrote The Steep Climes Quartet By David GuenetteMarch 16, 2024March 16, 2024 Well, for accuracy’s sake, only Kill Well (Book One) and Dear Josephine (Book Two) of The Steep Climes Quartet, are published (well, Dear Josephine shortly to be this Spring), while Over Bro...

02/28/2024

The second book in The Steep Climes Quartet, Dear Josephine, is due Spring 2024. Keep up to date on the new releases by signing up for notifications at https://davidguenette.com