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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: It's official: Hottest spring on record Down Under; Big Fossil Fuel = Big Tobacco; BP suit halts Gulf Oil Spill compensation; New rules for toxic flame retardants; Say goodbye to antibacterial soaps; PLUS: Wall Street may finally be looking to cover its (unburnable) assets ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): 'Rat retraction reaction': journal withdraws controversial GMO rat study; Arctic Ocean leaking methane at 'alarming' rate; The ugly aftermath for families in AR pipeline spill; Sea level rise 'too fast' to reverse climate change; First Nations fracking protestors refuse to back down; WA State lawmakers investigate impacts of coal export terminals; Judge rejects climate refugee plea; US $38b nuclear waste fiasco ... PLUS: Why Climate Change Skeptics and Evolution Deniers Joined Forces ... and much, MUCH more! ...

STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...

• Fox News FAIL: VIDEO: Fox's Bolling Attacks Sports Teams For Addressing Climate Change Because It's Not "Proven" (Media Matters)
• VIDEO: 'Haunting Parallels' in Denialist Tactics of Big Tobacco and Big Fossil Fuel (The BRAD BLOG)



• It's Official: Hottest Spring on Record in Australia:
• Australia records its warmest spring (The Conversation):
  
  October was also notable for heat in the northern tropics. Fitzroy Crossing in northern WA reached 40C (104F) on each of the first 29 days of the month, an unprecedented sequence at any Australian station this early in the year.
• Perth's hottest spring in 116 years, with overall average of 18.8C (Perth Now)
• BP Oil Spill: 5th Circuit Halts Compensation Payments:
• 5th Circuit orders temporary halt to business loss payments without proof of BP oil spill damage (NOLA.com)
Just 10 days after a federal judge in New Orleans lambasted BP for demanding that businesses must prove their losses were caused by the Deepwater Horizon oil spill before being paid under the terms of a private settlement, an appeals court ordered the judge not to allow such payments without proof that losses resulted from the spill.
• BP tells 5th Circuit to throw out private oil spill settlement if business claims rules aren't fixed (NOLA.com)
• BP process remains tangled with questions, departures (NOLA.com)
• Jury selection begins for ex-BP engineer accused of deleting texts, voicemails (NOLA.com)
• Unburnable Carbon & Rise of Renewables: Wall Street Looking to Cover Its Assets:
• Bloomberg LP Launches First Tool That Measures Risk of 'Unburnable Carbon' Assets (InsideClimate News): The tool, which can assess how companies might fare in the carbon-constrained economy, is now on the desks of the world's most influential investors.
• Unburnable carbon 2013: Wasted capital and stranded assets (Carbon Tracker)
• Investor Concerns About Fossil Fuels Are Growing (Forbes)
• Coal holds on while pieces of green puzzle come together (Financial Times)
• This could be Exxon Mobil's biggest threat (CNBC)
• Global Warming's Terrifying New Math (Rolling Stone): Three simple numbers that add up to global catastrophe - and that make clear who the real enemy is
• US solar stocks surge on brighter prospects for financing (PV Magazine)
• Solar ETFs Stay White Hot, What's Behind the Surge? (Zacks.com)
• Top 3 performing US tech stocks YTD 2013 are all in solar sector
• Good News: FDA to Phase Out Toxic Chemical in Antibacterial Soaps:
• Lawsuit Forces FDA to Finally Enforce Removal of Endocrine Disruptor Triclosan From Soaps (EcoWatch):
  
  “It’s outrageous that FDA has waited 35 years to protect the public from this harmful chemical. This final rule should prohibit triclosan from use in soaps,” said Mae Wu, an attorney in NRDC’s health program. The growing use of triclosan in products over the past few decades has led to widespread residues in the environment and in people. Bio-monitoring results found residues of triclosan in 75 percent of Americans over the age of six. The chemical is absorbed through contact with the skin and tests have found it in human blood, urine and even breast milk.
• Chemical in antibacterial hand soaps poses health risks, scientists say (Sacramento Bee)
• 35 Years Later, FDA Agrees to Set Rules for Controversial Antimicrobial Agent (The Daily Green)
• Good News: Toxic Flame Retardants To Be Phased Out in CA:
• Tribune Watchdog Investigation: Playing With Fire (Chicago Tribune):
  
  The toxic chemicals are present in nearly every home, packed into couches, chairs and many other products. Two powerful industries — Big Tobacco and chemical manufacturers — waged deceptive campaigns that led to the proliferation of these chemicals, which don’t even work as promised.
• VIDEO: Toxic flame retardants may be on way out (Chicago Tribune):
  
  New California fire standard can be met without chemicals in furniture foam: on Thursday, California threw out the 38-year-old rule and approved a new one that furniture manufacturers can meet without using flame retardants.
• Part 1: Fear fans flames for chemical makers (Chicago Tribune): Manufacturers of fire retardants rely on questionable testimony, front groups to push standards that boost demand for their toxic — and ineffective — products
• Prepare to say goodbye to toxic couches (NRDC Switchboard):
  
  An obscure California regulation has led to the use of toxic and untested flame retardant chemicals in furniture in California and also around the country and beyond... Americans carry much higher levels of these chemicals in their bodies than people elsewhere in the world and California children have some of the highest levels ever measured. The old regulation did not even protect against the cause of the vast majority of fires—smoldering materials, like cigarettes.

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...

• Why Climate Change Skeptics and Evolution Deniers Joined Forces (Mother Jones)
• Rat retraction reaction: Journal pulls its GMOs-cause-rat-tumors study (Grist):
  
  In a statement the journal publishers wrote: “Ultimately, the results presented (while not incorrect) are inconclusive, and therefore do not reach the threshold of publication for Food and Chemical Toxicology.” What does it mean that a “not incorrect” but “inconclusive” paper fails to “reach the threshold”?
• Researchers say Arctic Ocean leaking methane at an alarming rate (Anchorage Daily News)
• A Neighborhood Shattered: Families Emptying Out of Oil-Hit Arkansas Town (InsideClimate News)
• This Is What Happens When a Pipeline Bursts in Your Town (New Republic)
• Sea-Level Rise Too Fast to Reverse Climate Change: Study (Bloomberg News):
  
  By the time climate change reduces crop yields or frequently floods New York City subways, it would be too late to avert damage without better forecasting tools, a panel of scientists said in a report released today.
• Indigenous Canadian fracking protesters refuse to back down (Al Jazeera America):
  
  Demonstrators defy court injunction intended to keep them from interfering with Texas-based company’s seismic testing.
• Romanian police ‘brutally’ remove protesters opposed to Chevron fracking (RT):
  
  US energy giant Chevron has resumed its search for shale gas in north-eastern Romania after hundreds of riot police reportedly brutally removed a bunch of villagers who had been camping out at the site protesting the company’s plan.
• Fracking: Oklahoma Adopts California-Style Quake Precautions (TIME Magazine):
  
  From 1975 to 2008, only a handful of magnitude-3.0 earthquakes or greater occurred yearly in Oklahoma. But the average grew to around 40 annual earthquakes from 2009 to 2013, seismologists said in the report on the uptick of quake activity.
  ...
  One theory is that the shaking could be related to wastewater disposal from oil and gas drilling operations that rely on hydraulic fracturing, or “fracking.”
• As Oil Floods Plains Towns, Crime Pours In (NY Times):
  
• WA State lawmakers on coal: Show us the costs (Seattle Post-Intelligencer):
  
  The state of Washington should undertake a “comprehensive evaluation of the net economic costs” of siting huge coal export terminals at Longview and Cherry Point, according to request sent Monday by 23 Democratic legislators to Gov. Jay Inslee.
• The $38 billion nuclear waste fiasco (Politico):
  
  Doing nothing often has a cost — and when it comes to storing the nation’s nuclear waste, the price is $38 billion and rising. That’s just the lowball estimate for how much taxpayers will wind up spending because of the government’s decades of dithering about how to handle the radioactive leftovers sitting at dozens of sites in 38 states.
• New Zealand judge rejects climate refugee plea (Washington Post)
• Just in Time for Black Friday: NRDC's Green Electronics Holiday Shopping Guide 2013 (NRDC)
• Living Green's Green Gadget Gift Guide (Living Green)
• Warming ‘Will Be Hard to Reverse’ (Climate News Network via Truthdig) [emphasis added]:
  
  They simulated a planet in which greenhouse gas emissions continued to rise... [A]fter an initial period in which temperatures started to drop, something else happened. The simulated planet started to warm again, and go on warming for another 400 years or more.
• Ninety Companies Responsible For Two-Thirds Of Global Warming Emissions (Climate Progress):
  
  According to the research, 90 companies on the list of top emitters produced 63% of the cumulative global emissions of industrial carbon dioxide and methane between 1751 to 2010, amounting to about 914 gigatons of CO2 emissions. Aside from seven cement manufacturers, the rest of the emitters were [large] energy companies producing oil, gas, and coal.

FOR MORE on Climate Science and Climate Change, go to our Green News Report: Essential Background Page

• Video Proof That Global Warming is a 'Hoax'!: NASA Temperature Data 1888-2011 (The BRAD BLOG):



• NASA climate change video: This is the U.S. in 2100 (NASA).

                 

Article Categories: Fox 'News', California, United Nations, Mainstream Media Failure, Environment, Green News, BP Oil Disaster, Fracking, Natural gas, Coal, Canada, Oil, Wind energy, Solar energy, Climate change, Extreme weather, Keystone XL, Australia, Eric Bolling, GMOs