With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 8/25/2015, 10:50am PT  


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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: It's official: July 2015 was the hottest month ever recorded on Planet Earth; Record wildfire season in the U.S. gets even worse; Scientists stumped by mysterious whale deaths in Washington State; Oil prices hit hard by China stock crash; PLUS: Obama boosts clean energy, calls out the fossil fuel industry's anti-free market ideology... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): VIDEO: Carly Fiorina did a 4-minute riff on climate change. Everything she said was wrong; CA drought made worse by global warming; Pesticides in paradise: Hawaii's spike in birth defects puts focus on GM crops; The American lawn is now the largest single ‘crop’ in the U.S.; Sen. Feinstein asks Obama to create 3 desert monuments... PLUS: Solar power crosses threshold, gets cheaper than natural gas... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

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

  • California Drought Is Made Worse by Global Warming, Scientists Say (NY Times):
    Global warming caused by human emissions has most likely intensified the drought in California by 15 to 20 percent, scientists said on Thursday, warning that future dry spells in the state are almost certain to be worse than this one as the world continues to heat up. Even though the findings suggest that the drought is primarily a consequence of natural climate variability, the scientists added that the likelihood of any drought becoming acute is rising because of climate change.
  • VIDEO: Carly Fiorina did a 4-minute riff on climate change. Everything she said was wrong. (Vox.com):
    Fiorina's comments are a farrago of falsehoods and red herrings, a derp different in character from science-denial derp, but no less derpy....the trick for the aspiring Republican moderate is to acknowledge the scientific consensus on climate change while maintaining opposition to any policy that might penalize fossil fuels or advantage renewable energy.
  • Pesticides in paradise: Hawaii's spike in birth defects puts focus on GM crops (Guardian UK):
    Local doctors are in the eye of a storm swirling for the past three years over whether corn that’s been genetically modified to resist pesticides is a source of prosperity, as companies claim, or of birth defects and illnesses.
  • The American lawn is now the largest single ‘crop’ in the U.S. (Fusion):
    Americans’ lawns now cover an area three times larger than any irrigated crop in the U.S.
  • Feinstein Asks Obama To Bypass Congress To Create 3 Desert Monuments (LA Times):
    U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein said she has asked President Obama to bypass Congress and create three new national monuments in California, giving federal protection to more than 1 million acres of mountain ranges, sandy expanses and forests lying roughly between Palm Springs and the Nevada border.
  • Solar power crosses threshold, gets cheaper than natural gas (E&E News):
    Several large solar power plants under construction in the United States have in the past few months promised to do something that none has done before: offer prices equal to or lesser than that of a natural gas-fired power plant, even as gas is abundant and cheap.
  • How California's Pesticide Regulator Spun a Concerned Community (Reveal):
    California's Department of Pesticide Regulation gave Ventura County residents a misleading story about why it had allowed cancer-causing pesticide to be used by strawberry farmers near a local high school.
  • Trump Says Keystone XL Pipeline Would Have 'No Impact' On Environment (Climate Progress):
    No leaks, no spills, no impact on climate change. The Keystone XL pipeline would have 'no impact' on the environment if it were approved and built, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump said on Tuesday. For that reason, the billionaire said he would approve the controversial project 'immediately' if elected president.
  • Ex Machina: No Techno-Fix For Irreversible Ocean Collapse From Carbon Pollution (Climate Progress):
    The Nature Climate Change study examined what would happen if we continue current CO2 emissions trends through 2050 and then try to remove huge volumes of CO2 from the air after the fact with some techno-fix. The result, as co-author John Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, put it, is "we will not be able to preserve ocean life as we know it."
  • Every country is now pledging to tackle CO2 emissions. It's still not enough. (Vox.com):
    In other words, if the world wants to stay below 2°C of global warming - which has long been considered the danger zone for climate change - these pledges are only a first step. Countries will have to do a whole lot more than they're currently promising. And the IEA has a few ideas for what "do a whole lot more" might entail.
    ...
    1. Increase energy efficiency in the industry, buildings, and transport sectors.
    2. Progressively reduce the use of the least efficient coal-fired power plants and banning their construction.
    3. Increase investment in renewable energy technologies in the power sector from $270 billion in 2014 to $400 billion in 2030.
    4. Gradually phase out fossil fuel subsidies to end-users by 2030.
    5. Reduce methane emissions in oil and gas production.
  • Now's Your Chance to Help Save the Imperiled Monarch Butterfly-and Get Paid to Do So (Take Part) [emphasis added]:
    Another threat, according to Grant, has been well-intentioned individuals who have planted a tropical form of milkweed, which competes with native varieties and is not beneficial to monarchs or other pollinators.


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

  • Skeptical Science: Database with FULL DEBUNKING of ALL Climate Science Denier Myths
  • 4 Scenarios Show What Climate Change Will Do To The Earth, From Pretty Bad To Disaster (Fast CoExist):
    But exactly how bad is still an open question, and a lot depends not only on how we react, but how quickly. The rate at which humans cut down on greenhouse gas emissions--if we do choose to cut them--will have a large bearing on how the world turns out by 2100, the forecasts reveal.
  • How to Solve Global Warming: It's the Energy Supply (Scientific American):
    Restraining global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius will require changing how the world produces and uses energy to power its cities and factories, heats and cools buildings, as well as moves people and goods in airplanes, trains, cars, ships and trucks, according to the IPCC. Changes are required not just in technology, but also in people's behavior.
  • Warning: Even in the best-case scenario, climate change will kick our asses (Grist)
  • NASA Video: Warming over the last 130 years, and into the next 100 years:
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