With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 4/10/2012, 2:49pm PT  


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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: It's official: March 2012 the warmest March on record in the US; So much for April showers - wildfires and drought break out along the Eastern seaboard; PLUS: Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On: Fracking boom leads to natural gas glut and fracking earthquakes... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): 1981 study accurately predicted current global temperature rise; NASA's Hansen: climate change is a moral issue 'on par with slavery; Is high-fructose corn syrup killing bees?; Mystery disease spreads to polar bears; AZ House OKs secrecy in enviro reports; Warm Atlantic Ocean leads to Amazon wildfires; Nuclear power industry: poised to repeat ‘managerial disaster’? ... PLUS: Secret ingredient to making solar energy work: salt ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

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

  • Evaluating a 1981 temperature projection (Real Climate.org) [emphasis added]:
    To conclude, a projection from 1981 for rising temperatures in a major science journal, at a time that the temperature rise was not yet obvious in the observations, has been found to agree well with the observations since then, underestimating the observed trend by about 30%.
  • NASA scientist: climate change is a moral issue on a par with slavery (Guardian UK) [emphasis added]:
    Averting the worst consequences of human-induced climate change is a "great moral issue" on a par with slavery, according to the leading Nasa climate scientist Prof Jim Hansen.

    He argues that storing up expensive and destructive consequences for society in future is an "injustice of one generation to others".

  • Pesticides and High Fructose Corn Syrup Recreate "Classic" Colony Collapse Disorder in Experiments (Treehugger):
    While pesticide maker Bayer CropScience may keep denying it, the evidence keeps mounting up that imidacloprid, a neonicotinoid pesticide, is having a massive influence on the plight of our honeybees.
  • Polar Bears Have Symptoms of Mystery Disease: (Reuters):
    Symptoms of a mysterious disease that has killed scores of seals off Alaska and infected walruses are now showing up in polar bears, the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) said on Friday.
  • CO2 'drove end to last ice age' (BBC):
    The key result from the new study is that it shows the carbon dioxide rise during this major transition ran slightly ahead of increases in global temperature. This runs contrary to the record obtained solely from the analysis of Antarctic ice cores which had indicated the opposite - that temperature elevation in the southern polar region actually preceded (or at least ran concurrent to) the climb in CO2.
  • Grants Criticized by GOP Helped Create 75k Jobs a Year: DOE: (Greenwire):
    The Treasury Department's $9 billion renewable energy grant program supported as many as 75,000 jobs each year it was available, according to a new report from the Department of Energy that counters Republican criticism of the grant-in-lieu-of-tax-credit effort.
  • AZ House OKs Secrecy For Environmental Reports: (AP):
    Mining companies and other businesses will be allowed to keep environmental studies secret, even if they detail possible pollution problems, under industry-backed legislation that gained final House approval Monday.
  • EPA Cancels $20M Green Chemistry Grant Program Without Explanation: (Environmental Health News):
    In an announcement that stunned scientists, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has cancelled grant applications for what was supposed to be a $20-million, four-year green chemistry program.
  • Warming Atlantic Primes the Amazon For Fire: (The Daily Climate):
    The warming Atlantic Ocean is drawing moisture away from the Western Amazon, drying the rainforest and catching residents by surprise. 'We weren't prepared.'
  • Is Nuclear Power Industry Poised to Repeat ‘Managerial Disaster’? (Tampa Bay Times):
    ’The failure of the U.S. nuclear power program ranks as the largest managerial disaster in business history, a disaster on a monumental scale.' The rant of an antinuclear activist? Hardly. It was the first sentence of an in-depth story in a conservative business magazine, Forbes. In 1985."
  • Maryland Set to Become First State to Ban Arsenic in Chicken Feed: (Washington Post):
    Maryland is about to become the first state to ban the use of additives containing arsenic in chicken feed, a practice already prohibited by Canada and the European Union.
  • Secret Ingredient To Making Solar Energy Work: Salt (Forbes) [emphasis added]:
    In a small lab in the San Francisco Bay Area biotech hub of Emeryville, scientists at a startup called Halotechnics are sifting through thousands of mixtures of molten salt. They’re searching for the right combinations that will allow solar thermal energy to be stored cheaply and efficiently so it can be dispatched to generate electricity after the sun sets. In other words, the 24/7 solar power plant.
  • FDA to GMO labeling campaign: What million signatures? (Grist.org):
    As explained by the Chicago Tribune, the FDA doesn’t care “if 35,000 people … sign their name to the same form letter” or 1 million people do. Either way, it counts as a single comment in its system.
  • Pew poll: Clean energy still popular among everyone except older conservatives (Grist.org)
  • Japan Nuclear Plant May Be Worse Off Than Thought (NY Times):
    [N]ew tests suggest that the plant — which was ravaged last March when a powerful earthquake and tsunami hit the area — might not be as stable as the government or the operator of the plant, Tokyo Electric Power Company, or Tepco, had hoped.
    ...
    The company announced this week that an examination of one reactor, No. 2, showed that the water level in an outer containment vessel was far lower than estimated, which could indicate that the already badly damaged uranium fuel might not be completely submerged and, therefore, is in danger of heating up.
  • Too Many Small Fish Are Caught, Report Says (NY Times):
    An international group of marine scientists is calling for cuts in commercial fishing for sardines, herring and other so-called forage fish whose use as food for fish farms is soaring. The catch should be cut in half for some fisheries, the scientists say, to protect populations of both the fish and the natural predators that depend on them.
  • Bat-Killing Fungus Continues Deadly Spread; Death Toll Now at 7 Million (Scientific American)
  • Interactive: how would a rise in sea-level affect US cities? (Guardian UK)
  • Radioactive Iodine from Fukushima Found in California Kelp (Reuters):
    Kelp off Southern California was contaminated with short-lived radioisotopes a month after Japan’s Fukushima accident, a sign that the spilled radiation reached the state’s urban coastline, according to a new scientific study.
  • Military sees threats, worry in climate change (The Daily Climate):
    Climate policy may be a minefield in U.S. politics, but the Pentagon sees liabilities of a different kind and is forging ahead with plans to reduce the military's carbon footprint and prepare for climate impacts. 'It's about returning more of our brave sailors and Marines.'
  • The $22 Trillion Carbon Bubble (Think Progress Green) [links, emphasis in original]:
    The global economy is riding on a financial bubble that dwarfs the subprime crisis - a $22 trillion carbon bubble. On our present pathway, humanity is expected to burn through proven fossil fuel reserves by 2050, making global warming greater than 5°C (9°F) likely and civilizationally catastrophic effects irreversible. To have an 80 percent chance of keeping warming below 2°C, 80 percent of proven reserves [pdf] need to stay unburned. The present estimated value of these civilization-threatening reserves is approximately $22 trillion. [click through for graphic].
  • O.E.C.D. Warns of Ever-Higher Greenhouse Gas Emissions (NY Times):
    Because of such dependence on fossil fuels, carbon dioxide emissions from energy use are expected to grow by 70 percent, the O.E.C.D. said, which will help drive up the global average temperature by 3 to 6 degrees Celsius by 2100 - exceeding the warming limit of within 2 degrees agreed to by international bodies.
  • VIDEO: James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change (TED Talks):
    Top climate scientist James Hansen tells the story of his involvement in the science of and debate over global climate change. In doing so he outlines the overwhelming evidence that change is happening and why that makes him deeply worried about the future.
  • Essential Climate Science Findings:
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