Oh, so now they want civility?

Ben van Beurden, the head of Royal Dutch Shell, is apparently a little perturbed by those of us who have marched, called, written and worked for strong action to reduce the carbon pollution that is cooking our planet. Now he's asking for a time-out in the discussion over human-caused climate change, and wants (his version of) sane and reasoned voices --- i.e., the voices of his Big Oil brethren --- to weigh in.

The Guardian reports:

Of course, van Beurden downplays what really happened...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Eleventh time's the charm: House GOP passes Keystone XL bill --- again; Apple Computers invests big in big solar; Record snow in Boston with more on the way; Oil companies dump toxic waste into CA's aquifers; PLUS: Uncle Sam wants YOU to help save the monarch butterfly... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Geoengineering is dangerous and 'should not be deployed'; Heavy metal in your valentine chocolate?; New Tesla battery will power your home, and maybe the electric grid, too; BOMB-Shell CEO calls for "carbon pricing system"; Fox host: 'We had to give up our freedom' during snow storm because climate change is a hoax; Oil CEO says worse to come for oil industry; Total Oil report $5b loss; Native Americans protest bison killings... PLUS: VIDEO: Thanks Dr. Evil! Fossil Fuel Propaganda Misfire Goes Viral... and much, MUCH more! ...

I hate having to agree with Fox Opinion Channel personality Megyn Kelly, but I can't dispute her point about the bizarre segment on the February 8 edition of MSNBC's Melissa Harris-Perry, in which Harris-Perry actually asked outgoing Attorney General Eric Holder to quack like a duck.

Granted, MSNBC's weekend programming hasn't been the same since Chris Hayes left Up in 2013 to host his weeknight broadcast All In, but this segment was just too daffy. Holder, who answered graciously nonetheless, seemed to know that something had gone off the rails; while responding to Harris-Perry, he seemed to be second-guessing his decision to participate in the interview.

Reportedly, there has been a lot of second-guessing at the network, and it's not hard to understand why. MSNBC has a credibility problem --- though its not about ducks or even Brian Williams --- but a segment on the February 9 edition of The Ed Show unintentionally highlighted its magnitude...

One never wants to see incompetence rewarded, but sadly, that's exactly what happened on Monday in Australia, as right-wing Prime Minister Tony Abbott survived an effort by members of his own party to oust him.

Abbott, who led the charge to end Australia's bold efforts to price carbon in 2014, had been beset by numerous controversies in recent months. As James West of Mother Jones reported last week:

Given Abbott's embarrassing record on climate change, however --- particularly as heat records have been repeatedly smashed in recent years Down Under --- environmentalists will be particularly disappointed that the Prime Minister, for now, has been able to hang on to power...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Australia's climate change-denying Prime Minister Tony Abbott takes a coal drubbing; Record number of malnourished baby sea lions washing ashore in CA; BP's missing oil has been found - at the bottom of the Gulf of Mexico; PLUS: The first presidential warning on global warming was issued 50 years ago this week... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): We have some really good news on how America uses energy; Of course Paris climate talks won't keep warming below 2 degrees Celius; 'Clean coal' plant FutreGen is dead --- again; Massive mine spill due to design flaw; 5 questions to ask when deciding on rooftop solar; WV legislature guts weak new chemical tank regulations; The real problem underlying deteriorating US road infrastructure; Utility vs. Solar battle gets uglier; Galapagos declares emergency over grounded ship... PLUS: Wind pattern behind California’s drought also struck at ocean food chain... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: EPA gives Obama reason to reject Keystone XL pipeline; Feds must account for rising sea levels; Scarborough calls liberals 'science deniers'; Extreme weather whiplash from Boston to San Francisco; PLUS: Majority of Americans (including Republicans) now want government action on global warming, won't vote for politicians who don't... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Mercury levels rising in yellowfin tuna; State let oil companies taint drinkable water; IPCC: World has not woken up to water crisis caused by climate change; Saudis using oil to pry Russia away from Syria?; How fish could change the definition of 'organic'; Not enough time for geoengineering to work; One bacterium could save biofuel industry... PLUS: Fossil fuel companies gave Congress hundreds of millions to support Keystone XL... and much, MUCH more! ...

It seems a slow news day. So please enjoy this very short "nature documentary"...

For the record, like the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, the Energy East pipeline discussed above is also a project of the TransCanada Corporation. Unlike Keystone XL, which would ship the world's dirtiest oil from Alberta, Canada all the way south through the U.S. to the Gulf of Mexico for sales and export over seas, the Energy East pipeline would ship the world's dirtiest oil from Alberta, in western Canada, all the way across the country, nearly 3,000 miles, to Quebec in eastern Canada for sales and export over seas. It would be, if completed, the longest pipeline in North America.

What could possibly go wrong?

"Energy East would put hundreds of communities in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, Ontario, Quebec and New Brunswick at risk of a tar sands oil spill," according to Environmental Defence, which produced the video above. "Canadians would see few benefits. Nearly all of Energy East’s tar sands oil would be exported unrefined."

Moreover, the pipeline's opponents note, in addition to increasing greenhouse gas emissions, the plan calls for "two massive new export terminals for oil tankers --- one in the St. Lawrence River, threatening where an endangered population of beluga whales raise their young, and another in Saint John, risking oil spills into the environmentally sensitive Bay of Fundy."

But, other than that, Mrs. Lincoln...

[Hat-tip Grist.org...]

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.S. pipelines now rupturing faster than we can keep track of them; So, U.S. Senate passes Keystone XL bill with Dem help; Obama's India trip a boost for US nuclear industry; IMF calls for end to fossil fuel subsidies; PLUS: Some good news: fracking banned in Scotland, and great 'Fox News' for a change!... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): It's not too late to stop climate change, and it'll be super-cheap; Americans are out of step with science on pretty much everything; Climate models don't over-predict warming; Big Utilties' 'Kodak Moment': a phase-change builds; Air pollution plunges in AL; Feds open waters to largest offshore wind farm; EPA sued over industrial livestock pollution... PLUS: Oceans on the verge of a 'mass bleaching event'... and much, MUCH more! ...

As our friend Digby noted after re-tweeting this genius/grifter/federal felon: "I just wanted to share some thoughts from the intellectual wing of the conservative movement"...

According to liberal reasoning, the true and obvious cause of massive snow blizzards is...global warming!

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) January 27, 2015

If hot summers demonstrate global warming, why don't cold winters demonstrate global cooling? pic.twitter.com/R0QIZdGZlt

— Dinesh D'Souza (@DineshDSouza) January 27, 2015

I had retweeted him as well. With comment. Those comments, and one from an actual scientist, follow below...

Prepping for today's BradCast (in which we'll be covering a fascinating election contest concerning a two vote margin, several questionably tossed provisional and mail-in ballots, and an election official with a notorious past), so I've only got time to pop this item very quickly for now.

It's an upcoming SuperBowl ad for BMW. But it's very cute. And since Tesla has shamefully failed to donate an electric car to The BRAD BLOG's Green News Report despite years of persistent prodding (okay, begging), maybe its time we start kissing up to a totally different electronic car company by posting their commercial for free...

[Hat-tip to far-too occasional BRAD BLOG contributor D.R. Tucker]

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hits, misses and hype in a not-so-historic Blizzard 2015!; The influence of global warming on the storm, with a 100% chance of denial; U.S. Interior Dept. to expand offshore drilling, as another pipeline explodes in West Virginia; PLUS: Obama calls on Republicans to permanently protect the Alaska National Wildlife Refuge... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): We can solve climate change, but it won’t be cheap or easy; Study: Global warming 'doubles risk' of extreme weather; 10 predictions for clean energy in 2015; Greenland lakes speeding ice sheet melt; Obama and Modi agree to advance nuclear energy in India; Anadarko's record $5 billion settlement; PA fracking companies routinely violate environmental laws... PLUS: Fossil-fueled Koch-backed network aims to spend nearly $1 billion on 2016 elections... and much, MUCH more! ...

Sean Hannity and his friends on the Republican right must be furious about the outrageous land grab happening to private American citizens in Nebraska. Wait, what? He's in favor of the Keystone XL pipeline project anyway? How could that be?

The pipeline's owner, TransCanada Corp., has now filed an eminent domain action in a Nebraska state court seeking to force private landowners to grant an easement that would permit the Canadian-owned company to erect sections of the highly controversial Keystone XL on privately owned land.

The new filing comes on the heels of a controversial decision earlier this month in which a 3-judge minority of the 7-judge Nebraska Supreme Court were permitted to overturn a lower court ruling that the process by which the state's Republican Governor Dave Heineman permitted TransCanada to revise the pipeline's route was unconstitutional. Heineman's decision was upheld because of a Cornhusker state requirement that state constitutionality be determined by a super-majority of high court's justices. (The new route was necessary after both the Republican Governor and GOP-controlled state legislature objected to the originally-planned route.)

While the Nebraska Supreme Court's decision at the time served to shift the immediate focus of the debate back to Washington D.C., where the Republican-controlled House voted for fast-track approval of the pipeline and a similar bill is quickly working its way through the newly GOP-controlled U.S. Senate, TransCanada's eminent domain filing in the state may prove a major embarrassment to those same elected Republicans. Many of those same GOPers, and their mouthpieces in the media like Hannity, have previously declared fierce opposition to eminent domain abuse that occurs when either state or local entities condemn properties owned by ordinary citizens, where such condemnations primarily benefit commercial interests of wealthy corporations and developers...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: President Obama's State of the Union focuses on climate change; Republicans' sneaky move to give the Keystone XL pipeline a new name; Yellowstone River pipeline spill spews oil and cancer-causing benzene; PLUS: Yes, Republicans vote climate change is not a hoax --- but there's a catch... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Global nuclear decommissioning costs spiral; Good news: India's tiger population rebounds; What's the best way to drill for oil in a mostly untouched Alaskan tundra? Feds disagree; Organic farmers say pesticide drift contaminates and kills; US research labs lets livestock suffer in quest for profit; NM county's fracking ban struck down; Cutbacks in the Oil Patch... PLUS: VIDEO: “..a Bloodbath”: Efficiency, Renewables and Smart Grid will Kill Old Energy... and much, MUCH more! ...

I was joined on this week's KPFK/Pacifica Radio BradCast by some of the best bloggers/journalists in the nation (who all happen to live in L.A.) to discuss and deconstruct Obama's 2015 State of the Union Address, the Republican response and more.

Our star-studded in-studio roundtable panel included (from left to right in the photo above) David Dayen of Salon, Heather 'Digby' Parton of Hullabaloo, John Amato from Crooks And Liars, me and Desi Doyen (not pictures, but ever present.)

Nuff said. Listen up...

Download MP3 here or listen online below...

The good news, which Republicans in Congress won't care about, because it involves Americans, as opposed to (profits for foreign) corporations, is that, according to a new NBC/WSJ poll, just 41% of the American public supports building the Keystone XL pipeline.

The not-as-good news, however: Just 20% oppose it, while a full 37% "say they don't know enough to have an opinion".

It's somewhat astonishing, frankly, that so many still "don't know enough" about it after all this time. But that's certainly what its supporters are counting on.

It'll be interesting to see if the news about the oil pipeline rupture in Montana's Yellowstone River on Saturday --- and today's report that it has contaminated the drinking water supply with cancer-causing Benzene --- will have any effect on those poll numbers.

The Guardian reports: "Truckloads of bottled water were expected to be brought in on Tuesday, and residents were warned not to drink or cook with water from their taps. Up to 50,000 gallons of oil spilled on Saturday from a break in a 12-inch pipeline owned by Wyoming-based Bridger Pipeline Co." This week's spill follows another pipeline rupture on the Yellowstone in 2011 that dumped 63,000 gallons of crude along an 85-mile stretch of the river.

By way of comparison to the KXL, the pipeline that broke on Saturday, spilling "up to 50,000 gallons", was just a 12-inch pipe, while the the KXL, if completed, will be a 36-inch pipeline stretching from Canada down to the Gulf of Mexico, right across the water supply for much of the Midwest. What could possibly go wrong?

And one more quick related point: Republican majorities (along with the help of a few pro-KXL Dems) blocked two Democratic amendments today to the GOP Senate bill to require completion of the pipeline. The amendments, proposed by Senators Ed Markey (D-MA) and Al Franken (D-MN), would have required that all of the dirty oil transported through the pipeline be sold in the U.S., and that the pipeline be built with American-made steel.

Do the world a favor and feel free to pass on this short article to a few of those folks who "say they don't know enough to have an opinion" on Keystone XL.