On today's BradCast you'll be outraged, saddened, amused, inspired and may even learn a thing or two --- or your money back! [Audio link for show is posted below.]

First up today: I'm thankful the French didn't listen to Donald Trump's terrible firefighting advice as the iconic, 850-year old Notre Dame was engulfed in flames in the heart of Paris on Monday, and very happy to see that firefighters were able to save most of the cathedral's historic stone structure and many of its artifacts, and gratified to hear that French President Emmanuel Macron has vowed to rebuild it (somehow) in five years, and delighted to hear that, as of this afternoon, some $700 million had been raised for the project. But there's something about that last part that really sticks in my craw.

Specifically, the fact that, as CNN reported early on Tuesday: "France's three wealthiest families are coming to the rescue of a national icon, spearheading a fundraising drive to rebuild Notre Dame that has topped $700 million." The families and a number of huge corporations that joined them to top that number, are each multi-billionaires. For example, the Pinault family, which "generously" donated $113 million to the effort, is said to be worth some $37.3 billion. To put that it terms easier to understand, it's the equivalent of someone who is worth just $37,000 giving $113 to the charitable effort. While it's appreciated --- and $113 is a fair amount of money for someone with just $37,000 in savings, it's not really much money at all for someone with the type of obscene net worth enjoyed by the Pinaults. Still, we're happy to see it, even if the glowing public relations they are enjoying is far more than appropriate here.

But, making matters a bit more maddening? The world's fourth-largest oil and gas giant, TOTAL SA, which is based in Paris, has also pledged $113 million to the rebuilding effort. Last year, the company raked in a profit of $13.6 billion. That was up 28% from the previous year. At the same time, when Macron attempted, to institute a new tax on diesel gasoline last year, citizen protesters took to the streets in the so-called Yellow Vest movement protests to successfully force Macron, among other things, to reverse a .26 cents per gallon tax hike which might have otherwise raised nearly $4.2 billion. (The revenue from the ill-considered gas tax, while clumsily advertised as a carbon tax, of sorts, to help curb climate change, was not earmarked for clean energy projects, but to help pay off French debt instead.) But where were the billionaires then? Why wasn't TOTAL asked to cover the $4.2 billion instead of rank and file citizenry, when the company could have paid the entire $4.2 billion itself and still walked away with a cool $10 billion or so in profit to spare last year? Particularly since it is the reckless use of their products which are endangering not just a cathedral in Paris, but the entirety of human civilization?

The rich folks who are contributing to rebuild Notre Dame are getting a lot of good press today for their quick "charitable" efforts. That good press is greatly overstated as compared to what they actually deserve, as I discuss (or, perhaps, rant) in detail on today's program.

In other related and under-reported news of note, former Republican Governor William Weld announces he is taking on Trump in the 2020 GOP Presidential primary, Democratic Presidential hopefully Sen. Elizabeth Warren has announced she will stop all new leases for oil and gas drilling on public lands on her first day in office if elected, Sen. Bernie Sanders announced similar, and the Washington State legislature, under the leadership of Democratic Presidential candidate Gov. Jay Inslee, has not only passed a measure to move the state to 100% carbon-free electricity by 2045, they've also adopted a "public option" healthcare insurance plan that will be made available to all residents.

And, speaking of healthcare and Sanders, a clip from the Vermont Senator's town hall on Fox "News" Monday night has gone viral, in which the Fox crowd is seen and heard going wild in support of his proposed single-payer, Medicare-for-All universal coverage proposal. Trump has a sad.

Next up, several maddening stories of the real world effects of Trump's unspeakably cruel immigration policies, including ICE's deportation last week of a man whose U.S. Military wife was killed in Afghanistan in 2010 and whose 12-year old, U.S. citizen daughter was left parentless in Phoenix (that story, at least, has a happy ending for now), and the 11-year old El Salvadoran girl in Houston who has been denied asylum and ordered deported without her family, despite gangs that have, reportedly, been systematically killing her family members after a relative witnessed a murder and testified in court.

Of particular note here is Houston's heroic Police Chief Art Acevedo who has loudly stood up for the child and taken on those elected officials and random Twitter wingnuts alike who support the Administration's monstrous policies that separate children from their parents. "Yep. The Nazi’s enforced their laws as well," Chief Acevedo observed. "You don’t separate children from their families! Ever! ... I am glad to be on the right side of history," he said after several impassioned pleas against the cruelty. "Not this chief, not this Nation, not this time!," he declared last year as the Trump Administration was caging children by the thousands.

Finally today, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, with details on the swarm of tornadoes (41 of them!) which devastated areas from Texas to Delaware and killed nine over the weekend; more on a number of the 2020 candidates stepping up their climate change proposals; and on Trump's new Interior Secretary, "formerly" an oil and gas lobbyist, already facing probes by the Interior Department's Inspector General...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Deadly swarm of tornadoes, from Texas to Delaware, leaves path of destruction; Interior Department Inspector General already investigating Trump's new Interior Secretary; Washington State sets ambitious 100 percent clean electricity target; PLUS: 2020 Democratic presidential candidates roll out bold policies to expand renewable energy and combat climate 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): Bank of England lays bare the “very real” trillion-dollar risks of climate change; Microplastics are raining down from the sky; Cool U.S. cities prepare as future 'havens' for climate migrants; 'We're not a dump' – poor Alabama towns struggle under the stench of toxic landfills; Vermont’s largest utility wants 100% renewable power by 2030; How to restore a million acres of strip-mined land? Bring in the elk; Gas-guzzling SUVs become election battleground in Australia... PLUS: Climate change could destroy his home in Peru. So he sued an energy company in Germany... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: President Trump moves to strip states and the State Department of authority over oil and gas pipelines; Midwest states hit with second 'bomb cyclone' in three weeks; Earth's carbon dioxide levels highest in 3 million years; PLUS: World's glaciers melting faster than predicted, thanks to man-made global warming... 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): Dominion gas explosion kills 1 in NC; Vattenfall to test salt-based power storage technology; Stunning Video Shows What Happens After the Ice Melts; Extreme Hemispheric Heat Waves Like 2018's Growing More Common with Climate Change; Automakers Plan for Regulatory Chaos After Trump’s Emissions Rollback; Jay Inslee: I will make climate change No. 1; Montana approves bill to allow utility power sales to EV charging stations; Climate Chaos Is Coming — and the Pinkertons Are Ready... PLUS: The confidential oil plan that could cost Trump reelection... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast: Donald Trump's D.C. swamp isn't getting any less swampy, but it all does make chants of "Lock her up!" over Hillary Clinton's personal email server appear quite quaint. [Audio link to show follows below.]

Among the many stories covered on today's program...

• It's Election Day in a number of places today, including for a very important state Supreme Court seat in Wisconsin, where the results will have ramifications (for the state and nation) for the next decade. And voters are also at the polls near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania today for a special election for that state's Senate in a contest which may serve as a bellwether before the 2020 elections. We'll have reported results and other analysis of that and others contests, no doubt, on tomorrow's program;

• More disaster today near Houston, Texas where yet another deadly chemical fire broke out, killing one as of airtime, with two others airlifted to hospitals. Emergency officials issued shelter-in-place warnings to schools and residents within a 1-mile radius, advising residents to stay indoors, turn off all ventilation systems and seal all doors and windows. It's the second major toxic chemical plant explosion near Houston within as many weeks. Given the state's shameful history with chemical facilities --- and a dangerous, years-long lack of transparency, even for first responders --- the latest tragic incident is, sadly, not all that surprising;

• Donald Trump's latest nominee to head the Dept. of Interior is near confirmation in the U.S. Senate after his confirmation hearing last week in the Energy and Natural Resources Committee. But David Bernhardt --- currently Deputy Secretary and Acting chief of the agency following the resignation of Trump's first disgraced and corrupt Secretary Ryan Zinke --- is a longtime, top lobbyist for the oil and gas industry and has been instrumental since arriving at the agency in 2017 in reversing loads of environmental regulations long opposed by the fossil fuel and chemical industry.

  In fact, as a recent investigative report by Reveal illustrated, at an executive meeting of the Independent Petroleum Association of America (IPAA), a top industry group, after Bernhardt was tapped to be the top Deputy at Interior in 2017, the hundred or so oil industry executives at the conference were caught on tape laughing and applauding after the IPAA's CEO bragged about Bernhardt as "the guy that actually headed up" their legal team challenging federal endangered species rules being "now the No. 2 at Interior," adding, "So that's worked out well." Now Bernhardt will be No. 1 at Interior.

  We share some of the audio from last week's Senate Committee hearing in which Bernhardt said he would decline to recuse himself from issues at Interior involving companies for whom he lobbied, because, he said, he'd be "basically handcuffed and not in the game for the American people if I am recusing myself" and prevented from unleashing his awesome "skillset" on behalf of "the American team". Bernhardt, of course, is just one of many deeply-conflicted swamp creatures now inhabiting Trump's "drained" swamp;

• Speaking of which, a whistleblower with 18 years of experience in the White House Personnel Security Office, where she worked for Democratic and Republican administrations alike, has stepped forward to expose what she describes as at least 25 Trump appointees who failed security clearance checks, but were ultimately granted clearances anyway after intervention by more senior officials. According to Tricia Newbold's recent testimony to the U.S. House Oversight Committee, many Administration security clearances had been rejected for a number of reasons including "foreign influence, conflicts of interest, concerning personal conduct, financial problems, drug use, and criminal conduct."

  She testified that two currently-serving Senior Officials in the White House were granted clearances despite failing their background checks. Though the names of the officials whose security clearances were granted only after intervention were not specified, House Oversight Committee Chair Elijah Cummings has sought "adjudication summaries" from the White House for Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner, his daughter Ivanka Trump, former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn, currently National Security Advisor John Bolton and a host of other top appointees.

  On Tuesday, the Committee voted to subpoena Carl Kline, Newbold's superior, believed to be behind a number of the questionable approvals. White House Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee-Sanders today described the Congressional oversight of the matter in partisan terms, bizarrely characterizing it on Fox "News" today as "sad and shameful" and, somehow, ironically enough, "dangerous" to national security;

• That statement came just hours before court documents were released today revealing that the Secret Service arrested a Chinese national at Mar-a-Lago over the weekend, during the President's latest visit to his Palm Beach resort, with four cell phones, two Chinese passports, a hard drive, and a computer thumb-drive said to contain "malicious malware". Court documents describe the woman telling the Secret Service, after she had initially been allowed inside the resort, that she was sent there by a Chinese friend who instructed her to travel from Shanghai to make contact with a member of Trump's family. But, why worry about security checks for those family members, eh?;

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report, with more on Bernhardt's enormous conflicts of interest, the White House's latest unprecedented scheme to jump start the stalled Keystone XL pipeline, more bad news for Trump's environmental rollbacks in federal court, and the Green New Deal has its first town hall discussion...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Former oil and gas lobbyist set to be confirmed as Interior Dept. chief by U.S. Senate; Federal judge blocks Trump Administration's expansion of offshore drilling in the Arctic; White House tried unprecedented maneuver to jump start Keystone XL pipeline; PLUS: Dispatching myths and nonsense at the first-ever Green New Deal town hall... 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): Group tied to shadowy network created $93 trillion estimate of the Green New Deal; Burger King to test Meatless Whopper; EPA may thwart efforts by states to set stricter pesticide rules; Exxon suffers a big setback in climate-change case involving its MA oil terminal; Australia's plunging wind, solar, storage costs stun fossil fuel industry; China falling out of love with nuclear; NC orders Duke To dig up millions of tons of coal ash at 6 power plants; U.S. disaster aid won't cover crops drowned by Midwest floods... PLUS: Camp Lejeune is still a mess 6 months after Hurricane Florence. Where's the money for repairs?... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Senate Republicans ridicule climate solutions, as Democrats fight back during Green New Deal stunt vote in the Senate; New Mexico and Puerto Rico set targets for 100% renewable electricity; Replacing US coal with renewables today would save customers millions; PLUS: Big Oil has spent a billion on climate lobbying and ads since the Paris Climate Agreement... 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): Video: Ocasio-Cortez’s righteous — and accurate — anger about poverty and the environment; Interior Nominee Intervened to Block Report on Endangered Species; Republicans grasp for a climate change message; Jury Awards $80 Million In Damages In Roundup Weed Killer Cancer Trial; New Jersey Sues Chemical Companies To Pay for Pollution Damages; A Climate Migration Crisis Is Escalating In Bangladesh... PLUS: The Doomsday Vault’s home is already altered by climate change. A report says it could get worse.... and much, MUCH more! ...

All of the news you need to know today, and nothing you don't. Among the many important stories covered on today's BradCast [Audio link to complete show is posted below]...

• New Zealand bans military-style assault weapons less than one week after a white supremacist terrorist massacred 50 worshiping Muslims at two mosques in Christchurch. That was easy. Must be nice to not be enthralled to decades of NRA propaganda and the tens of millions of dollars they are allowed to use to bribe politicians in the U.S., where even a Congressional vote on background checks has been verboten by Republicans;

• Record flooding continues to swamp the upper Midwest, as the National Weather Service warns the catastrophic floods will be moving south and inundating states as water makes it way toward the Mississippi Delta where some areas have already been fighting with rising waters since last month;

• All of that before we even get to the spring rainy season, about which the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) warned on Thursday could bring widespread "unprecedented flooding" to most of the nation amid climate change-accelerated storms;

• But there is much better news out of a court in Wisconsin where a state judge today blocked the GOP-controlled state legislature's unprecedented lame duck power-grab passed during an "extraordinary session" called last December to take power from the incoming Democratic Governor and Attorney General following the defeat of Republican Gov. Scott Walker by state voters in November. The judge ruled the session itself, called by just eight Republicans in the state House and Senate, unconstituionally declared and therefore, the three sweeping power-grab bills and last-minute confirmation of 82 Walker appointees before Democratic Gov. Tony Evers and Attorney General Josh Kaul could take over, are all now struck down. The victory for state voters and democracy lovers also means the Badger State may now withdraw from a multi-state lawsuit joined by the previous GOP administration challenging the Constitutionality of the Affordable Care Act ("ObamaCare"). GOPers in the state legislature have promised to appeal the ruling;

• The Commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps issued blistering memos this week warning that Donald Trump's deployment of troops to the U.S.-Mexico border and his "emergency" declaration has undermined troop readiness, national security and placed the well-being of the Corps at an "unacceptable risk". Gen. Robert Neller charges, according to the documents obtained and published today by the L.A. Times, that "unplanned/unbudgeted" deployment to the border last year and the shift of funding to border security efforts has resulted in cancellation of military exercises across the globe and has compromised "combat readiness and solvency". The unusually strong comments, according to military experts, critically cite the delay of urgent repairs needed at bases damaged by hurricanes last year in North Carolina and Georgia, with the new hurricane season just months away for "Marines, Sailors, and civilians working in compromised structures". All of that as Trump touted his support for the military on Wednesday night at a plant in Lima, Ohio which manufacturers tanks that the Pentagon has said they neither need nor want;

• All of this also follows on Trump's announcement last month that he is pulling the U.S. out of the 30-year old Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty struck between Reagan and Gorbachev in 1987, leading to the destruction of thousands of nuclear-tipped missiles on both sides after the landmark Cold War era pact was signed. Russia has said they will now follow Trump's lead in abandoning the treaty and, according to Pentagon officials, the U.S. is now preparing flight tests this summer for two types of non-INF compliant missiles that would have been long-banned under the treaty. Let the arms race begin again!;

• Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report on the staggering cost to date of the deadly flooding in the upper Midwest, the toxic chemical inferno this week in Houston, Trump's new EPA chief blowing off concerns of global warming, 2020 Dems demanding action on same, and a very encouraging ruling on oil and gas drilling in Wyoming from a federal judge who has ordered that the government reconsider its environmental assessment of drilling on public lands to account for the cumulative threat of fossil fueled climate change due to man-made greenhouse gas emissions...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Staggering economic losses from extreme weather and historic floods in the Upper Midwest; 'Shelter in place' order issued after massive, toxic chemical fire extinguished in Houston; Trump EPA chief Wheeler pushes more dangerous delay on climate change, while 2020 Democratic Presidential candidates push climate change solutions; PLUS: Federal judge blocks oil and gas drilling in Wyoming in 'Holy Grail' ruling... 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 don't have anything': the fight for survival after Cyclone Idai; Congress’ inaction endangers black lung fund; Trump's [bogus] $100 trillion price tag for the Green New Deal came from a tweet; Solar and wind firms call the 'Green New Deal’ too extreme; Spinach, Strawberries, Kale Top List Of Most Pesticide-Tainted Produce; Mining Company Quashed Dam Safety Audit Efforts Before Brazil Disaster; Jury Finds Monsanto’s Roundup Likely Cause Of Cancer In 2nd Bay Area Man; Western States Finalize Landmark Drought Plan For Colorado River Water... PLUS: Banks Put $1.9 Trillion Into Fossil Fuels Since The Paris Climate Deal... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, the fight to vote, particularly in Florida, never seems to end --- even after a huge bi-partisan majority of voters in the state voted to change their Constitution last November to re-enfranchise more than a million of their fellow citizens. [Audio link to show is posted below.]

Following decades of post-Civil War Reconstruction/Jim Crow-era lifetime prohibitions on former felons voting in the Sunshine State, voters last fall overwhelmingly adopted Amendment 4 to their state Constitution. The statewide ballot referendum, adopted with nearly 65 percent of the vote, restores full voting rights to former felons who have completed their sentence, including probation and parole. The only exception to the long-overdue landmark measure is for those convicted of murder or felony sexual offenses.

Moreover, the measure --- placed on the ballot after 800,000 signatures were collected across the state by the non-partisan Florida Rights Restoration Coalition, as part of a years-long effort --- was to be self-executing. In other words, as of January 1, 2019, the amendment went into effect, without any supporting legislation necessary. That means as many as 1.5 million former felons, at long last, have begun registering to vote to take part in their own representative democracy, finally ending the state's shameful, decades-long prohibition. This week, however, after introducing a bill on Friday, Republicans in the state legislature have begun speeding a new measure through the GOP-controlled state House of Representatives to add new restrictions on the Constitutional Amendment, limiting which former felons it would apply to and, as critics charge, adding what amounts to an unconstitutional "poll tax" that many former felons would have to pay before being allowed back on the rolls.

The ACLU of Florida derides the new legislation, which was approved in a House sub-committee along party lines on Tuesday, as "an affront to Florida voters", raising "serious constitutional concerns" which "thwart the will of the people and extend far beyond what any reasonable person would conclude the voters intended when they passed Amendment 4".

We're joined today by DR. MICAH W. KUBIC, Executive Director of ACLU Florida, to explain how state Republicans are attempting "to create new barriers and burdens" to the "crystal clear" language of the referendum, which, he notes, the Supreme Court of the State of Florida already approved before it was placed onto the ballot last year. Lawmakers "are changing the process completely, and changing it in a way that had never been used in the state of Florida before," Kubic tells me. "They're rewriting the amendment, they're rewriting the process that has been used throughout Florida, and they're creating a special set of conditions that only apply to ex-offenders that don't apply to anyone else."

"What is important here is to remember the experiences of the 1.4 million people who have been disenfranchised for decades, for generations, in Florida. Who have been told that they are not part of our community, essentially. Because remember, that's what the right to vote is really about --- going in to the ballot box and voting for a Democrat or a Republican or a Libertarian or anyone," Kubic argues. "The right to vote is really a marker of citizenship. It's a marker of who counts and who doesn't, who matters, who doesn't, who is part of the community and who is not."

We discuss with Kubic the way GOP lawmakers are attempting to expand the definition of "sexual offenses", and adding new requirements --- above and beyond fines imposed by judges during sentencing --- that many ex-offenders will simply be unable to pay. Given the national importance of Florida in next year's crucial Presidential election, it may come as little surprise, sadly, that GOP lawmakers are now hoping to undermine even their own voters' approval of last year's landmark ballot measure.

Also on today's program, speaking of next year's elections, a bit of 2020 Democratic primary news. Beto O'Rourke rails against discriminatory Photo ID voting restrictions and other types of voter suppression during a New Hampshire campaign swing. And we discuss the veracity of possible 2020 Presidential candidate and Georgia's former Democratic gubernatorial nominee Stacey Abrams' recently reported assertion that she "did win" her election last November after all, against former vote-suppressing Sec. of State turned Governor Brian Kemp, but "just didn't get to have the job."

Given the widespread voter suppression under Kemp's supervision last year, some 125,000 votes said to be missing entirely (and in disproportionately black neighborhoods) from the Lieutenant Governor's race, and that the state still forces voters to use easily-manipulated, oft-failed 100% unverifiable touchscreen voting systems at the polling place, Abrams' assertion is far more supportable than some elections experts seem to fully appreciate.

Of course, the ongoing controversy --- and Kemp's questionable legitimacy as the state's new Governor --- underscores our many years of warnings about the use of voting systems that do not allow candidates or the public to ever know who actually won or lost any given election. It's also another teachable moment regarding the alarming fact that even more jurisdictions around the nation --- from California to Texas to Georgia to Pennsylvania, Ohio, New Jersey, Kansas, Delaware and beyond --- are now, astonishingly enough, moving to adopt similarly unverifiable computer touchscreen voting systems in advance of the 2020 election!

Finally, we end with what appears to be a bit of very good news, as a federal judge issued a ruling Tuesday night that blocks for now, oil and gas drilling on almost 500 square miles of public lands in Wyoming, after finding the U.S. government unlawfully failed to consider the cumulative effect of climate change causing greenhouse gas emissions in their environmental impact studies when approving oil, gas and coal projects on federal lands. One of the plaintiffs in the case hailed the judge's finding, which may affect other fossil fuel leases on federal lands far beyond Wyoming, as "the Holy Grail ruling we've been after"...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Teens around the world plan global day of strikes for climate action; Trump formally nominates oil and gas lobbyist to head Interior Department; Wyoming's coal industry gets a bailout; PLUS: Bernie Sanders in 1989 was right about media coverage of climate change in 2018... 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): The bogus number at the center of the GOP’s Green New Deal attacks; Lisa Murkowski and Joe Manchin: "It’s time to act on climate change — responsibly"; 11 things we can do to combat climate change;
Trump budget cuts take aim at science and the environment; Denver's air pollution (temporarily) as bad as Beijing's; Species by the dozen moved north during marine heatwaves; Iconic forests reaching 'tipping point' in the U.S. West... PLUS: Surge in chemical use ‘a threat to health and environment’... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Heartbreaking tragedy as powerful tornadoes rip across Alabama; Down Under shatters its record for hottest summer nationally; Republican rhetoric increasingly unhinged about the Green New Deal at CPAC; Senate confirms former coal lobbyist as permanent EPA chief; PLUS: The 2020 Democratic presidential race keeps growing, with pledges to act on climate 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): Troubling discovery in the world's deepest ocean trenches - plastic pollution in marine animals' stomachs; The potency of Republicans’ hamburger lie: history shows why it might work; Heatwaves sweeping oceans ‘like wildfires’; Trump’s "A Plus treatment" tweet highlights political approach to disaster relief; A look into Big Oil's fight against electric cars; Pipeline explosion rocks rural Missouri; Plastic Mardi Gras beads could soon be a thing of the past... PLUS: The good news about a Green New Deal... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Britain basks in warmest February ever recorded; New House Democratic majority unleashes wave of oversight on climate, energy, and environment; A turning point for solar power in Arizona; PLUS: Republicans shifting away from outright climate change denial?... 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): This is an emergency, damn it: Green New Deal critics are missing the bigger picture; Senate confirms ex-coal lobbyist to lead EPA; Flood-prone cities like Houston may need to start buying people out; Scientists pull CO2 from the air, turn it into coal; Evidence for global warming passes physics' gold standard threshold; CPAC: The Green New Deal "is what Stalin dreamt about but never achieved"; Russia orders firms to release captive whales after outcry; Personhood for Lake Erie?... PLUS: You can’t take on climate change without tackling sprawl... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Banning cars, cows and ice cream?! Republicans move quickly to demonize the Green New Deal; New study warns insects are declining at an alarming rate; Massive public lands bill passes in the Senate; PLUS: Los Angeles ditches natural gas for electricity... 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): If Not the Green New Deal, Then What?: We asked two GND critics to share their good-faith alternatives for reversing climate change; EPA Scientists: The Toxic Chemicals Our Agency Won’t Regulate Are Definitely in Our Drinking Water; TVA board rebukes Trump, votes to close two coal-fired power plants; School climate strike children’s garners academics' support; Landmark Australian ruling rejects coal mine over global warming; Weedkiller 'raises risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma by 41 percent; With Democrats in Charge, House Science Committee Talks About Climate Science... PLUS: PGE, NextEra team up for largest wind-solar-storage project in US... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: GNR Special Coverage: Democratic Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Sen. Ed Markey introduce The Green New Deal. What's in it, what's not, and what happens next... 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): Plummeting insect numbers 'threaten collapse of nature'; Los Angeles ditches plan to invest billions in fossil fuels; The East Coast Is Going to Get Arkansas-ified; America's Energy Future: What the Government Misses in Its Energy Outlook and Why It Matters; 'Astounded': former fire chief unloads on politicians over climate change inaction; TVA proposes to close Paradise, Bull Run coal units despite Trump tweet; Keystone Pipeline Likely Cause of Oil Spill in Missouri... PLUS: Cashing In on a Warming Arctic: In Maine, some see the melting ice to the north as an opportunity.... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Trump's State of the Union was low on facts, but high on oil; Democrats bring climate science back to the U.S. House; PLUS: It's official: we've just lived through the five hottest years on record... 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): There’s now an official Green New Deal. Here’s what’s in it; The Green New Deal takes its first Congressional baby step, as Pelosi mocks “Green Dream or whatever”; Concern about climate change among conservative Republicans hits highest level ever; Native American tribe displaced by sea gets land to relocate; Federal government steps in to handle Colorado River drought crisis; Climate change hidden driver of Central American migration; DOE move to weaken light bulb efficiency standards could cost consumers $12B; Appeals court allows quick-take of land for Mountain Valley Pipeline... PLUS: If property rights were real, climate-destroying companies would be sued out of existence... and much, MUCH more! ...