Even before Hurricane Ian devastated the state, Florida's insurance industry was collapsing. As discussed on today's BradCast, decades of climate denialism by the Republicans who run the state hasn't helped. [Audio link to full show follows below this summary.]

Gov. Ron DeSantis seems to have a very different perspective on federal hurricane disaster aid than he did while a freshman in Congress in 2013, when he was an adamant "no" vote on sending federal aid dollars to New York and New Jersey after the devastation of Hurricane Sandy. He also seems to have a different opinion of President Biden than he did just a week or so ago, when the ambitious GOP Presidential hopeful was threatening to use state taxpayer dollars to fly undocumented immigrants to Biden's home in Delaware. Suddenly, the DeSantis swagger is gone. At least for now, as the Sunshine State Guv has little choice after Ian but to crawl hat in hand to the same federal government he has pretended to abhor for political benefit.

But that's not DeSantis' only problem. As our guest today, THOMAS FRANK, longtime climate change impact journalist at E&E News, explains, the insurance industry in Florida has been in big trouble for some time. Major insurers left the state after Hurricane Andrew in 1992, and six of the regional mom and pop outfits who took their place have gone insolvent over the past year alone.

"There's not the kind of robust, private sector [in the insurance industry] you have really everywhere else in the country," Frank tells me today. "What happened the last few days is going to make a bad situation --- pick your adjective --- horrendous. The truth is nobody knows exactly how bad it's going to be, because that's going to take weeks, months to figure out as people try to start filing claims and so forth. But I don't anyone thinks it's going to be anything but bad."

Frank has been reporting on --- and warning about --- the state's failing insurance industry long before Ian may have finished it off. Premiums for homeowners insurance cost about 3 times more than the national average and, at the same time, Florida's Citizens Property Insurance Corp., the state-backed insurer of last resort, has been under-pricing homeowner policies for years, he says. They are unlikely to have enough money to pay out the claims that will soon come flooding in.

Moreover, homeowner policies don't cover flood insurance. That's left to a federal government program and most Floridians who have flood coverage live on the coast, even as hundreds of thousands of homeowners who have been flooded out this week live nowhere near it. They are unlikely to be insured for flooding at all.

As Frank writes today at E&E, "Hurricane Ian is expect to financially ruin countless people" in the state, including both homeowners and insurers. As he wrote yesterday at Politico, "Profit drove a 30-year boom" in the state, particularly near the coast, where the population has doubled or tripled amid a building boom in recent years, despite warnings from climate experts about sea rise and the intensification of hurricanes. "Ian smashed" that boom "in a day," writes Frank.

This, in a state controlled by climate change denialist politicians who have gone so far as to ban the use of the phrase "climate change" in state reports, and where DeSantis, as recently as last month, began an effort to bar the state's pension fund from even considering environmental factors when investing billions of dollars belonging to teachers, firefighters and other state workers.

Please tune in for today's enlightening conversation.

Finally today, Democrats in the House Oversight Committee recently obtained and released a trove of internal documents from fossil fuel industry insiders from ExxonMobil, Chevron, Shell and BP. The communications reveal that Big Oil execs, staffers and lobbyists admit to "gaslighting" the public regarding their public claims to be fighting against the climate crisis. (Who could have guessed it?!) For example, while Shell has publicly claimed they are working toward "net-zero" greenhouse gas emissions by 2050, a missive to employees in 2020 instructs them to never "imply, suggest, or leave it open for possible misinterpretation that (net zero) is a Shell goal or target," adding that the company has "no immediate plans to move to a net-zero emissions portfolio" over the next 10 to 20 years.

Republicans on the House Committee are furious that their friends and campaign donors have been exposed (again) as liars. And the companies argue the Committee's selective release of documents doesn't offer a full picture of their very very concerned stance on the climate crisis. So, as a public service, we close today with a new ad from Chevron that may help clear the air a bit. You're welcome!

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane Ian causes widespread damage, smashes records as it pummels Florida; Sen. Joe Manchin's controversial permitting reform bill collapses in the U.S. Senate; PG&E under investigation for sparking yet another deadly fire in California; PLUS: Massive, mysterious breaches erupt on Russian natural gas pipelines to Europe... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Click here to listen or download MP3 (6 mins)...

Link:
Embed:

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): Maps Show How Millions Of People Have Moved Into Hurricane Ian’s Path; Mexico Is World's Deadliest Spot For Environmental Activists; Pivotal Supreme Court Term Begins With WOTUS War; Gulf of Mexico’s largest coral sanctuary faces an extreme threat that’s mystifying scientists; Number of Americans Exposed to Harmful Wildfire Smoke Has Increased 27-Fold... PLUS: Feeling Overwhelmed About Going All-Electric at Home? Here’s How to Get Started.... and much, MUCH more! ...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hurricane Ian takes dead aim at Florida; Hurricane Fiona was strongest storm on record to hit Canada; Super Typhoon Noru pummels The Philippines; Americans to pay even more for fossil gas this winter; PLUS: Pacific Island nations call for a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Click here to listen or download MP3 (6 mins)...

Link:
Embed:

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): Sabotage suspected as Russian natural gas leaks from ruptured Nord Stream Pipelines; As irreversible 'tipping points' loom, scientists are trying to figure out how to communicate the risks; Many in Puerto Rico remain without power, 9 days after Fiona hit; Bolsonaro election loss could cut Brazilian Amazon deforestation by 89 percent; Nigeria suffers widespread blackouts after electricity grid fails; Compared to oil and gas, offshore wind is 125 times better for taxpayers; Legal pot is causing a new plastic pollution problem ... PLUS: MIT’s new battery could shock industry ... and much, MUCH more! ...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.N. Secretary-General calls for fossil fuel industry to pay for climate damages; New initiative takes on plastics and the petrochemical industry; Most of Puerto Rico still as no power or clean water after Hurricane Fiona; PLUS: U.S. Senate approves the first climate treaty in decades... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Click here to listen or download MP3 (6 mins)...

Link:
Embed:

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): Manchin's permitting reform is a decoy for ramping up gas; Manchin releases permitting reform package; Fracking won't work in U.K., says CEO of fracking company; Gas, a 'bridge fuel,' dominates U.S. power at any price... PLUS: Rescue efforts are beginning in Tasmania to save more than 200 beached whales.... and much, MUCH more! ...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: New U.N. report warns the world is heading into 'uncharted climate territory'; Summer 2022 was the hottest ever recorded globally; Fast transition to clean energy will save the world $12 trillion, study projects; PLUS: President Biden touts historic climate bill and national EV charging network... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Click here to listen or download MP3 (6 mins)...

Link:
Embed:

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): Judge tosses air permit for giant Formosa Plastics Complex; New documents from oil industry show internal deception; Potential rail worker strike caused by erratic scheduling; Where this ice sheets in Antarctica meet the ground, small changes could have big consequences; Global ‘Stilling’: Is climate change slowing down the wind?; Focusing on the climate actions that can make a real difference; Can solar panels be super-charged?; House Dem leadership scrambles permitting reform effort... PLUS: Billionaire No More: Patagonia founder gives away the company... and much, MUCH more! ...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Historic heat wave strains electric grids in the U.S. West; Russia issues new threat to shut off energy exports to Europe; PLUS: Humanitarian crisis unfolding in Pakistan amid catastrophic flooding... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Click here to listen or download MP3 (6 mins)...

Link:
Embed:

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): Costs of climate change far surpass government estimates, study says; Rising seas could swallow millions of U.S. acres within decades; Thwaites 'Doomsday Glacier' Disintegrating Faster Than Thought; What do we put in the future billions of air conditioners and heat pumps?; Bird Flu Found in Dolphin in Florida and Porpoise in Sweden; How automakers insidiously shaped our cities for cars... PLUS: It Wasn’t Just Oil Companies Spreading Climate Denial --- Utilities Knew, Too.... and much, MUCH more! ...

Years ago, the month of August was considered the slowest news month of the year. Those years are obviously over. [Audio link to full show follows this summary.]

Among the stories covered on today's BradCast...

• There are some huge economic advantages on the horizon for large companies who transition their fleets to all-electric vehicles, including 18-wheelers. A writer at Torque News recently broke down the "staggering economics" in "fuel" savings for a 200-mile trip in the coming-very-soon Tesla Semi. The calculation finds, the costs for such a trip would plummet from about $170 now to just $28 in an all-electric semi-truck, an 83% reduction! (Not to mention the savings in lower maintenance costs "due to no engine and oil changes" and, yes, most critically, savings for the planet in huge cuts to carbon emissions amid our worsening climate crisis!)

• And speaking of climate emergencies...A new federal study out today from the Dept. of Energy largely confirms several recent independent analyses finding the Democrats' newly-signed Inflation Reduction Act --- which invests nearly $400 billion to move the nation from dirty, deadly fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy --- will cut greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change by about 40% by 2030. It will remove more than one billion tons of heat-trapping gasses, including cutting 35 tons for every one that it adds, according to the study. As we discuss, while there are valid criticisms of the law as passed with several giveaways to the fossil fuel industry in order to win Joe Manchin's vote. But ya gotta start somewhere. And this is a very good start. Want even more climate action? (We do!) Then elect more Democrats to Congress this year, since the IRA passed with the barest of Democratic majorities in both chambers of Congress without the support of one single Republican --- a party which still, in 2022, describes climate change as "a hoax"!

• And speaking of denial...On Tuesday in Wyoming, GOP voters elected a Trump-backed 2020 election denier to become the state's next chief election official. Because no Democrat ran for the job, it means the winner on Tuesday, Chuck Gray, will become WY's next Secretary of State. Of course, it's a very Republican state (Trump won 70% of the vote in 2020), but there are now 2020 election deniers running to become chief state election officials in five battlegrounds states: Mark Finchem (Arizona); Kristina Karamo (Michigan); Kim Crockett (Minnesota); Jim Marchant (Nevada); Audrey Trujillo (New Mexico). While the 2022 election will be about a lot of things, it will likely prove to be about the 2024 election --- and the survival of American democracy --- as much as anything else.

• And, speaking of even more election deniers...One GOP 2020 election denier who won't be a Republican Party nominee for Secretary of State this year is Tina Peters. She is the Mesa County, Colorado Clerk who has been indicted on 7 felonies and 3 misdemeanors related to making unlawful copies of her county's sensitive Election Management System Software in the middle of the night, and allowing it to be released to the public to make hacking future elections easier. Last month, Peters ran for the GOP nomination to become Colorado Sec. of State. She lost. By a lot. Nonetheless, she raised $250,000 for a statewide recount and...lost again. She gained just 13 votes in the re-tally out of the 90,000 votes needed to defeat the GOP's nominee, Pam Anderson. (Anderson will run against incumbent Democratic Sec. of State Jena Griswold in November.) But Colorado does statewide recounts by employing the same computers to re-tally hand-marked paper ballots that tallied them (either correctly or incorrectly) in the first place, rather than hand-counting them. While Peters is a duped rightwing loon, even duped rightwing loons deserve to know for certain if they won or lost an election. If candidates are willing to follow the law and raise the money to pay for a hand-count, they should be allowed to have one. Such counts will help, not hurt, to regain confidence in our electoral system after it has been so grievously harmed by the lies of Donald Trump and his party.

• And speaking of hand-recounts...A group of anti-choice activists in Kansas this week had sought a statewide hand-count of the ballot initiative this month that would have rewritten the state Constitutional to allow Republicans to ban abortion rights. The measure failed by a stunning 165,000 votes (18 points), according to computer tallies. But the activists failed to raise the $229,000 needed for a full, statewide count, so they are settling for hand-counts in just nine counties. If supporters of the failed referendum want to spend their money on a hand-count to make sure it really really failed, that's perfectly fine by us, and likely to prove a good thing for our faltering democracy after Trump and his party have worked so hard to undermine confidence in it.

• And speaking of confidence-men...The Trump Organization's longtime Chief Financial Officer, Allen Weisselberg, pleaded guilty in state court on Thursday to all 15 criminal counts related to tax fraud that he was charged with last year, along with the Trump Organization itself, by the Manhattan District Attorney's office. Weisselberg will not be cooperating with prosecutors in their criminal investigation of Trump himself. But he has agreed, as part of his plea deal, to testify truthfully for the prosecution in the company's upcoming fraud trial in October. If he does so, the 75-year old will then be sentenced to just 5 months in Rikers Island, will have to pay nearly $2 million in taxes, penalties and interest, and face five years of probation. He remains an employee of the Trump Organization even after being indicted and even after pleading guilty to all charges.

• And speaking of attempts at accountability for the disgraced former President...A federal magistrate judge in Florida --- the same one who signed the FBI's warrant for a search at Mar-a-Lago last week finding "probable cause" that Trump violated the Espionage Act and several other federal statutes --- is considering the release of a redacted version of the affidavit the Dept. of Justice submitted to obtain the warrant. The DoJ strongly objects to its release, even with redactions. Nonetheless, the Judge ordered the Department to submit a redacted version of the affidavit by next week and said during his bench order that he will consider its release in a "careful process".

• Finally...Desi Doyen joins us for our latest Green News Report following President Biden's signing of the largest single investment to take on the climate crisis by any nation. The historic bill was followed by Massachusetts' Governor signing a sweeping new climate and energy law this week. Both new laws can't have come soon enough, as several other stories Desi covers today, regarding unprecedented water worries in the U.S. West, make abundantly clear...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Historic Inflation Reduction Act passes Congress --- just don't call it a 'climate' bill; Scientists surprised to find trees growing in the rapidly warming Arctic; PLUS: 100 million Americans will live in an 'extreme heat belt' by 2053, study warns... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Click here to listen or download MP3 (6 mins)...

Link:
Embed:

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): New water cuts coming for Southwest as Colorado River falls into Tier 2 shortage; Warming Doubles Risk Of Catastrophic California 'Megaflood'; Climate Refugees a Trickle Now, soon to Be a Flood; Marine Heatwaves Increasingly Intense; Solar is happening. Nuclear is (mostly) not; Why Scientists Have Pumped A Potent Greenhouse Gas Into Public Streams... PLUS: Celebrate the Inflation Reduction Act. Then Double Down on Demonizing Fossil Fuels.... and much, MUCH more! ...

On some days, there is more huge news than others. This is about 10 of those days. With not one, but two absolute blockbuster stories jammed into today's BradCast. [Audio link to full show posted below this summary.]

On Friday, a federal judge unsealed the warrant obtained by the FBI and DOJ to search Trump's Mar-a-Lago compound for classified documents earlier this week. We have now learned that law enforcement officials collected some 11 sets of classified documents from the former President's Florida residence on Monday. Several of them were marked "TOP SECRET/SCI" (Sensitive Compartmented Information), the highest level of security classification. That's an even higher level of secrecy than merely "Top Secret". In all, agents collected four sets of "top secret" docs, three sets of "secret" docs and three marked "confidential", the lowest classification. (The latter, akin to the classification level of a handful of emails sent to Hillary Clinton's private email server when she served as Sec. of State.)

It is currently unknown if any of the sensitive and highly classified documents regarded nuclear secrets or not, as Washington Post reported exclusively on Thursday night.

But the arguably larger blockbuster part of this news is the specific crimes detailed in the warrant, for which DOJ officials sought it in the first place and for which they were required to show "probable cause" to the federal judge. Specially, the warrant reveals that Trump was being investigated for at least three different violations of the United States criminal code. As the Times' Charlie Savage summarizes: "Section 793, better known as the Espionage Act, which covers the unlawful retention of defense-related information that could harm the United States or aid a foreign adversary; Section 1519, which covers destroying or concealing documents to obstruct government investigations or administrative proceedings; and Section 2071, which covers the unlawful removal of government records."

"Notably," Savage adds, "none of those laws turn on whether information was deemed to be unclassified." That is important, of course, because the Trumpers have been claiming over the last day or so that the disgraced former President declassified all the materials before he stole them from the White House. In fact, whether he did or didn't (and that is likely to be of MUCH dispute), it may not matter when prosecuting the Espionage Act, as well as Obstruction, and the Unlawful Removal of Government Documents.

For the record, Julius and Ethel Rosenberg were put to death in 1953 for violations of the Espionage Act.

While all of that is blockbuster enough for one show, receiving much less coverage today is a another of arguably even greater consequence: Democrats (and ONLY Democrats) in the U.S. House on Friday passed the Inflation Reduction Act, including a landmark $370 billion investment to battle climate change. It is the largest such single investment in history by any nation. Moreover the Act includes a ton of other longtime progressive priorities, such as the ability to negotiate Medicare drug prices with Big Pharma, price caps on prescriptions for the elderly, the expansion of Obamacare premium subsidies, new taxes on hugely profitable corporations currently paying zero in taxes and much more. It even puts hundreds of billions toward deficit reduction.

The historic measure, the central pillar of Joe Biden and the Democrats' economic agenda, was passed last weekend in the Senate, also with zero Republican votes, and now heads to the President for his signature.

We are joined today by the great DAVID ROBERTS, who has spent too many years writing about the confluence of politics, climate and energy for many different publications. He now publishes the Volts newsletter and podcast after having joined us at various times over the past 15 years or so to discuss climate matters and what, until now, had been a bevy of failed federal climate and energy policies. Today, however, for the first time, we've got something very real to celebrate which, he suggests, is likely to be a game changer in the fight to mitigate climate change.

"The shortest way to put it," he tells me, in response to my request for his top-line reaction to this bill, "If you recall Obama's stimulus bill, it contained about $90 billion for clean energy. That bill is responsible for kicking off an absolute firestorm of growth in both those markets [solar and wind], basically helping to bring their costs down below fossil fuels and revolutionizing the US energy landscape. That was $90 billion mostly on wind and solar. Now we're talking about $370 BILLION on wind, solar, hydrogen, batteries, go on down the list. So just the math of it, this is going to spur another revolution in US energy."

We discuss the various mechanisms by which this sprawling new law will reduce U.S. greenhouse gas emissions by 40% by 2030 which he sees as likely a minimum of cuts in the deadly pollution driving our worsening climate crisis. All of which, he describes as "miraculous," given the surprising way it all came about just days ago.

"As you know, about a week ago we were staring in the face of a big goose egg from Congress, a big nothing," Roberts recalls. But that changed when Majority Leader Chuck Schumer struck a deal after secret negotiations with, of all people, Sen. Joe Manchin from the coal state of West Virginia. "So this really is the difference between almost total failure on climate and something very close to the level of success that I would have hoped for and dreamed for."

Roberts walks through several of the key points in the bill that he believes will make the greatest difference in our efforts to cut emissions at the federal as well as state and local level.

"One of the most important aspects of this bill is the transformative effects it's going to have on our political economy. It's going to change politics," he argues. "I like to draw the analogy with the defense industry in the US. They are horrific and evil, but they are very savvy in one way, which is that they spread their investments across all 50 states. So then you have 50 states defending defense spending --- which is obnoxious, but it's a good strategy." It's one that he believes will now be echoed in the renewable energy industry, making it much harder to kill in the future, even in --- and, perhaps especially in --- "red" states.

Roberts also concurs with the explanation climate scientist Dr. Michael Mann offered on this show earlier this week, when explained how the bill's incentives work, largely by turning "carrots" (financial incentives) to encourage renewable energy production into "sticks" that will ultimately take down the deadly fossil fuel industry now that they will face real, cleaner and cheaper competition.

"It's a giant bag of carrots," Roberts quips. "The idea, the theory of change, is that these carrots will accelerate the development of renewable energy even further, even faster, and it's going to undercut the economics of fossil fuels even further, even faster. And so fossil fuels are just going to lose on the market." He goes on to add this key point: "One of the things the models find is this bill is going to cause a net reduction in US demand for oil and gasoline for the first time ever. Ever!"

Of course, there are some progressives who have been critical of the bill's giveaways to the fossil fuel industry, included in the 755-page measure in order to win the needed 50th vote in the Senate of Joe Manchin. Those measures "suck," Roberts concurs, even as many on the left have been (purposely?) misinformed about some of those provisions.

"In the grand scheme of things, in the big picture, they are relatively marginal compared to the massive, massive boost that this is going to give clean energy, and the massive amount of emissions it's going to reduce. There is no credible argument otherwise. This is absolutely a net win."

So, yeah. An absolutely historic day --- on at least two remarkable stories...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: South Korea the latest victim of climate-intensified deadly flash floods; July was one of the hottest ever recorded; Republican state treasurers coordinating to block climate action by private companies; PLUS: Mexico declares state of emergency over intensifying persistent drought... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Click here to listen or download MP3 (6 mins)...

Link:
Embed:

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 biggest climate ghouls of the 2022 midterms; House starts process for climate bill passage; Rainwater everywhere on Earth unsafe to drink due to 'forever chemicals', study finds; In Amazon, a UN development agency partners with oil industry to quash opposition; Europe's energy crisis may get a lot worse; Flash floods overwhelm Denver, D.C. Metro; EPA launches civil rights probes of Texas air quality regulator; Conceding to Manchin, U.S. climate bill exempts most oil industry from methane fees... PLUS: Deepwater Horizon spill oil residue still present, 10 years later... and much, MUCH more! ...

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: GNR Special Coverage: U.S. Senate Democrats pass landmark climate legislation, the first in U.S. history... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Click here to listen or download MP3 (6 mins)...

Link:
Embed:

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): Biden surveys flood damage in Kentucky, pledges more US help; 'The Biggest Uncertainty Is Us': sustainable choices must become the easiest, most affordable ones; Don't listen to the climate doomists: 'end times' narrative only benefits fossil fuel interests; Why it took Congress so long to act on climate; Mexico desparate for water while beverage companies drain aquifers; EPA finds history of DDT dumping off of L.A.'s coast even worse than expected; Study connects climate hazards to nearly 60 percent of infectious diseases; Renewed shelling around Ukraine's largest nuclear plant raises new fears... PLUS: Peter Dykstra: The Birth of Greenwashing... and much, MUCH more! ...

We've been joined countless times over the years on The BradCast by renowned Penn State climate scientist DR. MICHAEL E. MANN. Given the circumstances, he is always remarkably optimistic. Today, there was really something for him to be optimistic about. [Audio link to full show is posted below this summary.]

The U.S. Senate held its first hearings on climate change 36 years ago --- led by a Republican Senator from Rhode Island at the time --- and attended by a then new Senator from Tennessee by the name of Al Gore. They were warned, as Washington Post's front page reported at the time, that pollution from the burning of fossil fuels would result in a "greenhouse effect" that would cause the globe to warm "to a level which has not existed on Earth in the past 100,000 years."

Two years later, in 1988, they were warned again by NASA scientist, Dr. James Hansen, that evidence was found that the warming had already begun. "The global warming is now large enough that we can ascribe, with a high degree of confidence, a cause and effect relationship to the greenhouse effect."

"There is no longer any significant difference of opinion within the scientific community about the fact that the greenhouse effect is real and already occurring," Gore made clear at the time, following a conference held in 1985 in Austria which concluded that "as a result of the increasing greenhouse gases it is now believed that in the first half of the next century (21st century) a rise of global mean temperature could occur which is greater than in any man’s history."

Long story short, pretty much everything the scientists warned about has come to pass, much of it even sooner than predicted. And yet, over the ensuing decades the fossil fuel industry has fully captured the Republican Party to the extent that not a single one of them voted over the weekend for the most substantive climate bill ever adopted by the U.S. Senate. The only such bill ever adopted by the Senate, in fact. It only took 36 years, and a tie-breaking vote from the Democratic Vice President, but they did it.

On Sunday, after 16-hours of overnight debate and attempted amendments, the Senate passed the dubiously-named Inflation Reduction Act, so named largely to win the vote of coal state Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin. The spending bill will do a lot, including allowing Medicare to negotiate prescription drug prices; put a $,2000 annual cap on prescription drug costs for seniors on Medicare; put a $35/month cap on insulin costs for those on government insurance who have diabetes (Republicans forced Dems to kill that provision for those with private insurance); add a new 15% minimum tax on corporations whose annual profits are more than one billion dollars; tax major corporations for buying back their own stock instead of investing in their companies; and it will also pay down the deficit by hundreds of millions of dollars over the next ten years.

But, most importantly, the Act will invest at least $370 billion to combat climate change with incentives for individuals, states and business alike. It will, according to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer and Manchin --- and several independent analyses --- cut the greenhouse gas emissions we were warned about decades ago, by about 40% by 2030.

"It is a good day, let's not make any bones about that," says Mann today on the show. "This is, by far, the most aggressive climate legislation --- in fact, the only meaningful climate legislation that has ever passed the U.S. Senate."

"Let's be clear: this isn't the solution. It's not like we've solved the climate crisis. There's a whole lot more work that's left to be done," the author of more than160 peer-reviewed and edited scientific publications and author of more than half a dozen books on the climate crisis tells us. "We need at least 50% reductions by [2030] if we are to stay on course to keeping warming below a really catastrophic 3 degrees Fahrenheit. So there's a lot more work to be done, and there are some things in the bill that some of us wish weren't there. There are some incentives for fossil fuel interests when it comes to drilling leases and pipeline construction, a few bones that were thrown in to get the support of a coal-state Democratic Senator in Joe Manchin." Nonetheless, the bill --- which still must pass the Democrat-controlled House on Friday --- "represents significant progress."

"If you want more progress, if you want more aggressive legislation --- and I certainly do and I think we should expect it --- then we need a larger majority in the U.S. Senate that can pass more aggressive climate legislation," Mann explains. In fact, not one single Republican voted for the measure. It was passed with the barest of majorities. All 50 Senators who caucus with the Democrats (and who, shockingly, stayed unified), plus the vote of the Vice President Kamala Harris.

Mann discusses both the upsides and downside of the bill, including the measures that could expand the use of fossil fuels in order to win the vote of Manchin. But, he asserts, the "carrots" to get off of fossil fuels, as included in the bill, are likely to become "sticks". "If the carrot works, it becomes a stick. Which is to say, if we incentivize renewable energy enough, then fossil fuel energy is no longer competitive."

Of course, he's got much more insight on the measure and what needs to be done moving forward. But it's a start that is "real" and "tangible." he argues. And it only took 36 years to get here --- not a moment too soon.

We open up the phones to some thoughts from callers on all of this today and, of course, our own Desi Doyen has a few as well. A "good day" indeed. We'll take it.

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Back-to-back extreme storms reveal the U.S. is not ready for climate impacts; Climate change is increasing summertime humidity; Big corporations launch ad blitz to sink Democrats' landmark budget deal; PLUS: America's first-ever national EV charging network is on its way... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Click here to listen or download MP3 (6 mins)...

Link:
Embed:

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 Manchin climate deal is both a big win and a deal with the Devil; Why utilities are lining up behind the climate bill; 'They are not slowing down': The rise of billion-dollar disasters; China has a new global development initiative; A hiker tried to burn a spider and sparked a wildfire in Utah; Will a Nile Canal project dry up Africa's largest wetland?; How coal mining and years of neglect left Kentucky towns at the mercy of flooding; 'Apocalyptic skies': the dust storms devastating Gulf states and Syria; Why the Texas grid causes the High Plains to turn off its wind turbines; Inside the fight over California's last nuclear power plant... PLUS: Hyperion, world's tallest tree, now off-limits to visitors... and much, MUCH more! ...

While voters were at the polls for primary elections in six states (Arizona, Kansas, Ohio, Michigan, Missouri and Washington) on Tuesday, we take the moment to turn to foreign affairs for a hot minute on today's BradCast.

Happily, few problems were reported for voters at the polls in those six states --- at least that we could find so far today --- beyond another predictable failure of electronic poll books, this time across Mohave County, AZ, for about six hours when polls opened. More issues may reveal themselves before tomorrow, or thereafter, of course. Meanwhile, there are a whole bunch of far-right, Trump-backed, 2020 election deniers on the ballot today, with several running for critical offices such as Governor, Sec. of State and the U.S. Senate. All of which, if those candidates win on Tuesday and again this November, could cause very serious problems for democracy itself in 2024. We'll pick all of that up on tomorrow's show, with whatever noteworthy reported results may be available by then.

But today, we had the opportunity circle back to Russia's ongoing war with it's sovereign neighbor Ukraine, now entering it's sixth horrific month following Russia's invasion on February 24. If you follow most Western media, Ukraine's military is making valiant if deadly headway in pushing back at over-extended and exhausted Russian troops in the South, while Russia presses its offensive in the East.

If you follow Kremlin-controlled media, this is a war special military operation that can never be won by Ukraine, and continues to threaten expansion into a global conflict, including the use of nuclear weapons, as Russia takes great pains to note --- on an alarmingly regular basis.

But, it's not only Russian-controlled media suggesting the war is ultimately unwinnable for Ukraine. A number of foreign policy-centered Western media outlets and think-tanks have long argued similarly in a push for peace talks and a ceasefire in the now war-torn nation of Ukraine.

There was some good news this week, in that an agreement brokered by Turkey and the U.N. between the two warring nations last month has resulted in ships carrying Ukrainian grain finally able to leave port to deliver food around the world. Russian ships will also be allowed to do so through safe corridors established amid mined waters in the Black Sea. If the agreement holds, millions of tons of grain and other agricultural products will finally be able to flow from "the breadbasket of Europe" to help ease rising global food prices and the threat of hunger and political instability in developing nations.

The first ship to leave port on Monday was "loaded with two commodities in short supply: corn and hope," as U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described it. Beyond that, there is not much to be hopeful about in the protracted conflict.

Writing at The National Interest over the weekend, veteran foreign policy experts and former U.S. National Security officials Steven Simon and Jonathon Stevenson made the case for diplomacy. They called on the U.S. to help encourage a negotiated settlement by making clear to Ukraine that "Neither side can fulfill its maximal war aims" and they must find opportunities for peace talks and, if possible, a cessation of hostilities, despite Vladimir Putin's apparent disinclination to negotiate.

"It is well and good for the United States and its NATO allies to keep arming Ukraine. But it is also time to encourage both sides to start exploring possibilities for a political solution before escalation puts diplomacy even farther from reach," the pair conclude. "And unless the United States and NATO condition military assistance on Ukraine’s constructive political engagement, they will lack the leverage to work effectively towards a stable objective."

But is such a demand appropriate or even possible under the current conditions in the war torn nation? Isn't it up to Ukraine --- which has lost so much in blood, treasure and sovereign territory --- not the U.S. or NATO, to decide when and if Ukraine is ready to negotiate an end to the war?

Those are just some of the difficult and nuanced questions we discuss with our guest today, GEORGE BEEBE, Director of Grand Strategy (yes, I know, an ominous sounding title!) at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft, one of our go-to think-tanks for smart, no-nonsense foreign policy solutions.

Beebe's is the author of 2019's The Russia Trap: How Our Shadow War with Russia Could Spiral into Nuclear Catastrophe. He served over two decades in the U.S. government as an intelligence analyst, diplomat, and policy advisor, including as director of the CIA’s Russia analysis and as an advisor on Russia to Vice President Dick Cheney. (Yes, we discuss both of those ominous matters --- his work with the CIA and for Cheney --- as well!)

Among the questions and issues Beebe speaks to today: His concern that there is no real exit plan for our current strategy, not unlike the lack of a U.S. plan when we launched the Iraq War in 2003; Is it true that there is no way for Ukraine to "win" this war? That the only way is via diplomacy?; Should it be up to the U.S. and NATO, who are supplying much-needed armaments to help Ukraine defend itself, to decide when Ukraine should negotiate towards a settlement? Or should that remain Ukraine's sole decision?; Does Russia even have an interest in negotiations?; What should we learn from their repeated reminders that a continuation of the war could lead to a potentially nuclear expansion?; And, since it's actually a somewhat related matter, what does Beebe make of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi's controversial visit on Tuesday to Taiwan, and what effect is that likely to have on the Russia/Ukraine conflict?

"This is a very complex issue," Beebe tells me on the matter of the United States' own culpability in the matter. "Most foreign policy issues don't have single factor origins. They're usually the result of a confluence of different forces. What's happened in Russia's invasion of Ukraine is that it is the culmination of a series of developments, missteps on the part of a lot of different players over time, that all contributed to the situation that we're facing today."

"That doesn't excuse the Russians and it doesn't excuse Putin from making the choice to invade Ukraine. I think he is fully responsible for that choice, regardless of what preceded it. It didn't have to happen," he argues. But "Russia certainly has what I regard as understandable security concerns...That doesn't mean that the invasion was justified [or] that the manner in which this operation was carried out was at all justifiable."

"But I also would not say that Putin simply woke up in February and said, 'Hey, I would like to invade Ukraine.' There was a lot that went into shaping that decision, and I think a lot of blame on both the Russian and the Western sides."

As you can tell, there is much to discuss and try to make sense of with the Director of Grand Strategy at the Quincy Institute today. I hope you'll tune in for it!

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us today for our latest Green News Report, with more on the potentially "game changing" compromise bill hashed out by Senator Joe Manchin with Senate Majority leader Chuck Schumer last week, to invest an historic $370 billion in incentives to help us move from fossil fuels to clean, renewable energy in hopes of mitigating our worsening climate emergency; And, on the latest deadly costs of that ongoing emergency across the U.S., as Big Oil --- whose product, and decades of lies about it, are at the heart of the crisis --- declare their most profitable quarter in history...

CLICK TO LISTEN OR DOWNLOAD SHOW!...

MONTHLY BRAD BLOG SUBSCRIPTION	ONE-TIME DONATION
Choose monthly amount... $10 : $10.00 USD - monthly$20 : $20.00 USD - monthly$50 : $50.00 USD - monthly$100 : $100.00 USD - monthly	(Snail mail support to "Brad Friedman, 7095 Hollywood Blvd., #594 Los Angeles, CA 90028" always welcome too!)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Death toll rises in catastrophic Kentucky flooding; Extreme heat and wildfires sear the U.S. West; Good times for Big Oil; PLUS: Manchin-Schumer compromise bill could be a game changer for climate... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Click here to listen or download MP3 (6 mins)...

Link:
Embed:

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): Electricity rates' shocking rise: it's the fossil fuels, stupid; Feds reverse Trump decision opening up Central California lands to drilling; Scientists say it is 'foolish' to not study catastrophic outcomes; What are 'flash droughts' and why are they so destructive?; House Passes 48-Bill Wildfire-Protection Package; Chemical Recycling Bills Gain Momentum and Opposition in States... PLUS: A Dead Climate Denial Meme is Dead Again... and much, MUCH more! ...