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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Saudi Arabia declines to help US oil producers survive oil's downturn; Big Coal's new trick to get out of paying retired miners' pensions; Sea levels rising faster than at any time in the last 3,000 years; PLUS: Microsoft billionaire Bill Gates proposes billion-dollar breakthrough energy research fund --- so why aren't renewable energy experts happy?... 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): Pesticide Combo Impacts Often Greater Than Sum of Parts; Longest Global Coral Bleaching On Record Isn’t Over Yet; Presumed dead, wild Atlantic salmon return to the Connecticut River; Increased flooding in US coastal cities caused by climate change, study says; Water emergency in Peruvian Amazon after 3,000-barrel oil spill contaminates 2 rivers; EPA asks Volkswagen to make electric cars in U.S; Tesla: GM wrote a bill in Indiana to stop us from selling cars in the state; ... PLUS: Kiribati looks to artificial islands to save nation from rising sea levels... and much, MUCH more! ...

First up on today's BradCast, Republicans vow to continue their unprecedented obstructionism of Obama's Constitutional duty to nominate and appoint a U.S. Supreme Court Justice, as well as the President's new plan, sent to Congress today, to close the Guantanamo Bay 'terrorist' detention facility.

We discuss whether the GOP's unpopular hard line on blocking any SCOTUS nominee by Obama can hold, have a laugh at the cowards and hypocrites who are frightened of closing Gitmo, and examine how much Congressional Democrats are also to blame for the entire matter.

Then, we're joined by Vox.com's Brad Plumer (because there can never be enough Brads on The BradCast!) to discuss the enormous consequences of Justice Antonin Scalia's death on the planet and Obama's landmark Clean Power Plan --- the first ever greenhouse gas emissions standards for power plants in the U.S.

As a number of scientists recently noted, the policy decisions made today will have grave implications for 10,000 years and the survival of human civilization. That, however, hasn't stopped a number of fossil fuel companies and a whole bunch of Republican-run states from attempting to block Obama's new environmental standard. Nor did it keep Scalia from voting with a narrow Rightwing 5 to 4 majority on the Supreme Court to take the unprecedented step of staying Obama's EPA rule before the case had even been heard in the lower D.C. Circuit Court.

As Plumer explains, Scalia's death may end up being very good news indeed for the future of the planet. Nonetheless, questions persist about how so-called "red states" may now respond, as well as how the world will react if the U.S. is unable to keep up its part of the UN's landmark Paris Agreement to cut emissions worldwide.

"That is a huge question," Plumer tells me. "It would be very difficult for us to meet our goals without this rule, so the question is how do other countries react? Do China and India decide, 'Okay, the U.S. has had bit of a setback, but we want to keep pushing on ahead toward clean energy because we think it's beneficial"? Or do they decide that they throw up their hands and say, 'Well, if the US isn't going to do what it promised to do, we sure as hell don't need to do what we promised to do'?"

The former Washington Post energy reporter also offers insight as to whether it'll be "fatal" to U.S. attempts to curb emissions if the CPP is struck down; whether Rush Limbaugh was right when he recently declared that the CPP's goal of curbing emissions by some 30% below 2005 levels before 2030 is "not possible without going back to the Stone Age"; and whether, even if the CPP is allowed to move forward, the new emissions stndards will be enough to prevent the quickly growing effects of global warming.

Finally, Desi Doyen joins us for the latest Green News Report with news on fracking earthquakes in Oklahoma, Sanders' and Clinton's dueling vows to cut fossil fuel drilling, some accountability for the Freedom Industries CEO responsible for poisoning the drinking water of 300,000 in West Virginia in 2014, and the largest cyclone ever recorded in the Southern Hemisphere which slammed into Fiji over the weekend...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Oklahoma finally acts to reduce man-made fracking earthquakes; Bernie Sanders promises to end fossil fuel drilling on public lands; Hillary Clinton promises to end drilling off the Atlantic coast; Slap on the wrist for 'Freedom Industries' CEO responsible for West Virginia chemical spill; PLUS: Tropical Cyclone Winston smashes record for strongest hurricane ever in Southern Hemisphere... 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): Want to fight climate change? Here are the 7 critical life changes you should make; Seas are rising way faster than any time in past 2,800 years; Legionnaires’ Outbreak in Flint Was Met With Silence; Arctic Sea Ice Is in Record Low Territory (Again); EPA Asks Volkswagen To Make Electric Cars In U.S.; China To Close More Than 1,000 Coal Mines In 2016; Two PA Families take toxic fracking water contamination case to trial... PLUS: Kiribati looks to artificial islands to save nation from rising sea levels... and much, MUCH more! ...

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SPECIAL NOTE: Though we didn't have time to mention as much in today's report, this is our 7TH ANNIVERSARY episode of the Green News Report and our 670th(!) episode overall! Wow. Please feel free to drop an Anniversary gift into THE TIP JAR so that we can afford to keep connecting the climate change dots in a way that nobody in the corporate media (or even many in the alt media, in truth) have been able to over such an extended period! And thank you all for your years of past and future support! --- B&D

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: President Obama says rest of world disturbed by our GOP Presidential candidates; New study finds air pollution kills nearly 6 million people a year globally; January 2016 was the hottest January on record; West Virginia is 40 percent flatter now, thanks to coal mining; PLUS: The renewable energy revolution is happening faster than anyone predicted.... 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): Washington Asks If Railroads Could Afford $700M Oil Train Spill; Ohio EPA Fires Two Over Sebring Lead Contamination; Wyoming Says Its Coal Mine Cleanup Policy Is Flawed; Study Ties U.S. to Spike in Global Methane Emissions; Pipeline Corrosion Caused Santa Barbara Oil Spill; Oklahoma Cracks Down On Injection Wells After Earthquake Spike; Contaminated Flint Water Among Most Expensive In The U.S.; Study Flags Concerns CO2 Underground Stores Could Leak... PLUS: Latest moose count provides little good news... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The passing of Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia leaves U.S. climate action --- and the planet --- hanging in the balance; Hillary Clinton calls for assistance for Coal Country; Bernie Sanders keeps hammering Republicans on climate change; Game-changing affordable electric cars coming next year! PLUS: The worst natural gas leak in U.S. history is finally plugged.... 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): Organic diet cuts pesticide exposure in children; L.A. gas leak plugged, but California pipelines regularly leak; Gasoline keeps getting dirtier while alternatives keep getting cleaner; How the Climate Challenge Could Derail a Brilliant Human Destiny; Utilities just declared war on solar; New Bill Would Clean Up Abandoned Coal Mines And Jump Start The Appalachian Economy; Arizona loses 25 percent of solar jobs in 2015; Texas cities ask federal officials to cancel drilling leases; How utility executives see the future of the electricity business... PLUS: The decisions we make about climate change today will reverberate for millennia. No pressure.... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Bernie Sanders slams Republicans on climate change denial after landslide New Hampshire win; In unprecedented move, U.S. Supreme Court halts historic new emissions standards for power plants --- for now; U.N. moves ahead anyway on emissions standards for the airline industry; PLUS: Heat wave in the Arctic, as winter sea ice hits lowest extent ever recorded... 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): Supreme Court’s climate stay may imperil Paris Climate Accord; Wall St.'s Water: hedge fund manager betting on water in the West; Oregon Standoff occupiers say they'll turn themselves in; House passes bill forcing EPA to move faster on lead-tainted water; Snyder ordered DEQ to withhold Flint lead test results; Flint E-Mails: CDC voiced concerns over Legionnaires' actions; Dengue Fever an ‘emergency’ on Hawaii’s Big Island... PLUS: Microbead pollution harms oysters, ocean's ecosystem engineers... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Hillary Clinton pushes Congress to act on the Flint Water Crisis; Donald Trump calls out Republican hypocrisy on eminent domain; Bernie Sanders fights to stop oil and gas pipelines in New Hampshire and Vermont; PLUS: President Obama proposes a ten dollar per barrel tax on oil, and fossil fuel industry heads explode... 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): U.N. Agency Proposes Limits on Airlines’ Carbon Emissions; Sea-Level Rise 'Could Last Twice As Long As Human History'; New Federal Gas Storage Rules Likely to Mimic Industry's Guidelines; Obama Proposing Clean-Water Cuts Amid Flint Outcry; Gulf Of Mexico Open For Fish-Farming Business; Australia 'Isolated' From Global Research After CSIRO Climate Cuts; Half-Built Nuclear Fuel Plant in S. Carolina Faces Test on Its Future; Chlorine Trains Pose an Even Deadlier Threat Than Oil Trains... PLUS: 'Wrong type of trees' in Europe increased global warming... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Democrats keep pushing climate action, Republicans keep ignoring it; FL mayors beg Marco Rubio to address rising sea levels; CA Attorney General files criminal suit over massive Porter Ranch gas leak; PLUS: Plenty of blame to go around as FBI launches investigation into Flint's Water Crisis... 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): Klamath River dams moving toward removal despite congressional barriers; Review reveals problems protecting workers from pesticides; Are bee-killing pesticides impacting our health?; Peabody Coal clean-up protections questioned in Illinois; Appeals Court orders EPA to issue rules on mining cleanups and bankruptcy; Industrial chemical finds its way into Great Lakes trout; Climate change poses threat to fish stocks, study finds... PLUS: Conservationists sue federal wolf-killing program in Oregon... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, the latest news in the Presidential contest, including two GOP candidates dropping out today, newly scheduled Democratic debates, new polling since Iowa, and new charges from Donald Trump that Ted Cruz "stole" the GOP's Iowa caucuses!

I also speak with Mayor Cindy Lerner of Pinecrest, FL today, about the open letter [PDF] she recently sent, with 14 other Mayors from across the Sunshine State, to Marco Rubio, seeking a meeting with the Florida U.S. Senator, now a leading candidate for the 2016 GOP Presidential nomination, decrying his flip-flops on climate action.

Rubio, as Lerner explains, was once in favor of action to stave off the worst effects of global warming --- such as the sea level rise already encroaching on south Florida towns like Lerner's --- before he decided to run for President and become a climate change denier.

"Marco Rubio and all the Republican candidates who are in denial, it's really part of a campaign strategy, an ideology, that ignores the reality of the consequences we're facing," she tells me.

Lerner notes that where Republicans in Florida had once actual lead on Climate Change, since Republican Gov. Rick Scott took office in 2011, state GOPers have almost completely reversed course. That, even as the "very porous geology that the peninsula of Florida was built on" is already taking on more salt water than can be handled as sea levels rise and "100-year storms" are now "coming several times a year."

"Our infrastructure was never built to contemplate addressing the capacity needs that we now find ourselves in," she explains. "We are literally drowning here in South Florida and have no leadership, clearly, at the state level, and have to rely on our next President understanding the risk that we, and the other coastal communities all over this country, are facing."

She describes Rubio's new position of denial as "beyond disappointing," adding: "It's really disgusting to listen to somebody that we well know he knows better. He's just reading from a script that he thinks is going to help him get into higher office."

"We are ground zero," she says about her Village of Pinecrest and the other towns and cities whose Mayors signed on to the letter seeking a meeting with Rubio. "We are the canary in the coal mine, so to speak, of what's going to be happening throughout the United States, and he needs to stand up and lead on these initiatives."

Download MP3 or listen to complete show online below...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Sen. Ted Cruz promises to eliminate all energy subsidies --- but there's a catch; Sen. Marco Rubio was for climate action, before he was against it; Crashing oil prices blow a billion-dollar hole in North Dakota's budget; PLUS: Bad news for salmon, good news for solar, in California... 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): Amid denials, state workers in Flint got clean water; FBI joins drinking water investigation; SEC criticized for lax enforcement of climate risk disclosure; WHO declares Zikia virus a public health emergency; Historic deal to protect Canadian rainforest from logging;
G.E. to phase out C.F.L. lightbulbs... PLUS: SoCal Gas knew Aliso Canyon wells were deteriorating a year before leak... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Democratic Presidential candidates focus on climate and clean energy in Iowa; Florida mayors ask Florida Senator and Presidential Candidate Marco Rubio to stop ignoring climate change; Flint, MI residents stuck with corroded pipes and contaminated water, for now; It's not just Flint --- poor Americans bear the brunt of the most toxic pollution; PLUS: Score one for coal miners in the fight against black lung disease... 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 was us or nobody': Meet the heroic professor who helped uncover the Flint lead water crisis; U.S. Senate begins hearings on comprehensive bipartisan energy bill; 3 more arrests in Oregon Standoff; Canada delays two pipeline projects; Air regulator sues California gas utility over historic methane leak; Ohio town also has high lead contamination in their water; Saudi Arabia keeps pumping oil despite financial and political risks... PLUS: Canadian scientists warn of pesticide risk to bees... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The Great Blizzard of 2016 cripples the East Coast; Yes, it was turbo-charged by global warming as oceans now warming at an alarming rate; Obama's Clean Power Plan survives first court challenge; U.S. can cut emissions 80 percent in just 15 years with existing tech; New rules curb methane emissions for drillers and frackers; PLUS: China overtakes Germany as the solar leader of the world... 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): Meet the heroic professor who helped uncover the Flint lead water crisis; EPA official resigns over Flint water crisis; Supreme Court upholds FERC demand response electricity management; Zika virus will spread throughout Americas; Sea level rise from ocean warming underestimated; New York village has trail of cancer leading to water supplies; Monsanto sues to keep herbicide off CA carcinogen list... PLUS: Tribes oppose massive pipeline expansion... and much, MUCH more! ...

Today on The BradCast: The national media is still missing the disturbing anti-democratic problem at the center of the Flint, MI lead-poisoning disaster; New, kind of amazing, poll numbers out of Iowa for both Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders; The GOP establishment continues to warm up to Trump...and much more.

First up, we're joined by Connor Coyne, Flint resident, father and novelist, to discuss his detailed article at Vox on "what the national media got wrong" in their coverage of the city's disastrous and continuing water crisis.

Coyne, who is a stay-at-home dad, says that while his two young daughters appear to be fine at the moment, "Nothing is definitive. And, in a way, that is part of what makes this such a scary experience for all of us. We don't know now, and really will not know for quite some time, how extensive the damage is."

"Flint now has hundreds, possibly thousands, of kids who are going to be dealing with the consequences of this crisis for the rest of their lives," he tells me. "They could live to be 90 years old, they could move anywhere in the world, they're going to be dealing with lead poisoning their entire lives." He adds: "If there is one organization I'd like to give a boost to it's FlintKids.org," a local organization collecting funds to help with medical support that the children of Flint are going to need for a very long time.

Coyne then goes on to explain how this disaster came about, thanks directly to Michigan's appalling, undemocratic "Emergency Manager" system that allows Governor Rick Snyder (R), to unilaterally appoint anyone of his choosing to completely replace local democratically-elected officials, including the Mayor and the entire City Council, in any city he likes, for whatever reason he determines.

It was, in fact, one of Snyder's hand-selected Emergency Managers who switched the city's water supply from the clean Lake Huron to the corrosive Flint River without bothering to put the appropriate filtering system first. As he notes at Vox, it's "inconceivable" that this problem would have occurred or, at least, gone this horribly wrong, "had Flint residents been able to threaten incumbents at the ballot box." But with the Emergency Manager system, there is no such accountability.

"Flint may be the most dramatic example of that system having gone wrong," he tells me. "But I think about all of the cities that have been under Emergency Managers --- Pontiac, Detroit [also Highland Park, Benton Harbor and elsewhere] --- it hasn't really gone right anywhere. Emergency Management doesn't work ethically, but it also doesn't work practically. It just flat out does not work."

Coyne explains how voter turnout has been getting "worse and worse and worse since" Flint's Emergency Manager was installed and, of course, why shouldn't it? Elected officials are stripped of all power under Snyder's tyrannical system. We also discuss how voters, state-wide, voted to do away with the Emergency Manager law in a statewide referendum back in 2012, only to see it immediately re-implemented by state Republicans in an almost identical form --- though with an added provision that legally bars the law from repeal by voter referendum.

Where are the "Tea Partiers" and "Patriot Movement" and "Militiamen" now? And how can it be that even the Washington Post, who reported on this story in December after well over a year of poisonous drinking and cooking and bathing water in Flint, didn't even bother to use the words "Emergency Manager" in their coverage? Unfortunately, WaPo wasn't alone either, as we discuss in our enlightening, if disturbing, interview today.

Also on today's show: The GOP establishment continues to warm up to Donald Trump (because, in no small part, they despise Ted Cruz even more); New polling numbers out of Iowa show fairly remarkable surges for both Trump and Bernie Sanders (though the poll's specific type of sampling may be key in both cases here); Vets blast Sarah Palin for blaming her son's domestic violence arrest and PTSD on President Obama; And Desi Doyen joins us for the Green News Report on the hottest year ever recorded on Planet Earth and much more...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Surprise! 2015 was the hottest year ever recorded on Planet Earth; MI Gov. Rick Snyder apologizes and promises action for the lead-poisoned residents of Flint; New York breaks up with coal; Denmark sets a new world wind power record; PLUS: More bad news for Big Oil... 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): Graphs of the Day: The Pause no More; EPA shuffles its feet over bee die-offs; No jail time for Delta 5 in historic civil disobedience case; Global fish catch drastically under-reported; Canadian sue to stop wolf hunts by helicopter; Did EPA fail to protect community from environmental racism?; UT representative announces bill proposing Bundy-style land seizures... PLUS: Fox anchor, guest suggest government focus on climate change and "PC stuff" helped cause Flint water crisis... and much, MUCH more! ...

On today's BradCast, live from the KPFK/Pacifica Radio studios in Los Angeles...

• NASA and NOAA announce that 2015 is, officially, the hottest year ever recorded on Planet Earth --- beating out the previous global heat record from 2014...by a mile. But, why worry?
• Michigan Gov. Rick Snyder apologizes for poisoning the people of Flint, but not for the tyranny.
• Sarah Palin endorses Donald Trump in Iowa, but is then a no-show, as her son is arrested for domestic violence after punching his girlfriend, holding an AR-15 to his head and threatening to kill himself.
• Several new efforts for disclosure of "dark money" in our political system on the 6th anniversary of the infamous Citizens United decision.
• Oklahoma turning "blue"?
• KS Sec. of State and GOP "voter fraud" fraudster Kris Kobach loses in court again --- so voters win.

Plus: Listener calls on all of the above (and more) and Desi Doyen with the latest (very busy) Green News Report! Enjoy!...

Download MP3 or listen to complete show online below...

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