IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: First-ever carbon pollution standards for new power plants; Colorado's flood disaster now an oil spill disaster; US coal plants 7th biggest polluter in the world (all by themselves!); Fracking industry study accidentally proves case for more regulation; PLUS: Al Gore says science denial should be socially unacceptable ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): What it means to be 95% certain about climate change; India plans to build world's largest solar plant; WSJ debunks WSJ on renewable energy; Risky plan to remove spent fuel from Fukushima's unstable Reactor 4; Study predicts 40% increase in storms; Cutting carbon pollution would save lives; Monsanto & Big Ag spend millions to stop WA state GMO labeling; Commercial fishermen don't deny climate change impacts on oceans ... PLUS: An Illustrated Bestiary of Climate Trolls ... and much, MUCH more! ...

"Some countries are willing to stand up to the United States right now," Michael Ratner told Amy Goodman earlier this week, as he heaped praise upon Ecuador, the nation which previously granted political asylum to Ratner's client, WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. Ecuador has defied the U.S. by saying it will consider NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden's request for political asylum.

It is likely that Ecuador is already furnishing Snowden with some level of diplomatic protection. AP reports that, according to WikiLeaks, Snowden was being "escorted by diplomats and legal advisers" during his travels from Hong Kong to Russia last weekend. It seems likely that Snowden was met at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport by Ecuadorian diplomats. A black BMW with diplomatic license plates assigned to the Ecuadorian Embassy was reportedly, waiting at the airport last Sunday in advance of Snowden's arrival.

Ecuador is not the only nation that is unwilling to cooperate, for differing reasons, with an apparently vengeful U.S. government which has sought to make an example of Snowden by charging him with espionage. Some, like Hong Kong, have a longstanding commitment to free speech and the right to due process. Others, like Russia, have an interest in closer political and economic ties to the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA) --- a group of socialist and social democratic Latin American and Caribbean nations that includes three potential Snowden destinations, Cuba, Venezuela and Ecuador.

In all cases, there appears to be a growing revulsion towards the overreach of the NSA's increasingly privatized, "Big Brother"-like intrusions and a growing recognition that the United States has long-since abandoned its mantle as a beacon of democracy and a nation devoted to "equal justice under the law"...