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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Meet the world's newest oil spill, now in Thailand; Greenland hits highest temp ever; Breaking wind news; Fast-charging buses debut in Switzerland (sorry, U.S.!); PLUS: Obama debunks Keystone XL jobs myth, but ignores unstoppable tar sands oil spills ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!
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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Video: This is the U.S. in 2100; Drillers flaring away $100m in natural gas every month; More carbon emissions = less global warming?; Carbon tax working out great for British Columbia; Appeals court smacks down TX challenge to EPA; CA & Sen. Boxer fight for chemical safety reform; "GOP doing the bidding of polluting industries"; Candidates running on climate action as public opinion shifts to reality ... PLUS: Sea level rise 'locking in quickly', will impact 1700 U.S. cities ... and much, MUCH more! ...
STORIES DISCUSSED IN TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...
- NASA Video: Warming over the last 130 years, and into the next 100 years:
- Video Proof That Global Warming is a 'Hoax'!: NASA Temperature Data 1888-2011 (The BRAD BLOG):
- NASA climate change video: This is the U.S. in 2100 (NASA).
- RECORD HEAT Around the World: Greenland Hits 78°F
- Incredible Heat Wave in China, Greenland Record (Dr. Jeff Masters' Weather Underground) [emphasis added]:
This July will go down as the hottest ever measured for places like Shanghai, Changsha, and Hangzhou. Records for Shanghai date back to 1873 and no such heat has ever been observed there or in much of Eastern China.
BREAKING NEWS: Greenland has just measured its hottest temperature on record July 30th with a reading of 25.9°C (78.6°F) at Maniitoq Mittarfia during a foehn event.. - Wild Weather Around the World (Dr. Jeff Masters' Weather Underground):
Record rainfall in Philadelphia, record cold in the Midwest, record heat in eastern China, Japan, and Europe where violent storms produced tornadoes and waterspouts. - Greenland And Antarctica ‘May Be Vulnerable To Rapid Ice Loss Through Catastrophic Disintegration’ (Climate Progress)
- The World's Newest Oil Spill, Killing Tourism in Thailand:
- PHOTOS: Beaches Blanketed In Crude Oil After Major Spill In The Gulf Of Thailand (Climate Progress)
- VIDEO: Thailand's Koh Samet beach oil spill 'threatens tourism, fishing industries' (CNN)
- Top Interior officials huddle with offshore oil and gas industry after accidents (The Hill's e2 Wire)
- Obama Debunks KXL Jobs Myths, But Ignores Unstoppable Tar Sands Spills:
- VIDEO: Obama Calls Out Republicans For Wasting Time On Keystone: ‘That’s Not A Jobs Plan’ (Climate Progress): The State Department estimatest the total number of permanent jobs created by Keystone at 35. Were the pipeline completed, it would emit levels of CO2 equivalent to that of 51 coal-fired power plants.
- Cold Lake Spill: “There is No Control on this Incident,” says Energy Regulator (DeSmogBlog Canada):
In this case, this is still an ongoing incident. There is no control on this incident.” - Tar Sands CSS Blowout Contaminates Lake, Creates "A Whole New Kind of Oil Mess" (DeSmogBlog Canada)
- AUDIO: Canadian Regulators Investigate Mysterious Tar Sands Spills (NPR) [emphasis added]:
Thick oil is gurgling up unexpectedly from the ground instead of flowing through the wells that were built to collect it. The spills are raising questions about a technology that's rapidly expanding to extract fossil fuels that could ultimately end up in the controversial Keystone XL pipeline. - TransCanada ramps up East Coast pipeline as Keystone stalls (Reuters) [emphasis added]:
The government of Quebec, where memories of a crude oil rail crash that killed 47 are still fresh, has yet to say if it will support the project. - Tar Sands Cleanup Spill Closes Kalamazoo River Again, 3 Years Later:
- 3 Years Later: Sunken Tar Sands Oil Is Looming Threat to Kalamazoo River: (InsideClimate.org):
Once black with oil, the Kalamazoo River runs clear now. But EPA orders dredging and says it will be years before the spill's long-term effects are known. - Enbridge begins new round of cleanup in Kalamazoo River from oil spill (Detroit Free Press):
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency today announced that Canadian oil transport giant Enbridge has begun a new round of dredging in the Kalamazoo River in a further attempt to clean up oil from the company’s July 2010 pipeline spill.... While dredging is underway, 12 miles of the river will be temporarily closed. Enbridge will dredge approximately 350,000 cubic yards of contaminated sediment during this phase of the cleanup. - Breaking Wind News: US First-Ever Offshore Wind Lease Sale:
- AUDIO: Sold! First Parcels Auctioned For Future Offshore Wind Farms (NPR)
- Deepwater Wind Top Bidder in First U.S. Wind-Power Lease Sale (Bloomberg News)
- INNOVATION: Switzerland Gets Fast-Charging Electric Bus Pilot Project (Sorry, U.S.):
- Flash charging powers electric buses in 15 seconds (Smart Planet):
The “world’s first high-capacity flash charging electric bus system” powers buses at select stops with 15 second shots of energy along its route between the Geneva airport and Palexpo, the city’s international exhibition center. At the end of the line the bus charges fully for three or four minutes. - Study Predicts a Watery Future for Major US Cities (Mother Jones):
1,700 places in the United States are at greater risk of rising sea levels than previously thought. - Exclusive: Bakken flaring burns more than $100 million a month (Reuters) [emphasis added]:
Oil drillers in North Dakota's Bakken shale fields are allowing nearly a third of the natural gas they drill to burn off into the air, with a value of more than $100 million per month, according to a study to be released on Monday.
...
North Dakota's flaring, which NASA astronauts can see from space, releases fewer greenhouse gases than direct emission of natural gas into the air, but it is essentially burning product that could be sold at a profit if there were pipelines. - Internal EPA Report highlights disputes over fracking and well water: (LA Times):
An EPA staff report suggests methane from hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, contaminated wells near Dimock, Pa., but the agency says the water's safe to drink. - Debunker: More Carbon Emissions = Less Global Warming? (Scientific American) [emphasis added]:
After the Economist published the table, which it had somehow obtained, IPCC spokespeople and independent experts quickly trashed the data—and the magazine itself. They said the table was a preliminary draft, was not reviewed, was not even being used by the relevant IPCC experts, and should never have been quoted. - Can a carbon tax work without hurting the economy? Ask British Columbia (Guardian UK):
Five years in, BC's carbon tax has successfully reduced greenhouse gas emissions in a stable economy. - U.S. appeals court upholds EPA authority to set greenhouse gas emissions rules (Reuters):
A federal appeals court on Friday rejected a legal challenge by Texas and Wyoming to the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's efforts to implement greenhouse gas regulations. - Sen. Barbara Boxer pushes ahead on chemical safety law (SF Gate):
Lautenberg and Boxer led failed efforts to reform the law until spring, when Lautenberg, seeking a breakthrough at age 89, brokered a deal with Vitter that alarmed California officials and many public health and environmental activists. - California and other states fight changes in toxic chemicals law (LA Times)
- House Dem: GOP doing 'bidding of polluting industries' (The Hill's e2 Wire)
- As Public Opinion Shifts, Candidates Explicitly Run On Doing Something About Climate Change (Climate Progress)
- Sea level rise 'locking in quickly', cities threatened (Climate Central):
Measurements tell us that global average sea level is currently rising by about 1 inch per decade. But in an invisible shadow process, our long-term sea level rise commitment or 'lock-in' --- the sea level rise we don't see now, but which carbon emissions and warming have locked in for later years --- is growing 10 times faster, and this growth rate is accelerating. - New Study Predicts Dramatic Sea Level Rise: (Reuters):
Sea levels could rise by 2.3 metres for each degree Celsius that global temperatures increase and they will remain high for centuries to come, according to a new study by the leading climate research institute, released on Monday. - Skeptical Science: Get the FULL DEBUNKING of ALL Climate Science Denier Arguments
- Warning: Even in the best-case scenario, climate change will kick our asses (Grist)
'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...
FOR MORE on Climate Science and Climate Change, go to our Green News Report: Essential Background Page