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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Special ‘While We Were Out’ Edition: Fukushima nuclear incident raised to Level 3; UN: climate change still a very big problem; Frackers drain TX towns of water; Wildfires n’ water fights in the dried-out West; PLUS: The White House goes solar — again … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!
Green News Report
with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen
8/22/2013
‘Green News Report’ – August 22, 2013 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen... · · · · · ‘Green News Report’ – August 22, 2013 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): What Al Jazeera America didn’t say about climate change; Germany breaks its own solar record; MSM’s ambivalent coverage of climate change’s ‘new normal’; Battle over global warming is all in your head; Why so many conservatives deny climate sciece [they hate the solution]; Why US power grid’s days are numbered; All US nuclear reactors vulnerable to terrorists; Mosquitos are worse this summer … PLUS: Might as well face it, you’re addicted to oil (an intervention) … and much, MUCH more! …
STORIES DISCUSSED IN TODAY’S ‘GREEN NEWS REPORT’…
- Fukushima: Japanese Regulators Increase to Incident Level 3:
- Fukushima warning: danger level at nuclear plant jumps to ‘serious’ (Guardian UK): Japan’s nuclear agency dramatically raises status after saying a day earlier that radioactive water leak was only an ‘anomaly’
- Fukushima Springs Another Leak in Battle With Radiated Water (Bloomberg)
- UN IPCC Raises Certainty to 95% on Global Climate Change, Warns More Extreme Heat:
- Global warming is real, and it’s our fault “” let’s fix it (Chicago Sun-Times):
It’s us.
We did it.
And now we have to fix it. - VIDEO: IPCC Countdown Begins. Scientists Ever More Certain on Climate Change (Climate Crocks)
- How extreme will future heatwaves be? Choose your own adventure (Guardian UK)
- Wildfires Rage Across the West:
- Federal budget to fight wildfires is depleted (Washington Post)
- Western Wildfires Tax Firefighting Resources, Push Spending Past $1 Billion (AP)
- With 51 large wildfires burning across the US, firefighters are on “war footing” (Climate Progress)
- First-Ever Water Cuts From CO River Reservoirs:
- Drought-Induced Curb on Lake Powell Water Is First-Ever (Bloomberg)
- Colorado River: Is historic cut in water release the new normal? (CS Monitor): US Bureau of Reclamation announced the cut Friday, from Lake Powell, because of drought conditions. While the move involving the Colorado River will be hard for people to detect at the faucet, it carries symbolic importance.
- Texas Towns Running Out of Water Because of Frackers:
- A Texan tragedy: ample oil, no water (Guardian UK): Fracking boom sucks away precious water from beneath the ground, leaving cattle dead, farms bone-dry and people thirsty:
The drought undoubtedly took its toll but Owens reserved his anger for the contractors who drilled 104 water wells on his leased land, to supply the oil companies.
…
“They are sucking all of the water out of the ground, and there are just hundreds and hundreds of water trucks here every day bringing fresh water out of the wells,” Owens said/ - Children given lifelong ban on talking about fracking (Guardian UK): Two Pennsylvanian children will live their lives under a gag order imposed under a $750,000 settlement.
- US fracking industry ‘wasting $1bn a year in gas flaring’ (Guardian UK): New report calculates flaring of gas from North Dakota fracking industry leading to greenhouse gas emissions equivalent to putting one million cars on the road
- Homeowners: Fracking Companies Cheating on Royalty Payments:
- How the Fracking Industry Avoids Paying Royalties to Landowners (Pro Publica):
[M]anipulation of costs and other data by oil companies is keeping billions of dollars in royalties out of the hands of private and government landholders, an investigation by ProPublica has found.
- AUDIO: Pa. Landowners Feel Cheated By Royalty Payments From Fracking (NPR)
- Interior Dept. Says Keystone XL Will “Permanently Impact” Wildlife:
- Keystone XL project could harm wildlife, Interior Department says (LA Times): A letter contradicts the State Department’s draft environmental assessment of the pipeline, saying animals could suffer lasting damage.
- US Department of Interior criticises State over Keystone XL impact report (Guardian UK): Letter calls draft environmental impact statement on controversial transnational oil-sands project ‘inaccurate’
- 7 adorable animals imperiled by the Keystone XL pipeline (Grist)
- BLM Holds a Coal Lease Sale, No One Shows Up:
- A Wyoming first: No bids for coal mining tract in Powder River Basin (Casper Star-Tribune)
- Coal shoulder: BLM sells controversial coal mining lease, but no one’s buying (Grist):
“[W]e believe a significant portion of the BLM’s estimated mineable tons would not be recoverable by us if we were to be the winning bidder in the BLM’s competitive process.
- The Declining Value Of Coal Just Killed Another Export Terminal (Climate Progress)
- Big Coal in big trouble as coal production costs rise (Grist)
- Tesla #1 Again: Safest Car Ever Tested by NHTSA:
- UPDATE: Tesla roof so strong it broke crush-test machine (USA Today)
- VIDEO: Tesla Model S: Best Damn Car Ever? (Climate Crocks)
- ‘Affordable’ Tesla to arrive in late 2016 (AutoNews): Same price as Leaf, but with quick charge and 200-mile range
- White House Goes Solar — AGAIN:
- Solar energy making a return to White House (Washington Post)
- 33 Years Ago Today, Jimmy Carter Put Solar Panels on the White House (Motherboard/Vice)
- VIDEO: Pres. Jimmy Carter Speech Installing Solar Panels On White House (6/20/1979, “The Road Not Taken”, Youtube):
A generation from now, this solar heater can either be a curiosity, a museum piece, an example of a road not taken, or it can be just a small part of one of the greatest and most exciting adventures ever undertaken by the American people – harnessing the power of the sun to enrich our lives as we move away from our crippling dependence on foreign oil.
‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (Stuff we didn’t have time for in today’s audio report)…
- Might as well face it, you’re addicted to oil (Smart Planet):
America, we need to talk.
Have a seat.
Remember when President George W. Bush told you seven years ago that you’re addicted to oil?
It’s time to get serious about your problem. So here’s a little tough love. - Ambivalent coverage of climate change’s ‘new normal’ (Columbia Journalism Review): Considering the importance of the information, the mainstream press provided surprisingly limited analysis
- What Al Jazeera America Didn’t Say About Climate Change (Media Matters):
During its first day on the air, Al Jazeera America gave climate change nearly half as much coverage as network news programs did during the year 2012, all while avoiding common pitfalls like providing false balance to those that deny the science and leaving the crisis’ manmade origins ambiguous.
- The Battle Over Global Warming Is All in Your Head (TIME Eco-Centric Blog):
Despite the fact that more people now acknowledge that climate change represents a significant threat to human well-being, this has yet to translate into any meaningful action. Psychologists may have an answer as to why this is
- Why So Many Conservatives Deny The Climate Problem: They Hate The Solution (Climate Progress):
Congressman Rohrabacher tips his hand to the reasoning behind his global warming denialism, which basically goes like this: If global warming is real, then the government would need to intervene to fix it, but we don’t like government intervention. Therefore, global warming cannot be real. That’s it. That is the logic behind the pervasive view on climate change on the right: We don’t like the solutions to this problem, so we officially declare this not to be a problem.
- VIDEO: Deniers: Are They the New “Birthers”? (Climate Crocks)
- Conservative hostility to science predates climate science (Grist)
- Germany Breaks Its Own Record For Solar Power Generation (Climate Progress)
- Why the U.S. Power Grid’s Days Are Numbered (BusinessWeek):
What’s afoot is a confluence of green energy and computer technology, deregulation, cheap natural gas, and political pressure that, as Crane starkly frames it, poses “a mortal threat to the existing utility system.” He says that in about the time it has taken cell phones to supplant land lines in most U.S. homes, the grid will become increasingly irrelevant as customers move toward decentralized homegrown green energy.
- Study: All 107 U.S. Nuclear Reactors Vulnerable To Terrorists: (CBS News)
- Do Oregon’s Clear-Cut and Pesticide Buffers Protect Drinking Water? (Portland Oregonian)
- Tangled Web of Liability Trails Deadly Oil-Train Disaster (E & E News): Quebec’s government last week added rail giant Canadian Pacific Railway Corp. to its list of companies deemed responsible for cleanup costs following last month’s deadly oil train derailment.
- Republican Seek To Block Microwave Oven Rule Over ‘Social Cost of Carbon (E2 Wire/The Hill)
FOR MORE on Climate Science and Climate Change, go to our Green News Report: Essential Background Page
Brad and Desi:
For the past 40+ years we have seen energy companies (especially on PBS programming, but also on regular commercial TV) tell us about what they were doing either for the current times or what they planned for the future. I remember that the oil companies used to promise that there was enough oil-shale in the ground to supply petroleum products in a safe and economical way for the US (not anyone else) for over 100 years. Now it seems we are getting those petroleum products through fracking.
In the ads from way-back-when they did not talk about the negative sides of the future energy supplies, only that we had a domestic supply that would power us for the foreseeable future (and would be clean burning if it was a natural gas energy source).
I was wondering if the Green News Report would be able to do some investigating of the energy company ads over the past 50 years. What were the promises, and what were the realities of what they said. I pose this because I think the general public has a relative sense of trust in the oil companies (that is wavering from recent events) because of the old ad campaigns, and their feel good, we’re looking out for your future feeling. I would like someone to debunk the years of false promises and undermine the positive feelings that the companies have engendered by a good dose of reality of what they really have done instead. Is this possible?
Interesting thought, Alex. I would add that the NEW ads are as insidious if not more so, and seem to blanket the airwaves in ways the old school stuff never came close to. (Just look how ExxonMobil, ANGA, BP, etc. are all “looking out for our future” in virtually every single ad break on every single cable news channels (and as underwriters on “public” television stations, etc.)
Such a report, as you describe it, would be no small project, in fact. And it’d certainly be more than we’d be able to adequately cover in a 6-minute radio report (not to mention the lack of resources we have for such long form reportage.) But it’s not something I’d be opposed to covering in some sense, in some way, on The BRAD BLOG proper, with coverage on GNR then pointing to the full report here.
But, again, it’s a matter of extremely limited resources in every way (largely money, certainly time, since we cover so much else at the same time.) Could be an interesting crowd-source project, however.
Have you taken any time to go searching on YouTube, etc. for those ads? Old and/or new? Beginning to collect them into one place would be one helpful way to start looking at what was/is wasn’t/isn’t there, both available and whether it’s along the lines you suggest (as you remember them.)
Nice report kids!!! Always carry bear pepper spray when you’re out in the sticks especially in grizz country.
Hell, I think Gulf and North West seafood should be tested by the FDA for oil toxins and radioactivity respectively. Then fisherman and fisherwoman should sue big time!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Alex @1,
Actually, there is evidence that the oil and gas industry is the most hated industry in America (Huffingtngto Post, The 10 Most Hated Industries In America). For good reason, they are Oil-Qaeda.
Oil company “popularity” may take even more of a hit with reported pricing fraud alleged (Huffington Post). Price fixing is alleged. DOJ task force is supposedly looking at it.
Brad:
I am beginning my search for oil company propoganda and have started with Exxon. Three that I’ve stumbled across that have recent interest but are not that old refer to Hydrogen fueled cars (2011) and how wonderful oil shale fracking is (2011). Of course they are doing such a great job in Mayflower Arkansas after the tar sands oil pipeline spill too.
Arkansa: http://www.youtube.com/user/ExxonMobil
Hydrogen: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T0XWATD-ElA
Fracking: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hVJA36YGAEQ
The last one is the kind I was referring to that is from 2012 but shows how new technology is making Exxon a better company. It’s amazing how editing and emphasizing only the good parts changes an informative piece into propaganda:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Av9eTo-4nDk