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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: No, it wasn't a pot farm that caused massive Yosemite Rim Fire; Obama: US should learn from Sweden's focus on clean energy; It's official - hottest winter on record in New Zealand; It's confirmed - fracking injection wells caused Youngstown earthquakes; The Force is with Chile's new "moisture farms"; PLUS: Too hot for school? School heat closures increase ... 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): US Chamber of Commerce softening on carbon tax?; Bringing distributed solar to Ethiopia; Wind power making fuel for Germany's gas grid; Japan's levitating train breaks speed record; Climate change bringing tropical pests farther north; Pro-fracking study, touted by MSM, paid for by fracking companies; Your exfoliating cream is destroying the environment; US taxpayers paid out record $17b for crop-related disasters; PLUS: Climate Scientist Can Sue National Review For Defamation, Judge Rules ... and much, MUCH more!...

STORIES DISCUSSED IN TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...

• Illegal Campfire Caused Massive Yosemite Rim Fire:
• Yosemite Wildfire Started By Hunter's Illegal Fire, U.S. Forest Service Announces (AP):
  
  The agency said there is no indication the hunter was involved with illegal marijuana cultivation, which a local fire chief had speculated as the possible cause of the blaze.
• How We Can Avoid More Catastrophic Wildfires Like the Inferno in Yosemite: Catastrophic fires are emblematic of our troubled relationship with nature. (Alternet)
• Rim fire: Pot-growing operation near Yosemite may have sparked blaze (LA Times)
• Confirmed: Youngstown Earthquakes Caused By Fracking Injection Wells:
• Confirmed: Fracking practices to blame for Ohio earthquakes (Live Science):
  
  Wastewater from the controversial practice of fracking appears to be linked to all the earthquakes in a town in Ohio that had no known past quakes, research now reveals.
• Fracking in TX: Seen as the future, also viewed with fear: (Al Jazeera America)
• Obama: We Can Learn A Lot From Sweden's Clean Energy Policy [& Carbon Tax!]:
• Why Obama Just Named Sweden As A Model For Energy Policy (Climate Progress) [emphasis added]:
  
  Renewable energy — mainly wind — has also been on the rise, such that right now, over 47 percent of all energy consumed in Sweden comes from renewable sources.
  ...
  But this hasn’t happened on its own. The switch is the result of a concerted effort to reduce dependence on fossil fuels, which in the mid-70s had constituted around three-quarters of total energy supply. The main driver has been a long-standing and uncontroversial carbon tax. Sweden began taxing carbon emissions back in 1991.
• Obama visits green tech expo in Sweden (The Hill's e2 Wire)
• Transcript: President Obama’s press conference with Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik Reinfeldt in Stockholm (Washington Post)
• VIDEO: President Obama Press Conference with Prime Minister of Sweden (ABC News)
• It's Official: Hottest Winter on Record for New Zealand:
• New Zealand has warmest winter on record (Guardian UK): Average temperature over winter in South Pacific nation was highest since record-keeping began in 1909
• Humans behind record Australian heat, research shows (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Hottest 12-month period confirmed in Australia – so what role did humans play? (Techonology.org)
• School Heat Closures Increasing in Northern States:
• 'Heat Days' In Schools Becoming More Common (AP)
• Heat prompts some Denver, Fort Collins school closures on Friday (Denver Post)
• Catching Fog --- Chile Perfects Tech For Harvesting Drinking Water:
• Chile just got really good at creating drinking water from fog (Grist):
  
  The research team has managed to optimize the nets by fine-tuning the size of the filaments in the nets, the size of the holes between the filaments, and the coating applied to the filaments.

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...

• Climate Scientist Can Sue National Review For Defamation, Judge Rules (Climate Progress):
  
  "Accusations of fraud, especially where such accusations are made frequently through the continuous usage of such words as “whitewashed,” “intellectually bogus,” “ringmaster of the tree-ring circus,” and “cover-up” amount to more than rhetorical hyperbole. In addition, whether the NR Defendants induced the EPA to investigate Plaintiff is not critical to this analysis because it is not disputed that the NR Defendants knew that the EPA and several reputable bodies had investigated Plaintiff and concluded that his work was sound."
• What?!?: EXCLUSIVE: The Chamber Of Commerce’s Surprising Comments On A Carbon Tax And How It Could Change The Game In Congress (Climate Progress):
  
  “We don’t have a position on a carbon tax. But that would be interesting to think about.” That wasn’t what we were expecting to hear from David Chavern, the Chief Operating Officer of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
• A New Program Is Bringing Distributed Solar To 25,000 Ethiopians Currently Without Electricity (Climate Progress)
• Wind power makes fuel for German gas grid (Salon): Germany experiments with using hydrogen produced wind power on an industrial scale to displace fossil fuels
• Levitating train breaks speed record in Japan (Grist)
• Climate change makes pests move north from the tropics – study (Guardian UK):
  Insect swarms from warmer regions near the equator branching out to new locations they would have previously found too cold
• What The Media Left Out: Pro-Fracking Report Was Funded By Gas Industry (Media Matters):
  
  However, multiple major news outlets, including Reuters, CNBC, Forbes.com, and the Los Angeles Times, covered the new report with no mention of its financial ties to the industry. The research was monetarily supported by America's Natural Gas Alliance, the American Petroleum Institute, the American Chemistry Council, the Natural Gas Supply Association, and others who stand to gain economically from an unregulated increase in fracking.
• Your exfoliating cream is destroying the environment (Salon): Microbeads, found in many cosmetics, are the latest addition to the marine plastics problem.
• Good News, Bad News On ‘Mega-Canyon’ Found Under Greenland Ice Sheet (Climate Progress)
• US government paid $17 billion for weather-related crop disasters last year: (Grist):
  
  Desiccated corn and sun-scorched soybeans have been in high supply lately --- and we're paying through the nose for them. The federal government forked out a record-breaking $17.3 billion last year to compensate farmers for weather-related crop losses-more than four times the annual average over the last decade.
• Did Climate Change-Driven Drought Exacerbate Syrian Conflict?: (Hullabaloo):
  
  Syria has been convulsed by civil war since climate change came to Syria with a vengeance. Drought devastated the country from 2006 to 2011. Rainfall in most of the country fell below eight inches (20 cm) a year, the absolute minimum needed to sustain un-irrigated farming.
• Who distrusts whom about what in the climate science debate? (Cultural Cognition Project, Yale Law School):
  
  1. Members of the public do trust scientists.

  2. Members of culturally opposing groups distrust each other when they perceive their status is at risk in debates over public policy.

  3. When facts become entangled in cultural status conflicts, members of opposing groups (all of whom do trust scientists) will form divergent perceptions of what scientists believe.

FOR MORE on Climate Science and Climate Change, go to our Green News Report: Essential Background Page

• 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).

                 

Article Categories: California, Environment, Barack Obama, Glenn Beck, Green News, Chile, U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Fracking, Natural gas, Coal, Climate change, Extreme weather, Australia