IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Deadly flash floods after "biblical" rains in CO; Senate Republicans hold energy efficiency bill hostage; Clean up or close up: EPA's new rules put the squeeze on coal; Huge new aquifers discovered in Kenya; Debunking the Daily Mail/Fox 'News' ruse about '60% increase in Arctic ice' ruse; PLUS: Molasses spill kills thousands of fish in Hawaii ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!
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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): EPA Chemist Who Revealed Twin Towers Toxic Dust Fired; Utilities Realize Solar Energy's Threat to their Survival; Boulder Colorado and the Quest for Local Control of Energy; CNBC’s Joe Kernen Lies About Climate Change on Squawk Box; '50 dirtiest' US power plants emit more greenhouse gases than South Korea; Australian military: Climate change is a 'threat multiplier'; Tesla challenges BMW on home turf; Nuclear energy on 'collision course' with U.S. water supplies ... PLUS: VIDEO: A Climate Alarm, Too Muted for Some ... and much, MUCH more! ...
STORIES DISCUSSED IN TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...
- Dear Dupes, Stooges & Rubes: Daily Mail is Lying to You. Watch the Videos!:
- VIDEO: Arctic Death Spiral: CryoSat Reveals Decline In Arctic Sea Ice Volume Continues (Climate Progress):
[N]ew data from the European Space Agency's CryoSat satellite has revealed that this ice volume trend continued through the spring of 2013.
...
The deniers and the confusionists generally focus on very short term trends in Arctic sea ice area. Two British tabloids known for climate disinformation have seized upon the supposed "recovery" in Arctic sea ice this summer to argue we are entering a period of global cooling. They have been widely debunked. - Arctic sea ice delusions strike the Mail on Sunday and Telegraph (Guardian UK): Both UK periodicals focus on short-term noise and ignore the rapid long-term Arctic sea ice death spiral...
- Conservatives Can't Quit Tabloid Science: Limbaugh, Others Butcher Science To Claim Arctic Isn't Melting (Media Matters)
- Extreme Weather: Record Torrential Rains Cause Deadly Floods in CO:
- VIDEO: Roads destroyed, 3 killed in flash flooding (NBC Denver)
- National Weather Service Bulletin: "BIBLICAL RAINFALL" for Boulder (NWS)
- VIDEO: Flash floods wash away homes, kill at least 3 near Boulder, Colorado (NBC News)
- Climate Change Influenced 2012's Extreme Weather, Report Finds (Live Science)
- Republicans Hold Energy Efficiency Bill Hostage:
- VIDEO: Reid: 'Anarchists have taken over' in Congress (The Hill) [emphasis added]:
The bill contains measures to boost building codes, train workers in energy efficient building technologies, help manufacturers become more efficient and bolster conservation efforts at federal agencies, among other provisions. - Heritage Foundation presses senators to reject energy efficiency bill (The Hill's e2 Wire)
- GOP energy bill amendment would block EPA carbon regulations (The Hill's e2 Wire)
- Pennsylvania: Criminal Charges Filed Over Fracking Wastewater Spill:
- Charged With Illegally Dumping Polluted Fracking Fluid, Exxon Claims 'No Lasting Environmental Impact' (Climate Progress)
- Exxon Mobil unit charged for Pennsylvania fracking waste spill (Reuters)
- New EPA Pollution Rules Put Squeeze on Coal:
- Coal Industry Cries Foul Over Obama Emission Rules (Bloomberg) [emphasis added]:
Low-cost natural gas is leading utilities to build new plants using that fuel and shutter coal-fired plants. The effect of the new standard would lock out coal over the long term, said Scott Segal, a lobbyist for utilities. - EPA to revise climate rule for new power plants; will still require carbon capture (Washington Post)
- U.S. coal industry braces for EPA emissions crackdown (Reuters): If standards are as strict as the industry expects, it could be the death knell for new coal plant construction.
- GOOD NEWS: Huge Aquifers Are Discovered in North Kenya (NY Times):
The United Nations and Kenyan officials on Wednesday announced the discovery of a potentially enormous underground supply of water, a find they said could improve the lives of generations of people in impoverished northern Kenya, if not the entire nation. - Hawaii: Massive Fish Kill from Molasses Pipeline Spill:
- VIDEO: 'Everything is dead': Hawaii molasses spill killing thousands of fish (NBC News) [emphasis added]:
A massive spill of thick molasses has turned Honolulu Harbor into a watery wasteland, with divers reporting that thousands of fish have been suffocated and environmentalists calling it a disaster."There's nothing alive there at all," diver Roger White told NBC affiliate KHNL after making a seven-minute video of dead sea life blanketing the bottom of the harbor.
'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...
- More than 1,100 have cancer after 9/11 (CNN)
- EPA Chemist Who Revealed Twin Towers Toxic Dust Fired - Again (Environment News Service):
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency scientist who first revealed the dangers of toxic dust at the World Trade Center disaster site has received a second notice of proposed removal from her job more than a year after a federal civil service court ordered her returned to work. - Colorado Latest Battle Ground as Utilities Realize Solar Energy's Threat to their Survival (Climate Crocks) [emphasis added]:
Because rooftop solar cuts demand and puts kilowatt-hours on the grid, it undermines the utility’s business model, Hitt said. “Rooftop solar doesn’t amount to a lot now,” she said. “They are worried about the future.” - Solar: The Next “Granite Countertop” (Climate Crocks)
- Boulder Colorado and the Quest for Local Control of Energy (Climate Crocks)
- VIDEO: CNBC’s Joe Kernen Lies About Climate Change on Squawk Box (Science Blogs)
- VIDEO: A Climate Alarm, Too Muted for Some (NY Times):
[T]he panel seems to be bending over backward to be scientifically conservative. Is it right to throw out bleeding-edge science in the one case while keeping it in the other?
...
To be clear, even if the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change ends up sticking with the lowball numbers in these two instances, they are worrisome enough. As best scientists can tell, the question with sea level is not whether it is going to get to three feet and then five feet of increase, but merely whether it will happen in this century or the next. - Astronomer royal calls for 'Plan B' to prevent runaway climate change (Guardian UK): Lord Rees appeals for research into geoengineering technologies in case efforts to curb carbon emissions fail.
- '50 dirtiest' US power plants emit more greenhouse gases than South Korea (CS Monitor) [emphasis added]:
A new study by an environmental group suggests that reining in a handful of America's coal-fired power plants would have a major impact on greenhouse gas emissions.
...
US power plants are the largest source of greenhouse gases in the country, responsible for 41 percent of the nation's carbon dioxide pollution, the report states.
..
But "there are currently no demonstrated technologies to control CO2 emissions from large coal-fired power plants such as Scherer," Mr. Williams notes. - Climate change will 'exacerbate existing problems': Defence (ABC Australia):
Extreme weather and rising sea levels caused by climate change will significantly increase the need for an effective defence force. It's why the military are taking notice of the scientists. - 10 Coastal Cities at Greatest Flood Risk as Sea Levels Rise (Environmental News Service)
- U.S. Navy Triples Clean Energy Startup Funding In Hawaii (Climate Progress)
- Undercover investigators solve heinous Wyoming wildlife crimes (Caspar Star-Tribune): ""They really are stealing not just from sportsmen but all people in Wyoming."
- Tesla Challenges BMW on Home Turf as Germans Go Green (Bloomberg):
Tesla is hitting the autobahn just as the German Goliaths start selling their own electrics from dealer networks with hundreds of stores. Musk will also need to win over buyers who traditionally have been loyal to homegrown brands. - Nuclear Energy: U.S. 'Collision Course' Looms Over Water (Bloomberg New Energy Finance):
Climate change is worsening heat and drought, raising demand and lowering cooling supplies for nuclear, coal and natural-gas plants that generate 97 percent of the nation's electricity, according to the "Water Constraints on Energy Production" report prepared for the Civil Society Institute. - VIDEO: Fort McMurray radio station bans Neil Young songs for day, after singer blasts oilsands (CTV News Edmonton)
- No, Naomi Klein And Salon, 'Denialism' By Enviros Has Not Been 'More Damaging Than The Right-Wing Denialism' (Climate Progress) [emphasis added]:
Seriously, who is more to blame? The people who put this issue on the national agenda in the first place by persisting for decades against a largely indifferent political elite and media - and who have tried to rally action, however non-optimally? Or the people who have spread lies, funded disinformation campaigns, poisoned the public dialogue, and blocked even the most modest action? - 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).