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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Transcanada natural gas pipeline explodes, cutting off heat for thousands; Oil pipeline spills into river in Philadelphia; PLUS: It's a Polar Vortex Redux, making Alaska warmer than most of Florida ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Industry Awakens to Threat of Climate Change; U.N. Says Lag in Confronting Climate Woes Will Be Costly; Chris Christie’s other traffic jam: the cancelled Hudson River Tunnel; FDA allowed antibiotics in animal feed despite risk to health: report; Most Latinos want government action on climate change, poll; 7,300-sq-mile ring of mercury around tar sands in Canada; Monsanto Is Going Organic in a Quest for the Perfect Veggie ... PLUS: Canadian Arctic Warming Unprecedented In 120,000 Years ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

• Polar Vortex Redux Causing Crazy Warmth in Alaska, Deep Drought in CA:
• Record Alaskan Warmth and Rains Trigger Huge Avalanche That Isolates Valdez (Weather Underground):
  
  At 10pm local time Sunday in Homer, Alaska, the temperature was 54 degrees [Fahrenheit]. This was warmer than any location in the contiguous U.S., except for Southern Florida and Southern California. The 55 degrees high in Homer on Sunday broke their all-time monthly record by 4 degrees.
• Alaska All Time High for This Date: Warmer Than Alabama (Climate Crocks):
  
  Parts of the Arctic are currently warmer than at any time going as far back as 44,000 years…
• Explainer: the Link between the Polar Vortex and climate change (Weather Underground)
• Record Warmth in Alaska Contrasts Cold Wave in Eastern U.S. (Weather Underground):
  
  As the eastern half of the U.S. goes into the deep freeze (as outlined in Jeff Masters' blog today, the flip side is the record warmth that California and Alaska have been experiencing (for two straight weeks now). All-time monthly records for warmth have been set at numerous locations in both states, something that cannot yet be said to have occurred during the cold waves this month in the eastern U.S.
• Transcanada Pipeline Explodes, Cutting Off Heat for 100,000:
• TransCanada Pipelines seeking cause of Manitoba explosion (CBC):
  Company crews working on bypass of pipeline around damaged section
• Manitoba pipeline explosion cuts heat to 4,000 amid extreme cold (CBC): Thousands without natural gas south of Winnipeg as arctic air moves in
• As Temperatures Reach -32° C, TransCanada Pipeline Explosion Leaves Thousands Without Gas (Climate Progress)
• TransCanada Tries To Throw More Money At Nebraskans To Allow Keystone XL On Their Land (Climate Progress):
  
  TransCanada, the company behind the 1,179-mile Keystone XL pipeline, has upped their cash offers to Nebraska residents in the pipeline's proposed route by up to 700 percent in hopes of securing the land - and quelling some of the pipeline's opposition - ahead of the president's decision on the project.
• Oil & Gas Infrastructure Failing All Over:
• Coast Guard cleaning up Delaware River oil spill (Philly.com):
  
  The U.S. Coast Guard is cleaning up after a crude oil spill in the Delaware River, the second such incident in the river near Philadelphia in the past week.
• Fixing old water and gas pipelines would create far more jobs than building Keystone XL (Grist):
  
  [T]argeted investments in our existing water and natural-gas pipeline infrastructure needs along the proposed five-state corridor of the KXL pipeline would create many more long-term jobs than Keystone XL, both in absolute terms and per unit of investment.
• Train Derailment In Philadelphia Leaves Crude Oil Car Dangling Over Schuylkill River (Climate Progress)
• Critics accuse Harper government of putting oil industry interests ahead of public safety (Canada.com)
• NTSB pushes regulators to improve safety of crude oil trains (Sacramento Bee):
  
  A derailment in July in Lac-Megantic, Quebec, killed 47 people. Derailments near Aliceville, Ala., and Casselton, N.D., in November and December, respectively, didn’t cause fatalities, but spilled about 1.1 million gallons of crude oil. According to an analysis of federal data, that’s more than all crude oil spills in rail incidents from 1975 to 2012.
• RIP: Pete Seeger - My Dirty Stream:

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

• Industry Awakens to Threat of Climate Change (NY Times):
  
  Today, after a decade of increasing damage to Coke’s balance sheet as global droughts dried up the water needed to produce its soda, the company has embraced the idea of climate change as an economically disruptive force.
• U.N. Says Lag in Confronting Climate Woes Will Be Costly (NY Times) [emphasis added]:
  
  Nations have so dragged their feet in battling climate change that the situation has grown critical and the risk of severe economic disruption is rising, according to a draft United Nations report. Another 15 years of failure to limit carbon emissions could make the problem virtually impossible to solve with current technologies, experts found.
• Chris Christie’s other traffic jam: the cancelled Hudson River Tunnel (MSNBC):
  
  In 2010, Christie decided to kill a project called Access to the Region’s Core, a years-in-the-making effort to build a new rail tunnel from New Jersey to New York City.... Killing the tunnel freed up some $1.8 billion which the Port Authority had pledged towards the project.
• FDA allowed antibiotics in animal feed despite risk to health: report (Washington Post):
  
  The Food and Drug Administration has continued to allow dozens of antibiotics to be used in livestock feed, despite findings from its researchers that the drugs could expose humans to antibiotic-resistant bacteria through the food supply, an environmental advocacy group said in a report Monday.
• The Hockey Stick Lives: Canadian Arctic Warming Unprecedented In 120,000 Years (Climate Progress):
  
  Recent warming has been unprecedented in speed, scale, and cause. Last year, we reported on a study that found the rate of warming since 1900 is 50 times greater than the rate of cooling in the previous 5000 years, which threatens to destroy the stable climate that enabled civilization.
• Most Latinos want government action on climate change, poll finds (LA Times)
• Researchers find 7,300-sq-mile ring of mercury around tar sands in Canada (Al Jazeera America): Bitumen in the tar sands being excavated to produce oil is the likely culprit of the mercury deposits
• Monsanto Is Going Organic in a Quest for the Perfect Veggie (Wired):
  
  Stark’s division is drawing on Monsanto’s accumulated scientific know-how to create vegetables that have all the advantages of genetically modified organisms without any of the Frankenfoods ick factor.
• London’s new solar bridge is the largest in the world (Grist):
  
  Network Rail, which is responsible for Britain’s rail infrastructure, just opened the “world’s largest solar-powered bridge” — which stretches across the Thames, has 4,400 solar panels on it, and will provide half the energy to central London’s Blackfriars train station.
• VIDEO: Sean Hannity: Let Them Drink Kool Aid. (Climate Crocks)
• Is the Senate Energy Committee being handed to Big Oil? (Price Of Oil):
  
  A game of political musical chairs has set off a transition that will hand Big Oil the keys to the influential Senate Committee on Energy and Natural Resources. What’s worse, the whole thing is being orchestrated by democratic leadership in an attempt to help Senator Landrieu (D-LA) with her upcoming re-election campaign.
• Warmer seas 'are making fish smaller' (Guardian UK):
  
  Species in the North Sea decreased in length by up to 29% over nearly four decades as water temperatures rose, scientists found.
• After 8,400 Gallon Oil Spill, Safety Standards On Norwegian Offshore Rigs Questioned (Climate Progress)
• California Drought Could Impact World Food Prices (VOA News) [emphasis added]:
  
  A drought such as the one in California has a greater impact now than it did 50 years ago because of the growth in population and economic development. The state is the biggest food producer in the United States in terms of dollars of produce sold.
  ...
  "Either you'll find a technological way around it or enough people will die, and the population will crash and it'll take care of it," McGiffen said. "So, in cold hard terms, that's exactly what you're looking at."
• The Effect of Wind Turbines on Property Values: A New Study in Massachusetts Provides Some Answers (Union of Concerned Scientists)
• Top Oil Industry Lobbyist: State Department Will Issue Keystone XL Environmental Approval This Week (Hill Heat) [emphasis added]:
  
  [The State Deptartment's] draft statement found that “impacts could potentially be substantial,” including impacts to wetlands, streams, and endangered species; and that spills could threaten groundwater and surface water. However, the report also concluded that “there would be no significant impacts to most resources along the proposed Project route assuming” TransCanada follows all laws and recommended procedures. The “no significant impacts to most resources” language has been mistakenly reported as “no significant impact on the environment.”
• Could your driveway be poisoning your kids? (Investigate West):
  
  Every year about 85 million gallons of a toxic waste that is known to promote cancer is carefully painted across about 170 square miles of American cities and suburbs, a swath as big as the city of New Orleans.
• Targets of climate hate mail rally to support one another (E & E News)
• Pipelines, coal terminals and climate chaos: is this the future we want? (RTCC)
• Breakthrough: Cheap Liquid Battery Provides Large-Scale Energy Storage for a Rainy Day (Scientific American)

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: Fox 'News', California, Alaska, Mainstream Media Failure, Environment, Green News, Natural gas, Canada, Oil, Wind energy, Solar energy, Climate change, Extreme weather, Keystone XL, Eric Bolling