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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Australia’s Rightwing government repeals successful landmark carbon tax; Obama moves forward on bracing for global warming impacts; Record wildfire season burning from California to Alaska; PLUS: California gets tough on water wasters … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!
Green News Report
with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen
7/17/2014
‘Green News Report’ – July 17, 2014 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen... · · · · · ‘Green News Report’ – July 17, 2014 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): English Channel all fished out; Jellyfish invasion off Maine coast; Feds ban bee-killing pesticides in wildlife refuges; North Dakota wrestles with radioactive oilfield waste; Natural gas boom hasn’t made US energy secure, warns IEA chief … PLUS: Hottest March-June On Record Globally … and much, MUCH more! …
STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY’S ‘GREEN NEWS REPORT’…
- Australia’s Rightwing Government Repeals Landmark Carbon Tax:
- Obituary: Australia’s carbon price (The Conversation):
The Carbon Pricing Mechanism, known to its friends as the carbon price and its critics as the carbon tax, passed away today in Canberra, aged two, after a long battle with slogans.
- Australia is ditching its carbon tax (Vox.com)
- Australia kills off carbon tax: Senate makes good on prime minister’s ‘pledge in blood’ to ‘axe the tax’, with nation unlikely to meet 5% emissions reduction target (Guardian UK)
- Australia votes to repeal carbon tax (BBC)
- Carbon price helped curb emissions, ANU study finds (Sydney Morning Herald):
More recent figures, though, show the emissions drop accelerated, with 2013’s 0.8 per cent economy-wide fall the largest annual reduction in the 24 years of monitoring. In the power sector, the industry most directly covered by the carbon price, emissions fell 5 per cent.
- Who gains most from axing the carbon tax ““ and at what cost? (The Conversation)
- VIDEO: Rupert Murdoch doesn’t understand climate change basics, and that’s a problem (Guardian UK)
- Australia facing ‘unprecedented rise in climate denial’ (RTCC)
- Climate Politics Are Stranger Than Fiction In Australia (Climate Progress)
- Australia’s Carbon Tax Repeal Condemned Around the World:
- Environmentalists Denounce Repeal of Australia’s Carbon Tax (NY Times)
- VIDEO: ‘History will judge Tony Abbott very harshly’: MP Bill Shorten (ABC News Australia)
- Obama: New Initiatives to Brace For Climate Change Impacts:
- Obama: Climate change is ‘direct threat’ to US (The Hill):
President Obama said Wednesday that if nothing is done to mitigate the “direct threat” on infrastructure from climate change the U.S. will not remain “competitive in this 21st century economy.”… The initiatives include new data tools, millions to tribes for adaptation training, programs dedicated to rural electric infrastructure, and 3-D mapping to help state and local communities understand “which infrastructure are at risk,” Obama said.
- VIDEO: President Obama meets with his State, Local, and Tribal Leaders Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience. (White House.gov)
- Remarks by the President at Task Force on Climate Preparedness and Resilience Meeting (White House.gov)
- FACT SHEET: Taking Action to Support State, Local, and Tribal Leaders as They Prepare Communities for the Impacts of Climate Change (White House.gov)
- White House Announces Climate Change Initiatives (NY Times) [emphasis added]:
President Obama announced a series of climate change initiatives on Wednesday aimed at guarding the electricity supply; improving local planning for flooding, coastal erosion and storm surges; and better predicting landslide risks as sea levels rise and storms and droughts intensify.
- Wildfires Burn From California to Canada to Alaska:
- Firefighters battle hot, windy weather and running wildfires in Oregon, Washington (The Oregonian)
- Worst wildfire season in decades in Canada’s Northwest Territories (Radio Canada via Alaska Dispatch)
- Washington state wildfires rain down ash, create mushroom-like clouds of smoke (NY Daily News)
- California Gets Tough on Water Wasters, But Not Big Ag:
- California drought: New water restrictions carry penalty of up to $500 (San Jose Mercury News)
- California Farms Are Sucking Up Enough Groundwater to Put Rhode Island 17 Feet Under (Mother Jones)
- VIDEO: California Drought – The Jetstream Connection (Climate Crocks)
- Emergency Regulations to Increase Urban Water Conservation: Description and Context [PDF] (CA State Water Resources Board)
- Editorial: Overwatering is a crime ““ except for state’s biggest water user (Sacramento Bee)
- Lake Mead Drops to Record Low:
- When Will Las Vegas Run Out Of Water? (Las Vegas Sun)
- Lake Mead sinks to a record low (Las Vegas Review-Journal)
- Last Straw: How The Fortunes Of Las Vegas Will Rise Or Fall With Lake Mead (Popular Science)
- VIDEO: Water woes in west reach an alarming level (MSNBC):
Punishing heat and droughts make the American southwest some of the harshest territory in the country. Douglas Kenney from Western Water Policy Program joins to discuss the dropping water levels in Lake Mead.
- The Thirsty West: What Happens in Vegas Doesn’t Stay in Vegas (Slate): Even Sin City’s attempts to conserve water are wasteful.
- Chevron Admits The Truth: Oil Shale Will Use Huge Amounts Of Western Water (Climate Progress)
‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (Stuff we didn’t have time for in today’s audio report)…
- Hottest March-June On Record Globally, Reports Japan Meteorological Agency (Climate Progress)
- Pesticides linked to bee deaths banned at refuges (Statesman Journal)
- Natural gas boom hasn’t made US energy secure, warns IEA chief (The Hill):
The United States has not reached a state of energy security despite the natural gas boom that is sweeping the nation, the new head of the International Energy Agency (IEA) said Monday.
- Study: English Channel all fished out (Summit Co. Citizens Voice):
The English Channel is all but fished out, leaving fishermen scraping the bottom of the barrel in their quest for a commercial haul.
- North Dakota wrestles with radioactive oilfield waste (High Country News):
Last winter, when Rick Schreiber saw the photos of two abandoned flatbed trailers heaped with thousands of pounds of low-level radioactive garbage, some spilling onto the ground, he’d had enough. A landfill director in western North Dakota’s Bakken oil field, near where the waste was left, Schreiber turns illegal industrial rubbish like that away from the McKenzie County municipal landfill weekly.
- Questions follow jellyfish invasion off Maine coast (Portland Press Herald):
For weeks, Maine’s marine research centers have been flooded with questions about a seeming jellyfish invasion in local waters, primarily Casco Bay. They’ve ranged from the urgent ““ should I let my kids go in the water, or are they going to get stung? ““ to expressions of longer-term fears, namely, is this the result of global warming?
- VIDEO: CNBC’s Climate “Expert”: “Demonization Of Carbon Dioxide Is Just Like” Demonization Of “Jews Under Hitler” (Media Matters): Exxon-Funded Physicist William Happer Fulfills Godwin’s Law
- Clear differences between organic and non-organic food, study finds (Guardian UK):
Research is first to find wide-ranging differences between organic and conventional fruits, vegetables and cereals
- How long will world’s oil reserves last? 53 years, says BP (CS Monitor):
The world has 53.3 years left to find an alternative to oil before current proved reserves run dry, according to BP. Of course, nations are finding new oil ““ meaning that number is rising ““ but new extraction methods are costly and can pose environmental threats.
- Congressional Candidate: Most Energy Problems ‘Are Caused By Environmentalists’ (Climate Progress)
- Renewable Energy Provided 1/3 of Germany’s Energy in First Half of 2014 (Climate Progress)
- Zero carbon and economic growth can go together, UN study says (Guardian UK):
The top 15 emitter countries could make deep cuts to emissions while also tripling economic output, according to the study
FOR MORE on Climate Science and Climate Change, go to our Green News Report: Essential Background Page
Restraining global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius will require changing how the world produces and uses energy to power its cities and factories, heats and cools buildings, as well as moves people and goods in airplanes, trains, cars, ships and trucks, according to the IPCC. Changes are required not just in technology, but also in people’s behavior.
Even if, in spite of the evidence to the contrary, global warming were happening, there would still be those who think that paying a government of parasites money from the sweat of their brow is somehow an acceptable state of affairs, as long as the parasites claim the ability to save you from your fears.
Gee, Abbey @ #1 — what an unpersuasive, evidence-free comment! Got any specific peer-reviewed scientific evidence to back up your science-denying, ideologically-based claim? With URLs, please.
That’s an interesting juxtaposition – you’re taking advantage of the taxpayer-funded & government-built Internet that you’ve accessed using taxpayer-funded and government-built infrastructure to attack a “government of parasites.”
Abbey,
Luminaries have seen the direction civilization has been going in for a long, long time.
Psychologists have seen the psychological reaction to it down to its core for a long time too.
Only those who refuse to see don’t see it.
Abbey said @ 1:
What “evidence”? We deal in hard facts and independently verifiable information here, Abbey. So your precise cites to back up your so-far unevidenced claim would be appreciated. Looking forward to it!
Nah, has nothing to do with that, no matter the fine libertarian musings you’ve been hoaxed into being able to regurgitate. Some of us actually have no problem paying a government to do jobs that cannot and will not otherwise be done by anybody but parasites. For example, some of us prefer government funded roads that are free for all to use, rather than having to pay tolls to private companies at each intersection. Some of us enjoy the clean(ish) water and clean(ish) air and safe(ish) food and safe(ish) pharmaceutical medicines and reliable electricity, etc. that comes with accountable(ish), overseeable self-governance, versus unaccountable private parasites who work for profits rather than people.
Many of us would like affordable healthcare for all, as a human right, without the additional costs added on for the profit of parasitical private insurance companies who do absolutely nothing to help improve anybody’s health, while simply sucking that profit and good fortune out of the illness and bad fortune of others.
It has nothing to do with fear, Abbey, no matter how many times Mises and his fellow theoretical philosophers, followers, hangers-on and profiteers sell you stuff to convince you as much. Nor does it have anything to do with ideological fantasies…though you are welcome to have, and parrot, both here if you like. But if you could back up your assertions with independently verifiable information, it would make the conversation much more productive, instructive and interesting to all.
Gracias!
Well said, Dredd. That link really does nail it.
Thanks Des. We are all on the same page here at the Green Brad Blog all these years.