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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Good news: President Obama creates the world's largest marine sanctuary; Bad news: humans have wiped out half of the world's wildlife; Scientists find humans to blame for Australia's hottest year in history; PLUS: A major oil company joins Google in breaking up with Rightwing climate change-denying front group ALEC... 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): World War Fee: Utilities Holding Action on the Solar Revolution; Auditors Fault EPA for Lax Chemical Safeguards; California becomes first state to ban plastic bags; Tiny Spanish Island Nears 100 Percent Renewable Energy; Alaska Judge Dismisses Pebble Lawsuit Against EPA As Premature; Willie Nelson, Neil Young Lend Their Talents to Keystone XL Fight ... PLUS: China’s Haves and Have Nots: Clean air, water only for those who can afford it ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

• Humans Have Wiped Out 52 Per Cent of World's Wildlife:
• Living Planet Report 2014 [PDF] (World Wildlife Fund) [emphasis added]:
  
  Put another way, in less than two human generations, population sizes of vertebrate species have dropped by half. These are the living forms that constitute the fabric of the ecosystems which sustain life on Earth - and the barometer of what we are doing to our own planet, our only home. We ignore their decline at our peril.
• VIDEO: Half of world's animals have disappeared since 1970 (Telegraph UK) [emphasis added]:
  
  Almost the entire decline is down to human activity, through habitat loss, deforestation, climate change, over-fishing and hunting. Anyone born in in 1970 or before would have lived in a world teeming with animals compared to life today.
• WWF report: Global wildlife populations down by half since 1970 (CBC) [emphasis added]:
  
  The report also measured how close the planet is to nine so-called "planetary boundaries", thresholds of "potentially catastrophic changes to life as we know it." Three such thresholds have already been crossed - biodiversity, carbon dioxide levels and nitrogen pollution from fertilisers. Two more were in danger of being breached - ocean acidification and phosphorus levels in freshwater.
• 100,000 Elephants Killed by Poachers in Just Three Years, Landmark Analysis Finds: Central Africa has lost 64 percent of its elephants in a decade. (National Geographic)
• Civilization Is Now On Suicide Watch (Dredd Blog):
  
  There is no proper way to say we have destroyed over half of 10,000 species of mammals, birds, reptiles, amphibians, and fish, except to say "we are very quickly committing omnicide (a.k.a. 'suicide')."
• Good News: Obama Creates World's Largest Marine Sanctuary:
• VIDEO: Remarks by Sec. of State John Kerry at Our Ocean: Next Steps on Sustainable Fishing and Marine-Protected Areas (US State Dept.):
  
  So there are disturbing changes in the ocean's chemistry and these chemistry changes are the result of climate change which is taking place, and obviously the overfishing. There's just too much money chasing too few fish. And fisheries have to be sustainable.
• Obama creates vast Pacific Ocean marine reserve (BBC):
  
  US President Barack Obama has signed a memorandum to expand a vast marine reserve in the Pacific Ocean. The Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument will become the largest network of oceanic protected areas in the world.
• FACT SHEET: President Obama to Designate Largest Marine Monument in the World Off-Limits to Development (White House.gov)
• US Fisheries Management Restores 36 Depleted Species:
• Once Decimated U.S. Fish Stocks Enjoy Big Bounce Back: A new report highlights the success, and challenges, of fisheries management (National Geographic):
  
  Two-thirds of the closely monitored U.S. fish species once devastated by overfishing have bounced back in a big way thanks to management plans instituted 10 to 15 years ago, a new study says.
• California Blue Whales On The Rebound, Study Says (NPR)
• Two More U.S. Fish Populations Declared Rebuilt (Pew Charitable Trusts)
• Rebuilt Fish Stocks Since 2000 (Pew Charitable Trusts)
• Bringing Back the Fish: An Evaluation of U.S. Fisheries Rebuilding Under the Magnuson-Stevens Fishery Conservation and Management Act [PDF] (NRDC)
• Extreme Weather Attribution: Global Warming Fingerprint in 2013's Deadly Heat Waves:
• The fingerprint of climate change on the California drought, extreme weather in 2013 (Washington Post):
  
  Researchers studying the fingerprint of human-caused climate change on extreme weather events in 2013 have found that it played a role in half of the events that they looked at, including the California drought and extreme heat events.
• Global Warming Elevates Odds of Extreme Weather, From Australia to California (Mashable)
• Explaining Extreme Events of 2013 from a Climate Perspective (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society)
• Explaining Extreme Events of 2013 (National Climatic Data Center, NOAA)
• Science Shows How Climate Change is Baking Australia (Climate Central)
• National Science Foundation: Record California Drought Directly Linked To Climate Change (Climate Progress)
• Human-Caused Global Warming Contributed to Weather Extremes: Report (The Weather Channel)
• Exodus from Climate Denial: Google, Yahoo, Etc. Dump ALEC:
• A Conversation with Google CEO Eric Schmidt (The Diane Rehm Show, WAMU)
• Google Chairman: ALEC Is Lying About Climate Change And Funding Them Was A Mistake (Climate Progress) [emphasis added]:
  
  "Everyone understands climate change is occurring and the people who oppose it are really hurting our children and our grandchildren and making the world a much worse place," Schmidt said. "And so we should not be aligned with such people - they're just, they're just literally lying."
• Tech Companies Are Dropping ALEC En Masse (Climate Progress)
• ALEC lobbying group lashes out at Google over climate change 'lies' charge (Guardian UK):
  
  Conservative group addresses rebuttal to Google founders, who said group 'lies' about science, as rightwing allies attack IPCC
• VIDEO: Apple CEO Tim Cook: Tech Companies Must Get Serious on Climate Change (NBC News)
• Companies Take the Baton in Climate Change Efforts (NY Times)
• Two Forces Moving Business Closer to Climate Action (Harvard Business Review)
• Oil Companies Quietly Prepare For a Future of Carbon Pricing (Yale e360);
  
  The major oil companies in the U.S. have not had to pay a price for the contribution their products make to climate change. But internal accounting by the companies, along with a host of other signs, suggest that may soon change - though the implications of a price on carbon are far from clear.
• Oil Company Breaks Ties With Climate-Denying ALEC:
• Large Oil Company Bolts From ALEC (National Journal):
  
  Occidental Petroleum is cutting ties with the American Legislative Exchange Council amid backlash against the organization's stance on climate change.
  ...
  Occidental's letter notes a concern that it could be "presumed to share the positions" on global warming and regulations to limit air pollution from the nation's fleet of power plants held by organizations of which the company is a member, such as the Chamber of Commerce and the American Petroleum Institute, the largest trade association for the oil and gas industry.

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

• World War Fee: Utilities Holding Action on the Solar Revolution (Climate Crocks):
  
  China’s Haves and Have Nots: Clean air, water only for those who can afford it (EcoWatch):
  

  In China, only the very rich can afford to live in “green” developments. Clean water and slightly cleaner air is something you have to pay a lot of money to get.
• EPA Chief Slams Critics for ‘Misinformation’ (The Hill):
  
  Critics of the Environmental Protection Agency's water jurisdiction rule are spreading misinformation, the agency's chief said Monday.
• California becomes first state to ban plastic bags (AP):
  
  Gov. Jerry Brown on Tuesday signed the nation's first statewide ban on single-use plastic bags at grocery and convenience stores, driven to action by pollution in streets and waterways. A national coalition of plastic bag manufacturers immediately said it would seek a voter referendum to repeal the law, which is scheduled to take effect in July 2015.
• Tiny Spanish Island Nears Its Goal: 100 Percent Renewable Energy (NPR)
• Alaska Judge Dismisses Pebble Lawsuit Against EPA As Premature (Alaska Dispatch):
  
  The company promoting the controversial and beleaguered Pebble mine project lost a legal battle Friday when a federal judge threw out one of its lawsuits against the Environmental Protection Agency.
• Willie Nelson, Neil Young Lend Their Talents to Keystone XL Fight (Omaha World Herald):
  
  Music legends Willie Nelson and Neil Young delivered Saturday on a promise to comfort opponents of the Keystone XL pipeline while also pleasing a few project supporters who ventured into a crowded Nebraska farm field.
• Auditors Fault EPA for Lax Chemical Safeguards (The Hill):
  
  The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) doesn't do enough to stop hundreds of hazardous chemicals from getting into waterways via sewage plants, a watchdog report found.
• Climate Change Makes It Harder To Save Lake Erie (Toledo Blade):
  
  Although not the primary source of Great Lakes algae, climate change is exacerbating the problem and making it harder to reduce phosphorus and other nutrients that help algae grow, experts say.
• UN Climate Summit: Who's Promised What (Mashable)
• World Bank Backs Carbon Pricing, Convenes Leadership Coalition (Environment News Service)
• Naomi Klein Is Right, Unchecked Capitalism Will Destroy Civilization (Climate Progress):
  
  Choosing "unregulated capitalism" over human civilization would be a "morally monstrous" choice - and so the winning message for the climate movement is a moral one.
• 4 Scenarios Show What Climate Change Will Do To The Earth, From Pretty Bad To Disaster (Fast CoExist):
  
  But exactly how bad is still an open question, and a lot depends not only on how we react, but how quickly. The rate at which humans cut down on greenhouse gas emissions--if we do choose to cut them--will have a large bearing on how the world turns out by 2100, the forecasts reveal.

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, John Kerry, Environment, Barack Obama, State Department, Green News, ALEC, Climate change, Extreme weather, Keystone XL, Australia, Agriculture