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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Super Typhoon Hagupit blows 2014 into the record books; Doesn’t look good for Keystone XL pipeline, if Obama on The Colbert Report is to be believed; PLUS: Rich vs. Poor: Deep divisions stall UN climate talks… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!
Green News Report
with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen
12/9/2014
‘Green News Report’ – December 9, 2014 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen... · · · · · ‘Green News Report’ – December 9, 2014 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Solar panel efficiency breakthrough – record 40 percent efficiency; Louisiana’s ‘moon shot’ to restore disappearing coastline; ‘Significant’ methane leaking from abandoned wells; Supreme Court rejects BP challenge to Gulf spill settlement; Heat waves will increase in Europe… PLUS: Fossil Fuel companies in secretive alliance with Republican Attorneys General … and much, MUCH more! …
STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY’S ‘GREEN NEWS REPORT’…
- Obama Dismissive of Keystone XL:
- Obama: Keystone XL could contribute to ‘disastrous’ climate change (Washington Post):
“We’ve got to make sure that it’s not adding to the problem of carbon and climate change. We have to examine that, and we have to weigh that against the amount of jobs that it’s actually going to create, which aren’t a lot,” he said. “Essentially, this is Canadian oil passing through the United States to be sold on the world market. It’s not going to push down gas prices here in the United States. It’s good for Canada.”
- VIDEO: Barack Obama took over “The Colbert Report” last night (Salon)
- The President and the Pipeline (The New Yorker)
- Super Typhoon Hagupit Hits Philippines One Year after Super Typhoon Haiyan:
- Update: Super Typhoon Drops Major Rain on Phillipines (Climate Crocks) [emphasis added]:
Hagupit is Earth’s seventh Category 5 storm of 2014…making it the busiest year for these most extreme of tropical cyclones since 2005.
…
Our database of these most extreme of tropical cyclones is of poor quality and there are not enough of them to say if they are showing climate-related trends yet or not, but the forecast is for more of these high-end tropical cyclones to occur in a warmer climate. - VIDEO: Typhoon Hagupit: aid effort praised as one million flee to safety in Philippines (Guardian UK)
- Philippine capital braces for storm, as Hagupit leaves 27 dead (Reuters)
- Typhoon Death Toll Rises In Philippines, Though Devastation Less Than Feared (NPR)
- Big oil must pay for climate change harm to world’s poorest (RTCC)
- UN COP20: Climate Summit UPDATE:
- UN COP20 Lima – Main Coverage Page (United Nations Climate Change Conference 2014)
- LIVE IN LIMA: UN COP20 climate change summit (RTCC)
- Lima Climate Talks Split on Role of Adaptation, Finance in New Deal (Reuters):
Negotiators at U.N. climate talks in Lima are divided over whether governments should include finance and adaptation commitments in the national offers of action they are due to put forward early next year as the building blocks of a new global climate change deal.
- Optimism Faces Grave Realities at Climate Talks (NY Times) [emphasis added]:
At stake now, they say, is the difference between a newly unpleasant world and an uninhabitable one.
- World Climate Talks In Lima Aim To Move Beyond Kyoto Treaty (NPR) [emphasis added]:
The plan in Lima would be to have each government offer up its own voluntary target. And, says Stern, “to subject what they are proposing to do to full sunlight, so … other countries and civil society and the press and everybody else can look to see what China, the U.S., Europe or Japan or anybody else is proposing to do. And you take whatever criticism you get.”
- Stern warning: Legally-binding climate deal ‘not necessary’ (BBC)
- Australia named worst-performing industrial country on climate change (Guardian UK)
- World Bank chief calls for “zero net emissions” climate goal (RTCC):
Jim Kim joins growing momentum behind drive to ensure 2015 climate deal will wipe out fossil fuel use…
- India named among moderate-performers on climate change (Economic Times)
- Kerry Plans to Attend Climate Talks (NY Times)
- EU Calls For Legally Binding Emissions Cuts At Lima COP20 (Clean Technica)
- UN COP20: Green Climate Fund Makes Progress::
- Climate Financing ‘Not Possible’ For Governments Alone (Climate Central)
- Optimism Faces Grave Realities at Climate Talks (NY Times) [emphasis added]:
While a breach of the 3.6 degree threshold appears inevitable, scientists say that United Nations negotiators should not give up on their efforts to cut emissions. At stake now, they say, is the difference between a newly unpleasant world and an uninhabitable one.
- Green Climate Fund – who’s pledged and how much (AP)
- Poorest countries ‘left behind’: climate finance report (Daily Mail)
- Belgian pledge pushes Green Climate Fund to $10 billion goal (Chicago Tribune)
- Canada bolsters Green Climate Fund as Europe emerges as biggest per capita backer (Business Green)
- UN COP20 Lima: Australia and Canada Go Rogue In Climate Change Action:
- Canada and Australia now rank worse than Russia in fighting climate change (Fusion)
- Canada Will Miss Its 2020 Pledge By A Wide Margin (Climate Action Tracker)
- United by inaction: climate bromance links Canada, Australia (Sydney Morning Herald)
‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (Stuff we didn’t have time for in today’s audio report)…
- Energy Firms in Secretive Alliance With Attorneys General (NY Times):
The letter to the Environmental Protection Agency from Attorney General Scott Pruitt of Oklahoma carried a blunt accusation: Federal regulators were grossly overestimating the amount of air pollution caused by energy companies drilling new natural gas wells in his state. But Mr. Pruitt left out one critical point. The three-page letter was written by lawyers for Devon Energy, one of Oklahoma’s biggest oil and gas companies, and was delivered to him by Devon’s chief of lobbying.
- Louisiana’s Moon Shot (Pro Publica):
The state hopes to save its rapidly disappearing coastline with a 50-year, $50 billion plan based on science that’s never been tested and money it doesn’t have. What could go wrong?
- Researchers convert sunlight to electricity with over 40 percent efficiency (Phys.org):
UNSW Australia’s solar researchers have converted over 40% of the sunlight hitting a solar system into electricity, the highest efficiency ever reported….”We used commercial solar cells, but in a new way, so these efficiency improvements are readily accessible to the solar industry,” added Dr Mark Keevers, the UNSW solar scientist who managed the project.
- Study finds ‘significant’ methane leaking from abandoned wells (Fuel Fix) [emphasis added]:
And while federal regulators are now concentrating on methane emitted during oil and gas production, the new study conducted by researchers with Princeton University suggests that accumulating leaks from abandoned wells over decades may be a bigger problem.
- U.S. Supreme Court rejects BP challenge to Gulf spill settlement (Reuters) [emphasis added]:
The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday rejected BP’s challenge to its multibillion-dollar settlement agreement over the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill, which the oil giant complained has allowed payouts to some businesses that are unable to trace their losses to the disaster….The action, disclosed in an unsigned order, means BP must make the payments as it continues to deal with the spill’s aftermath.
- Heat Waves in Europe Will Increase, Study Finds (NY Times) [emphasis added]:
[T]hree scientists from the Met Office, the British weather agency, have concluded that human-caused global warming is going to make European summer heat waves “commonplace” by the 2040s…This is up from a probability, just a decade ago, that such events would occur only once every 52 years, a 10-fold increase.
- Study finds early warning signals of abrupt climate change (Phys.org) [emphasis added]:
“We don’t know how close we are to a collapse of the circulation, but a real world early warning could help us prevent it, or at least prepare for the consequences” adds co-author Professor Tim Lenton.
- Scientist With Deep Industry Ties Being Considered for Key EPA Job (Center for Public Integrity):
A scientist with deep ties to the chemical industry is one of two finalists to lead the office at the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency that determines which chemicals can make people sick, and in what doses.
- Fuel To the Fire? Fuel Exports Soar Under Obama (AP):
As the Obama administration makes headway at home in the fight against global warming, it has helped stoke record exports of fossil fuels that are contributing to rising levels of pollution elsewhere. U.S. exports of diesel and gasoline have doubled since President Barack Obama took office, and the carbon embedded in them has meet political goals by taking it off America’s pollution balance sheet. But that does not necessarily help the planet.
- Climate Change and the Record 2014 California Drought (Michael Mann, Huffington Post):
The methodology used in the current article, in my view, is deeply flawed because it doesn’t properly account for a number of potentially important factors behind the record California drought.
- Climate Change Denial Nixed in Textbooks (National Center for Science Education):
I’m pleased to be able to update that report and say that both publishers have now agreed to correct their coverage of climate change.
- No health impacts from wind turbine noise, says MIT study (North America Wind Power):
Living in close proximity to wind farms does not harm human health, a study by the Massachusetts Institute for Technology (MIT) found.
- VIDEO: GeoEngineering: Contemplating the Last Resort (Climate Crocks):
Scientists have been contemplating the Last Resort. Rutger’s Alan Robock on pros, and cons.
- How to stop global warming, in 7 steps (Vox.com) [emphasis added]:
5) Cutting emissions will cost us – but so will global warming… Economic modeling suggests that this would shave 0.06 percentage points off global economic growth each year….The world would still get richer over time, but at a somewhat slower rate.
FOR MORE on Climate Science and Climate Change, go to our Green News Report: Essential Background Page
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.
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.
Senator Inhofe will chair a senate committee and give new power to denialism (see video).
The mainstream media:
(NY Times, 11/30/14)