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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Congress wraps up for the year with Republican anti-environment initiatives to be signed by the President; UN climate summit wraps up in Peru – ALL nations are in for final talks in Paris; PLUS: Another Bush, another climate change denier… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!
Green News Report
with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen
12/16/2014
‘Green News Report’ – December 16, 2014 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen... · · · · · ‘Green News Report’ – December 16, 2014 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Remembering the genius who got BPA out of your water bottles, and more; Jan.-Nov.2014 the hottest ever recorded; Why the US-China climate deal is a true game-changer; Solar efficiency breakthrough from Australia; Fact or Fiction? Can geoengineering solve our global warming problem?; Saudi Arabia ‘playing chicken with its oil’ … PLUS: Climate Change Takes A Village: as the planet warms, a remote Alaskan town shows just how unprepared we are … and much, MUCH more! …
STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY’S ‘GREEN NEWS REPORT’…
- First Tornado in 10 Years Hits Los Angeles, In December:
- VIDEO: Tornado strikes Los Angeles for first time in a decade (Washington Post)
- Tornado touches down in South Los Angeles, damaging 5 homes (LA Times)
- Torrential Rains Dent Califonia’s Worst Drought in at Least 1,200 Years (Dr. Jeff Masters, Weather Underground)
- Historic UN COP20 Climate Talks – All Nations Are In:
- ANALYSIS: What came out of Lima (Energy Post):
We’ve analysed an unedited version of the Lima text to explore what it may mean for a new global deal….The first part is the conclusion of the Lima meeting, which commits all countries to tackling climate change along the lines of previous agreements….
- VIDEO: Emissions-Cutting Deal Reached at COP 20 Lima, But Will It Help Prevent Catastrophic Climate Change? (Democracy Now!)
- In Climate Talks, Soft is the New Hard — and That’s a Good Thing (Dot Earth, NY Times)
- VIDEO: Secretary of State John F. Kerry — Climate Change: A Test of Global Leadership (UN FCCC)
- Lima deal leaves ominous climate questions Politico):
But many demands from poorer countries got little attention at the talks, including their proposal that nations like the U.S. chart a clearer pathway toward steering billions of dollars to help developing nations cope with rising seas, increasing temperatures and worsening storms.
- Strange Climate Event: Warmth Toward U.S. (NY Times):
At the global climate change negotiations now wrapping up in Peru, American negotiators are being met with something wildly unfamiliar: cheers, applause, thanks and praise.
- VIDEO: PBS Newshour: Lima Climate Talks (Climate Crocks)
- ANALYSIS: What came out of Lima (Energy Post):
- Republicans Insert Anti-Environment Amendments in Must-Pass Spending Bills:
- Congress stuck a few anti-environmental measures in the ‘CRomnibus’ spending bill (Vox. com)
- Cromnibus only nibbles at energy agenda (Politico):
The bill blocks funding for the Green Climate Fund…. A repeat rider bars funding for Energy Department light-bulb efficiency standards, a ban that environmentalists tried harder to get rid of this time because it is keeping the department from proposing the next round of standards.
- Planned Arizona copper mine would put a hole in Apache archaeology (Science Magazine):
The land, however, also contains important archaeological sites and places sacred to local Native American tribes, especially the Apache.
- Defense Bill Passes, Giving Sacred Native American Sites To Mining Company (Huffington Post)
- Dream Snatcher – Apache Land Traded To Mining Company (Snopes) [emphasis added]:
While the land in question in Arizona is culturally significant to Native American groups such as the Apache, it is not tribal land currently belonging to them….which although cumulatively larger are not valuable to the tribal groups. Use of the land adjacent to the proposed mining site would very likely be disrupted or devalued should the land swap occur as planned.
- Congress Stuffed Some Coal In Its Omnibus Package (Huffington Post Green)
- Jeb Bush 2016: Another Bush, Another Climate Change Denier:
- Jeb Bush’s decision to explore presidential bid scrambles the 2016 GOP field (Washington Post)
- Jeb Bush just jump-started the 2016 election (Washington Post)
- Where the 2016 GOP contenders stand on climate change (Washington Post, May 2011)
- VIDEO: Jeb Bush on Manmade Climate Change: Science ‘Not Unanimous” (Youtube)
‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (Stuff we didn’t have time for in today’s audio report)…
- Climate Change Takes A Village: As The Planet Warms, A Remote Alaskan Town Shows Just How Unprepared We Are (Huffington Post Green):
Looking at the long-term reality facing the island, Shishmaref’s residents voted to pack up and move the town elsewhere. Twelve years later, they’re still here.
- Remembering the Genius Who Got BPA Out of Your Water Bottles, And More (Grist) [emphasis added]:
By the time Colborn died on Sunday, at the age of 87, she had immersed herself in decades of research — and inspired even more research — that sought to do just that. The many, many proposed BPA bans? Go back to the very beginning, and you’ll find Colborn. The concern over dwindling sperm counts? Same thing….What Colborn was seeing was the result of a wide variety of synthetic chemicals that had come into being in the 1950s and ’60s.
- VIDEO: Why the US/China Deal Is A Game-Changer (Climate Crocks) [emphasis added]:
They need to change the course they are on because the breakneck development of fossil fuels has put them on a collision course with some very, very hard physical limits — in particular, water. In addition, they are looking at pollution problems that have become so severe, they are now a primary source of political unrest.
- Earth’s 7th Warmest November Puts 2014 on Pace to be Warmest Year on Record: NOAA (Dr. Jeff Masters, Weather Underground):
November 2014 was the seventh warmest November on record, and the year-to-date-period January – November was Earth’s warmest such period since record keeping began in 1880, said NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center (NCDC) on Monday. NASA rated November 2014 as the 8th warmest November on record. November ended a 3-month streak with record warm monthly temperatures—August, September, and October 2014 were all the warmest such months on record.
- Solar energy world first in Australia (Sydney Morning Herald):
A team from the Australian Centre for Advanced Photovoltaics (PV) at the University of NSW has achieved 40.4 per cent “conversion efficiency” by using commercially available solar cells combined with a mirror and filters that reduce wasted energy.
- Fact or Fiction?: Geoengineering Can Solve Global Warming (Scientific American):
Neither blocking sunlight nor capturing carbon can stop climate change…Scientists are starting to agree that geoengineering will prove insufficient for solving climate change.
- Cost of cloud brightening for cooler planet revealed (Science Daily) [emphasis added]:
“I am not recommending that we use any of these techniques now, but it is important to know how best to use them should they become necessary. Should no progress be made to reduce CO2 levels, then geoengineering techniques, similar to this, might become necessary to avoid dangerous rises in global temperatures.”
- Spillovers From Falling Oil Prices: Risks to Mexico and the United States (Michael Levi, Council on Foreign Relations):
This paper investigates Mexican vulnerability to falling oil prices—and spillovers to the United States—to show how troublesome such a development might be.
- Saudi Arabia is playing chicken with its oil (Reuters Analysis):
With ongoing proxy wars in Syria and Iraq, Saudi Arabia risks instigating an oil war with Russia and Iran—a war that the kingdom can perhaps win in the short term. But like sectarian conflict, Saudi actions threaten a conflagration that can spin out of everyone’s control.
- Congress To Nutritionists: Don’t Talk About The Environment (NPR):
A government-appointed group of top nutrition experts, assigned to lay the scientific groundwork for a new version of the nation’s dietary guidelines, decided earlier this year to collect data on the environmental implication of different food choices.
- Is this the beginning of the German PV + storage boom? (Renewables International):
New figures published by German solar lobby group BSW indicate that prices of solar power storage units are dropping considerably, and sales are picking up. Nonetheless, the market remains quite small.
- How Solar Power Could Slay the Fossil Fuel Empire by 2030 (Motherboard):
In just 15 years, the world as we know it will have transformed forever. The age of oil, gas, coal and nuclear will be over. A new age of clean power and smarter cars will fundamentally, totally, and permanently disrupt the existing fossil fuel-dependent industrial infrastructure in a way that even the most starry-eyed proponents of ‘green energy’ could never have imagined.
- 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.
- 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.
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