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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Nothin' but good news for a change! New York issues first permanent ban on fracking; Obama permanently protects Alaska's Bristol Bay; PLUS: More accountability, more indictments in West Virginia toxic chemical spill... All that and more surprisingly good news 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): Drone video footage reveals massive toxic lagoons of pig feces; Warming oceans killing off Maine's cod; Big Coal evicts villagers in Columbia; Ohio coal companies ask government for bailout; Why oil prices keep falling; What is the 'atmospheric river' hitting California?... PLUS: The most brazen political lie of 2014: "Climate change is a hoax"... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

• New York State Permanently Bans Fracking:
• New York bans fracking after health report (Reuters):
  
  "The potential risks are too great, in fact not even fully known, and relying on the limited data presently available would be negligent on my part," [state's health commissioner Howard] Zucker said...The ruling is a blow for energy companies that had been waiting for years to tap the thousands of acres of land they have leased there.
• With Unresolved Health Risks and Few Signs of an Economic Boon, Cuomo to Ban Gas Fracking (Dot Earth, NY Times):
  
  Cuomo faced sustained, forceful and creative opposition from his left (the image below is one example of the creativity) and, as the upstate journalist Tom Wilber made clear in his blog and book, “Under the Surface,” there were few signs that New York would be able to provide sufficient oversight to justify drilling....On top of this, courts were increasingly upholding community efforts to enact local bans.
• AUDIO: NY Gov. Cabinet Meeting Announcing Fracking Ban: (SoundCloud, NY Governor's Office)
• Ohio Fracked Gas Well Blowout Forces Evacuations:
• Problems continue at blowout well in Ohio's Monroe County (Frack Check WV)
• Out Of Control Fracking Well Displaces Eastern Ohio Families (WOSU Public Radio)
• Magnum NatGas Blowout Continues to Flow (Natural Gas Intelligence)
• More Indictments in West Virginia Toxic Chemical Spill:
• 6 Freedom owners, managers, employees charged; company takes plea deal with feds (Charleston Gazette):
  
  Federal prosecutors charged Freedom Industries and six of its owners, managers and employees with criminal violations of the Clean Water Act related to the January 2014 chemical leak that contaminated the drinking water of 300,000 people in Charleston and surrounding communities.
• Four Executives Indicted From Company Behind West Virginia Chemical Spill (Climate Progress)
• Owners of Chemical Firm Charged in Elk River Spill in West Virginia (NY Times)
• VIDEO: Freedom Industries Officials Indicted in January Chemical Spill (US Attorney Office, Southern Division West Virginia)
• Obama Permanently Protects Alaska's Bristol Bay:
• VIDEO; President Obama Protects Bristol Bay (White House Youtube Channel)
• Fast Facts About Bristol Bay (Pew Charitable Trusts)
• Obama Indefinitely Bans Drilling in Alaskan Bay (NY Times):
  
  Mr. Obama first put the ecologically sensitive area of the Bering Sea — home to an important population of whales, seals and sea lions — off limits to oil rigs in 2010, but that restriction was set to expire in 2017, several months after he leaves office. With the new executive memorandum that he signed in the Oval Office on Tuesday, Mr. Obama made the ban permanent unless a future president acts to reverse it and allow leasing of the waters of the bay.

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

• The People Have Spoken: This Is The Most Brazen Lie Of 2014 (Climate Progress):
  
  Earlier this year, readers of the Tampa Bay Times’ fact-checking project PolitiFact were asked to vote on what they believe was the year’s biggest lie. And as of Wednesday, the results are in: “Climate change is a hoax” was the overwhelming choice.
• VIDEO: Drone Footage Reveals Massive, Toxic Manure 'Lagoons' at Factory Farms (Motherboard):
  
  Those lagoons you're looking at belong to Smithfield Foods, which bills itself as is "the largest pork producer and processor in the United States." They are often hundreds of feet long, and are fetid cesspools of waste—they are the result of pig excrement being sprayed out of the compounds where the animals are packed in like dirt-encrusted, antibiotics-loaded sardines.
• Waters Warm, and Cod Catch Ebbs in Maine (NY Times) [emphasis added]:
  
  [T]he cod population has collapsed....But a fix may not be easy. The Gulf of Maine’s waters are warming — faster than almost any ocean waters on earth, scientists say — and fish are voting with their fins for cooler places to live. That is upending an ecosystem and the fishing industry that depends on it.
• New Research on Tree Rings as Indicators of Past Climate (Science Blogs):
  
  A new study has recently been published that looks at the ecology of bristlecone pine growth at Sheep Mountain, and the tree ring signal those trees produce, at high altitudes in the Southwestern US.
• “Coal Means Death for Us”: Big Coal and Forced Evictions in Colombia (Triple Pundit):
  
  Here’s a sad truth: The displacement of indigenous populations as a result of international corporate development projects is a relatively common practice....In La Guajira, Colombia, the resource beneath the ground is more valuable than the people who live above it.
• Ohio utilities ask for governmentt cash to support aging coal plants: (Utility Dive):
  
  Ohio utilities requesting assistance in keeping older coal plants operating have also tried to conceal financial data that could be relevant to assessing the deal, Midwest Energy News reports.
• Why oil prices keep falling — and throwing the world into turmoil (Vox.com):
  
  The plummeting price of oil is the biggest energy story in the world right now. It's bringing back cheap gasoline to the United States while wreaking havoc on oil-producing countries like Russia and Venezuela. But why does the price of oil keep falling?
• What Is This “Atmospheric River” That Is Flooding California? (Scientific American)
• What's in a name? Earth's most abundant mineral finally gets one (Gizmag):
  
  Due to this instability above ground, no intact example of the mineral has ever managed to make its way to the surface.

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: Ohio, West Virginia, Alaska, New York, Accountability, Environment, Barack Obama, Republicans, Green News, Fracking, Natural gas, Coal, Oil, Climate change