With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 1/15/2015, 3:57pm PT  


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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Obama's big move to cut methane emissions - but there's a catch; West Virginia and the fight for science in science textbooks; Good news and bad news on sea level rise; PLUS: Car Wars - it's Tesla vs. Chevy in the race for electric cars... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): WA Gov. Jay Inslee's big green plans for his state; Booming solar jobs aiding economic recovery; Sen. Sanders forcing Republicans to go on record on climate change; Not all Republicans think alike about global warming; Fracking pollutants found in PA rivers; CA limits pesticide use on strawberries; Rooftop solar already cheaper than utility rates in some cities; Pope Francis steps up rhetoric on human-caused climate change... PLUS: The Logic of Divestment: Why We Have to Kiss Off Big Carbon Now... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

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

  • The Logic of Divestment: Why We Have to Kiss Off Big Carbon Now (Rolling Stone):
    As climate-change activists pressure public institutions to dump their fossil-fuel investments, it's becoming increasingly clear that the right thing to do is also the smart thing to do
  • The greenest governor in the country tells Grist about his big climate plan (Grist) [emphasis added]:
    Q: There's a pretty vocal constituency in Washington for the carbon tax. Why go with cap-and-trade? Jay Inslee: Because it works....A [carbon] tax has a benefit of being simple to understand and easier to implement, but it has a huge detriment: It doesn’t give you the most important tool to limit carbon pollution, which is a limit on carbon pollution.
  • U.S. Solar Jobs Climb 22% as Clean Power Aids Economic Recovery (Bloomberg):
    The growth indicates that solar energy is one of the industries helping drive an economic recovery in the U.S., while slumping oil prices are prompting oil companies to reduce capital spending and cut employment.
  • Bernie Sanders Forces Republicans to State Their Views on Climate Change (NY Times):
    If nothing else, the proposal should attract extra attention to the pipeline debate and Republican members' discomfort in staking an un-hedged position on the global warming issue.
  • The Solar Industry Created More Jobs In 2014 Than Oil And Gas Extraction (Climate Progress):
    According to the report, the solar installation sector beat out the oil and gas pipeline construction industry and the crude oil and natural gas extraction industry in 2014, creating almost 50 percent more jobs than those industries did. The report also expects solar jobs to continue to grow in 2015, predicting that more than 36,000 jobs will be added over the next 12 months.
  • Not All Republicans Think Alike About Global Warming (Yale Project on Climate Communication) [emphasis added]:
    We find that solid majorities of self-identified moderate and liberal Republicans - who comprise 30% of the party - think global warming is happening (62% and 68% respectively). By contrast, 38% of conservative Republicans think global warming is happening. At the extreme, Tea Party Republicans (17% of the party) are the most dismissive - only 29% think global warming is happening.
  • High levels of pollutants from drilling waste found in Pa. rivers (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette):
    New scientific sampling and analysis has found high concentrations of ammonium and iodide, two potentially hazardous pollutants, in oil and gas well drilling wastewater discharged into streams and rivers in Pennsylvania and other states.
  • State puts limits on a pesticide used for strawberries, other crops (LA Times):
    California farmers must restrict their use of a tear gas-like pesticide applied to strawberries and other crops under new rules designed to protect farmworkers and people who live, work and go to school near agricultural fields.
  • Report: Rooftop solar already cheaper than utility rates in most major cities (Charlotte Business Journal):
    New York City and Boston unsurprisingly rank as the cities with the largest savings from a solar investment.
  • Global Warming Linked To More Extreme Weather And Weaker Jet Stream (Climate Progress):
    A growing body of research ties that unexpected jump to a weakening of the jet stream - in particular to "more frequent high-amplitude (wavy) jet-stream configurations that favor persistent weather patterns," as a new study puts it.
  • Tar Sands Trouble: Suncor cuts 1,000 jobs, takes $1-billion out of 2015 budget (Toronto Globe & Mail)
  • Pope Francis says climate change is mostly man's fault (Guardian UK):
    "I don't know if it is all (man's fault) but the majority is, for the most part, it is man who continuously slaps down nature," he said...."I think man has gone too far," he said. "Thank God that today there are voices that are speaking out about this."
  • The Saudis, Stones, and the End of the Age of Oil (Climate Crocks) [emphasis added]:
    In 2000, Sheikh Yamani, former oil minister of Saudi Arabia, gave an interview in which he said: "Thirty years from now there will be a huge amount of oil - and no buyers. Oil will be left in the ground. ... [T]o Saudi Arabia, that end is clearly not so far away that the owner of the largest, most accessible crude resource is willing to continue to subsidize higher prices for other producers at the risk of leaving its own oil untapped one day in the future.
  • The Serengeti strategy: How special interests try to intimidate scientists, and how best to fight back (Michael Mann, Bulletin of Atomic Scientists):
    Much as lions on the Serengeti seek out vulnerable zebras at the edge of a herd, special interests faced with adverse scientific evidence often target individual scientists rather than take on an entire scientific field at once.
  • Surprise! Environmental regulations may not cost as much as governments and businesses fear (The Economist) [emphasis added]:
    Now, they finally have some hard figures....More importantly, the new study confirms earlier findings about the impact of individual measures: "an increase in stringency of environmental policies does not harm productivity growth." This contradicts what most governments and companies seem to believe: that green rules may be justified by the need to save the planet but impose immediate economic costs.


FOR MORE on Climate Science and Climate Change, go to our Green News Report: Essential Background Page

  • Skeptical Science: Database with FULL DEBUNKING of ALL Climate Science Denier Myths
  • 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.
  • How to Solve Global Warming: It's the Energy Supply (Scientific American):
    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.
  • Warning: Even in the best-case scenario, climate change will kick our asses (Grist)
  • NASA Video: Warming over the last 130 years, and into the next 100 years:
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