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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Confirmed. Again. NASA and NOAA find 2014 breaks record for hottest year; More new studies warn human impacts threaten our life support systems; PLUS: 'A glimmer of hopefulness in all this'... 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): Yellowstone River pipeline oil spill triggers drinking water advisory; Rooftop solar enhances home re-sale values; Court rules farms can be held liable for manure pollution; Where have all of California's big trees gone?; GOP Senators quietly supporting increase in gas tax; Expert: oil companies will never address climate change; Nebraska landowners sue over Keystone XL... PLUS: The end of the partisan debate over climate change?... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

• Another Climate Denial Myth Scuttled as 2014 Confirmed Planet's Hottest Year Ever Recorded (The BRAD BLOG):
  
  How fossil-fueled global warming hoaxsters cherry-pick scientific data to con the incurious...
• Confirmed: 2014 Hottest Year on Record:
• VIDEO: 2014’s record temperatures continue long-term trend (PBS Newshour)
• NASA, NOAA Find 2014 Warmest Year in Modern Record (NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies):
  
  The year 2014 ranks as Earth’s warmest since 1880, according to two separate analyses by NASA and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) scientists. The year 2014 now ranks as the warmest on record since 1880, according to an analysis by NASA scientists. The 10 warmest years in the instrumental record, with the exception of 1998, have now occurred since 2000. This trend continues a long-term warming of the planet...
• The Hottest 'Hottest Year Ever' Ever (Motherboard) [emphasis added]:
  
  But 2014’s Hottest Year Ever is, in fact, extraordinary. It should do more than serve as yet another reminder that human activity is cooking the planet's climate, and that despite this onslaught of hottest-ever years, we've done almost nothing to halt it....There was no El Niño in 2014, which means there was no extra boost in temperatures. This is just the new standard.
• 2014 Breaks Heat Record, Challenging Global Warming Skeptics (NY Times)
• Humanity Pushing 'Planetary Boundaries':
• Rate of environmental degradation puts life on Earth at risk, say scientists (Guardian UK) [emphasis added]:
  
  Humans are ‘eating away at our own life support systems’ at a rate unseen in the past 10,000 years, two new research papers say.
  ...
  Of nine worldwide processes that underpin life on Earth, four have exceeded “safe” levels – human-driven climate change, loss of biosphere integrity, land system change and the high level of phosphorus and nitrogen flowing into the oceans due to fertiliser use.
• Planetary Boundaries 2.0 – new and improved (Stockholm Resilience Centre)
• Climate change, extinctions signal Earth in danger zone - study (Reuters):
  
  Of a total of nine boundaries assessed, freshwater use, ocean acidification and ozone depletion were judged to be within safe limits. Others, including levels of airborne pollution, were yet to be properly assessed.
• VIDEO: Planetary Boundaries and Human Opportunities (Stockholm Resilience Centre):
• Ocean Life on Brink of Extinction - But It's Not There Yet:
• Ocean Life Faces Mass Extinction, Broad Study Says (NY Times) [emphasis added]:
  
  “We may be sitting on a precipice of a major extinction event,” said Douglas J. McCauley, an ecologist at the University of California, Santa Barbara...But there is still time to avert catastrophe, Dr. McCauley and his colleagues also found....“We’re lucky in many ways,” said Malin L. Pinsky, a marine biologist at Rutgers University and another author of the new report. “The impacts are accelerating, but they’re not so bad we can’t reverse them.”
• Marine defaunation: Animal loss in the global ocean (Science Magazine):
  
  Wildlife populations in the oceans have been badly damaged by human activity. Nevertheless, marine fauna generally are in better condition than terrestrial fauna...Consequently, meaningful rehabilitation of affected marine animal populations remains within the reach of managers. Human dependency on marine wildlife and the linked fate of marine and terrestrial fauna necessitate that we act quickly to slow the advance of marine defaunation.
• VIDEO: Scientists say world's marine life threatened with extinction (New Orleans Times-Picayune)
• Glimmer of Good News: Solar Industry Booming Across U.S.:
• 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.
• 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.
• There are now twice as many solar jobs as coal jobs (Grist)

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

• The End of the Partisan Divide Over Climate Change (Forbes):
  
  That won’t likely mean an end to partisan bickering, of course. But as the adage goes, the first step to solving a problem is admitting that you have one. That’s precisely what the American Petroleum Institute did when it released its annual State of American Energy Report two weeks ago.
• Yellowstone River pipeline spill spurs drinking water advisory (AP):
  
  Truckloads of drinking water are expected to begin arriving Tuesday in an eastern Montana city where thousands of residents have been told not to drink from their taps following an oil spill along the Yellowstone River.
• Rooftop Solar Enhances Home Values: (Phys.org):
  
  A multi-institutional research team of scientists...found that home buyers consistently have been willing to pay more for homes with host-owned solar photovoltaic (PV) energy systems —averaging about $4 per watt of PV installed—across various states, housing and PV markets, and home types. This equates to a premium of about $15,000 for a typical PV system.
• Public support for Keystone XL drops to 41% (NBC News)
• Farms can be held liable for pollution from manure: US court (Reuters):
  
  A U.S. federal court has ruled for the first time that manure from livestock facilities can be regulated as solid waste, a decision hailed by environmentalists as opening the door to potential legal challenges against facilities across the country.
• California's forests: where have all the big trees gone? (Naitonal Geographic):
  
  They've gone to logging and housing - but especially to climate change, says a new study.
• Odds of gas-tax hike grow with quiet support of GOP senators (SF Gate):
  
  A carbon tax is about the last thing most Republicans in Congress would embrace in public. But suddenly confronted with the necessity of paying for repairs to crumbling highways and bridges, Inhofe is among several who have said they would consider raising the federal gasoline tax.
• Engaging with oil companies on climate change is futile, admits leading UK environmentalist (Guardian UK):
  
  After years working on sustainability projects with BP and Shell, Jonathon Porritt says he came to the conclusion it was ‘impossible’ for today’s oil and gas companies to adapt to the need to exit fossil fuels
• Sea levels are suddenly rising way faster than we realized (Quartz) [emphasis added]:
  
  The catch, though, is this: If the seas weren't rising as fast as we thought between 1900 and 1990, then they must have been rising even faster than we thought since then to land us where we are now.
• Nebraska landowners sue Keystone XL developer: (Reuters):
  
  Seven Nebraska landowners on Friday filed suits against the company behind the Keystone XL pipeline, alleging that a state law that cleared the way for the massive project violates the state's constitution.
• 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 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.
• 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

• 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: Accountability, Environment, Green News, BP Oil Disaster, Coal, Oil, Solar energy, Climate change, Extreme weather, Agriculture, Oceans/Sea Level Rise, Water