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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Eleventh time’s the charm: House GOP passes Keystone XL bill — again; Apple Computers invests big in big solar; Record snow in Boston with more on the way; Oil companies dump toxic waste into CA’s aquifers; PLUS: Uncle Sam wants YOU to help save the monarch butterfly… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!
Green News Report
with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen
2/12/2015
‘Green News Report’ – February 12, 2015 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen... · · · · · ‘Green News Report’ – February 12, 2015 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Geoengineering is dangerous and ‘should not be deployed’; Heavy metal in your valentine chocolate?; New Tesla battery will power your home, and maybe the electric grid, too; BOMB-Shell CEO calls for “carbon pricing system”; Fox host: ‘We had to give up our freedom’ during snow storm because climate change is a hoax; Oil CEO says worse to come for oil industry; Total Oil report $5b loss; Native Americans protest bison killings… PLUS: VIDEO: Thanks Dr. Evil! Fossil Fuel Propaganda Misfire Goes Viral… and much, MUCH more! …
STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY’S ‘GREEN NEWS REPORT’…
- House Passes Keystone XL Pipeline Bill for 11th Time:
- Keystone pipeline passes House vote as Republicans defy Obama veto threat (Washington Post):
House of Representatives approves Senate bill to build controversial pipeline 270 to 152 with a White House veto almost guaranteed
- House Passes Keystone Bill, Sending It To Obama For Veto (Huffington Post Green)
- One Lonely Republican Voted Against Keystone Here’s why he did it (The New Republic)
- Apple CEO Tim Cook Goes Big on Big Solar:
- What Apple Just Did in Solar Is a Really Big Deal: Breaks records, slays trolls (Bloomberg News):
Now Cook is putting his prodigious sums of money where his mouth is, proclaiming the “biggest, boldest and most ambitious project ever,” an $850 million agreement to buy solar power from First Solar, the biggest U.S. developer of solar farms.
- VIDEO: Apple’s Huge Solar Play – Tesla Announces Batteries for Homes (Climate Crocks)
- Every Apple Store In California Will Soon Be Powered By Solar Energy (Climate Progress)
- Apple Deal, Tax Change Could Spark Corporate Solar Stampede (Reuters)
- Record Snow in Boston:
- As Boston’s Crazy Snow Keeps Falling, Scientists Weigh In On Climate Impact (Climate Progress)
- Boston, already buried in snow, faces potentially crippling blizzard this weekend (Mashable) [emphasis added]:
Boston received nearly twice its typical annual average snowfall in just the past three weeks, and Beantown is struggling to resume normal activities despite snow-related traffic gridlock.
- VIDEO: Desperation pushes snow removal to waterways in Massachusetts (The Rachel Maddow Show)
- AUDIO: Tallying Up The High Costs Of Extreme Weather (WBUR)
- Extreme weather exposes the vulnerability of our cities to climate change (The Conversation US)
- Extreme weather in U.S. comes with a high price tag (CBS News):
Extreme weather that has hit the United States comes with a hefty price tag: $1.15 trillion in the last 30 years, a trend that is likely to continue without better preparation at the state and local level, a Department of Homeland Security (DHS) official said Wednesday.
- Failure to prepare for extreme weather costs billions (USA Today)
- Warm Winter Affecting Alaska Iditarod, Grizzlies
- Iditarod officials change route of famed Alaska sled dog race (Reuters)
- Yellowstone Grizzlies Waking Up Early Due To Mild Winter (Climate Progress)
- CA Regulators Allowed Oil Companies to Pollute Aquifers 2500 Times
- State let oil companies taint drinkable water in Central Valley (AP):
Oil companies in drought-ravaged California have, for years, pumped wastewater from their operations into aquifers that had been clean enough for people to drink. They did it with explicit permission from state regulators, who were supposed to protect the increasingly strained groundwater supplies from contamination.
- California’s water debacle is worse than we thought: State let oil companies dump waste into protected aquifers thousands of times (Salon):
The state’s plan to reform its wastewater injection problem reveals just how bad it’s become
- Answers to questions about oil waste in California aquifers (AP)
- California Pledges To Eventually Stop Letting Oil Companies Dump Waste Into Its Water Sources (Climate Progress)
- YOU Can Help Save Monarch Butterflies:
- The monarch massacre: Nearly a billion butterflies have vanished (Washington Post)
- Imperiled monarch butterfly to get $3.2 million boost (CNN)
- Now’s Your Chance to Help Save the Imperiled Monarch Butterfly””and Get Paid to Do So (Take Part) [emphasis added]:
Another threat, according to Grant, has been well-intentioned individuals who have planted a tropical form of milkweed, which competes with native varieties and is not beneficial to monarchs or other pollinators.
- Report: Genetically Engineered Crops Are Driving the Monarch Butterfly to Extinction (Take Part) [emphasis added]:
A new study documents how skyrocketing herbicide use to produce biofuel is eradicating a plant essential to the iconic butterfly’s survival.
- VIDEO: Save the Monarch – Initiative Announcement (US Fish & Wildlife Service)
- U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Teams with Conservation Partners to Launch Campaign to Save Beleaguered Monarch Butterfly, Engage Millions of Americans (US Fish & Wildlife Service)
‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (Stuff we didn’t have time for in today’s audio report)…
- Anti-‘Geoengineering’ National Academy Report Opposes ‘Climate-Altering Deployment’ (Climate Progress) [emphasis added]:
The U.S. National Academy of Sciences has released two very pessimistic reports on geoengineering. Well, actually the reports are on “climate intervention,” because the Academy panel rejects the widely used term “geoengineering.” Why? Because “we felt ‘engineering’ implied a level of control that is illusory,“ explained Dr. Marcia McNutt who led the report committee. The word “intervention” makes it clearer that the “precise outcome” could not be known in advance.
- This new Tesla battery will power your home, and maybe the electric grid too (Washington Post):
Storing renewables efficiently has been a big bottleneck for consumers and for utilities alike, but if Tesla’s stationary battery takes off, it could change the way electricity is priced and traded on a market scale.
- BOMB-Shell -Shell CEO Pivots on Carbon: Calls for “Carbon Pricing System” (Climate Crocks):
“Yes, climate change is real. And yes, renewables are an indispensable part of the future energy mix. But no, provoking a sudden death of fossil fuels isn’t a plausible plan,” he adds.
- Senators Debate Whether Climate Change Is Real At EPA Carbon Rule Hearing (Climate Progress)
- Heavy Metal Valentine: Is There Lead in Your Chocolate? (Civil Eats):
A California group takes legal action against 16 companies for failing to warn consumers.
- VIDEO: Thanks Dr. Evil! Fossil Fuel Propaganda Misfire Goes Viral (Climate Crocks):
Every once in a while we can pull back the curtain and get a good look at the evil elves and Madison Avenue Orcs deployed by the fossil fuel barons. Look hard, climate deniers. This is the man pulling your strings.
- VIDEO: Fox host: ‘We had to give up our freedom’ during snow storm because climate change is a hoax (Raw Story) [emphasis added]:
“We had to give up our freedom and sit in our house, no cars on the road,” she continued. “Guess what? The models were wrong. So they got the models wrong on the science 24 hours before. How about those models 10, 20 years from now?”
“The models were exactly right for the people in Boston,” Faulkner observed.
- Apollo’s Energy Head Says Worst Is Yet to Come for Oil (Bloomberg):
“[OPEC has] every economic incentive to let this play out,” Greg Beard said of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries on Wednesday at the SuperInvestor U.S. conference in San Francisco. “I argue to being bearish longer. The worst, the problems, are yet to come.”
- A 23-year experiment finds surprising global warming impacts already underway (Guardian UK):
Some ecosystems are absorbing less carbon, which could amplify global warming
- Total, French Oil Giant, Reports $5.7 Billion Loss in Fourth Quarter (NY Times):
Write-downs of about $6.5 billion, mostly on Canadian oil sands projects, shale gas operations in the United States and European refining businesses, contributed to the loss, the company said.
- Native Americans in Montana Protest Slaughter of Yellowstone Bison (Reuters):
Native American activists gathered in Montana’s capital on Tuesday to protest the deaths of hundreds of Yellowstone National Park bison killed this year to ease the worries of Montana ranchers about a cattle disease carried by many park buffalo.
- Not enough time for geoengineering to work? (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists):
The first issue has to do with the deployment time necessary to introduce a technology at scale, and the second with how long we would need to commit to geoengineering to make a difference.
- These New Polls Show Why Americans Should Believe Climate Scientists In 30 Years (Climate Progress)
- It’s Not Too Late To Stop Climate Change, And It’ll Be Super-Cheap (Climate Progress):
I rarely disagree with Dave Roberts. But he has a column on Grist, “We can solve climate change, but it won’t be cheap or easy,” that is wrong, pure and simple….The most important climate issue is the cost and consequences of inaction.
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.
How is this for odd:
(Doom Is A Government Department – 3, @comments). When an article of faith is contrary to life, we have a serious problem, because about 100 congress members have this article of faith.