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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Another day, another two oil train explosions; In Florida, the first rule of global warming is don't talk about global warming; Fukushima Nuclear Disaster still a disaster, four years later; PLUS: The world's first solar-powered plane soars into aviation history....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): Rate of climate change predicted to soar in 2020s; 10 myths about fossil fuel divestment; EPA failed to warn residents about contaminated water; The promise of energy storage; Time to worry about exploding Siberian craters?; Houston Ship Channel closed after collision and MTBE spill; Millions of songbirds slaughtered in Cyprus ... PLUS: How the Merchants of Doubt push global warming denial on your television... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

• Another Day, Another Oil Train Explosion: Galena, Illinois
• Agencies mobilize after crude oil train derails, catches fire near Galena (AP)
• Galena Oil Train Derailment Involved Safer Tanker Cars (CBS Chicago)
• Evacuation put in place after train derails near Galena, Illinois (WQAD Quad Cities)
• Suburban leaders concerned about rail safety following Galena derailment (Aurora Beacon-News)
• Another Day, Another Oil Train Explosion: Gogama, Ontario, Canada
• VIDEO: Train carrying crude oil derails near Gogama, Ont. (CBC)
• VIDEO: Gogama train derailment: 2 cars still in river after 38 leave track (CBC)
• Derailed Canadian Crude Oil Train Still Burning (Scientific American):
  
  The derailment is CN's second in the region in just three days and the third in less than a month. It was the latest in a series of North American derailments involving trains hauling crude oil, raising concerns about rail safety.
• Regulators Not Keeping Up, and 'Safer' Rail Cars Not Safer:
• AUDIO: A Hard Look At The Risks Of Transporting Oil On Rail Tanker Cars (NPR) [emphasis added]:
  
  [T]he Department of Transportation initiated comprehensive review or a rewrite of the regulations right after Lac-Megantic. But we're here - we're a year and a half later, and those regulations haven't emerged. It's sort of is a very, very good example of how the regulatory process, in many cases, has fallen apart through the negotiated rulemaking process that gives the industry a very loud voice at the table. And they can delay, and they can dilute, and they can delete a lot of these provisions just simply by objecting.
• Oil Train Traffic Increased 4000 Per Cent in Five Years (Climate Progress) [emphasis added]:
  
  According to a ForestEthics report from last year, oil train traffic in North America has surged by 4,000 percent over the last five years — traffic that’s mostly coming from North Dakota’s Bakken region and Alberta’s tar sands. With this increase in traffic, oil train accidents have also increased.
• Rail Cars Used To Ship Oil Called 'Unacceptable' (AP)
• Lawmakers calling for new oil train rules (La Crosse Tribune)
• Florida Officials Verbally Ordered 'Don't Say the Words 'Global Warming'':
• In Florida, Officials Ban Term ‘Climate Change’ (Florida Center for Investigative Reporting) [emphasis added]:
  
  “We were told not to use the terms ‘climate change,’ ‘global warming’ or ‘sustainability,’ ” said Christopher Byrd, an attorney with the DEP’s Office of General Counsel in Tallahassee from 2008 to 2013. “That message was communicated to me and my colleagues by our superiors in the Office of General Counse;.”

• Terms such as 'climate change,' 'global warming' were outlawed, former Florida DEP employees say (Tampa Bay Times)
"DEP does not have a policy on this," Tiffany Cowie, department press secretary, wrote in an email.

Scott spokeswoman Jeri Bustamante wrote in an email: "There's no policy on this."

• It’s ‘Orwellian': Florida Scientists Respond To Report That State Agency Banned ‘Climate Change’ (Climate Progress):
  
  Ben Kirtman, professor of atmospheric science at the University of Miami who’s been in contact with members of the DEP and other state agencies in the past... told ThinkProgress that he’d spoken with employees of other Florida agencies — he declined to name which ones — who had said that they, too, had been told not to talk about climate change in their professional capacity.
• Florida’s Gov. Rick Scott denies muzzling global warming talk (Politico)
• Fukushima 4th Anniversary - Still a Disaster:
• Fukushima residents torn over nuclear waste storage plan (Reuters):
  
  Japan's government wants to build a sprawling radioactive waste storage site in the shadow of the wrecked Fukushima nuclear plant.
• Radioactive Fukushima Water Leak Unreported For Months: Official (NBC News):
  
  The operator of Japan's tsunami-stricken Fukushima nuclear power plant admitted it failed to report a radioactive rainwater leak from the facility for about 10 months.
• Japan Gets a Look at Its Future Population Drain in Fukushima Today (Bloomberg News)
• Solar Impulse 2 Flies Into History On Round-the-World Voyage:
• VIDEO: 'Touchdown' - Solar plane journey's first leg ends (BBC)
• The very first solar-powered flight around the world is underway (Vox.com):
  
  [U]nless there's some truly radical advance in solar-cell technology, we're unlikely to see solar-powered aircraft that can carry many passengers or heavy cargo in the foreseeable future....That said, the effort to develop cleaner plane technology is very much a hot issue right now. Flying, after all, produces more carbon-dioxide emissions per passenger mile than other forms of mass transport.
• Solar Plane Takes Flight to Circle Globe in 180 Days: Advanced aircraft flies around the world on a wing and sunshine (Scientific American):
  
  The primary structural component is carbon-fiber sheets that weigh just 25 grams per square meter, or roughly three times lighter than a similar sized piece of paper. That carbon fiber is used sparingly in structural spots where forces push on the airplane.
• Solar Impulse Pilots Get Ready for Sun-Powered Flight Around World (NBC News)

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

• Rate Of Climate Change To Soar By 2020s, With Arctic Warming 1°F Per Decade (Climate Progress) [emphasis added]:
  
  New research from a major national lab projects that the rate of climate change, which has risen sharply in recent decades, will soar by the 2020s. This worrisome projection — which has implications for extreme weather, sea level rise, and permafrost melt — is consistent with several recent studies.
• How The Merchants Of Doubt Push Climate Denial On Your Television (Media Matters) [emphasis added]:
  
  An infamous 1969 memo from a tobacco executive read: "Doubt is our product since it is the best means of competing with the 'body of fact' that exists in the minds of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy." Using similar tactics, a very small set of people have had immense influence in sowing doubt on the scientific consensus of manmade climate change in recent years.
• 10 myths about fossil fuel divestment put to the sword (Guardian UK):
  
  As environmentalist Bill McKibben lays out the case for divesting from coal, oil and gas companies, we examine some of the popular myths around fossil fuel divestment.
• Don’t Drink the Water (The Atlantic):
  
  In 1991, the EPA learned that there were toxins in a mountain stream. But nobody told the family who owned the property.
• Battery Powered: The Promise of Energy Storage (Foreign Affairs):
  
  If today’s off-the-shelf lithium-ion batteries were scaled up and used to store electricity for the grid, they could rival shale oil in terms of their capacity to reshape the energy landscape.
• AUDIO: Attacks on hockey stick graph tracked to those whose interests are threatened (Australian Broadcasting Corporation):
  
  [I]t has been shown that those whose interests are fossil fuels are funding front groups to attack scientists, discredit the science of climate change, and discredit the solution which is clean renewable energy.
• Florida’s Not The Only State Where Officials Censored The Term ‘Climate Change’ (Climate Progress) [emphasis added]:
  
  [A] former employee of the Pennsylvania Department of Conservation and Natural Resources told the Allegheny Front that he was explicitly ordered to remove references to “climate change” from the agency’s website. ....WRAL News revealed that The North Carolina Department of Environment and Natural Resources (DENR) was removing links and documents about climate change from its website.
• Merchant Of Doubt Marc Morano Deeply Concerned Google Won't Promote His Website's Climate Denial (Media Matters):
  
  Fox News regular Marc Morano is worried that Google is going to start burying his climate change denial website, Climate Depot, which is full of toxic inaccuracies and could therefore be vulnerable to Google's plan to rank websites based on their truthfulness.
• Concern Over Catastrophic Methane Release — Overburden, Plumes, Eruptions, and Large Ocean Craters (Robert Scribbler) [emphasis added]:
  
  Depending on who you listen to, it’s the end of the world, or it isn’t. A loud and lively debate that springs up in the media every time a new sign of potential methane instability or apparent increasing emission from methane stores is reported by Arctic observational science.
• VIDEO: Biden: Denying Climate Change 'Like Denying Gravity' (Huffington Post Green):
  
  The interview is part of VICE's documentary series, which airs on HBO and is premiering its third season on Friday. The first episode, titled "Our Rising Oceans," will focus on sea level rise. "It gets to the point where you can't look anyone in the eye seriously and say, well, it's nothing having to do with manmade," he said.
• MTBE: Stretch of Houston Ship Channel Closed After Vessels Collide (Bloomberg):
  
  A Venezuela-bound tanker spilled an unknown amount of gasoline additive MTBE into the Houston Ship Channel after a crash with another vessel, shutting down a portion of the waterway and one container terminal.
• What happened to the lobbyists who tried to reshape the US view of climate change? (Guardian UK) [emphasis added]:
  
  In early 1998, some of the biggest fossil fuel companies in the world were hatching a plan to hijack the science of human-caused global warming....In a memo the plan boldly declared its goal would be to convince "a majority of the American public" that "significant uncertainties exist in climate science".
• Over 2 Million Songbirds Slaughtered Over Cyprus Last Year: Birdlife (Reuters):
  
  More than two million migratory songbirds were indiscriminately slaughtered over Cyprus last year to be served as delicacies in local restaurants, a conservation society said on Monday.
• 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.

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: Florida, Illinois, Environment, Republicans, Green News, Japan, Canada, Oil, Solar energy, Climate change, Rick Scott, Keystone XL, Transportation