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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Ontario, Canada joins cap and trade system to fight global warming; Students push Harvard to divest billions from fossil fuels; New poll finds majority of Americans support a tax on carbon emissions; PLUS: Last male white rhino on Earth is now under 24-hour armed guard… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!
Green News Report
with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen
4/16/2015
‘Green News Report’ – April 16, 2015 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen... · · · · · ‘Green News Report’ – April 16, 2015 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Dutch government taken to court over climate change; Fort McMurray’s wastelands: Premature expropriations plague communities across Canada; Sardine population collapses, prompting ban on commercial fishing; Coal is dying all by itself; Nuclear Waste Reprocessing: Poised for growth, or on death’s door?… PLUS: Judges Hear Challenge to Proposed E.P.A. Rule to Curb Climate Change… and much, MUCH more! …
STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY’S ‘GREEN NEWS REPORT’…
- Ontario, Canada Joins Cap and Trade Market:
- VIDEO: Premier Kathleen Wynne on climate change and cap-and-trade (Toronto Star)
- Here’s How Canada’s Provinces Are Responding To Climate Change (Climate Progress)
- Ten things you need to know about Ontario’s cap-and-trade proposal no matter where you live in Canada (National Post)
- VIDEO: Ontario adopts cap-and-trade system to reduce greenhouse gases: Ontario, Quebec and California team up on cap-and-trade system (CBC)
- Climate Rally in Canada Brings National Attention to the Problem of Tar Sands and Lack of Federal Action (NRDC Switchboard)
- Quebec City climate-change march draws 25,000 people (CBC)
- Alberta Votes: Voters think Alberta depends too much on oil and gas (CBC)
- Cap-and-Trade Revenue: Likely Much Higher Than Governor’s Budget Assumes (California Legislative Analyst Office):
A portion of the total revenue collected at auctions goes to electric utilities and, in the case of joint auctions, Quebec. (For more information on joint auctions and the linkage between cap-and-trade programs in California and Quebec, please see ARB’s website.) These nine auctions generated a total of $969 million in state revenue.
- Poll: Two-thirds of Americans Support Simple Tax on Carbon Emissions:
- Support for carbon tax reaches almost 70% (E&E News) [emphasis added]:
A large majority of Americans support taxing carbon emissions, according to polling results released yesterday, and favorability rises to two-thirds if the tax is used to send money back to households….[The survey] also found that efforts by environmental organizations to increase urgency around climate change by pointing to extreme weather isn’t working, and neither are efforts to erode people’s belief in global warming by questioning the science.
- Carbon Tax Polling Milestone: 2/3 Support if Revenue-Neutral (Carbon Tax Center)
- Divestment Movement Blockades Harvard:
- Students Push College Fossil Fuel Divestment To Stigmatize Industry (NPR)
- VIDEO: Harvard Students Expand Blockade Calling for School to Divest from Fossil Fuels (Democracy Now):
Students at Harvard University have expanded their blockade of key administration offices while calling on the school to divest from fossil fuels. Harvard has the largest endowment of any university in the world, at $36.4 billion.
- 200 Protesters Block Building Entrance to Kick Off Harvard ‘Heat Week’ Demanding Divestment from Fossil Fuels (EcoWatch)
- New Renewable Energy Capacity More than New Fossil Fuels Combined:
- Fossil Fuels Just Lost the Race Against Renewables (Bloomberg News):
This is the beginning of the end. The race for renewable energy has passed a turning point. The world is now adding more capacity for renewable power each year than coal, natural gas, and oil combined. And there’s no going back.
- Big Oil Is About to Lose Control of the Auto Industry: A pollution-free revolution is coming (Bloomberg News)
- Last Of His Kind: Last Male White Rhino Under Armerd Guard:
- The last male northern white rhino on Earth is under 24-hour armed guard (Quartz) [emphasis added]:
In 1960, there were over 2,000 northern white rhinos roaming the Earth. In 1984, there were just 15. Today there are only five, including just one male, and he’s under around-the-clock armed surveillance to protect him from poachers.
…
The rhino’s horn can sell for as much as $75,000 (£50,275) per kilogram (horns weigh roughly 1 to 4 kilograms) when they’re ground into dust and sold on the black market in China. And in Vietnam, a growing myth that ingesting the horn can cure cancer has made them worth over $100,000 (£67,000) per kg. In 2006, a single horn was worth only $760. - With 1 male left worldwide, northern white rhinos under guard day and night (CNN)
‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (Stuff we didn’t have time for in today’s audio report)…
- Dutch government taken to court over climate change (New Scientist):
If governments won’t do it on their own, can courts force their hand? That’s the hope of a Dutch environmental group called Urgenda, which this week presented a class action suit over climate change.Urgenda is suing the Dutch government on behalf of some 900 citizens, including children. The suit claims that the government’s action to reduce greenhouse gas emissions is insufficient, and is therefore “knowingly exposing its own citizens to dangerous situations”.
- Judges Hear Challenge to Proposed E.P.A. Rule to Curb Climate Change NY Times)
- Fort McMurray’s wastelands: Premature expropriations plague communities across Canada (Financial Post)
- Sardine population collapses, prompting ban on commercial fishing (SF Chronicle) [emphasis added]:
[F]ederal scientists documented a 91 percent decline in sardine numbers along the West Coast since 2007…. “They didn’t respond fast enough to the decline,” said Shester, who blamed overfishing for worsening an already bad situation. “Now we find ourselves in a crisis situation.”
- Coal is dying all by itself (Grist) [emphasis added]:
The “war on coal” narrative isn’t simply misleading, it also distracts from the very real problem of how to prepare coal mining communities and energy consumers (i.e., everyone) for an approaching future in which coal is demoted to a bit role after a century at center stage.
…
“The presence of the coal industry has kept these communities in a state of dependence, and not allowed them to develop a real economy beyond coal…” - Nuclear Waste Reprocessing: Poised for growth, or on death’s door? (Bulletin of Atomic Scientists):
But Beijing’s attempts to develop commercially viable reprocessing facilities and breeder reactors have been afflicted with technological difficulties, serious delays, and cost overruns. At this point-especially taking into account China’s ample uranium resources and its easy access to additional resources abroad-it appears very doubtful that reprocessing and fast reactors are the proper way forward for China’s nuclear energy sector.
- Rate Of Climate Change To Soar By 2020s, With Arctic Warming 1°F Per Decade (Climate Progress):
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.
- 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
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.
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