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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: After years of denial, Oklahoma finally admits fracking causes earthquakes; Fines and accountability for oil spills, coal waste spills, and deadly natural gas explosions; PLUS: Environmentalists push back at new Trans Pacific Partnership trade deal… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!
Green News Report
with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen
4/23/2015
‘Green News Report’ – April 23, 2015 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen... · · · · · ‘Green News Report’ – April 23, 2015 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Oklahoma Lawmakers Vote To Outlaw Fracking Bans As Earthquakes In The State Spike; Video: “Dear Future Generations: Sorry”; Common pesticides hurting health of wild bees; Congress passes bipartisan energy efficiency bill; TV meteorologists increasingly accept climate science; Bad news in lionfish invasion; After 30 years, EPA tightens air pollution standards; CEOs to world leaders: Get off your asses and fix climate change… PLUS: ‘Pipelines Blow Up And People Die… and much, MUCH more! …
STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY’S ‘GREEN NEWS REPORT’…
- Earth Day 2015: President Obama Talks Climate Change in the Everglades
- Obama Jabs FL Gov. Scott: Refusing to Say ‘Climate Change’ Doesn’t Mean It’s Not Happening (Mediaite)
- VIDEO: President Obama Visits the Everglades (White House)
- Oklahoma Admits Fracking Causes Earthquakes:
- Oklahoma Recognizes Role of Drilling in Earthquakes (NY Times):
Abandoning years of official skepticism, Oklahoma’s government on Tuesday embraced a scientific consensus that earthquakes rocking the state are largely caused by the underground disposal of billions of barrels of wastewater from oil and gas wells.
- VIDEO: USGS: Fracking’s disposal wells are the cause of earthquakes in Oklahoma (KFOR-TV Oklahoma City)
- Oklahoma Geological Survey issues strongest statement yet linking quakes to disposal wells (NewsOK):
Ongoing earthquake swarm is “very unlikely to represent a naturally occurring process,” according to a report from the Oklahoma Geological Survey.
- Environmentalists Push Back Against Trans Pacific Partnership Trade Deal:
- Don’t Trade Away Climate Progress – No To Fast Track Trans-Pacific Partnership (Sierra Club):
Unfettered Rights to Corporations: The TPP will include provisions that give corporations the right to sue a government for unlimited cash compensation — in private and non-transparent tribunals — over nearly any law or policy that a corporation alleges will reduce its profits. Using similar rules in other free trade agreements, corporations such as Exxon Mobil and Dow Chemical have launched nearly 600 cases against nearly 100 governments.
- VIDEO: Pres. Obama – ‘ Elizabeth Warren ‘wrong’ about TPP deal (MSNBC)
- North Carolina: Unsafe Water Near Duke Energy Coal Ash Waste Ponds:
- Most wells near Duke Energy ash ponds contaminated (Charlotte Observer)
- State Fines Duke Energy $25 Million For Coal Waste, Still Doesn’t Require Cleanup (Climate Progress)
- Duke Energy Says $25 Million Fine For Years Of Groundwater Pollution Is ‘Regulatory Overreach’ (Climate Progress):
Duke Energy shot back at North Carolina on Tuesday, vowing to contest the record $25 million fine handed down to Duke earlier this month for groundwater contamination at the utility’s coal plant in Wilmington.
- Record Fine for Deadly California Natural Gas Explosion:
- California regulators fine PG&E a record $1.6 billion in San Bruno blast (LA Times):
California regulators approved a record $1.6-billion fine against the state’s largest utility, Pacific Gas & Electric Co., even as the new president of the Public Utilities Commission publicly questioned the company’s commitment to safety.
- Exxon to Pay $5 Million For Mayflower Pipeline Spill:
- Exxon Agrees to Pay U.S. Fine in Settling 2013 Oil Sands Spill (Bloomberg):
ExxonMobil Corp. agreed to pay more than $5 million, including a federal fine, as part of a settlement for the 2013 rupture of a pipeline in Arkansas that was carrying oil sands from Canada.
- Exxon Will Pay $5 Million To End Lawsuit Over 134,000-Gallon Mayflower Oil Spill (Climate Progress)
[I]nstead of continuing a trial which could have lasted years, Exxon entered into a consent decree, agreeing to pay just $3.19 million in federal civil penalties and $1 million in state civil penalties. The company also agreed to pay $600,000 for a project to improve water quality at the oil-affected Lake Conway, and $280,000 to the Arkansas Attorney General’s office for litigation costs.
‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (Stuff we didn’t have time for in today’s audio report)…
- Politico Investigation: ‘Pipelines Blow Up And People Die (Politico):
After a series of deadly accidents, Congress created an office to oversee the nation’s oil and gas pipelines. A decade later, it’s become the can’t-do agency.
- Oklahoma Lawmakers Vote To Outlaw Fracking Bans As Earthquakes In The State Spike (Climate Progress)
- CEOs to world leaders: Get off your asses and fix climate change (Grist):
Well, today, 43 CEOs of major international corporations might be off the hook. In an open letter to world leaders, these bigwigs, whose companies collectively raked in $1.2 trillion last year, politely asked for some actual shit to get done at the Paris climate talks this December.
- TV Reporters Shoot Down BP’s Misleading PR Campaign (Media Matters):
But Media Shouldn’t Forget Factors That Could Lead To Next Big Spill
- After 3 Decades, EPA Tightens Toxic Air Standard for Oil Refineries (InsideClimate News):
Lawsuit helped force an update of emissions standards for dangerous chemicals that went unchanged nearly 30 years.
- More Bad News About The Lionfish Invasion (Happy Earth Day?) (Discover) [emphasis added]:
These toxic predators have been eating their way around for the past few decades, driving down populations of native species and threatening already-struggling habitats. Now, a pair of papers released this month have more bad news: the lionfish are continuing to spread, and they may be eating the very last of critically endangered species.
- VIDEO: New Survey Shows TV Weathercasters Increasingly Accept Climate Change (Media Matters)
- Bee studies stir up pesticide debate (Nature):
The case for restricting a controversial family of insecticides is growing. Two studies published on 22 April in Nature1, 2 address outstanding questions about the threat that the chemicals pose to bees, and come as regulators around the world gear up for a fresh debate on pesticide restrictions.
- Study: Pesticide Hurting Health of Wild Bees – Not Honeybees – in Field (US News):
A common type of pesticide is dramatically harming wild bees, according to a new in-the-field study that outside experts say may help shift the way the U.S. government looks at a controversial class of chemicals.
- Congress Passes Bipartisan Bill to Improve Energy Efficiency (NY Times):
Congress on Tuesday passed a bill focused on improving energy efficiency in buildings and water heaters, a move celebrated by both parties for breaking longstanding partisan gridlock.
- VIDEO: Dear Future Generations: Sorry – Prince Ea (YouTube)
- BP: The Whole Story? (Public Citizen):
In the aftermath of the crisis, BP pledged to make the Gulf Coast and the victims of the oil disaster whole. Five years later, this promise has yet to be fulfilled. In fact, BP’s early pledge has largely been cast aside, because the cost to keep that promise has exceeded how much BP is willing to spend.
- 10 tips to make every day Earth Day (Treehugger):
Reuse instead of buying new every time.
Repurpose The more creative cousin of reuse, repurposing turns old junk into new, functional objects.
Rot compost everything organic.
Repair instead of replacing.
Return Only buy from companies with take-back programs.
Refill instead of buying disposable bottles and paper cups.
Refuse to buy overpackaged, disposable, single-use junk. - Majority of e-waste collected in 2014 not recycled correctly: report (Waste Dive) [emphasis added]:
[T]he volume of electronic waste discarded around the globe reached 41.8 million tons in 2014. Less than one-sixth of that was considered to be reused or recycled properly….The 41.8 million tons of electronics tossed in 2014 had a potential value of $52 billion worth of reusable resources.
- The Arctic is ‘unraveling’ due to climate change, and the consequences will be global (Washington Post):
“What Happens in the Arctic Doesn’t Stay in the Arctic:” Here are four potential ways, drawing both upon the new report and much of our prior reporting here, that changes in the Arctic will reverberate well beyond it and, in some cases, have planet wide consequences…
- Major Changes Needed for U.S. Power Infrastructure, Says Obama Report (Washington Post):
The U.S. electric grid will require major changes to reposition itself for the future challenges of climate change, new technologies, and national security in coming decades, according to a first-ever “Quadrennial Energy Review” released by the Obama administration.
- 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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