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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The Pope's unprecedented call for action on climate change; The Right predictably freaks out; India goes solar in a big way; PLUS: Trump is running for president. It's no hoax! But he thinks global warming is... 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): World’s Aquifers Being Badly Depleted, Satellite Data Show; Senate GOP Moves Against Obama Green Agenda Via Spending; Plan for Fracking's Waste Pits Could Save Millions of Birds; Alaska’s Glaciers Are Now Losing 75 Billion Tons of Ice Every Year; Alaska Wildfires Destroy Dozens of Homes, Menace Highway... PLUS: Inside the Power Plant Fueling America’s Drought... and much, MUCH more! ...
STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...
- Pope Francis Publishes Unprecedented Environmental Encyclical:
- Pope’s Views on Climate Change Add Pressure to Catholic Candidates (NY Times):
As the steamy hurricane season descends on Miami, the city’s Roman Catholic archbishop, Thomas G. Wenski, is planning a summer of sermons, homilies and press events designed to highlight the threat that a warming planet, rising sea levels and more extreme storms pose to his community’s poorest and most vulnerable. - The pope’s five most important environmental arguments (MSNBC):
In a much-anticipated papal letter released by the Vatican on Thursday, his holiness offered a sweeping defense of “our common home,” warning “every living person on this planet” about wrecking the place with “consumerism,” “individualism,” and “an unprecedented destruction of ecosystems.” - Pope Francis Encyclical Calls for End To Fossil Fuels (BBC News)
- Pope's Encyclical: Rightwing Media Predictably Freaks Out:
- AUDIO: Limbaugh: The Pope "Doesn't Even Disguise" His Marxist Beliefs With Talk Of Man-Made Climate Change (Media Matters)
- The Pope As Antichrist Redux (Washington Monthly)
- VIDEO: Fox News Host Attacks Pope Francis For Addressing Climate Change; Greg Gutfeld: "The Most Dangerous Person On The Planet" Is Someone Seeking Respect From Their Adversaries "That Is What The Pope Is Doing" (Media Matters)
- Pope Francis Kills ‘Energy Poverty’ Argument For Fossil Fuels (Triple Pundit)
- Donald Trump Jumps In to 2016 Race:
- VIDEO: Fox Regular Donald Trump Decries Climate Change "Hoax", Attributes Climate Warnings To Scientists "Having A Lot Of Fun" (Media Matters, 1/6/14)
- It Snowed Once And Other Things Donald Trump Thinks Prove Global Warming Is A Hoax (Climate Progress)
- VIDEO: O'Reilly To Trump: You're 'Going To Slash And Burn' At The Debates (Crooks & Liars)
- Meet The Only Prominent GOP Presidential Candidate Who Accepts Climate Science (Climate Progress)
- IEA Warns World On Track To Overshoot 2C Target:
- Every country is now pledging to tackle CO2 emissions. It's still not enough. (Vox.com):
In other words, if the world wants to stay below 2°C of global warming — which has long been considered the danger zone for climate change — these pledges are only a first step. Countries will have to do a whole lot more than they're currently promising. And the IEA has a few ideas for what "do a whole lot more" might entail.
...
1. Increase energy efficiency in the industry, buildings, and transport sectors.
2. Progressively reduce the use of the least efficient coal-fired power plants and banning their construction.
3. Increase investment in renewable energy technologies in the power sector from $270 billion in 2014 to $400 billion in 2030.
4. Gradually phase out fossil fuel subsidies to end-users by 2030.
5. Reduce methane emissions in oil and gas production. - World Off Course To Prevent Two Degrees C Warming, Says Energy Agency (Washington Post):
In a major report to be released Monday, the Paris-based International Energy Agency — which provides independent energy analysis and has 29 member countries, including the United States — will state that current national commitments to cut greenhouse gases are still insufficient to keep the world below two degrees Celsius of warming above preindustrial levels. - India Quintuples Down On Solar:
- India Just Upped Its Solar Target Five-Fold, Will Install More Solar This Year Than Germany (Climate Progress):
On Wednesday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the Indian Cabinet approved increasing the country’s solar target five times to a goal of reaching 100 gigawatts, up from 20 GW, by 2022. - India Approves 100GW Solar Target: SunEdison, Trina Rush In (Barron's)
- Government of India officially approves 100GW solar target (PV Tech Magazine)
- VIDEO: The Pope's Summer Blockbuster: 'The Encyclical'
'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...
- Inside the Power Plant Fueling America’s Drought (Pro Publica):
Arizona's Navajo Generating Station, the largest power plant in the West, powers pumps that lift trillions of gallons of water out of the Colorado River and carry it 336 miles to fuel growth in Tucson and Phoenix. As the generators spin, they spew more more greenhouse gases than almost any other coal plant in the U.S. - Senate GOP Moves Against Obama Green Agenda Via Spending (The Hill):
A Senate spending panel advanced a bill Tuesday to block or weaken key Obama administration environmental rules on climate change, water and other subjects.- World’s Aquifers Being Badly Depleted, Satellite Data Show (SF Gate):
California’s drought has put the great Central Valley aquifer system under critical stress, but many of the world’s major groundwater basins are in far worse shape, a new satellite survey has found.- Plan for Fracking's Waste Pits Could Save Millions of Birds (InsideClimate News):
Federal agency aims to save the 500,000 to 1 million birds that die in the industry's vats of oily residue each year.- Alaska’s Glaciers Are Now Losing 75 Billion Tons of Ice Every Year (Washington Post):
In a new study, scientists with the University of Alaska at Fairbanks and several other institutions report a staggering finding: Glaciers of the United States’ largest — and only Arctic — state, Alaska, have lost 75 gigatons (a gigaton is a billion metric tons) of ice per year from 1994 through 2013.- Alaska Wildfires Destroy Dozens of Homes, Menace Highway (Reuters):
Two fast-spreading Alaska wildfires have forced a series of evacuations, destroyed up to 45 homes and forced authorities to restrict traffic on a major highway connecting two of the state's largest cities, state officials said on Monday.- NOAA Mobilizes To Gauge Unprecedented West Coast Toxic Algal Bloom (Phys.org):
NOAA Fisheries' Northwest Fisheries Science Center in Seattle has mobilized extra scientists to join a fisheries survey along the West Coast to chart an extensive harmful algal bloom that spans much of the West Coast and has triggered numerous closures of important shellfish fisheries in Washington, Oregon and California.- 8 maps that reveal Americans' incoherent opinions on climate change (Vox.com):
Here's a puzzler: more people believe climate change is happening than believe that scientists believe climate change is happening. Why, Americans? For whatever reason, it appears the long effort to push the consensus message has not been very successful. (Worth noting: the consensus message is true.)- NOAA Study Confirms Global Warming Speed-Up Is Imminent (Climate Progress) [emphasis added]:
[M]any recent studies have found that we are about to enter an era of even more rapid global warming...[O]ne March study, "Near-term acceleration in the rate of temperature change," warns the speed-up is imminent - with Arctic warming rising a stunning 1°F per decade by the 2020s.- 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
- Skeptical Science: Database with FULL DEBUNKING of ALL Climate Science Denier Myths
- 4 Scenarios Show What Climate Change Will Do To The Earth, From Pretty Bad To Disaster (Fast CoExist):
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.- How to Solve Global Warming: It's the Energy Supply (Scientific American):
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.- Warning: Even in the best-case scenario, climate change will kick our asses (Grist)
- NASA Video: Warming over the last 130 years, and into the next 100 years:
- 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).
- World’s Aquifers Being Badly Depleted, Satellite Data Show (SF Gate):