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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Oklahoma finally acts to reduce man-made fracking earthquakes; Bernie Sanders promises to end fossil fuel drilling on public lands; Hillary Clinton promises to end drilling off the Atlantic coast; Slap on the wrist for 'Freedom Industries' CEO responsible for West Virginia chemical spill; PLUS: Tropical Cyclone Winston smashes record for strongest hurricane ever in Southern Hemisphere... 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): Want to fight climate change? Here are the 7 critical life changes you should make; Seas are rising way faster than any time in past 2,800 years; Legionnaires’ Outbreak in Flint Was Met With Silence; Arctic Sea Ice Is in Record Low Territory (Again); EPA Asks Volkswagen To Make Electric Cars In U.S.; China To Close More Than 1,000 Coal Mines In 2016; Two PA Families take toxic fracking water contamination case to trial... PLUS: Kiribati looks to artificial islands to save nation from rising sea levels... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

• Oklahoma Regulators Move to Limit Fracking Industry's Earthquakes:
• Oklahoma Cracks Down On Injection Wells After Earthquake Spike (CS Monitor):
  
  The Sooner State has switched strategies, limiting not just the depth, but amount of wastewater than oil and gas producers can pump back underground.
• Oklahoma Residents Sue Energy Companies Over Earthquake Damage (Climate Progress):
  
  These earthquakes have also spurred other lawsuits in the state. The Oklahoma Supreme Court ruled last year that people could sue oil companies for damages claimed to be caused by earthquakes.
• Edmond residents file earthquake lawsuit against 12 oil companies (News OK)
• Democratic Presidential Candidates Pledge to End Fossil Fuels on Public Lands:
• Who Has the Best Plan to Keep Fossil Fuels in the Ground? (Greenpeace USA)
• VIDEO: Clinton, Sanders Take Questions in MSNBC Town Hall (NBC News)
• VIDEO: Hillary Clinton Says She Will Oppose Offshore Oil Drilling Off the Atlantic Coast (Greenpeace)
• VIDEO: Clinton: Banning fossil fuels on public land a ‘done deal’ (The Hill):
  
  An activist with green group 350 Action asked Clinton whether she would seek to ban hydraulic fracturing if she is elected president. Clinton...said the president doesn’t have the authority to do that. When the activist asked, though, if she would support banning fossil fuel extraction on public lands, Clinton said: “Yeah, that’s a done deal.”
• Clinton comes out against Atlantic offshore drilling, angling to win green voters away from Sanders (Grist)
• Bernie Draws Line In Nevada Desert: Vows To "Ban All Fossil Fuel Extraction From Public Land" (Daily Kos)
• Hillary Clinton’s Leftward Shift on Climate (New Republic):
  
  Helped along by both President Obama and Bernie Sanders, Clinton has broken her silence on fossil fuel extraction from public lands.
• Republican Candidate John Kasich 'Not Sure' How Much Humans Cause Climate Change:
• VIDEO: Kasich talks of climate change at VT event (Burlington Free Press)
• Kasich Weighs In On Climate Change, Calls For More Renewables (Climate Progress) [emphasis added]:
  
  Kasich’s clarification that he doesn’t know how much people impact climate change has emerged as a common caveat in the presidential race — at least among some of the comparatively moderate Republicans, several of whom have exited the race....Kasich has said before that he accepts the fact that climate change is happening, though he’s stopped short of calling for strong action on the issue....Kasich’s fellow Republican presidential contenders all deny climate science: Ted Cruz has said climate change is “not science; it’s religion,” Marco Rubio and Ben Carson have said the climate is always changing, and Donald Trump has called climate change a hoax.
• Slap on the wrist for CEO responsible for West Virginia's chemical spill
• Ex-Freedom official Southern sentenced to 30 days, $20K fine (Charleston Gazette):
  
  Johnston said he might not have given Southern any jail time at all, if he had not been convinced that Southern had lied in U.S. Bankruptcy Court about his role at Freedom’s chemical storage operation, where the spill occurred. “Like the others, this defendant is hardly a criminal,” the judge said, echoing his comments during sentencing hearings for five other Freedom officials, and this time emphasizing, “I stand by that statement.”
• VIDEO: Some residents think former Freedom president's sentence was a 'slap on the wrist' (WVAH Charleston)
• Tropical Cyclone Winston: Strongest-Ever Hurricane in Southern Hemisphere:
• Winston's 185 mph Winds in Fiji: Southern Hemisphere's Strongest Storm on Record (Weather Underground)
These winds vaulted Winston into a three-way tie as the second strongest landfalling tropical cyclone in world recorded history
• Fiji reeling after devastating Cyclone Winston, among the strongest ever to strike land (Washington Post):
  
  According to records from the Joint Typhoon Warning Center, Winston ranks as the strongest on record to occur in the Southern Hemisphere.
• How Winston become Earth’s strongest Southern Hemisphere storm in recorded history (Discover Magazine)
• Tropical Cyclone Winston - strongest ever seen in southern hemisphere - hits Fiji (Mashable)

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

• Want to fight climate change? Here are the 7 critical life changes you should make (Grist):
  
  So, given the imperfections of this world, what is a lone wolf such as yourself to do? Here are some conclusions gleaned from this study: 1. Buy the most fuel-efficient car you can afford, then drive it as little as possible....
• Kiribati looks to artificial islands to save nation from rising sea levels (ABC Australia):
  
  Kiribati has turned to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) to help build artificial islands in an effort to save the low-lying Pacific nation from rising sea levels.
• Seas are rising way faster than any time in past 2,800 years (AP):
  
  "There's no question that the 20th century is the fastest," said Rutgers earth and planetary sciences professor Bob Kopp, lead author of the study that looked back at sea levels over the past three millennia. "It's because of the temperature increase in the 20th century which has been driven by fossil fuel use."
• Legionnaires’ Outbreak in Flint Was Met With Silence (NY Time):
  
  Michigan officials still say they cannot conclusively link an outbreak of Legionnaire's disease to Flint’s contaminated water supply, partly because sputum cultures were not collected from patients. But the possibility of a link was raised in internal government emails as early as October 2014, and state officials did not inform the public of the outbreak until last month.
• Arctic Sea Ice Is in Record Low Territory (Again) (Climate Central):
  
  The winter of discontent in the northern latitudes continues. Persistent warmth has baked the region, making snow a no show in parts of Alaska and, perhaps more importantly, slowing the growth of Arctic sea ice. Though it’s still likely a month before the Arctic sea ice reaches its maximum, the current trajectory is not a good one.
• EPA Asks Volkswagen To Make Electric Cars In U.S.: Welt am Sonntag (Reuters):
  
  U.S. authorities have asked the German carmaker Volkswagen to produce electric vehicles in the United States as a way of making up for its rigging of emission tests, the German newspaper Welt am Sonntag reported.
• China To Close More Than 1,000 Coal Mines In 2016: Energy Bureau (Reuters):
  
  China will aim to close more than 1,000 coal mines over this year, with a total production capacity of 60 million tonnes, as part of its plans to tackle a price-sapping supply glut in the sector, the country's energy regulator said.
• Presumed Dead, Wild Atlantic Salmon Return To The Connecticut River (Al Jazeera America):
  
  Biologists discover first salmon spawning since Revolutionary War, drawing new attention to canceled restoration program.
• Two Pa. Families Who Say Fracking Fouled Water Take Case To Trial (Reuters):
  
  Jury selection began on Monday in a federal lawsuit in which two northeastern Pennsylvania families allege that Cabot Oil & Gas Corp contaminated their well water with methane when it began fracking for natural gas near their homes.
• Christie’s Budget Continues Depletion Of Lead Abatement Fund (NJ Trentonian):
  
  Gov. Chris Christie’s latest budget proposal honors a decade-old practice in New Jersey: It diverts millions of dollars intended for a lead exposure prevention program to the state’s general fund.
• January 2016: Shattering the Global Warming Monthly Record (Slate) [emphasis added]:
  
  But there's more: 1.13C is the largest anomaly for any month since records began in 1880. There have only been monthly anomalies greater than 1C three times before in recorded history, and those three were all from last year....El Niño only accounts for a fraction of a degree of this heating. Even accounting for El Niño years, things are getting hotter. The root cause is not El Niño. It's us.
• The renewable energy revolution is already upon us, report shows (Mashable):
  
  On the campaign trail, many candidates tend to portray the clean energy revolution as a pie-in-the-sky idea, with new investments needed in oil and gas drilling while we wait for a technological fix to solve our energy and global warming challenges....In fact, we are now in the midst of a far more rapid shift away from fossil fuels, such as coal, to renewables, including solar and wind power, than anyone has realized, including the candidates for president.
• VIDEO: Sustainable Energy in America - 'A Factbook short interview' (Bloomberg New Energy Finance)
• Two-Thirds of the World Faces Severe Water Shortages (NY Tiems):
  
  About four billion people, or two-thirds of the world's population, face severe water shortages during at least one month every year, far more than was previously thought, according to Arjen Y. Hoekstra, a professor of water management at the University of Twente in the Netherlands.
• Sea-Level Rise 'Could Last Twice As Long As Human History' (Guardian UK):
  
  Huge sea-level rises caused by climate change will last far longer than the entire history of human civilisation to date, according to new research, unless the brief window of opportunity of the next few decades is used to cut carbon emissions drastically.

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: North Carolina, Environment, Hillary Clinton, Democrats, Republicans, Green News, Fracking, Bernie Sanders, Natural gas, Coal, Oil, Wind energy, Solar energy, Climate change, Extreme weather, Oklahoma, Election 2016, Oceans/Sea Level Rise, Water, John Kasich, Mining