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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Standing Rock Sioux Tribe takes a stand against massive new oil pipeline in North Dakota; California passes most sweeping climate change law yet; Evacuations in West Virginia after leak of deadly chlorine gas; PLUS: President Obama creates world’s largest protected marine sanctuary… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!
Green News Report
with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen
8/30/2016
‘Green News Report’ – August 30, 2016 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen... · · · · · ‘Green News Report’ – August 30, 2016 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Far-Reaching Tribal Solidarity Displayed At Pipeline Protest; Washington State Begins Killing Wolf Pack For Preying On Livestock; Enviros wage war with Interior over leasing’s climate impact; Drought-Hardy Yards Could Ease Californian Heat Waves; Why It Matters: Climate Change; Colorado Anti-Fracking Activists Fall Short in Ballot Efforts; Wisconsin: High Rate Of Tumors Found In Fish; Minnesota: Researchers Warn On Mercury In St. Louis River Estuary Fish… PLUS: NASA: Earth is warming at a pace ‘unprecedented in 1,000 years’… and much, MUCH more! …
STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY’S ‘GREEN NEWS REPORT’…
- VIDEO: Fox Host Dana Perino Admits They Didn’t Cover Louisiana Floods Until It Became Political (Media Matters)
- Standing Rock Sioux Protest Dakota Access Pipeline:
- Taking a Stand at Standing Rock (David Archambault II, op-ed, NYT) [emphasis added]:
We are also a resilient people who have survived unspeakable hardships in the past, so we know what is at stake now. As our songs and prayers echo across the prairie, we need the public to see that in standing up for our rights, we do so on behalf of the millions of Americans who will be affected by this pipeline. As one of our greatest leaders, Chief Sitting Bull of the Hunkpapa Lakota, once said: “Let us put our minds together and see what life we can make for our children.” That appeal is as relevant today as it was more than a century ago.
- The Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s Stand Against the Dakota Access Pipeline: (‘BradCast’ 8/25/2016):
On today’s BradCast, the ugly fight over Presidential campaign ‘bigotry’ and the righteous battle by Native Americans to block another massive oil pipeline from being constructed in the Dakotas.
- VIDEO: Standing Rock Sioux Chairman: Dakota Access Pipeline “Is Threatening the Lives of My Tribe” (Democracy Now!):
“[I]t is a pipeline that is threatening the lives of people, lives of my tribe, as well as millions down the river. It threatens the ancestral sites that are significant to our tribe. And we never had an opportunity to express our concerns. This is a corporation that is coming forward and just bulldozing through without any concern for tribes.”
- Exclusive Interview: Standing Rock Sioux Chairman David Archambault II on Suit Against Dakota Access (Indian Country Media Network)
- Sacred Stone Spirit Camp: Stop the Dakota Access Pipeline (Sacred Stone Camp)
- VIDEO: The Protests at Standing Rock (MSNBC Lawrence O’Donnell, The Last Word)
- West Virginia: Evacuations after toxic chlorine gas leak:
- Chemical leak forces evacuations in Northern Panhandle (West Virginia Gazette-Mail):
Even small exposures can cause a cough or choking and can burn the skin, throat and eyes. Inhaling larger amounts constricts airways and inflames the lining of the lungs. At high exposures, breathing chlorine gas is lethal.
- California approves most ambitious climate change law yet:
- Jerry Brown To Sign Sweeping Extension To California’s Climate Law (Climate Progress):
The state will decrease emissions 40 percent under 1990 levels by 2030.
- California’s New Climate Rules, Explained (Climate Central):
A progressive culture and Silicon Valley-style innovation turned California into a climate leader.
- With new climate legislation, Gov. Brown gets even with the oil industry (LA Times)
- California legislature approves resolution calling for Congress to act on national carbon tax:
- California has urged President Obama and Congress to tax carbon pollution (Guardian UK):
By returning 100% of the taxed revenue to American households, the policy blunts the rising costs of energy produced by burning fossil fuels. In fact, studies project that a majority of Americans would receive a rebate larger than their increase in energy bills; only those who use the most fossil fuel energy would see costs rise more than the rebate.
- In charts: how a revenue neutral carbon tax creates jobs, grows the economy (Guardian UK)
- Iowa State Utilities Board approves nation’s largest wind farm:
- Iowa Utilities Board approves huge wind energy project (Des Moines Register):
Des Moines-based MidAmerican Energy is behind the planned $3.6 billion wind turbine operation that will generate up to 2,000 megawatts of electricity. MidAmerican Energy said that is enough energy to power the equivalent of 800,000 average households, and the project will see 85 percent of the company’s Iowa customer needs met through wind energy by 2020.
- President Obama designates world’s largest marine sanctuary:
- Obama creates the largest protected place on the planet, in Hawaii (Washington Post) [emphasis added]:
President Obama on Friday created the largest ecologically protected area on the planet when he expanded a national marine monument in his native Hawaii to encompass more than half a million square miles…All commercial extraction activities, including fishing and future deep-sea mining, will be prohibited in the expanded monument area. However, recreational fishing, removal of resources for traditional Hawaiian cultural purposes and scientific research will be allowed with a federal permit.
- Proposed national park is a multimillion-dollar gift wrapped up in distrust (Washington Post)
‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (Stuff we didn’t have time for in today’s audio report)…
- Far-Reaching Tribal Solidarity Displayed At Pipeline Protest (Washington Post):
Native Americans from reservations hundreds of miles away from North Dakota have joined the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe’s growing protest against a $3.8 billion four-state oil pipeline that they say could disturb sacred sites and impact drinking water for 8,000 tribal members and millions further downstream.
- Washington State Begins Killing Wolf Pack For Preying On Livestock (Reuters):
Wildlife agents authorized to eradicate a group of 11 wolves for repeated attacks on cattle in Washington state have hunted down and killed six animals from the condemned pack and are searching for the rest, a state game official said on Monday.
- NASA: Earth is warming at a pace ‘unprecedented in 1,000 years’ (Guardian UK):
Records of temperature that go back far further than 1800s suggest warming of recent decades is out of step with any period over the past millennium
- Enviros wage war with Interior over leasing’s climate impact (E&E News):
Environmental groups launched a broad assault today on federal oil and gas leasing, accusing the Obama administration of ignoring the climate impacts from leasing on hundreds of thousands of acres since early 2015. WildEarth Guardians and Physicians for Social Responsibility filed suit in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia, challenging 397 leases in Colorado, Utah and Wyoming. The leases collectively represent almost 380,000 acres.
- Drought-Hardy Yards Could Ease Californian Heat Waves (Climate Central):
As drought-stricken residents of Los Angeles’s hottest neighborhoods replace thirsty lawns with native plants, pavers and bare soil, new research has shown how their local climates could begin tipping back in the direction of their desert-like origins…The study helps to inform a ‘what if’ thought experiment, in which a future L.A. morphs back toward its original state, free of irrigation, driven by worsening Western droughts.
- Why It Matters: Climate Change (AP):
“It’s as if Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump live on two entirely different Earths: one warming, one not.”
- Colorado Anti-Fracking Activists Fall Short in Ballot Efforts (Inside Climate News):
Two anti-fracking initiatives did not get enough valid signatures to qualify for the November ballot, Colorado officials announced on Monday, giving the oil and gas industry its latest victory over communities seeking to exert local control over fracking.
- Wisconsin: High Rate Of Tumors Found In Fish (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel):
Scientists led by researchers with the U.S. Geological Survey have found an elevated number of cases of skin and liver tumors in white suckers in the Milwaukee, Menomonee and Kinnickinnic rivers “” a discovery that suggests more work will be needed to remove contaminants from the waterways.
- CSB: Mission Impossible — Deadly Accidents, No Answers (Houston Chronicle):
Early on a Saturday morning, deep inside a chemical plant in La Porte, Javier Ortiz took his last sip of coffee.
- Gov. Jerry Brown signs bill banning state funds for coal projects (San Jose Mercury News):
In signing state Sen. Loni Hancock’s bill, the governor also praised the Oakland City Council for voting to ban transportation of the ore through its city and encouraged other cities to do the same. “Other localities should follow suit — and the state should, too — to reduce and, ultimately, eliminate the shipment of coal through all California ports, Brown wrote in a signing message.
- Minnesota: Researchers Warn On Mercury In St. Louis River Estuary Fish (Duluth News-Tribune):
If a kid catches a big walleye on the St. Louis River estuary in Duluth, the state warns her not to eat it. Ever.
- In Scathing Review, EPA’s Science Advisors Tell Agency Not to Downplay Fracking-Related Water Contamination (DeSmog Blog):
On Thursday, the Environmental Protection Agency’s scientific advisors finished their review of EPA’s national study on fracking and sternly rebuked the EPA for claiming that its draft study had found no evidence of “widespread, systemic” impacts to drinking water. The EPA had not provided the evidence to support that claim, the Science Advisory Board (SAB) peer review panel found.
- Secret ‘Chemtrail’ Spraying Not Real, Scientists Agree (ENS):
Long-lasting white trails left behind by aircraft are caused by well-understood physical and chemical processes, not a secret, large-scale atmospheric spraying program, concludes new research from Carnegie Science, University of California-Irvine, and the nonprofit Near Zero.
- Environmental records shattered as climate change ‘plays out before us’ (Guardian UK):
Temperatures, sea levels and carbon dioxide all hit milestones amid extreme weather in 2015, major international ‘state of the climate’ report finds.
FOR MORE on Climate Science and Climate Change, go to our Green News Report: Essential Background Page
“Hurrah, hurrah, step right up! … get your rose colored
spectaclesspectacles here folks”:(Unprecedented In A Thousand Years).