IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Victory and temporary reprieve for the Standing Rock Sioux in long fight against the Dakota Access Pipeline; Trump advisors suggest privatizing oil-rich Native American lands; Exxon Mobil CEO could be next U.S. Secretary of State; Extreme rainfall events projected to increase five-fold across the U.S.; PLUS: Enormous cost of cleaning up Fukushima nuclear power plant disaster has doubled... All that and more in today's Green News Report!
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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Al Gore: climate change threat leaves 'no time to despair' over Trump victory; Canada's ruling Liberals count on math, time to survive pipeline uproar; Why Trump will struggle to save the coal industry; For Flint Residents, A Fog of Unanswerable Questions; Trump Can't Kill Solyndra Loan Office That Outperforms Banks; Texan who could lead Trump's EPA wants to end renewable energy subsidies... PLUS: Pope urges world leaders not to hobble climate change pact... and much, MUCH more! ...
STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...
- DAPL: Victory and temporary reprieve for Standing Rock Sioux Tribe:
- VIDEO: What's Next for the Dakota Access Pipeline? Some Protesters Wary of Future (NBC News)
- VIDEO: Celebrating victory with Tokata Iron Eyes, 13 year old water protector, Standing Rock (Naomi Klein, Facebook)
- The Lesson from Standing Rock: Organizing and Resistance Can Win (The Nation)
- 2,000 Vets Head to Support Dakota Access Protesters, Protect From Police (Inside Climate News)
- VIDEO: Sheriff claims water protectors will arm vets, trigger PTSD. Provides no evidence. (Twitter)
- Opponents aim to tie up Dakota pipeline for years (The Hill)
- Energy Transfer's Useful Rage Against The Machine (Bloomberg)
- Trump Team suggests privatizing tribal reservations for maximum fossil fuel extraction:
- VIDEO: Trump advisors aim to privatize oil-rich Indian reservations (Reuters):
Native American reservations cover just 2 percent of the United States, but they may contain about a fifth of the nation's oil and gas, along with vast coal reserves. Now, a group of advisors to President-elect Donald Trump on Native American issues wants to free those resources from what they call a suffocating federal bureaucracy that holds title to 56 million acres of tribal lands, two chairmen of the coalition told Reuters in exclusive interviews. - Trump considering Exxon Mobil CEO for Sec. of State:
- Exxon CEO Now a Contender for Donald Trump's Secretary of State (Wall St. Journal):
Mr. Tillerson's close ties to the company, including tens of millions of dollars of Exxon shares that will become available to him in the coming decade, could complicate his efforts to lift sanctions or intervene in trade disputes where Exxon has a financial interest. It would be almost impossible for him to recuse himself from working with all the countries in which Exxon operates or markets products. - Extreme rainfall events projected to increase 500 per cent:
- Study: Warming to trigger 3 times as many downpours in US (AP):
Extreme downpours — like those that flooded Louisiana, Houston and West Virginia earlier this year — will happen nearly three times as often in the United States by the end of the century, and six times more frequently in parts of the Mississippi Delta, according to a new study. - Warming U.S. Could See Extreme Rains Increase Fivefold (Weather Channel)
- Costs to decommission Fukushima nuclear plant skyrocket:
- Bill for Japan's Fukushima cleanup to double to $201 billion: source (Reuters):
Japan's Fukushima nuclear disaster in 2011 is likely to cost 22.6 trillion yen ($201 billion), slightly more than double a previous estimate, according to a source involved in government discussions on the issue. - Without the Clean Power Plan, are nuclear plants essential to combat climate change? (Utility Dive)
- NY Sued Over Subsidies For Nuclear Plants (AP)
- Texas breaks a mighty wind record:
- Texas wind power blows away old record (Houston Chronicle):
But customers would be hard-pressed to notice those savings when they pay their electric bills The cost of electricity is just one component of the bill. Any savings from a burst of wind power, or, for that matter, falling natural gas prices, could be offset by transmission charts, mark-ups by retail electricity companies, and taxes and fees. - Texas wind generation hits record, topping 15 GW (Utility Dive)
'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...
- Al Gore: climate change threat leaves 'no time to despair' over Trump victory (Guardian UK):
"It was a sincere search for areas of common ground. I had a meeting beforehand with Ivanka Trump. The bulk of the time was with the president-elect, Donald Trump. I found it an extremely interesting conversation, and to be continued, and I'm just going to leave it at that." - Canada's ruling Liberals count on math, time to survive pipeline uproar (Reuters)
- Pope urges world leaders not to hobble climate change pact (Reuters)
- Want to know why Trump will struggle to save the coal industry? Look at Michigan. (Vox)
- For Flint Residents, A Fog of Unanswerable Questions. (Undark Magazine)
- Trump Can't Kill Solyndra Loan Office That Outperforms Banks (Bloomberg)
- Texan who could lead Trump's EPA wants to end renewable energy subsidies (McClatchy)
- Iceland Carbon Capture Project Quickly Converts Carbon Dioxide Into Stone (Smithsonian Magazine):
For carbon dioxide to transform into carbonate, the rocks into which the gas is injected need to have calcium-, magnesium- or iron-rich silicate minerals. A chemical reaction then occurs that converts the carbon dioxide and minerals into a chalky carbonate mineral. Sedimentary rocks don't have much of those minerals, but basalts-a type of volcanic rock that makes up most of the ocean floor as well as rocks on some other places on land-have plenty - 5 lessons activists can learn from Florida's successful ballot fight to defend solar (Grist):
Here's what clean power advocates across the U.S. can learn from Florida's solar fight: Lesson 1: Conservatives can be big clean energy boosters - if you sell it right... - No country on Earth is taking the 2 degree climate target seriously (Vox):
If we mean what we say, no more new fossil fuels, anywhere.
FOR MORE on Climate Science and Climate Change, go to our Green News Report: Essential Background Page