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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Europe grapples with relentless heat wave, nicknamed 'Lucifer'; Flash drought causing crop failures in the Great Plains; Trump's Department of Agriculture nixes phrase 'climate change'; PLUS: The electric utility industry knew about global warming in 1968, but chose to lie about it and build more coal plants anyway... 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): Al Gore's carbon footprint doesn't matter (and yours doesn't either); Scientists fear Trump will bury blunt climate report; Interior Dept. rescinds coal valuation rule; WV gov wants new federal coal subsidies; Keystone XL pipeline fate discussed in hearings all week in Nebraska; EPA staff forced to work on fossil fuel industry wish list, former official says; Forestry experts say many forest fires should be allowed to burn; In sweltering South, climate change is now a workplace hazard... PLUS: Pipeline Payday: how pipeline builders win big, whether gas is needed or not... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

• VIDEO: Al Gore pickup lines (The Late Show with Stephen Colbert)
• Record heat wave nicknamed 'Lucifer' hits Europe:
• 'It is just too much': Lucifer heat wave stifles parts of Europe (CBC):
  
  Extreme heat has fueled wildfires, damaged crops, and strained energy and water supplies
• VIDEO: Shocking drone footage shows effect of Lucifer heatwave on the Italian Alps (UK Daily Mail)
• Europe Swelters Under a Heat Wave Called ‘Lucifer’ (NY Times):
  
  Experts say it’s all part of a broader trend: Summers are, indeed, getting hotter.
• 'Flash drought' killing wheat crops in Northern Great Plains:
• Forget Flash Floods. Flash Droughts Are Even More Terrifying. (Mother Jones):
  
  “I don’t think anybody has time to feel scared.”...Recently, as the climate has warmed and crop suitability has shifted, the Dakotas and Montana have surpassed Kansas as the most important wheat-growing region in the country. The High Plains is now a supplier of staple grain for the entire world. According to recent field surveys, more than half of this year’s harvest may already be lost.
• 'Flash drought' grips Montana (Great Falls Tribune):
  
  The drought plaguing eastern Montana and much of North and South Dakota came on quickly and is intensifying, leading ranchers to sell their cattle and farmers to harvest early whatever crops that have grown so far this summer.
• Massive drought across plains states could cost farmers up to $1bn (UK Independent)
• USDA staff ordered to avoid using the words 'climate change':
• US federal department is censoring use of term 'climate change', emails reveal (Guardian):
  
  Exclusive: series of emails show staff at Department of Agriculture’s Natural Resources Conservation Service advised to reference ‘weather extremes’ instead
• USDA office told to use ‘weather extremes’ instead of 'climate change' (The Hill):
  
  According to the office, climate change would become “weather extremes.” Climate change adaptation should instead be “resilience to weather,” and efforts to “reduce greenhouse gases” should instead be deemed as ways to “build soil organic matter, increase nutrient use efficiency.”
• Utilities Knew, Too: Utility industry was warned about climate change as early as 1968:
• AUDIO: Utilities Knew Too: Electric Companies Learned of Global Warming in 1968, Lied About It Ever Since (The Brad Blog):
  
  "In 1971," he documents, "they saw this as a really long term potential issue for power generation. ... Once it exploded onto the front pages of the New York Times, after some pretty interesting Congressional testimony in 1988, it seems like the utilities kind of freaked out. They started looking for people who could spread the message that climate science wasn't legit, and even a hoax."
• Utilities Knew: Documenting Electric Utilities’ Early Knowledge and Ongoing Deception on Climate Change From 1968-2017 (Energy and Policy Institute):
  
  Despite this early knowledge about climate change, electric utilities have continued to invest heavily in fossil fuel power generation over the past half a century, and since 1988 some have engaged in ongoing efforts to sow doubt about climate science and block legal limits on carbon dioxide emissions from power plants.
• Like Exxon, Utilities Knew about Climate Change Risks Decades Ago (Inside Climate News):
  
  A new report shows through documents and testimony how utilities researched climate change and determined in the 1970s that it could force a shift away from coal.

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

For a comprehensive roundup of daily environmental news you can trust, see the Society of Environmental Journalists' Daily Headlines page

• Al Gore's Carbon Footprint Doesn't Matter (New Republic):
  
  Conservatives say environmentalists are hypocrites if they consume more energy than the average American. It's a deceitful, disingenuous argument...the reason climate advocates don't intensely advocate for personal behavioral changes is that they're "insignificant to the big picture on climate." That's true even for huge energy users.
• Scientists Fear Trump Will Dismiss Blunt Climate Report (NY Times):
  
  The draft report by scientists from 13 federal agencies, which has not yet been made public, concludes that Americans are feeling the effects of climate change right now. It directly contradicts claims by President Trump and members of his cabinet who say that the human contribution to climate change is uncertain, and that the ability to predict the effects is limited...Another scientist involved in the process, who spoke to The New York Times on the condition of anonymity, said he and others were concerned that it would be suppressed.
• U.S. Interior Department rescinds coal valuation rule (Reuters):
  
  The valuation rule was proposed by former Interior Secretary Sally Jewell last year to close a loophole that enabled companies to dodge royalty payments when mining on taxpayer-owned public land. It required energy companies to pay royalties on sales to the first unaffiliated customer, known as an arm's-length sale, as the fuel moves to market. A Reuters investigation found in 2012 that coal companies were using affiliated brokers to settle royalty payments on exports to Asia at much lower domestic prices.
• Fossil fuel subsidies are a staggering $5 tn per year (Guardian UK):
  
  A new study finds 6.5% of global GDP goes to subsidizing dirty fossil fuels
• West Virginia Governor Jim Justice wants a new federal subsidy to boost coal (Climate Progress):
  
  Justice says the subsidy is needed for national security reasons...This sounds a lot like picking winners.
• On Environment and Energy, Trump Often Picks His Own Facts (NY Times):
  
  [M]any of the things Mr. Trump says about coal, climate change and the environment bear a strained relationship with the truth. He often cherry-picks facts that prove to be exaggerations when the broader context is considered. He has made inaccurate assertions many times; he is more likely to repeat than to retract.
• US To Reject Biofuel Program Tweaks In Blow To Refiners, Icahn: Sources (Reuters):
  
  The Environmental Protection Agency will reject a proposed overhaul of the U.S. biofuels program that would have shifted blending responsibility away from refining companies further down the fuel supply chain, three sources familiar with the matter told Reuters on Thursday.
• Pipeline Payday: How Builders Win Big, Whether Gas Is Needed or Not (Inside Climate News):
  
  The real fight over America's energy future isn't in coal, despite the Trump administration's public focus on a mining revival. Rather, dozens of pipeline projects, making up one of the largest expansions of natural gas infrastructure in U.S. history, are where the fossil fuel action is.
• Keystone XL Pipeline Fate In Balance As Nebraska Opens Hearings (Reuters):
  
  Nebraska regulators will hear final arguments for and against TransCanada Corp’s proposed Keystone XL pipeline this week before deciding whether to approve its route later this year, the last big hurdle for the long-delayed project after President Donald Trump gave it federal approval.
• EPA Staff Forced to Work on Energy Industry’s Wish List: Ex-Official (The Intercept):
  
  EPA staffers are spending their days addressing an industry wish list of changes to environmental law, according to Elizabeth Southerland, a former senior agency official who issued a scathing public farewell message when she ended her 30-year career there on Monday.
• Army Corps of Engineers plans $275 million in defenses to block Asian carp from reaching Great Lakes (Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel):
  
  The best way to keep invasive Asian carp from entering and wreaking havoc on the Great Lakes would involve a series of water jets, flushing locks and electrical barriers on the Illinois River, according to a long-delayed Army Corps of Engineers report out today.
• Undiscovered Peatlands Might Be a Critical Carbon Sink (Ensia):
  
  The fate of these carbon-hoarding habitats will play a big role in our planet’s climate future/.
• In Sweltering South, Climate Change Is Now a Workplace Hazard (NY Times):
  
  Workers laboring outdoors in southern states are wrestling with the personal and political consequences of a worsening environment.
• Let Forest Fires Burn? What the Black-Backed Woodpecker Knows (NY Times):
  
  A scientific debate is intensifying over whether too much money and too many lives are lost fighting forest fires.
• Scott Pruitt's Crimes Against Nature (Rolling Stone):
  
  Trump's EPA chief is gutting the agency, defunding science and serving the fossil-fuel industry.
• The Uninhabitable Earth: When will climate change make earth too hot for humans? (New York Magazine):
  
  Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak - sooner than you think.
• A beginner's guide to the debate over 100% renewable energy (Vox):
  
  Clean-energy enthusiasts frequently claim that we can go bigger, that it's possible for the whole world to run on renewables - we merely lack the "political will." So, is it true? Do we know how get to an all-renewables system? Not yet. Not really.
• 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

• NASA climate change video: This is the U.S. in 2100 (NASA).

                 

Article Categories: Al Gore, Montana, Environment, Green News, South Dakota, Coal, North Dakota, Oil, Climate change, Extreme weather, Exxon Mobil, Agriculture, USDA