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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: At the center of Trump’s turn against allies at the G7 — climate change; Investigators say California electric company PG&E at fault in deadly Wine Country fires; EPA plans to overhaul cost-benefit analysis of pollution regulations in industry’s favor; PLUS: Global movement to ban single use plastics gains momentum… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

Green News Report with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen 6/12/2018

‘Green News Report’ – June 12, 2018  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...   · · · · ·   ‘Green News Report’ – June 12, 2018  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Trump’s coal, nuclear bailout no shield from hackers: cyber experts; Earth’s dismal water future, mapped;
Loss of investigators slows key federal chemical safety agency; Why electric cars will soon be superior to gasoline cars in every respect; End of the ‘gas rush?’ Renewables, storage reaching cost parity, report finds; Climate change could lead to major crop failures in world’s biggest corn regions; Energy commission sees no national security risk from coal plant closures; Air to gasoline story starts a fire… PLUS: Baobab trees that have lived for millennia are suddenly dying… and much, MUCH more! …

STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY’S ‘GREEN NEWS REPORT’…

• Climate change plays a role in Trump’s turn against allies at G7 meeting:
• What led to Trump’s outburst against Trudeau: Behind the scenes at the G7 (Toronto Star):
  The Americans didn’t want to agree to a declaration on climate change that referenced the Paris Accord, nor did they want to sign on an oceans charter, which contained targets on plastics, with similar language…No one expected Trump would sign on the climate change piece, but they’d hoped the U.S. would agree to take joint action to tackle plastic pollution in the world’s oceans. In the end, it didn’t.
• Six of the G7 Commit to Climate Action. Trump Wouldn’t Even Join Conversation. (Inside Climate News):
  [T]he United States refused to join in common statements by the other six nations reaffirming their commitment to the Paris climate agreement, which he wants to abandon. Instead, the U.S. unilaterally promoted fossil fuels…U.S. negotiators wrote their own paragraph for the climate section that focused on promoting the burning of fossil fuels.
• G7 ocean plastic charter ‘not enough’: advocates (Vancouver Star)
• G7 minus two: Leaders agree to ocean plastics charter (Deutsche Welle News)
• G6 leaders break with Trump, move forward on climate action (Climate Progress)
• Trump’s tariffs on solar panels forces U.S. renewable industry to cancel projects:
• Billions in U.S. solar projects shelved after Trump panel tariff (Reuters):
  President Donald Trump’s tariff on imported solar panels has led U.S. renewable energy companies to cancel or freeze investments of more than $2.5 billion in large installation projects, along with thousands of jobs, the developers told Reuters.
• Trump’s Solar Tariff May Cost Up to 23,000 U.S. Jobs, But Boost Domestic Manufacturing (Huffington Post)
• EPA plans to overhaul cost-benefit analysis of pollution in industry favor:
• Pruitt Starts Rewriting How EPA Weighs Costs, Benefits of Regulation (Inside Climate News):
  Proposed changes would downplay human health and climate benefits of environmental regulations in favor of cutting costs for polluting industries.
• EPA to review how it adds up the economic pros and cons of environmental rules (Washington Post):
  “The only thing they’re regulating is themselves,” she said. “And the reason they’re doing that I think is that in the future, the agency will have to go through rulemaking to undo whatever they do here.”
• 2 key environmental policies Scott Pruitt was dismantling last week amid his scandals (Vox):
  Pruitt wants to change which regulations are even worthwhile in the first place…In the case of carbon dioxide, that means only measuring the benefits of reducing carbon dioxide itself and not associated pollutants like particulates, sulfur oxides, and nitrogen oxides. Under Obama, the social cost of carbon was found to be $36 per ton of emissions. Under Trump, it’s $5.
• Trump White House quietly issues report vindicating Obama regulations (David Roberts, Vox):
  Air quality regulations serve as a downward redistribution of wealth, out of the pockets of industrialists and into the pockets of ordinary Americans, particularly the poor and vulnerable Americans (African Americans and Hispanics in particular) who tend to live closest to pollution sources. They shift costs, from the much higher health and social costs of pollution remediation to the comparatively smaller costs of pollution abatement.
• California electric company at fault in deadly Wine Country fires
• CAL FIRE Investigators Determine Causes of 12 Wildfires in Mendocino, Humboldt, Butte, Sonoma, Lake, and Napa Counties [PDF] (Cal-Fire, Dept. of Forestry and Fire Protection)
• PG&E May Face Criminal Charges After Probe of Deadly Wildfires (Bloomberg):
  The most unexpected and crucial part of the findings, though, was at the very bottom of California’s end-of-day statement: The state had found evidence of alleged violations of law by PG&E in connection with eight of the blazes.
• Fight over PG&E’s liability in Wine Country fires just beginning (SF Chronicle)
• PG&E’s survival hinges on Wine Country fire reports (SF Chronicle)
• Global movement to ban single-use plastics gains momentum:
• India will abolish all single-use plastic by 2022, vows Narendra Modi (Guardian UK):
  Country will also introduce a campaign against marine litter and a pledge to make 100 national monuments litter-free.
• India vows to ban all single-use plastics by 2022 (Reuters)
• SeaWorld, Ikea and Royal Caribbean are getting rid of plastic straws and bags (Washington Post)
• Plastic straws are the new plastic bags. They suck. (Quartz):
  At Starbucks, change is coming slowly, and city by city. In July, the company’s hometown of Seattle will enact a ban on plastic straws.
• EU moves to ban single-use plastics (Reuters)

‘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

• Trump’s coal, nuclear bailout no shield from hackers: cyber experts (Reuters)
• Earth’s dismal water future, mapped (LA Times)
• Loss of Investigators Slows Key Federal Chemical Safety Agency (Houston Chronicle)
• Why electric cars will soon be superior to gasoline cars in every respect (Climate Progress)
• End of the ‘gas rush?’ Renewables, storage reaching cost parity, report finds (Utility Dive)
• Baobab trees that have lived for millennia are suddenly dying (The Atlantic)
• Climate Change Could Lead to Major Crop Failures in World’s Biggest Corn Regions (Inside Climate News)
• FERC: Energy commission sees no national security risk from coal plant closures (The Hill)
• How Scott Pruitt could be criminally prosecuted for EPA scandals (Washington Examiner)
• Harvard professor: Climate change can be stopped by turning air into gasoline [Ed. note: Not really. See next story, below…] (The Atlantic)
• Air to Gasoline Story Starts a Fire (Climate Crocks)
• Volkswagen Turns To Quantum Computing For Electric Car Batteries (Inside EVs)
• These Fish Keep South American Forests Alive-And Fishing Threatens Them (National Geographic)
• The list of oil companies that met with the Pope about climate change has some big names missing (Quartz)
• Merkel’s Widening Emissions Gap Piles Pressure on Coal Power (Bloomberg)
• GOP Senators Urge Trump to Submit Kigali Amendment on HFCs for Senate Approval (The Hill)
• Feds Weigh Proposals To Ship Wild Horses Overseas (Huffington Post)
• How More Carbon Dioxide Can Make Food Less Nutritious (NY Times)
• The world’s bleak climate situation, in 3 charts: We’ve got a long way to go and a short time to get there. (Vox)
• AUDIO: An Inconvenient ‘BradCast’ with Al Gore (The BRAD BLOG):
  Guest Host Angie Coiro’s exclusive interview with the former Vice President on elections, pollution, persuasion, activism, and hope…
• The Climate Risks We Face (NY Times):
  To stabilize global temperature, net carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to zero. The window of time is rapidly closing to reduce emissions and limit warming to no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the goal set in the Paris climate accord. The further we push the climate system beyond historical conditions, the greater the risks of potentially unforeseen and even catastrophic changes to the climate – so every reduction in emissions helps.
• 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).