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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Senate Republicans ridicule climate solutions, as Democrats fight back during Green New Deal stunt vote in the Senate; New Mexico and Puerto Rico set targets for 100% renewable electricity; Replacing US coal with renewables today would save customers millions; PLUS: Big Oil has spent a billion on climate lobbying and ads since the Paris Climate Agreement… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!
Green News Report
with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen
3/28/2019
‘Green News Report’ – March 28, 2019 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen... · · · · · ‘Green News Report’ – March 28, 2019 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Video: Ocasio-Cortez’s righteous “” and accurate “” anger about poverty and the environment; Interior Nominee Intervened to Block Report on Endangered Species; Republicans grasp for a climate change message; Jury Awards $80 Million In Damages In Roundup Weed Killer Cancer Trial; New Jersey Sues Chemical Companies To Pay for Pollution Damages; A Climate Migration Crisis Is Escalating In Bangladesh… PLUS: The Doomsday Vault’s home is already altered by climate change. A report says it could get worse…. and much, MUCH more! …
STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY’S ‘GREEN NEWS REPORT’…
- ‘Sham’ vote in US Senate on Democrats’ Green New Deal resolution:
- Green New Deal Voted Down in Senate After Some Real Bullshit (Earther)
- VIDEO: In Response to Climate Emergency: TaunTauns, Seahorses and Manure (Climate Crocks)
- VIDEO: Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse: “I hope this lame stunt is the last gasp of climate denial” (Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI), Twitter)
- ‘A political game.’ 2020 Democrats explain why they didn’t vote for Green New Deal (SF Gate)
- Senate defeats Green New Deal, as Democrats call vote a ‘sham’ (Washington Post)
- The 3 Democrats Who Voted Against the Green New Deal (The Atlantic)
- Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez shows us all: Here’s how to fight Republican climate trolls (Salon)
- US spent nearly $100 billion last year on disasters (NOAA.gov)
- Lawmakers see legislative opening after Green New Deal vote (E&E News):
“We’re seeing, I think, a real tectonic shift taking place in the Republican Party away from blanket denial into they-don’t-know-what-yet,” Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) told reporters after the vote. “And it’s going to be interesting to watch them as they move to whatever their next fallback trench is in this long battle for their fossil fuel funders.”
- The Green New Deal vote shows Republicans would rather mock climate change than challenge big lobbying groups (op-ed, Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse, NBC News)
- GOP Sen. Lamar Alexander Wants To Address Climate Change Without The Green New Deal (NPR)
- Mitch McConnell wants a Green New Deal vote. Democrats should take him up on it. (Vox)
- The Climate Benefits of the Green New Deal (Scientific American)
- Senators voting ‘no’ on Green New Deal raked in fossil fuel cash:
- Opponents of Green New Deal in Senate Propped up by Fossil Cash (Oil Change International):
Fossil fuel interests have given over 11 times as much dirty money to senators voting against the Green New Deal resolution than to those who voted “present” to block McConnell’s cynical ploy.
- Big Oil spent big on lobbying since signing of Paris Agreement:
- How the oil majors have spent $1Bn since Paris on narrative capture and lobbying on climate (Influence Map)
- ‘All Rhetoric and No Action’: Oil Giants Spent $1 Billion on Climate Lobbying and Ads Since Paris Pact, Says Report (DeSmog Blog):
Today’s report updates the group’s 2016 report that estimated these companies spent $115 million a year lobbying against climate regulations “” even policies companies said they supported… The new estimates suggest that spending to influence climate policy by the five oil giants has increased sharply over the last two years.
- Big oil’s ‘double speak’ on climate exposed in new report (Euractiv)
- Banks pumped $1.9 trillion into fossil fuels since the Paris climate deal (Fast Company)
- US Air Force needs $5 billion to repair storm-damaged bases:
- US Air Force: We Need $5 Billion To Fix Weather-Damaged Bases (Defense One):
“We desperately need the supplemental funding to recover from the natural disasters that hammered Tyndall and Offutt,” Air Force Secretary Heather Wilson said…”There are other decisions we’ll have to make if we don’t [have supplemental funding] by May or June.…61 projects in 18 states are not going to happen because we have not gotten a disaster supplemental for Tyndall.”
- Replacing US coal with renewables today would save money:
- The Coal Cost Crossover: Economic Viability Of Existing Coal Compared To New Local Wind And Solar Resources (Energy Innovation):
This analysis complements existing research into the costs of clean energy undercutting coal costs, by focusing on which coal plants could be replaced locally (within 35 miles of the existing coal plant) at a saving.
- Shutting Down Almost Every Coal Plant and Swapping For Renewables Would Save Money, Report Finds (Earther):
The research has dubbed this inflection point the “coal cost crossover.” And many aging coal plants in the U.S. are on the wrong side of it…The findings show that retiring 74 percent of American coal power plants and replacing them with wind or solar plants would provide an immediate saving to utilities.
- ‘Coal is on the way out’: study finds fossil fuel now pricier than solar or wind (Guardian UK)
- New Mexico, Puerto Rico set 100 percent zero-carbon electricity targets:
- Puerto Rico passes 100% renewable energy bill as it aims for storm resilience (Utility Dive):
The U.S. territory will join Hawaii, California and Washington, D.C., with its 100% RPS target, which includes interim goals of 40% renewables by 2025 and 50% by 2040. Similar to Hawaii’s island economy, Puerto Rico’s energy customers faced high prices from importing fossil fuels for power generation as well as resilience issues from extreme weather and vulnerable transmission infrastructure.
- Puerto Rico Has Just Passed Its Own Green New Deal (Forbes):
The changes are intended to create a more resilient island built upon state of the art technology that transcends the diesel and coal-fired centralized generation electricity model, towards a clean, more decentralized energy system with local, renewable resources at its center. PS 1121 also aims to empower prosumers – customers that both produce and consume energy – with stronger policies on net metering and interconnection of solar, storage and microgrid projects.
- It’s the Green News Report’s 10th anniversary!
‘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
- VIDEO: Ocasio-Cortez’s righteous “” and accurate “” anger about poverty and the environment (Washington Post)
- Interior Nominee Intervened to Block Report on Endangered Species (NY Times)
- The Doomsday Vault’s home is already altered by climate change. A report says it could get worse. (Washington Post)
- Republicans grasp for a climate change message (Politico)
- Jury Awards $80 Million In Damages In Roundup Weed Killer Cancer Trial (NPR)
- New Jersey Sues Chemical Companies To Pay for Pollution Damages (NJ Record)
- A Climate Migration Crisis Is Escalating In Bangladesh (PRI)
- EPA: No Toxic Releases At Superfund Sites In Flooded Midwest (AP)
- They Grew Up Around Fossil Fuels. Now, Their Jobs Are in Renewables. (NY Times)
- European Parliament Votes To Ban Single-Use Plastics (Guardian UK)
- Electricity costs from battery storage down 76% since 2012: BNEF (Utility Dive)
- VIDEO: Think tackling climate crisis is too expensive? Look at the alternatives (All In With Chris Hayes)
- Truck carrying chemical explodes in Arkansas, killing driver (AP)
- The Green New Deal Is Happening in China (Truthout)
- Radical transformation pathway towards sustainable electricity via evolutionary steps (Nature)
- SEJ Backgrounder: Green New Deal Proposes Sweeping Economic Transformation (Society of Environmental Journalists)
- Explainer: The ‘Green New Deal’: Mobilizing for a just, prosperous, and sustainable economy (New Consensus)
- What genuine, no-bullshit ambition on climate change would look like: How to hit the most stringent targets, with no loopholes. (David Roberts, Vox)
- A Global Shift To Sustainability Would Save Us $26 Trillion (Vox)
- Project Drawdown: 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (Drawdown.org)
- An Optimist’s Guide to Solving Climate Change and Saving the World (Vice)
- The great nutrient collapse: The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention. (Politico)
- 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)
- 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.
FOR MORE on Climate Science and Climate Change, go to our Green News Report: Essential Background Page
The Jakobshavn glacier in Greenland is said to be changing in the direction of another ‘Little Ice Age’ by those who care not to know reality.
As in financial net worth, the bottom line is the one to sing about.
The bottom line with this paper is:
“But, as mentioned, the glacier [Jakobshavn] is still contributing to ocean level rise worldwide, as it’s still losing more ice to the ocean than it is gaining from snow accumulation, the researchers said.”
(Live Science).
Ice sheet mass balance is the subject those who can’t fathom this issue need to study.
Lot’s of comments with little value by those who also can’t balance their own check books is telling.