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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Virginia becomes first in the South to target 100% clean energy; As coronavirus rages, Trump EPA refuses to tighten clean air rules to save lives; Clean energy capacity hits new record high globally; PLUS: Ten years later, the BP Oil Disaster in the Gulf of Mexico is still harming marine life... 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): Should we spend billions on clean energy? It worked during the last crisis; More Logging in National Forests on Trump Anti-Virus Agenda; In Brazil, COVID-19 outbreak paves way for invasion of indigenous lands; US judge cancels permit for Keystone XL pipeline from Canada; IMF Urges Post-Pandemic Stimulus to Avoid Depression Mistake...PLUS: The Coronavirus Climate Profiteers... and the Climate Heroes Doing the Right Thing in a Time of Crisis... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

• Trump EPA refuses to strengthen particle pollution standard:
• Wheeler dismisses research on tighter soot limit (E&E News):
  
  EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler today proposed leaving national soot standards unchanged at least through the middle of the next decade as he questioned the reliability of scientific research suggesting that tighter limits are needed to save lives...Environmental groups, however, charged that the status quo proposal ignores the findings of career employees that a tighter annual limit is needed to prevent thousands of premature deaths. They questioned the truncated review process used.
• 'Unbelievable' Timing: As Coronavirus Rages, Trump Disregards Advice to Tighten Clean Air Rules (NY Times)
• Trump officials reject stricter air quality standards, despite link between air pollution, coronavirus risks (Washington Post)
• The EPA refuses to tighten air quality standards despite the pandemic (Electrek)
• Legal experts, NGOs blast EPA move on air quality standards after higher pollution linked to COVID-19 deaths (Utility Dive)
• The EPA disbanded our clean air science panel. We met anyway – and found that particle pollution regulations aren’t protecting public health (The Conversation, 10/29/2019)
• Study links long-term air pollution exposure higher risk of death from COVID-19:
• COVID-19 PM2.5: A national study on long-term exposure to air pollution and COVID-19 mortality in the United States (Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health)
• Improved asthma outcomes observed in the vicinity of coal power plant retirement, retrofit and conversion to natural gas (Nature)
• Air pollution linked to far higher Covid-19 death rates, study finds (Guardian UK)
• EPA Finds Black Americans Face More Health-Threatening Air Pollution (Inside Climate News, 3/18/2018)
• April 20 is the 10th anniversary of the BP Oil Disaster in the Gulf:
• Hindsight 2020: Lessons We Cannot Ignore from the BP Disaster (Oceana)
• 10 Years After BP's Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill, Threat of Disaster Remains (EcoWatch)
• First Gulf of Mexico-Wide Survey of Oil Pollution in Fish Completed 10 Years after Deepwater Horizon (Univ. of South Florida)
• A Decade After BP Oil Spill, Texas A&M Experts Say It Could Happen Again (Texas A&M University)
• A decade after the Deepwater Horizon explosion, offshore drilling is still unsafe (The Conversation)
• Nine Years Later, the BP Oil Spill’s Environmental Mess Isn’t Gone (Mother Jones, 4/19/2019)
• Deepwater Horizon oil spill (Wikipedia)
• History of the Deepwater Horizon oil spill (Brittanica)
• Trump Administration Moves To Roll Back Offshore Drilling Safety Regulations (NPR, 5/3/2019)
• Deepwater Horizon’s Final Hours (NY Times, 12/25/2010):
  
  Crew members were cut down by shrapnel, hurled across rooms and buried under smoking wreckage. Some were swallowed by fireballs that raced through the oil rig’s shattered interior. Dazed and battered survivors, half-naked and dripping in highly combustible gas, crawled inch by inch in pitch darkness, willing themselves to the lifeboat deck.
• Virginia becomes first Southern state to target 100 percent clean electricity:
• Virginia Gov. Northam orders 100% carbon-free power by 2050 (Utility Dive)
• Governor Northam Signs Clean Energy Legislation (press release, Office of Gov. Ralph Northam)
• Virginia becomes the first state in the South to target 100% clean power (Vox)
• Renewable energy capacity hit records highs in 2019:
• New renewable energy capacity hit record levels in 2019 (Guardian UK):
  Almost three-quarters of new electricity generation capacity built in 2019 uses renewable energy, representing an all-time record. New data from the International Renewable Energy Agency (Irena) shows solar, wind and other green technologies now provide more than one-third of the world’s power, marking another record.

'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

• Should we spend billions on clean energy? It worked during the last crisis (LA Times)
• The Coronavirus Climate Profiteers... and the Climate Heroes Doing the Right Thing in a Time of Crisis (Mighty Earth)
• More Logging in National Forests on Trump Anti-Virus Agenda (Bloomberg)
• In Brazil, COVID-19 outbreak paves way for invasion of indigenous lands (Monga Bay)
• US judge cancels permit for Keystone XL pipeline from Canada (AP)
• Pandemic complicates recovery from deadly storms (E&E News)
• IMF Urges Post-Pandemic Stimulus to Avoid Depression Mistake (Bloomberg)
• VIDEO: Krugman: Nobody Knows What a Green New Deal Means. And that’s Good. (Climate Crocks)
• Coronavirus Fears Prompt Suspensions Of Bans On Single-Use Plastic Bags (despite lack of evidence) (NPR)
• Power shutoff bans amid pandemic may require cost recovery for utilities (Utility Dive)
• The Big Oil Money Pit: How $750 billion in new stimulus spending could prop up failing polluters [PDF] (Friends of the Earth)
• Melting Ice Reveals Viking Highway and Artifacts (EcoWatch)
• Exxon's Snake Oil: 100 years of deception (Columbia Journalism Review)
• What Does '12 Years to Act on Climate Change' (Now 11 Years) Really Mean? (Inside Climate News)
• VIDEO: A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (The Intercept)
• 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

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

                 

Article Categories: Virginia, Environment, Green News, BP Oil Disaster, EPA, Donald Trump, Coal, Oil, Climate change, Oceans/Sea Level Rise, Ralph Northam, Carbon Tax, Pollution, Coronavirus/COVID-19