IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Coronavirus shutdown has drastically cut pollution and emissions around the world; World's oceans hit record high temperatures; 2020 on track to be hottest year on record; PLUS: COVID-19 is redefining what's possible in climate action... All that and more in today's Green News Report!
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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): The coronavirus crisis means we may have already reached peak carbon; 50 Years Ago: An Awesome Earth Day Warning; Environmental Destruction Brought Us COVID-19. What It Brings Next Could Be Far Worse; Permian Oil Fields Leak Enough Methane for 7 Million Homes; A no-brainer stimulus idea: Electrify USPS mail trucks; WA Gov. Jay Inslee endorses Biden; US power demand falls to 2003 low due to coronavirus shutdown... PLUS: Will the coronavirus kill the oil industry and help save the climate?... and much, MUCH more! ...
STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...
- Oil price crash could be the death knell for the U.S. oil shale industry:
- Historic Oil Rout Breaks Shale, Trump's Energy Dominance (Bloomberg):
"The U.S. oil market actually gets worse fundamentally over the next month," said Paul Sankey, a veteran oil analyst, in a note to clients. Producers have "nowhere to go with the inexorable production that takes weeks and months to reduce to zero."...But the bigger problem for the shale industry is the lack of new wells being drilled. Shale wells decline by more than 60% in the first year, meaning new ones are needed to replaced production from old ones. - Trump Vows Oil Rescue That He's Been Powerless to Deliver (Yahoo Finance)
- Facing backlash, Saudis could reroute oil tankers headed for US (Al Jazeera)
- As price of oil drops, Trump orders plan to help U.S. energy companies (Washington Post)
- Explainer: What is a negative crude future and does it mean anything for consumers? (Reuters)
- NOAA: 2020 on track to be warmest year ever recorded globally:
- 2020 on Track to Rank in the Top 5 Hottest Years on Record (E&E News):
The first three months of the year were the second warmest in 141 years of record keeping. - This year is on track to be Earth's warmest on record, beating 2016, NOAA says (Washington Post):
This is somewhat unexpected, since there is no declared El Niño event in the tropical Pacific Ocean, which tends to provide a natural boost to global temperatures that are already elevated due to the human-caused buildup of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. - World's oceans hit record warm temperatures:
- Warmest Oceans on Record Adds to Hurricanes, Wildfires Risks (Bloomberg):
Parts of the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans all hit the record books for warmth last month, according to the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Information. The high temperatures could offer clues on the ferocity of the Atlantic hurricane season, the eruption of wildfires from the Amazon region to Australia, and whether the record heat and severe thunderstorms raking the southern U.S. will continue. - Relentless record heat roasts south Florida while most of the Gulf Coast also is cooking (Washington Post)
- Coronavirus shutdowns directly reducing pollution and greenhouse gas emissions:
- Earth Day Every Day: Silver Lining Of Pandemic Shows It's Possible To Solve Climate Change (Forbes)
- VIDEO: Virus lockdowns have led to cleaner air, but will it last? "It doesn't have to be shelter at home or clean air" (CBS)
- Pandemic will drive biggest drop in CO2 emissions since WW II, World Meteorological Organization says (CBC)
- Air pollution falls by unprecedented levels in major global cities during coronavirus lockdowns (CNN)
- Coronavirus lockdowns have led to an unprecedented fall in air pollution for these major cities (CNBC)
- Photos show impact of temporary air pollution drops across the world from coronavirus lockdown (CNBC)
- Germany, UK produce record solar power amid smog-free skies (Electrek)
- Smog-Free Skies Allow Germany to Break Record for Solar Power (Bloomberg)
- Lockdown reveals fresh air, cleaner rivers in India (AP)
- Coronavirus redefining the scope of what's 'possible' in climate action:
- VIDEO: David Wallace Wells: Coronavirus and Carbon Pollution (Climate Crocks)
- Strengthen worldwide climate commitments to improve economy, study finds (Guardian UK)
- On Earth Day, calls grow to treat shock of coronavirus with 'green recovery' (Reuters)
- Sorry to disappoint climate deniers, but coronavirus makes the low-carbon transition more urgent (The Conversation)
- Christiana Figueres: 5 Lessons From Coronavirus That Will Help Us Tackle Climate Change (Time)
- Coronavirus brings clearer skies but darker world to 50th Earth Day (Axios)
'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
- The coronavirus crisis means we may have already reached peak carbon (CNBC)
- Will the coronavirus kill the oil industry and help save the climate? (Guardian UK)
- VIDEO: 50 Years Ago: An Awesome Earth Day Warning (Climate Crocks)
- Environmental Destruction Brought Us COVID-19. What It Brings Next Could Be Far Worse. (Huffington Post)
- Permian Oil Fields Leak Enough Methane for 7 Million Homes (Bloomberg)
- Citigroup dumps Arctic oil (Heated.World)
- Jay Inslee Endorses Biden, Citing Private Conversations on Climate Policy (NY Times)
- A no-brainer stimulus idea: Electrify USPS mail trucks (Vox)
- US power demand falls to 2003 low due to coronavirus shutdown (Electrek)
- COVID-19 is battering oil-state economies (High Country News)
- Will Politicization of COVID-19 Crisis Erode National Consensus On Response? (Yale Program on Climate Change Communications)
- Inside Clean Energy: Here Is How Covid Is Affecting Some of the Largest Wind, Solar and Energy Storage Projects (Inside Climate News)
- Supreme Court hands environmentalists a win in water pollution case (The Hill)
- 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