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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Extreme weather broils the United States; Greenland ice sheet potentially hits 'point of no return,' study warns; PLUS: Trump Administration officially opens pristine Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling (But don't tell Trump)... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): White House To Withdraw Pendley's BLM Nomination; Seven Top Oil Firms Downgrade Assets by $87 Billion in Nine Months; Wind and Sun Killing Gas in Texas; China’s Summer of Floods is a Preview of Climate Disasters to Come; Walls or Wetlands? How Southeast Cities Are Grappling With Rising Seas... PLUS: How utilities use secret campaigns against climate action... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

• Updated: July 2020 was the 2nd hottest July ever recorded globally:
• July 2020 was record hot for N. Hemisphere, 2nd hottest for planet; Arctic sea ice melted to record lows (NOAA)
• July 2020 Was Record Hot for N. Hemisphere, 2nd Hottest for Planet (Environmental News Network)
• Earliest 10th and 11th named storms in record-breaking 2020 Atlantic hurricane season:
• Tropical Storm Kyle, the earliest 11th named storm on record, spins up off East Coast (Washington Post)
• Tropical Storm Kyle off Delaware coast becomes 11th named storm of the season (WJLA)
• Widespread damage in Iowa, Illinois from sudden derecho wind event:
• 'The Devastation Is Widespread.' Iowans Continue To Struggle Following Deadly Derecho (NPR)
• Midwest derecho devastates Iowa corn crop. Satellite imagery shows damage. (Washington Post):
  
  Up to 43 percent of the state's corn and soybean crop has suffered damage from the storms, a severe blow to a $10 billion industry that's central to the Hawkeye State's economy. The magnitude of the battered vegetation was even visible on the same weather satellites used to track Monday's violent thunderstorms.
• A Bitter Wind at a Shaky Time, and Iowa Is Left Reeling (NY Times):
  
  Devastating windstorms just before harvest were the last thing that Iowa farmers needed...State officials estimate that as many as 14 million acres of farmland - more than a third of the state's total farmland - were damaged, an increase from an earlier estimate of 10 million acres. Hundreds of millions of bushels of commercial storage grain bins and tens of millions of bushels of on-farm storage grain bins were likely lost to the storm.
• Record-breaking intense heat wave broils U.S. West:
• Sweltering heat wave bakes the western United States (CBS News)
• VIDEO: Yes, climate change is intensifying Western heat wave (CBS)
• VIDEO: 'Firenado' Spins In California As Firefighters Battle Blazes Across The State | NBC Nightly News (NBC)
• Extremely rare 'firenado' spins up over wildfire in California (Global News)
• Death Valley just recorded the hottest temperature on Earth (CNN)
• Death Valley soars to 130 degrees, potentially Earth's highest temperature since at least 1931 (Washington Post)
• Missing Monsoon Has Led to Growing Drought, Record Heat in Southwestern U.S. (Weather Channel)
• Dry monsoon pushes Phoenix into a severe drought (CBS-Phoenix)
• It's official: This is Phoenix's hottest summer ever recorded (AZ Central)
• Greenland ice sheet potentially hits 'point of no return':
• Warming Greenland ice sheet passes point of no return (Phys.org)
• Greenland's Demise - Some Clarification (Climate Crocks)
• Going, Going ... Gone: Greenland's Melting Ice Sheet Passed a Point of No Return in the Early 2000s (Inside Climate News):
  
  Howat, the Ohio State co-author, said the findings identify the threshold at which global warming shifted the slow geologic pace of ice sheet melting into overdrive. Glaciers that flow into the ocean grow very slowly, but they can melt very fast, erasing centuries of advance in just a few decades, he added.
• Greenland's melting ice sheet has passed the point of no return, scientists say (USA Today):
  
  "Glacier retreat has knocked the dynamics of the whole ice sheet into a constant state of loss," study co-author Ian Howat, an earth scientist from Ohio State University, said in a statement. "Even if the climate were to stay the same or even get a little colder, the ice sheet would still be losing mass."
• VIDEO Climate change: Greenland's ice sheet has melted past the point of no return (France 24)
• Trump Admin. finalizes plans to open Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to oil drilling:
• Trump Finalizes Drilling Plan For Iconic Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (Washington Post):
  
  The Trump administration finalized plans Monday to open up the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge to drilling, a move that will auction off oil and gas rights in the heart of one of the nation’s most iconic wild places. Achieving a goal Republicans have sought for 40 years, it marks a capstone for an administration that has ignored calls to reduce fossil fuel consumption in the face of climate change.
• Trump Administration Finalizes Plan to Open Arctic Refuge to Drilling (NY Times):
  
  The decision sets up a fierce legal battle over the fate of a vast, remote area that is home to polar bears, caribou and the promise of oil wealth.
• It's a bizarre time for Trump to open Alaska's Arctic refuge up to oil drilling (CNN)
• Green groups see legal flaws in Trump's plan for Arctic refuge drilling (The Hill)
• Trump administration approves opening Arctic refuge for drilling (Politico):
  
  The official decision to open the Arctic wildlife refuge comes at a time when few in the industry are expected to take a risk on unexplored properties.
• Conoco-Phillips to refreeze melting permafrost
• Alaska Project Would Use ‘Chillers’ to Freeze Thawing Tundra (Bloomberg Law)
• To Keep Oil Flowing - Refrigerate the Arctic (Climate Crocks):
  
  The project will be so vulnerable to climate change that ConocoPhillips plans to use chillers to keep the Arctic tundra frozen beneath its roads and oil drilling pads, according to the Bureau of Land Management's environmental review of the plan published Thursday.
• An oil company wants to use giant chillers to refreeze the ground that climate change is thawing in order to drill for more oil — which will ultimately accelerate global warming (Business Insider)
• ConocoPhillips gets U.S. green light for Alaska oil project (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

• White House To Withdraw [racist, anti-public lands] Pendley's BLM Nomination (E&E News)
• Seven Top Oil Firms Downgrade Assets by $87 Billion in Nine Months (Guardian UK)
• Wind and Sun Killing Gas in Texas. (Climate Crocks)
• China’s Summer of Floods is a Preview of Climate Disasters to Come (Inside Climate News)
• California finalizes fuel efficiency deal with five automakers, undercutting Trump (The Hill)
• Defying Trump, 4 Automakers Lock In a Deal on Greenhouse Gas Pollution (NY Times)
• U.S. Air Conditioning Use Could Surge Nearly 60 Percent by 2050 (Earther)
• Walls or Wetlands? How Southeast Cities Are Grappling With Rising Seas (The Revelator)
• How utilities use secret campaigns against climate action (E&E News)
• Elephant Shrew Rediscovered In Africa After 50 Years (BBC)
• 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: California, Arizona, Iowa, Alaska, Environment, Green News, Donald Trump, Oil, Climate change, Extreme weather, NASA, Agriculture, Native Americans, Arctic, Dept. of Interior, NOAA, Coronavirus/COVID-19, Hurricane Laura