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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Catastrophic flooding the latest disaster to pummel Australia; Climate-related disasters now produce the most refugees in the world; Judge rules bankrupt coal company can leave mine cleanup obligations to the tax-payers; PLUS: Biden White House prepares massive infrastructure jobs bill… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

Green News Report with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen 3/23/2021

‘Green News Report’ – March 23, 2021  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...   Â· · · · ·   ‘Green News Report’ – March 23, 2021  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Indigenous Anti-Dam Activist Killed In Honduras; Trump’s Parting Gift to St. Croix: One of America’s Largest Refineries; Germany dismisses Australia’s claims that planned EU carbon border tax is ‘protectionism’; Coal Markets Roiled as Australia’s Flood Crisis Worsens; Interior Reverses Course On Tribal Ownership Of Portion Of Missouri River… PLUS: If your flood insurance bill is $30,000 it’s sending a message — don’t live there… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Catastrophic flooding the latest disaster to pummel Australia:
• Australia flash floods cut off communities (Yahoo News):
  – It’s now rained here nonstop for nine days, and more is expected. 18,000 people have already been evacuated from their homes. That number is expected to triple with heavy rain forecast to continue for another four days.
• NSW floods bring new misery to community devastated by black summer bushfires (Guardian UK)
• Thousands evacuated in Australia as ‘life-threatening’ floods inundate New South Wales (CNN)
• VIDEO: NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian provides an update on the NSW storm (ABC7 News Sydney)
• AUDIO: Australia’s floods – what the disaster tells us about a climate crisis future (Guardian UK)
• Australia floods: Swarms of spiders scuttle to safety to avoid flood waters (BBC)
• Is NSW flooding a year after bushfires yet more evidence of climate change? (Guardian UK):
  Experts say it’s unusual to see so many places with such high rainfall across such a wide area. But identifying the cause is complicated.
• Australia’s rain will become India’s pain as coal flows halt (Reuters)
• Australia’s record bushfires generated record air pollution:
• Recent Australian wildfires led to record atmospheric pollution (New Scientist):
  The 2019-20 wildfires in Australia injected huge amounts of smoke into the stratosphere, which has led to record aerosol levels over the southern hemisphere. [Researchers] analysed satellite data collected between 1981 and 2020 to look at what effect the devastating bushfire season in Australia had on aerosol concentrations in the stratosphere. While aerosols in the lower atmosphere have a lifetime measured in minutes to weeks, those that reach the stratosphere can persist there for months or years.
• Climate-related disasters now produce the most refugees globally:
• Natural and Climate-Related Disasters Create The Most Refugees (Inside Climate News):
  Over 12 million people around the world have been pushed out of their homes in the last six months, a new report says, 80 percent of whom were displaced due to natural and climate-related disasters.
• 10 Million Climate Refugees in Past Six Months: Red Cross Calls for Urgent International Help (EcoWatch)
• Responding to Disasters and Displacement in a Changing Climate [PDF] (Int’l Red Cross/Red Crescent Societies)
• Bankrupt Blackjewel can abandon mine cleanup obligations, judge rules:
• A Bankruptcy Judge Lets Blackjewel Shed Coal Mine Responsibilities in a Case With National Implications (Inside Climate News):
  “Unfortunately, this is likely the start of a trend where bankrupt coal companies dump their coal mine cleanup obligations onto communities and taxpayers who simply don’t have the money to pick up the tab,” said Peter Morgan, a senior attorney at the Sierra Club, who was participating in the case. “This should be a wake-up call to state regulators across the country to immediately hold coal mining companies accountable and to put miners to work cleaning up coal mines before all the burden falls on taxpayers and underfunded surety bonds.”
• Blackjewel Bankruptcy Leaves Damaged Lands, Miners’ Compensation In Limbo (Western Kentucky Public Radio):
  The Blackjewel bankruptcy case has been ongoing since the summer of 2019 when Blackjewel, LLC abruptly collapsed, leaving over 2,000 miners in Wyoming, Kentucky and West Virginia without their jobs, their benefits, or their final paychecks. In protest, Kentucky miners spent much of that summer camped on the railroad tracks to the mine, blocking the company’s last load of coal from the market.
• Biden White House preps massive infrastructure jobs package:
• Biden eyes $3T package for infrastructure, schools, families (AP)
• How the infrastructure bill might tackle climate change (E&E News)
• Infrastructure Plan Seeks to Address Climate and Equality as Well as Roads (NY Times)
• White House eyes tax increases on companies and the wealthy to fund infrastructure, setting up clash with GOP (Washington Post):
  The centerpiece of the tax increases would probably be a higher corporate tax rate “” reversing part of President Donald Trump’s steep corporate tax cut in 2017 “” as well as higher levies on investment income and a higher top marginal tax rate.
• Biden’s multitrillion-dollar infrastructure jam (NBC)
• VIDEO: Secretary Buttigieg: Investing In Infrastructure Pays For Itself (MSNBC)
• Democrats invite Republican cooperation on infrastructure push, but aren’t counting on it (Daily Kos)

‘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

• Indigenous Anti-Dam Activist Killed In Honduras (AP)
• If your flood insurance bill is $30,000 it’s sending a message — don’t live there (ABC Australia)
• Trump’s Parting Gift to St. Croix: One of America’s Largest Refineries (Inside Climate News)
• Germany dismisses Australia’s claims that planned EU carbon border tax is ‘protectionism’ (Guardian UK)
• Mouse plague ravaging farms in NSW and southern Queensland, scurries south to Victoria (ABC Australia)
• Coal Markets Roiled as Australia’s Flood Crisis Worsens (Bloomberg/Yahoo News)
• Interior Reverses Course On Tribal Ownership Of Portion Of Missouri River (The Hill)
• Supreme Court Won’t Hear Challenge To Obama Marine Monument Designation (The Hill)
• How climate change could undo 50 years of public health gains (Grist)
• Feeding Cattle Seaweed Reduces Their Greenhouse Gas Emissions 82 Percent (Phys.Org)
• Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration (Pro Publica)
• 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).