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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Plastic pollution increasingly found in oceans, farm soils, and the food chain; Fossil fuel industry gets more than $60 billion a year in indirect federal subsidies, study finds; Oil companies knew decades ago that fossil fuels caused deadly air pollution, then lied about it, new docs show; PLUS: One tanker mishap caused global oil prices to spike… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

Green News Report with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen 3/25/2021

‘Green News Report’ – March 25, 2021  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...   · · · · ·   ‘Green News Report’ – March 25, 2021  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...

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IN ‘GREEN NEDid Chemical Company Misrepresent Data To Avoid Making A Safer Product?; WS EXTRA’ (see links below): E.P.A. to Review Attacks on Science Under Trump; Big Banks’ Trillion-Dollar Finance For Fossil Fuels ‘Shocking’; Senate Dems Plan To Use Review Act To Reinstate Obama Methane Rule; Republicans won’t ‘take the bait’ on infrastructure… PLUS: Proposed rules threaten to derail Kansas wind industry … and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Tanker ship runs aground, causes global oil price spike:
• Oil prices post a rebound as ship mishap blocks Suez Canal (MarketWatch)
• Massive Container Ship Runs Aground In Suez Canal, Halting Traffic (NPR)
• Suez canal gridlock could raise oil prices and shipping costs (Guardian UK)
• Suez Canal: Dislodging Ever Given container ship blocking waterway could take ‘days to weeks’
• US fossil fuel industries gets $60 billion+ in indirect subsidies, every year:
• The producer benefits of implicit fossil fuel subsidies in the United States (PNAS)
• The Fossil Fuel Industry Would Be Screwed Without the U.S. Government Propping It Up (Earther):
  We often talk about the direct subsidies fossil fuel companies get from the government. Estimates range anywhere from $10 billion to $52 billion per year. But more insidious indirect subsidies also help keep fossil fuel companies in business, allowing companies to avoid paying the true price for their pollution and the other dangers they pose to society.
• VIDEO: ‘Don’t Patronize Me’: Katie Porter Tears Into Oil Exec for Claiming His Industry Doesn’t Get Special Tax Breaks (Common Dreams)
• Seizing opportunities for fuel subsidy reform (Brookings Inst.)
• Oil companies knew their product caused deadly air pollution, lied about it:
• Oil firms knew decades ago fossil fuels posed grave health risks, files reveal (Guardian UK):
  But these concerns did little to stop oil and gas companies, and their proxies, spreading doubt about the growing body of science linking the burning of fossil fuels to an array of health problems that kill millions of people around the world each year. Echoing the fossil-fuel industry’s history of undermining of climate science, oil and gas interests released a torrent of material aimed at raising uncertainty over the harm caused by air pollution and used this to deter US lawmakers from placing further limits on pollutants.
• Big Oil’s Lies About Pollution Health Risks Contributed To Millions Of Deaths (Clean Technica)
• Microplastics contaminating farm soils, impacting plants:
• There is an Alarming Amount of Microplastics in Farm Soil—and Our Food Supply (Civil Eats):
  More microplastics are contaminating agricultural lands than oceans, impacting plant development and ending up in produce and people.
• Microplastics in farm soils: A growing concern (Environmental Health News)
• Oil/gas industry moving into plastics to preserve profits:
• Big Oil Is in Trouble. Its Plan: Flood Africa With Plastic. (NY Times, 8/30/2020)
• Does Another Plastics Plant in Louisiana’s ‘Cancer Alley’ Make Sense? A New Report Says No (Inside Climate News)
• Democrats’ corporate responsibility bill targets plastic waste (Bangor Daily News)
• Why The Oil Industry’s $400 Billion Bet On Plastics Could Backfire (Forbes)
• Oil companies pivot to plastics to stave off losses from fuel demand (Deustche-Welle)
• HBO’s John Oliver: plastic, oil industry created myth of plastics recycling:
• Plastics: Last Week Tonight with John Oliver (HBO)
• How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled (NPR)

‘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

• E.P.A. to Review Attacks on Science Under Trump (NY Times)
• Senate Dems Plan To Use Review Act To Reinstate Obama Methane Rule (NY Times)
• Did Chemical Company Misrepresent Data To Avoid Making A Safer Product? (Guardian UK)
• Line 3: Need For Disputed Pipeline Argued In Minnesota Appeals Court (AP)
• Big Banks’ Trillion-Dollar Finance For Fossil Fuels ‘Shocking’ — Report (Guardian)
• Conservationists Sue To Save Spotted Owl Logging Protections (AP)
• Proposed rules threaten to derail Kan. wind industry (E&E News)
• Republicans won’t ‘take the bait’ on infrastructure (E&E news)
• 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).