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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Biden doubles FEMA disaster funding as NOAA forecasts another intense hurricane season; U.S. renewable energy deployment hits record pace in 2021; PLUS: Republicans reject corporate tax increases to fund major infrastructure upgrades... 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): On 60th anniversary of JFK's 'Moon Shot' speech, climate action is our Moon Shot; Summer forecast calls for intensifying drought across American West; G7 to end state financing for coal power plants this year; Sewer Energy: How your hot showers and toilet flushes can help the climate; Carbon storage offers hope for climate, cash for farmers; Biden reimposes Obama-era federal flood standard for rebuilding; Trump EPA censored science policy to approve toxic weedkiller... PLUS: The fight for the soul – and the future – of ExxonMobil... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

• NOAA forecasts another 'busier than normal' hurricane season:
• NOAA’s Atlantic hurricane outlook calls for sixth straight above-average season (Washington Post):
  
  The agency is the latest of several forecasting groups watching the upcoming hurricane season’s potential to overperform for the sixth year in a row. It comes following the devastating 2020 season, which featured 30 named storms, tied the record set in 2005 with seven major hurricanes, and featured back-to-back Category 4 monsters in Nicaragua that lashed the same communities just two weeks apart. A record 11 tropical storms and hurricanes made landfall in the United States.
• NOAA predicts another busy Atlantic hurricane season with up to 20 named storms possible (USA Today/MSN)
• Biden doubles FEMA disaster funding:
• As Hurricane Season Looms, Biden Doubles Funding To Prepare For Extremes (Washington Post)
• Biden Doubles FEMA Program to Prepare for Extreme Weather (NY Times):
  
  The new money is less than what some disaster experts had said is needed, especially because the warming planet is making storms, flooding, wildfires and other disasters both more frequent and destructive. The United States experienced 22 disasters that exceeded $1 billion each in damages last year, a record.
• VIDEO: President Biden Receives Briefing on Atlantic Hurricane Outlook (C-SPAN)
• FEMA making $1 billion available for extreme weather events (CBS News)
• Millions displaced by extreme weather disasters in 2020:
• Extreme weather displaces record numbers of people as temperatures rise (Deutsche Welle)
• Even Amid a Pandemic, More Than 40 Million People Fled Their Homes (NY Times):
  
  Extreme weather events, mainly storms and floods, accounted for the vast majority of the displacement. While not all of those disasters could be linked to human-induced climate change, the Center’s report made clear that global temperature rise, fueled by the accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, "are increasing the intensity and frequency of weather-related hazards."
• Republicans reject corporate tax increase to pay for infrastructure repairs:
• Biden presents infrastructure counteroffer. But Republicans aren't impressed. (Politico):
  
  The new Biden infrastructure proposal also would cut broadband spending to match the Republicans' latest offer, and cut investment in 'roads, bridges and major projects' to get closer to the Republicans’ bottom line — a point one administration official involved in the talks characterized as ironic given the GOP’s insistence that the package focus heavily on improving 'core' infrastructure — but a concession nonetheless.
• Biden Holds Firm On Climate Provisions In Infrastructure Counterproposal (The Hill)
• 'A big divide': Biden-GOP infrastructure talks sputter as Democrats ponder going it alone (NBC News)
• White House: User fees for infrastructure deal would "violate" Biden's tax pledge (Axios)
• Republicans balk at the White House’s slimmed-down $1.7 trillion infrastructure offer (Washington Post)
• White House, GOP infrastructure talks hit crucial stage (AP)
• Why it matters that Republicans won't budge on a corporate tax hike (MSNBC)
• New EPA report warns climate change already harming U.S.:
• U.S. has entered unprecedented climate territory, EPA warns (Washington Post):
  
  For years, President Donald Trump and his deputies played down the impact of greenhouse gas emissions from burning fossil fuels and delayed the release of an Environmental Protection Agency report detailing climate-related damage...[T]he EPA released a detailed and disturbing account of the startling changes that Earth’s warming had on parts of the United States during Trump’s presidency.
• After a Trump-length pause, the EPA is relaunching a major climate change report (Grist):
  
  Drawing on data from 50 government agencies, the EPA has published 54 indicators of global warming.
• EPA report finds no part of the United States is 'unaffected by the climate crisis' (The Week)
• In a report suppressed under Trump, the EPA has said for the first time that humans caused the climate crisis (Business Insider)
• Biden executive order begins to address financial shocks of climate change:
• Biden Wants To Measure How Climate Change Impacts America's Finances (NPR)
• Get Ready for Financial Shocks From Climate Change, Biden Tells Officials (NY Times):
  
  Experts warn of two broad types of financial risk posed by a hotter planet: The growing cost to businesses and investors as climate-related disasters damage or destroy buildings, crops or supply chains; and the potential for a sudden drop in the value of companies that depend on fossil fuels, as governments or consumers embrace wind, solar and other sources of energy that do not produce the carbon emissions driving global warming.
• Executive order ignites action on climate finance (E&E News):
  
  The long-awaited directive requires federal agencies to assess the economic dangers that rising temperatures could have on the government — and homeowners, retirees, businesses and the U.S. financial system. It marks a major turning point for U.S. financial policy, which until last year was mostly silent on an issue that had for years been a priority among European nations.
• Banks Always Backed Fossil Fuel Over Green Projects - Until This Year (Bloomberg)
• U.S. renewable energy deployment hits record pace:
• 2021 kicks off with record growth for clean energy in the US (Renewable Energy World):
  
  U.S. project developers installed nearly 40 percent more wind power in the first three months of 2021 than in the first three months of 2020, the strongest year ever for clean power.
• The latest trends in renewable energy procurement (GreenBiz)

'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

• VIDEO: Climate Action is our Moon Shot (Climate Crocks)
• The Fight For The Soul – And The Future – Of ExxonMobil (Washington Post)
• Summer forecast calls for intensifying drought across American West (ABC News)
• G7 to end state financing for coal power plants this year (AFP)
• Sewer Energy: How Your Hot Showers And Toilet Flushes Can Help the Climate (NPR)
• VIDEO: Zombie Fires Becoming more Common (Climate Crocks)
• Carbon storage offers hope for climate, cash for farmers (AP)
• U.S. Environmental Journalist Arrested When Trying To Leave Myanmar (Mongabay)
• Biden [re]-imposes flood standard after stumbling the first time (E&E News)
• Trump EPA dodged [censored] science policy for weedkiller (E&E News)
• Weedkiller Wars: Fighting Attacks on Inconvenient Science — and Scientists (Inside Climate News)
• Top Climate Scientist Blasts Government Lab After Denier Invited to Speak (Earther)
• New Arctic Council Reports Underline Growing Concerns At Air Pollution (Inside Climate News)
• Okefenokee Swamp a Battlefield in Epic Trump Waters Rule Fight (Bloomberg)
• Top Court Revives Guam’s Superfund Cost Claim Against U.S. (Bloomberg)
• Nations Must Drop Fossil Fuels, Fast, World Energy Body Warns (NY Times)
• Electric cars: What will happen to all the dead batteries? (BBC)
• Climate Fund Choices for Investors Are Multiplying (Bloomberg/Yahoo)
• How climate change could undo 50 years of public health gains (Grist)
• 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).

                 

Article Categories: Environment, Democrats, Republicans, Joe Biden, EPA, Wind energy, Solar energy, Climate change, Extreme weather, NOAA, Infrastructure