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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Senate Democrats unveil massive $3.5 trillion infrastructure and climate deal; European Union unveils landmark ‘Green Deal’; PLUS: Yet more evidence that meaningful action on climate would save lives and money… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

Green News Report with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen 7/15/2021

‘Green News Report’ – July 15, 2021  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...   · · · · ·   ‘Green News Report’ – July 15, 2021  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Amazon rainforest now emitting more CO2 than it absorbs; At least 42 dead in Germany as heavy rains bring catastrophic flooding; Appalachian States Face Billions In Mining Cleanup; Heat Could Kill Nearly All Young Salmon In Sacramento River; NASA predicts a “wobble” in the moon’s orbit may lead to record flooding on Earth; USDA Wants to Make Farms Climate-Friendly. Will It Work?; The bogus GOP claim that Biden is responsible for higher gasoline prices… PLUS: US drilling approvals increase despite Biden climate pledge… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Senate Democrats unveil ‘transformational’ infrastructure and climate deal:
• Infrastructure Summer: The Senate Budget Deal Kicks Off a Flurry of Negotiation (David Dayen, The American Prospect):
  This is only the beginning of a long, long process…It’s really a State of the Union address in one bill, encompassing a set of policies that Democrats have sought to pass for decades.
• What the budget deal means for climate policy (E&E News):
  The real fights begin now…The looming question is how to turn those ideas into policy that can pass through the complicated budget reconciliation process, which allows certain tax and spending-related legislation to skirt the Senate filibuster.
• VIDEO: What’s in Democrats’ $3.5 trillion budget plan? Here’s what we know so far (PBS NewsHour)
• Senate Democrats unveil details of $3.5 trillion budget deal (Axios)
• Democrats Call for a Tax on Imports From Polluting Countries (NY Times):
  The move to tax imports was made public Wednesday, the same day that the European Union outlined its own proposal for a similar carbon border tax…The two actions in concert suggest that government leaders are turning toward trade policy as a way to attack climate change.
• Manchin raises concerns over inflation, climate agenda at Biden lunch (MSN)
• Overnight Energy: Democrats reach budget deal including climate priorities (The Hill)
• Budget Deal Still Short on Climate Details (Food and Water Watch/Common Dreams)
• European Union unveils sweeping ‘Green Deal’:
• EU’s green deal plans launched with ‘make-or-break decade’ warning (Guardian UK):
  The dozen draft laws, spanning tighter curbs on industrial pollution, higher renewable energy targets, and the goal of planting 3bn trees, are intended to ensure the EU cuts greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 compared with the levels in 1990.
• The 7 Elements of the EU Green Deal You Should Care About (Bloomberg)
• Europe Unveils Plan to Shift From Fossil Fuels, Setting Up Potential Trade Spats (NY Times):
  The proposal would impose tariffs on some imports from countries with looser environmental rules. It would also mean the end of sales in the European Union of new gas- and diesel-powered cars in just 14 years.
• Europe Has An Ambitious New Climate Plan That Imagines A Dramatic Cut In Emissions (AP):
  The legislation presented by the EU’s executive branch, the European Commission, encompasses about a dozen major proposals, ranging from the de-facto phasing out of gasoline and diesel cars by 2035 to new levies on gases from heating buildings.
• VIDEO: EU Commission Pres. Ursula Von Der Leyen unveils EU Green Deal: (EU Comm. Pres.Ursula Von Der Leyen/Twitter):
  The EU GreenDeal is our growth model, powered by innovation, clean energy & circular economy. The Climate Law makes our climate targets legal obligations. Now Europe is the 1st continent to present a comprehensive architecture to meet our climate ambitions.
• Fit for 55 package – What does it mean for forests? (FERN)
• E.U., Senate Democrats’ proposals insufficient to meet 1.5C Paris Agreement targets:
• The Infrastructure Bill Won’t Cut It on Climate (Dr. Leah Stokes, The Atlantic):
  Washington cannot address a small sliver of our carbon pollution and call it a victory.
• Climate activist Greta Thunberg criticizes EU Green Deal: (Greta Thunberg/Twitter):
  So it’s official. Unless the EU tear up their new Fit for 55 package, the world will not stand a chance of staying below 1.5°C of global heating. That’s not an opinion, once you include the full picture it’s a scientific fact. #MindTheGap between words and action.
• EU unveils ambitious climate package as it cools on fossil fuels (CNN World):
  While the package is bold, climate activists have criticized the 55% target for not being strong enough to prevent global temperatures from rising to 1.5 degrees Celsius above pre-industrial levels, which scientists say is necessary to stave off more severe impacts of climate change.
• New studies confirm climate action would save lives and money:
• Studies Converge On The Benefits Of A Rapid Clean Energy Transition (Energy Innovation):
  A new meta-analysis of seven clean energy policy studies led by researchers at prominent universities, think tanks, and non-governmental organizations finds strong agreement on the feasibility of achieving approximately 80 percent clean electricity by 2030 in the United States, as well as the immense economic and health benefits of a rapid clean energy transition.
• Biden’s clean energy plan would cut emissions and save 317,000 lives (Guardian UK):
  A clean energy standard to reach the 80% goal by the end of the decade would save an estimated 317,500 lives in the US over the next 30 years, due to a sharp reduction in air pollution from the burning of coal, oil and gas. In 2030 alone, 9,200 premature deaths would be avoided once the emissions cut is achieved. The number of lives saved would be “immediate, widespread and substantial, the report states.

‘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

• Amazon rainforest now emitting more CO2 than it absorbs (Guardian UK)
• At least 42 dead in Germany as heavy rains bring catastrophic flooding (Guardian UK)
• Report: Appalachian States Face Billions In Mining Cleanup (AP)
• Heat Could Kill Nearly All Young Salmon In Sacramento River: Officials (CNN)
• California: A Delta in Distress (Inside Climate News)
• Russia sends military aircraft to fight Siberian fires (Deustche-Welle)
• NASA predicts a “wobble” in the moon’s orbit may lead to record flooding on Earth (CBS News)
• USDA Wants to Make Farms Climate-Friendly. Will It Work? (The American Prospect)
• After court decision wiped out its approval, Spire pipeline could mark national ‘tipping point’ (St. Louis Post-Dispatch)
• Electrify America announces doubling of charging network with 1,800 stations and 10,000 chargers (Electrek)
• The bogus GOP claim that Biden is responsible for higher gasoline prices (Washington Post)
• Mega oil project in Russia’s far north threatens Arctic indigenous communities (Climate Change News)
• US drilling approvals increase despite Biden climate pledge (AP)
• Lawyers: Prosecutor won’t charge 17 with pipeline trespass (AP)
• Mexico Abandons Fishing-Free Zone For Endangered Porpoise (AP)
• Crushing climate impacts to hit sooner than feared: draft UN report (AFP/France 24):
  Climate change will fundamentally reshape life on Earth in the coming decades, even if humans can tame planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, according to a landmark draft report from the UN’s climate science advisors obtained by AFP. Species extinction, more widespread disease, unliveable heat, ecosystem collapse, cities menaced by rising seas — these and other devastating climate impacts are accelerating and bound to become painfully obvious before a child born today turns 30.
• 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).