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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin throws a hand grenade into Biden's climate agenda; Biden EPA to crack down on PFAS 'forever chemicals'; U.S. could have as many as 3.4 million polluting abandoned oil and gas well; PLUS: McDonald's finally to offer customers meat-free plant-based options (some of them, anyway)... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): It’s easy to feel pessimistic about the climate. But we’ve got two big things on our side; Satellites Reveal The Secrets Of Water-Guzzling Farms In California; Amid Massive Roundup Cancer Suits, Migrant Farmworkers Are Left Out; Environmentalists Secure Water Rights For Great Salt Lake; Russia Allows Methane Leaks At Planet’s Peril; COP26 in Glasgow: Who Is Going And Who Is Not?... PLUS: How Industrial Chicken Production Is Breeding The Next Pandemic... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

• Sen. Manchin throws hand grenade into Biden's Build Back Better bill:
• Manchin throws 'hand grenade' at Biden's climate change agenda for Glasgow (Yahoo News)
• Key to Biden’s Climate Agenda Likely to Be Cut Because of Manchin Opposition (NY Times):
  
  The West Virginia Democrat told the White House he is firmly against a clean electricity program that is the muscle behind the president’s plan to battle climate change.
• Joe Manchin won’t support a key climate program. Alternatives won’t be enough. (Vox)
• Democrats scramble for climate alternatives (The Hill)
• Joe Manchin Reportedly Wants to Kill Our Best Tool to Cut Carbon Pollution (Earther)
• Here’s what Manchin told the Biden team on climate (E&E News)
• Manchin prioritizes his coal profits over West Virginians:
• Joe Manchin is betraying West Virginia (The Week/Yahoo News)
• VIDEO: Exxon Lobbyist Brags About Regular Access To Joe Manchin (Huffington Post)
• As Manchin Blocks Climate Plan, His State Can’t Hold Back Floods (NY Times):
  
  As the senator thwarts Democrats’ major push to reduce warming, new data shows West Virginia is more exposed to worsening floods than anywhere else in the country...[W]hen it comes to climate, there’s also an economic toll from inaction. The new data shows that Mr. Manchin’s constituents stand to suffer disproportionately as climate change intensifies. Unlike those in other flood-exposed states, most residents in mountainous West Virginia have little room to relocate from the waterways that increasingly threaten their safety.
• West Virginia Leads U.S. in Flood Risk, Adding to Manchin's Climate Dilemma (Yahoo News)
• Joe Manchin’s Dirty Empire (The Intercept):
  
  The West Virginia senator reaps big financial rewards from a network of coal companies with grim records of pollution, safety violations, and death.
• Manchin Profits From Coal Sales to Utility Lobbying Group Members (The American Prospect)
• Biden Administration developing more climate policy levers:
• Exclusive: Kerry says legislation not essential to climate goals (E&E News):
  
  "I just think people are miscalculating if they think that the whole thing depends on one piece of legislation," Kerry said in an interview. "Is it important as legislation? Yes, unequivocally. But it is not the key to Glasgow, it is not the sole determinant of what is going to unfold."...Kerry said there are various initiatives that EPA and other departments such as Energy, Transportation and the Interior can take to meet U.S. goals.
• EPA head says he'll act on climate even if Congress doesn't (Washington Post/Yahoo News):
  
  Regan says his agency will issue a robust greenhouse gas rule for power plants, a stringent methane rule for oil and gas infrastructure, and sweeping emissions standards for new cars, regardless of Congress's actions.
• September 2021 2nd hottest on record globally:
• September 2021: Earth’s 5th-warmest September on record (Yale Climate Connections):
  
  NASA reported September 2021 as the second-warmest September on record, 1.16 degrees Celsius (2.09°F) above the 1880-1920 period, which is its best estimate of preindustrial temperature. Minor differences in rankings between the two agencies result from the different ways they treat data-sparse regions such as the Arctic...Global food prices in September were at their highest level since September 2011, said the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in its monthly report on October 7. After adjusting for inflation, 2021 food prices averaged for the first nine months of the year were the highest since 1975.
• US has more abandoned oil and gas well than previously estimated:
• Documenting orphan wells across the United States (Environmental Defense Fund)
• Abandoned wells are a huge climate problem (Washington Post/MSN)
• Abandoned: New Mexico could risk $10 billion in failing to plug unused oil and gas wells (Energy News Network)
• Who Should Pay To Plug Abandoned Oil Wells? (Oil Price/Yahoo News)
• Biden EPA moves to regulate PFAS chemical pollutants:
• EPA unveils strategy to regulate toxic 'forever chemicals' (AP):
  
  WASHINGTON (AP) — The Biden administration said Monday it is launching a broad strategy to regulate toxic industrial compounds associated with serious health conditions that are used in products ranging from cookware to carpets and firefighting foams.
• The EPA announces its ‘forever chemicals’ strategy. Here’s why it’s happening in NC
  (Charlotte Observer)
• Revealed: more than 120,000 US sites feared to handle harmful PFAS ‘forever’ chemicals
  (Guardian UK):
  List of facilities makes it clear that virtually no part of the US appears free from the potential risk of air and water contamination with the chemicals.
• McDonald's finally moves to offer plant-based options:
• McDonald’s to test McPlant burger created with Beyond Meat in eight U.S. restaurants next month (CNBC)
• Beyond Meat Stock Leaps On Report McDonald's Ready For McPlant Burger Tests (The Street)
• McDonald’s chose a medley of cities to test the plant-based McPlant sandwich to see where it catches on, analysts say (MarketWatch):
  
  McDonald’s announced last week that it would bring the menu item to locations in the following cities: Irving and Carrollton, Tex.; Cedar Falls, Ia; Jennings and Lake Charles, La; and El Segundo and Manhattan Beach, Calif.

'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

• It’s easy to feel pessimistic about the climate. But we’ve got two big things on our side (Bill McKibben, Guardian UK)
• Amid Massive Roundup Cancer Suits, Migrant Farmworkers Are Left Out (EHN)
• Environmentalists Secure Water Rights For Great Salt Lake (AP)
• US Formally Removes Colorado River Fish’s Endangered Status (AP)
• Satellites Reveal The Secrets Of Water-Guzzling Farms In California (NPR)
• How Industrial Chicken Production Is Breeding The Next Pandemic (Guardian UK)
• Factbox - COP26 in Glasgow: Who Is Going And Who Is Not? (Reuters)
• Russia Allows Methane Leaks At Planet’s Peril (Washington Post)
• U.N. Biodiversity Summit: The Most Important Global Meeting You've Probably Never Heard Of Is Now (NY Times)
• An Empire of Dying Wells: Old oil and gas sites are a climate menace. Meet the company that owns more of America’s decaying wells than any other. (Bloomberg)
• Tracking the Big Climate Bills - An Infrastructure/Reconciliation Breakdown (Society of Environmental Journalists)
• Will this metal recycling startup revolutionize the battery and clean energy sectors? (Electrek)
• 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 9 Years) Really Mean? (Inside Climate News)
• VIDEO: A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (The Intercept)
• 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.

                 

Article Categories: West Virginia, United Nations, Environment, Democrats, Joe Biden, Green News, EPA, Natural gas, Oil, Wind energy, Solar energy, Climate change, Extreme weather, NASA, Agriculture, Paris Agreement, Joe Manchin, Infrastructure, Pollution