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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Biden floats breaking up his Build Back Better bill; Volcanic eruption and tsunami cause widespread devastation in Tonga; Extreme heat records shattered in Southern Hemisphere; PLUS: Exxon pretends to care about the climate... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): 2021 was one of the hottest years on record, and it could also be the coldest we'll ever see again; What happens when a country becomes unlivable?; New research shows heat risks to children are mounting as temperatures rise; 450+ scientists call on PR firms to cut ties with fossil fuel clients; Winter gas price hike hell; What Canada wants to do with its mountains of nuclear waste; Interior reveals plans for orphan well cleanup; How a coal company convinced Georgia to let it bury toxic waste in groundwater; Power companies back EPA climate authority at Supreme Court... PLUS: Florida's red tides worsened by pollution, climate change... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

• Biden floats breaking up Build Back Better bill:
• Biden says Democrats can pass 'big chunks' of Build Back Better, including climate (MSN)
• Splitting up Biden's Build Back Better package could save Dems' climate agenda (Axios):
  
  President Biden's attempt to salvage his faltering clean energy and social spending plan could bring new efforts to revive climate-related measures separately or within a slimmed-down package.
• Biden resets BBB: 'I think we can break the package up' (E&E news)
• VIDEO: President Biden holds news conference (C-SPAN)
• Transcript: Remarks by President Biden in Press Conference (White House)
• Biden says he thinks Congress can pass parts of broken-up Build Back Better plan (CNBC)::
  
  "I'm confident we can get pieces, big chunks of the Build Back Better law signed into law," the president told reporters on Wednesday. Biden's signature proposal hit a wall in December after Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.V., said he would not vote for it.

• The Pentagon Budget Costs 4 Times As Much As Biden's Social Policy Bill. Guess Which One Congress Thinks Is Too Pricey. (Huffington Post)
• Democrats Are Rebuilding The Build Back Better Act, seeking a version that could win support from Manchin (Huffington Post)
• Tonga: massive volcanic eruption causes devastation, but not global cooling:
• VIDEO: New photos from Tonga give clearer picture of devastation from volcano and tsunami (CBS News)
• VIDEO: Water crisis looms as residents tackle debris in tsunami-hit Tonga (Reuters)
• Tonga suffers from wide damage to houses, water: local sources (Global Times)
• Volcanic Eruptions Can Cool The Climate, But Hunga-Tonga Won't (Forbes)
• Peru oil spill after Tonga eruption an 'ecological disaster' (BBC)
• Extreme heat records fall in Southern Hemisphere:
• Australia ties Southern Hemisphere's all-time heat record of 123°F; epic heat cooks Argentina
  (Yale Climate Connections)
• Australia Ties Record for Hottest Southern Hemisphere Day (Earther):
  
  It topped 123 degrees Fahrenheit in Western Australia, tying the record for the hottest temperature ever recorded in the southern hemisphere.
• 'Another hellish day': South America sizzles in record summer temperatures (Guardian UK)
• Historic heat wave hits Buenos Aires, Argentina (UPI)
• 'Unprecedented' flooding event wreaks havoc in Uruguay capital of Montevideo (UPI)
• Exxon pretends to care about the climate:
• Exxon Pretends to Give a Shit (Earther):
  
  Every climate pledge by oil companies is basically worthless, at least by the metrics that matter like keeping carbon pollution out of the atmosphere and winding down new oil exploration. The Exxon net zero pledge is particularly weasely, though, for a few reasons...
• Exxon pledges net-zero carbon emissions from operations by 2050 (CNBC)
• South Australia hits renewable electricity record:
>South Australia breaks record by running for a week on renewable energy (Sydney Morning Herald):

South Australia sourced an average of just over 100 per cent of the electricity it needed from renewable power for 6½ days leading up to December 29 last year - a record for the state and perhaps for comparable energy grids around the world.
• South Australia's Record-Breaking 156Hr Renewable Run (Energy Matters)

'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

• 2021 was one of the hottest years on record, and it could also be the coldest we'll ever see again (Phys.Org)
• VIDEO: What Happens When a Country Becomes Unlivable? (Climate Crocks)
• New Research Shows How Health Risks to Children Mount as Temperatures Rise (NY times)
• 450+ Scientists Call On PR Firms To Cut Ties With Fossil Fuel Clients (Washington Post)
• Winter Gas Bill From Hell: Oklahomans Face Paying $1.4Bn Over Snowstorm (Floodlight)
• What Canada Wants To Do With Its Decades-Old Pileup Of Nuclear Waste (The Narwhal)
• After Rain Burst, California Salmon Reclaim Old Spawnaing Grounds (Reuters)
• Florida’s Red Tides Worsened by Pollution, Climate Change (Inside Climate News)
• Interior reveals plans for orphan well cleanup (E&E News)
• How Utility Convinced Georgia to Let It Bury Toxic Waste in Groundwater (Pro Publica)
• Power companies back EPA climate authority at Supreme Court (E&E news)
• In tiny Wyoming town, Bill Gates bets big on nuclear power (AP)
• Clean Water Act policy could spur widespread disarray (E&E News)
• VIDEO: Learning from Europe's Energy Crunch (Climate Crocks)
• Feeling Hopeless About the Climate? Try Our 30-Day Action Plan (The Revelator)
• Green Upheaval: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Foreign Affairs)
• VIDEO: 2050: what happens if we ignore the climate crisis (Guardian UK)
• Guilt, grief and anxiety as young people fear for climate's future (Reuters)
• 99.9 percent Of Scientists Agree Climate Emergency Caused By Humans (Guardian UK)
• 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)
• 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: Environment, U.S. Senate, Democrats, Joe Biden, Green News, Natural gas, Oil, Solar energy, Climate change, Extreme weather, Australia, Exxon Mobil, Argentina, Joe Manchin, Brazil, Electricity