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IN TODAY’S AUDIO REPORT: Darryl Hannah arrested (no, not for public intoxication!); Floor fight pending over climate change; Big Three automakers ignored their own consumer research … PLUS: The Supreme Court kills a lake … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!
Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail, toxic mine waste? 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.
CORRECTION 6/26/09: In the above report, we misspoke in referring to the League of Conservation Voters as a “conservative” group — the League is a conservation group dedicated to the protection of the environment. We regret the error.
IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (links below): UN suggests a global ban on plastic bags; Surprise! FEMA misspent millions intended for Katrina victims; 600 U.S. Neighborhoods Have Air That Could Cause Cancer; Sailing to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch…PLUS: Learning to live with climate change may not be enough…
Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today’s episode follow below…
- Controversial deals made to move climate bill; Concessions to farmers get more House support, anger some activists (MSNBC.com)
- Limits on Emissions Have Wide Support: Majority of Poll Respondents Say U.S. Should Limit Greenhouse Gases (Washington Post)
- House Democrats, Obama Lobby Last Batch of Climate Bill Fence-Sitters (ClimateWire):
“Those last votes are always the hardest,” said Rep. Peter Welch of Vermont, a sophomore Democrat who is helping sponsors with the whip count. “This is tough legislation. Any time you’re making a transition from where you were to where you want to go is a little disruptive and the benefit of the doubt many people give to being hesitant.”
- House GOP circulating anti—climate bill document created by coal lobby
(Grist.org) - Farm Groups Prevail as House Climate Bill Puts USDA in Charge of Ag Offsets (ClimateWire):
The Agriculture Department will have the lead role in overseeing agriculture offsets under the House climate bill, a major victory for farm groups that pushed lawmakers to take the lead away from U.S. EPA and a defeat for environmental groups that fear the agriculture agency may be too lax in oversight.
- Daryl Hannah, scientist among 30 arrested at W.Va. mine protest (West Virginia Gazette):
“We have to phase out greenhouse emissions over the next 20 years,” Hansen said during an interview before his arrest. “Where should you start? Well, mountaintop removal is producing only 7 percent of the nation’s coal, and it’s a dangerous practice.
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“We must raise the pressure to do what is right,” Hansen said. “President Obama remains the best hope — perhaps the only hope — but he needs our help to overcome the political realities of compromise.” - Report: U.S. Automakers to Gain on New Gas Mandates (NY Times)
- Hansen of NASA Arrested in Coal Country (NY Time Dot Earth)
- Supreme Court OKs Dumping Mining Waste In Lakes (AP via Huffington Post Green)
- Supreme Court Shock: Ruling Says Lethal Mining Waste Can Be Dumped in Lakes (Treehugger.com)
- Justices Say Waste Can Be Dumped in Lake (NY Times)
‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’: More green news not covered in today’s audio report… See below!
- UN Environment Chief Urges Global Ban on Plastic Bags (McClatchy):
Although recycling bags is on the rise in the United States, an estimated 90 billion thin bags a year…go unrecycled. They were the second most common form of litter after cigarette butts…
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“Single use plastic bags which choke marine life, should be banned or phased out rapidly everywhere. There is simply zero justification for manufacturing them anymore, anywhere,” said Achim Steiner, executive director of the U.N. Environment Programme. - Report: FEMA misspent more than $7 million on warehouses built after Hurricane Katrina (LA Times)
- 600 U.S. Neighborhoods Have Air That Could Cause Cancer (AP)
- UPDATE: Sailing to the Great Pacific Garbage Patch –Plankton Bloom And A Scary Midnight At Sea (Huffington Post Green)
- Learning to Live With Climate Change Will Not Be Enough: A leading environmentalist explains why drastically reducing carbon dioxide emissions now will be easier, cheaper, and more ethical than dealing with runaway climate destabilization later. (Yale 360):
In 1896, Swedish chemist Svante Arrhenius deflected his anguish over a failed marriage into remarkably tedious and, as it turned out, accurate calculations about the effect of CO2 emissions on climate. It was an oddly therapeutic thing to do, but it had no more effect on public attention than the smallest cloud on a distant horizon.
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Arguments for mitigation, in other words, are rather like those for turning the water off in an overflowing tub before mopping.
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There are five reasons why focusing on mitigation is a far-better choice than emphasizing adaptation. First, the record shows that climate change is occurring much faster than previously thought, will affect virtually every aspect of life in every corner of Earth, and will last far longer than we’d once believed. The small cloud that Arrhenius saw on the distant horizon in 1896 is growing into a massive storm, dead ahead.
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