IN TODAY'S AUDIO REPORT: Will the climate change in the Senate over climate change legislation?; ExxonMobil pays up & pays out; Universal cell phone charger for the EU, but not for you!... PLUS: Nuclear Power vs. Summer...All that and more in today's Green News Report!
Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail, hot nukular reactors? 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' (links below): Concrete experiment eliminates storm drains & protects water supplies; UN wants to control the grab on agricultural lands; Study finds danger from "inert" ingredients in weedkiller Roundup; Swine flu shows no sign of letting up in the U.S..... PLUS: Generating power from your supermarket parking lot (in the UK, not here)...
Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today's episode follow below...
- U.S. Senate Committee on Environment & Public Works: Full Committee hearing entitled, “Moving America toward a Clean Energy Economy and Reducing Global Warming Pollution: Legislative Tools.” (U.S. Senate)
- Click HERE to CONTACT YOUR SENATORS and make your voice heard on this important legislation
- Push and Pull in Senate May Recast Climate Bill; Dealings Could Erode Ecological Aims (Washington Post):
As of today, Reid can count on the support of about 40 to 45 senators for that basic premise, according to aides and outside activists backing the legislation. Supporters are targeting a pool of roughly two dozen lawmakers --- including about 15 of Reid's Democrats --- who will determine the legislation's fate. - Centrists threaten Obama's agenda (The Hill)
- Dirty Energy Lobbyist-Turned-Governor Haley Barbour To Champion ‘Do Nothing’ Stance Before Senate (Think Progress.org)
- The NRCC Ignores The Facts In New Cap-And-Trade Ad (Media Matters.org)
- Media outlet refuses to run GOP’s TV ad filled with falsehoods on clean energy bill (ClimateProgress.org) [emphasis added]:
For any objective observer, the the ad is pulled out of thin air. The ads erroneously state that the bill will “destroy jobs” and “cost middle-class families $1,800 a year.” According to a study by the Center for American Progress, clean energy economy legislation will create 1.7 million American jobs while simultaneously addressing climate change by capping carbon dioxide emissions. The $1,800 figure used by NRCC is also made of whole cloth. The Congressional Budget Office has scored the bill and found that by 2020, the annual cost would be about $175 per household — about a postage stamp a day. An EPA estimate of the bill found similar results, projecting the cost to be about $80 to $111 per a year.Still refusing to accept reality, the Republican leadership is instructing its members to lie about the clean energy economy bill...
- Dems: Virginia Station Won't Air GOP Climate Change Ad, Citing Factual Errors (Huffington Post):
- FactCheck.org: What's In A Number?
- FactCheck.org: Cap-and-Trade Cost Inflation --- Republicans puff up the impact of a cap-and-trade program on the average family's energy costs.
- MIT Professor tells GOP to stop ‘misrepresenting’ his work and inflating the cost to families of cap-and-trade by a factor of 10 (Climate Progress)
- ExxonMobil funds climate-change sceptics (Telegraph UK)
- ExxonMobil Continues Funding Global Warming Denial Groups Despite Repeated Pledges to Stop (Think Progress)
- Royal Society: Statement on ExxonMobil
- Agreement on Cellphone Chargers in E.U (Green Inc.)
'GREEN NEWS EXTRA': More green news not covered in today's audio report... See below!
- Concrete experiment may eliminate storm drains: Shoreview, Minn., is betting on a new "green" concrete paving method that lets rainwater pass right through the street surface to prevent damaging runoff (Physorg.com)
- UN Wants to Control the Rush on Agricultural Lands (Le Monde) [emphasis added]:
Olivier De Schutter, United Nations Special Rapporteur for the right to food, worries about the rapid expansion of rich government and investment funds' acquisitions and leasing of agricultural lands in developing countries. This practice of land grabbing accelerated under cover of the 2008 food crisis.
...
According to estimates, some 15 to 20 million hectares - the equivalent of all France's arable land - mostly in Africa, has been the object of transactions the last three years. China bought 2.8 million hectares in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to develop the world's largest palm oil plantation there.
...
Experts estimate that from now to 2030, 120 million hectares of supplementary agricultural lands will have to be found to respond to the demand for food products. - Weed killer kills human cells. Study intensifies debate over 'inert' ingredients. (Environmental Health News)
- Spread of swine flu far from over, officials warn (Houston Chronicle)
- Supermarket generates piezoelectric power in parking lot (Endgadget):
According to The Daily Mail, a Sainsbury's supermarket in Gloucester, UK (you've never been there), has installed kinetic plates in the parking lot that use the weight of shopper's cars to pump a series of hydraulic pipes, which in turn drive a generator.