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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: The Arctic is venting; Food poisoning is expensive; Texas is breaking wind (records, that is); Limbaugh and cow farts … PLUS: The ‘greenest’ Oscars yet … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!
Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? 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’: Shocker: Oil co. exec says U.S. should move slowly on renewables; Air pollution costs California hundreds of millions in health care; Coal-ash sites polluting water; Asia-produced ozone making its way to U.S; Scientists discover why sunshine & Vitamin D is crucial; Challenging conventional wisdom on renewable energy’s limits; Using behavioral science to craft smarter energy policy… PLUS: New research: synthetic nitrogen destroys soil carbon, undermines soil health …
Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today’s episode follow below…
- Today’s Featured Song: “Now We Can Blame the Cows,” by Victrola & the Duhstbunnies (Duhmocracy)
- Massive Methane Melt in Arctic’s Siberian Seabed
- Study: Arctic seabed methane stores destabilizing, venting (PhysOrg.com):
The research results, published in the March 5 edition of the journal Science, show that the permafrost under the East Siberian Arctic Shelf, long thought to be an impermeable barrier sealing in methane, is perforated and is leaking large amounts of methane into the atmosphere. Release of even a fraction of the methane stored in the shelf could trigger abrupt climate warming.
- Methane bubbles in Arctic seas stir warming fears (Reuters)
- Undersea Methane Is Leaking–Should We Panic? (The New Republic)
- Massive Methane Melt off Siberia (Mother Jones)
- Study Says Undersea Release of Methane Is Under Way (NY Times):
Natalia Shakhova, a scientist at the university and a leader of the study, said it was too soon to say whether the findings suggest that a dangerous release of methane looms. In a telephone news conference, she said researchers were only beginning to track the movement of this methane into the atmosphere as the undersea permafrost that traps it degrades.
But climate experts familiar with the new research reported in Friday’s issue of the journal Science that even though it does not suggest imminent climate catastrophe, it is important because of methane’s role as a greenhouse gas. Although carbon dioxide is far more abundant and persistent in the atmosphere, ton for ton atmospheric methane traps at least 25 times as much heat.
- WATCH: The Siberian Methane Feedback Loop (Matt Yglesias, Think Progress):
- READ IT: Extensive Methane Venting to the Atmosphere from Sediments of the East Siberian Arctic Shelf (Science Magazine, sub. req.’d)
- Arctic Methane on the Move? (Real Climate.org):
For methane to be a game-changer in the future of Earth’s climate, it would have to degas to the atmosphere catastrophically, on a time scale that is faster than the decadal lifetime of methane in the air. So far no one has seen or proposed a mechanism to make that happen.
- Food-Borne Illnesses Cost U.S. $152 Billion A Year:
- Texas Breaks Wind (Records, that is):
- Texas breaks US wind energy record: Lone Star State generates nearly a fifth of electricity from wind power (BusinessGreen)
- Greenest Oscars Yet:
- ‘Avatar’ and other eco-minded films compete for Oscars (USA Today)
- Oscar’s Nearly Green Year (GreenDaily)
- Avatar Real-Life Parallel Found In Alberta Oilsands (Huffington Post Green)
- Sarah Palin Lauds Canada’s Environmental Policies, Ignores Their Huge Emissions (Treehugger)
- Cove Wins an Oscar, Makes an Activist Statement, Gets Cut Off (Treehugger)
- ‘The Cove’ wins Oscar for Best Documentary, Angers Fishermen (Japan Today)
- Green Gowns On Oscar’s Red Carpet (Treehugger)
‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’: More green news not covered in today’s audio report…
- Shocker: Marathon Oil CEO says conversion to renewable fuel sources will be gradual: (NOLA.com)
- Study of hospitals puts price tag on California’s dirty air (Sacramento Bee)
- Coal-ash sites polluting water, report says (West Virginia Gazette)
- Asia-produced Ozone Making Its Way to U.S., Study Finds (McClatchy DC)
- Challenging conventional wisdom on renewable energy’s limits (Grist)
- Scientists Find Why Sunshine & Vitamin D Is Crucial (Reuters)
- Using behavioral science to make smarter energy policy (Grist)
- New research: synthetic nitrogen destroys soil carbon, undermines soil health (Grist)
Please watch The Cove. I watched it last night for the first time.
Dolphins & Whales.
Pigs & Cows? Lambs & Chickens?
I dunno, cowboys, I think something just moved inside my brain, and I’m not sure I can justify supporting mass meat production in any form any more.
The way those dolphins were slaughtered was just beyond brutal. Very hard to stomach.
“Oil co. exec says U.S. should move slowly on renewables.”
Yeah, why harness solar power when there’s so much money in the ground.
This just in:
” ‘Anti-Lobbyist’ Obama Administration Recruited Left-Wing Lobbyists to Sell Bogus ‘Green Jobs’:
“After two studies refuted President Barack Obama’s assertions regarding
the success of Spain’s and Denmark’s wind energy programs … the Department of Energy turned
to George Soros and to wind industry lobbyists to attack the studies.”
http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/br...us-green-jobs/
Obama Administration Takes Direction from Wind Lobby, Soros Group>/a>
Oh. You again. I thought you had gone away.
You can, you know?
Ravenhairedmaid! You forgot to say that Al Gore is fat!!!1!!
Gotta love the “America Can’t” crowd. IF the policies they support are any indication, it’s not enough for them that federal & state governments subsidies & tax breaks for old, dirty fuels dwarf that for clean energy.
Fossil fuels including oil, natural gas and coal received more than twice the level of subsidies that renewable energy sources got from the U.S. government in fiscal 2002 through 2008, the Environmental Law Institute said.
Government spending and tax breaks amounted to $72.5 billion for fossil fuels and $29 billion for renewable energy, according to a report by the institute today.
Never mind that the old, dirty fuels are killing them and their children, costing them $120 billion in ‘hidden’ health care costs each year due to air pollution (and that’s not even counting water or land pollution health costs, or cleanup costs):
No, that’s not enough! If the policies they support are any indication, they also want to make sure that as many Americans as possible stay unemployed as long as possible, and ensure the U.S. loses the clean energy race, so we can simply transfer the billions we send to oil-producing countries to China and India instead, to sell us the technology we invented, so they can make the billions instead of us….
If the policies they support are any indication, they really don’t believe in paying American workers to build American-made products on American soil that will save us all tons of money in the long run and bring us a cleaner, healthier nation. (“The number of jobs in America’s emerging clean energy economy grew nearly two and a half times faster than overall jobs between 1998 and 2007,” Pew Finds Clean Energy Economy Generates Significant Job Growth, 6/10/09.)
That’s quite an ingenious plan for the long-term global competitiveness of the U.S. ya got there!
Oh, and uh… Al Gore is fat.