With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 5/10/2011, 1:25pm PT  


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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: The Mighty Mississippi crests in Memphis (but Graceland is spared!); Record drought dries out Texas (the Governor's prayers are not answered); What The Frack? - Flammable drinking water near natural gas wells; Japan scraps nuclear plans; Florida nixes high speed rail, other states rejoice; PLUS: Guess who leads the world in clean energy? (hint: it ain't us) ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): How to profit from the coming eco-pocalypse; Green energy can wean off subsidies; Right-Wing media freak out over nonexistent mileage tax; Study: climate change impacts on SF; Arctic meltdown accelerates; Ambitious renewable energy goals and war-zone realities; US Military: global dominance through solar panels; Republican claims credit for oil price tumble; the Truth about rising gasoline prices; Obama: Clean energy delivers the ‘jobs of the future’; Robot sorts trash for recycling; Self-cleaning, smog-eating buildings; Greening America’s schools ... PLUS: Scaling UP: Renewables Could Meet Most of Energy Needs by 2050 ...

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

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...

  • How to profit from the coming ecopocalypse (Climate Progress):
    "The world is using up its natural resources at an alarming rate, and this has caused a permanent shift in their value. We all need to adjust our behavior to this new environment. It would help if we did it quickly."

    That’s the conclusion of an important analysis by uber-hedge fund manager Jeremy Grantham, a self-described “die hard contrarian.” He is one of the few leading financial figures who gets both peak oil and global warming.

  • Analysis: Green energy can wean off subsidies, gradually [unlike nuclear, coal, oil] (Reuters):
    Government support for renewable energy must end gradually and in tandem with cuts in fossil fuel subsidies, say investors and lobbyists who complain bitterly about unpredictable chopping of incentives.
  • Right-Wing Media Freak Out Over Nonexistent Obama Proposal To Impose Mileage Tax (MediaMatters.org)
  • Report: Climate Change Hits Home in the Bay Area (Climate Central):
    The report finds that the climate change impacts most threatening to the Bay Area are more intense heat waves, water uncertainty (droughts, wildfires, extreme storms and flooding), and sea level rise. It lays out step-by-step instructions for addressing these risks, in terms of public safety and health, water supply, transportation infrastructure, biodiversity, and the region's energy supply.
  • The Arctic Meltdown Accelerates (TIME Eco-Centric):
    But here's something that really is frightening. A new study presented by the International Arctic Monitoring and Assessment Program has found that feedback loops are already accelerating warming in the far North, which will rapidly increase the rate of ice melt. As a result, the panel now estimates that sea levels could rise by as much as 5.2 ft. by the end of the century.
  • Army's Ambitious Renewable Energy Goals Run Into War-Zone Realities (ClimateWire)
  • Global Military Dominance Through Health Care And Solar Panels: Two prominent advisers to the Joint Chiefs of Staff think adopting social and environmental change is the best path to maintaining America's global hegemony. (Fast Company)
  • Keep Spinning!: Republican claims drilling bill vote prompted oil price tumble (The Hill):
    The Texas lawmaker’s comment reflects an increasingly common GOP argument that expanding offshore development will quickly help reduce oil and gasoline prices, even though leasing is just the first step for often complex projects that generally would not bring new supplies online for years.

    The federal Energy Information Administration has estimated that even a major expansion of domestic offshore development would have very little impact on world oil prices or U.S. gasoline prices.

    • Oil prices fall after U.S. crude build: Commodities and equities fell broadly after weak economic data in the world's top economy, with a sharp slowdown in the vast services sector and less hiring by private companies in April. (Reuters)
  • The Truth about Rising Gasoline Prices (Union of Concerned Scientists)
  • Barack Obama: Clean energy will deliver the ‘jobs of the future’ (Politico)
  • Meet the woman leading the charge to green America’s schools (Grist)
  • Robot designed to sort trash for recycling (Gizmag):
    Using artificial intelligence (AI) and an array of sensors, the Recycler is intended to watch over a conveyor belt, targeting and plucking objects from a waste stream that rolls by on it. The robot will then drop each of those items into a specific chute, which will send them on their way to the appropriate recycling facilities. Non-recyclable items will simply stay on the belt, and end up being discarded.
  • Alcoa’s Self-Cleaning, Smog-Eating Buildings (Green Wombat, Forbes) [emphasis added]:
    The aluminum giant on Monday officially unveiled a building panel that it says not only cleans itself but the surrounding air as well.
    ...
    “It’s actually a significant impact on air quality,” Belnap adds, noting that aluminum panels are installed on some 14 billion square feet of buildings in North America and Europe. “If a fraction of those surfaces use the EcoClean product, it would be the equivalent of planting several million trees.”
  • IPCC Says Renewables Could Meet Most of Energy Needs by 2050 (Yale 360) [emphasis added]:
    Renewable energy could meet 77 percent of the world’s power needs by mid-century if the right policies are put in place, according to a new report by the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
    ...
    “It is not the availability of the resource, but the public policies that will either expand or constrain renewable energy development over the coming decades,” said Ramon Pichs, co-chairman of the IPCC’s Working Group III, which compiled the report.
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