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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: President Obama in Holland — Holland, MI, that is — pushing back against Republicans with investment in jobs & clean energy… while Republicans fight harder for Big Dirty Oil; Not enough praying? Record TX heat wave still breaking even more records; Japan, five months after disaster; PLUS: Goo-B-Gone: mysterious Cheeto blob blankets an Alaskan town … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!
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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Arctic Death Spiral: Sea Ice Passes De Facto Tipping Point; Joe Bastardi Pulls a Charlie Sheen on Fox News, Pushing “Utter Nonsense”; Sen. Sanders: Tar Sands Pipeline “Will Keep America Addicted to Oil”; New Deal: Charge your elec. car with home solar; Utilities, not residents, will gain from smart metering; Why the meat industry sells salmonella; Hot river shuts Tennessee nuke plant for 2nd time; Enviros call on Super Committee to energy subsidies & tax breaks; US fracking advisory group has abundant ties to energy industry; Gas Fracking panel finds serious environmental risks; US Launches Eco-Network; BP to return to MI for clean-up; “Remember, Nature always bats last” … PLUS: How to profit from climate change, resource wars, and ecological mayhem …
STORIES DISCUSSED IN TODAY’S ‘GREEN NEWS REPORT’…
- Record TX Heat Wave, Breaking Even More Records:
- VIDEO: Rachel Maddow: Rick Perry, Conduit to Radical Christian Overthrow of U.S. Government? (The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC)
- After Praying for Rain, Texas Governor Rick Perry Prays for the EPA to Stop Environmental Regulations (Climate Progress)
- TX: State sets heat records as drought intensifies (The Bullard Banner, TX)
- Numerous Texas Cities Top or Take Aim at Triple Digit Temperature Records (Natl Weather Service)
- Southern states break U.S. heat record in July: Only states west of the Rocky Mountains have been spared from the heatwave that has covered the rest of the United States. (Mother Nature Network)
- U.S. Sees Most Extreme July Climate, Oklahoma Sees Hottest Average Temperature of Any State on Record (Climate Progress)
- EIA: High temperatures drove record electricity demand and very high wholesale prices in Texas (GreenCarCongress)
- Severe US drought sets another record; Costs soar past $1.5 billion Details (WaPo Capitol Weather Gang)
- The New Normal: Billion-Dollar Disasters (Mother Jones)
- Conservative, white men most likely to be climate change sceptics, study shows (Guardian UK):
The demographic was more than twice as likely than other adults to say the media exaggerated seriousness of climate change.
- Gee, Why Are Climate Scientists So Perturbed? (NYT Green)
- President Obama Promotes Clean Energy Jobs & Investment in MI:
- Anti-Innovation Republicans Fight Harder for Big Dirty Oil:
- VIDEO: Santorum Blames Caribou For Nation’s Health Insurance Failures (Think Progress Green)
- Michele Bachmann Repeatedly Sought Stimulus, EPA, Other Government Funds (Huffington Post Green)
- Despite Rhetoric, Bachmann Requested Stimulus, EPA Cash For District (Talking Points Memo)
- ‘I pledge to you I’m not a talker, I’m a doer,’ Bachmann says (Des Moines Register)
- Japan, Five Months Later:
- Japan parties reach agreement on renewable energy bill
- 5 months after March 11th disaster (NHK World English)
- Kesennuma marks 5 months since tsunami (NHK World English)
- Nuclear commission erases children’s exposure data (NHK World English)
- Circulatory cooling begins at No.1 reactor pool (NHK World English)
- Filtering system not working well at TEPCO plant (NHK World English)
- Mystery GOO Blankets Town in Alaska:
- Mystery of Kivalina, Alaska’s orange goo: SOLVED! [Sort of] (WJLA)
- Alaska’s ‘Orange Goo’ Answer: Eggs? (TIME)
- Mysterious orange goo leaves Alaskan villagers baffled (The Independent UK)
- Arctic Death Spiral: Sea Ice Passes De Facto Tipping Point Thanks to Deniers, Media Blow The Story, Again (Climate Progress):
[W]e have passed a de facto tipping point, “the critical point in an evolving situation that leads to a new and irreversible development.” If that wasn’t obvious from observations, then it should have been clear from a December study in Nature widely misunderstood by the media. That study showed sea ice extent crashing by two thirds by the 2030s and then collapsing to near-zero shortly thereafter “” unless we cut global GHG emissions about 60% to 70% almost immediately and have further cuts after that, an implausible assumption the authors never spelled out clearly…
- Joe Bastardi Pulls a Charlie Sheen on Fox News, Pushing “Utter Nonsense” on Climate Science (MediaMatters.org):
Those who watched Fox News over the weekend were treated to a brief but ambitious science lesson on “Why CO2 Can’t Cause Warming”….
- VIDEO: Sen. Bernie Sanders: Building Tar Sands Pipeline “Will Keep America Addicted to Oil” (Treehugger)
- Ford, SunPower to offer ‘industry first’ solar powered charging stations for electric vehicles (Michigan Live.com)
- Utilities stand to gain a lot from net metering — but ratepayers and solar array owners get left in the dust (Grist)
- Why the meat industry sells salmonella (Grist)
- 90 Degree River Shuts Tennessee Nuclear Plant for Second Time (Clean Technica):
“When the river’s ambient temperature reaches 90 degrees, we can’t add any heat to it,” TVA’s nuclear spokesman Ray Golden told the Times Free Press.
The shutdown marks the second summer in a row that TVA has had to shut down nuclear power as local rivers have reached record temperatures. Last year’s shutdown cost the company $50 million in replacement power, a cost it passed along to its customers.
- Enviros Call on Super Committee To Ax Energy Subsidies & Tax Breaks (Huffington Post Green):
As the congressional leaders decide on members for the new bipartisan debt-reduction super committee, green advocacy groups are already on the offensive, calling on the committee to cut billions of dollars in tax breaks and energy subsidies for the oil and gas industry.
- US Advisory Group on Fracking Has Abundant Ties to Energy Industry (Center for Public Integrity):
All but one member of a government advisory panel weighing the safety of one of the most contentious forms of energy development, known as fracking, have financial ties to the natural gas industry, scientists and some environmental groups are asserting. The scientists called for the ouster of its chairman, former CIA director John Deutch, who sits on the boards of two energy-related companies.
- Gas Fracking Poses Serious Environmental Risks, U.S. Panel Finds (Bloomberg)
- US Launches Eco-Network (Nature News):
Ready or not, the era of big data is coming to ecology. After years of discussion and debate, the United States is moving forward with an environmental monitoring network that promises to help transform a traditionally small-scale, local science into a continental-scale group enterprise.
- BP to Return to MI For Spill Clean-up (Biloxi Sun-Herald)
- On “Delusional Revolution”: Remember, Mother Nature Always Bats Last (Truthout):
This move from a sun-powered and muscle-based world to a fossil fuel-powered and machine-based world has produced unparalleled material comfort for some. Whatever one thinks of the effect of such levels of comfort on human well-being… the processes that produce the comfort are destroying the capacity of the ecosystem to sustain human life as we know it into the future, and in the present those comforts are not distributed in a fashion that is consistent with any meaningful conception of justice. In short, our world is unsustainable and unjust — the way we live is in direct conflict with common sense and the ethical principles on which we claim to base our lives. How is that possible? Enter the third revolution.
The delusional revolution is my term for the development of sophisticated propaganda techniques in the 20th century (especially a highly emotive, image-based advertising/marketing system) that have produced in the bulk of the population (especially in First World societies) a distinctly delusional state of being. Although any person or group can employ these techniques, wealthy individuals and corporations — and their representatives in government — take advantage of their disproportionate share of resources to flood the culture with their stories that reinforce their dominance.
- Can Jeremy Grantham Profit from Ecological Mayhem? (NY Times):
Grantham argues that the late-18th-century doomsayer Thomas Malthus pretty much got it right but just had the bad timing to make his predictions about unsustainable population growth on the eve of the hydrocarbon-fueled Industrial Revolution, which “partially removed the barriers to rapid population growth, wealth and scientific progress.” That put off the inevitable for a couple of centuries, but now, ready or not, the age of cheap hydrocarbons is ending. Grantham’s July letter concludes: “We humans have the brains and the means to reach real planetary sustainability. The problem is with us and our focus on short-term growth and profits, which is likely to cause suffering on a vast scale. With foresight and thoughtful planning, this suffering is completely avoidable.”
‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (Stuff we didn’t have time for in today’s audio report)…
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