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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: BREAKING: East Coast Earthquake!; Inhofe's 'Hoax' - Hot and Hotter: more record-breaking heat around the world in a record-breaking year; Civil disobedience at the White House over dirty oil pipeline; PLUS: GOP cat fight erupts as Republican candidates spar over science ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Fox News compounds inanity over inane 'aliens will kill us over climate change' study; Fukushima zone may be declared uninhabitable; Australia passes CO2 offset laws, carbon pricing next; Vietnam’s rice bowl threatened by rising seas; No ‘train wreck’ from EPA utility rules: report; EPA to review regulations for 'unjustified burdens'; Canadian gov't bypasses public's right to know about fracking; Is nat-gas fracking industry sucking PA's creeks dry?; Ford, Toyota team up on hybrid trucks; Hurricane Irene could boost insurance industry; ConocoPhillips finds 9 new leaks in huge China oil spill; Just Say No to Arctic drilling; Human excrement to blame for coral decline; Fall of Tripoli won't result in cheaper gas; Army Corps: Budget cuts will slow levee rebuilding; Environmental violations found at tribal schools ... PLUS: 'Hockey Stick' scientist vindicated again: Federal auditors find no evidence to support 'Climategate' accusations ...

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

• Rare 5.9 Earthquake Strikes US East Coast
• 5.9 quake hits Va.; Felt along U.S. east coast (CBS News)
• Biggest earthquake to hit Virginia in 110 YEARS... but rare big east coast shakes are often more widespread than in west (Daily Mail UK)
• Hot and Hotter: Record-Breaking Heat in a Record-Breaking Year:
• Asia Breaks All-New High Temperature Records AGAIN (Dr. Jeff Master's Weather Underground) [emphasis added]:
  
  Remarkable heat in Asia
  For the second consecutive summer, some of the hottest temperatures in Earth's recorded history have scorched Asia. The six hottest (undisputed) temperatures ever measured in Asia have all occurred in during the past two summers.
• Oklahoma City sets record with 51st day of year at or above 100 (Washington Post)
• Heatwave hits Austria (Austrian Independent)
• Excessive heat warning posted this week for Las Vegas (Las Vegas Sun)
• Grandfield in southwestern Oklahoma sets state heat record: Grandfield reached triple-digits Monday for the 87th time in 2011 (NewsOK.com)
• U.S. suffers record losses from extreme weather (Scientific American):
  
  The United States has already tied its yearly record for billion-dollar weather disasters and the cumulative tab from floods, tornadoes and heat waves has hit $35 billion, the National Weather Service said Wednesday.
• Heat and drought across U.S. may lead to price spikes for pasta, meat, vegetable oil (Climate Reality)
• Hedge Funds Boost Bullish Bets on Agriculture After Heat Wave (Bloomberg)
• Climate Change Causing Plants & Animals To Migrate to Higher Latitudes:
• Climate change: Species climbing higher and migrating north, study says (Christian Science Monitor):
  
  Organisms are responding to climate change at a pace much faster than scientists estimated about a decade ago, according to a new study in the journal Science.
  ...
  That, in effect, is the survival imperative that global warming is handing organisms worldwide, and they are responding at a pace much faster than scientists estimated about a decade ago, according to a new study published in Friday's issue of the journal Science.
• Species migrating north at 'two and three times faster' than reported? - Toronto Star (Toronto Star)
• GOP Cat Fight Erupts, As Candidates Spar Over Science:
• VIDEO: "This Week's" Full Interview with Jon Huntsman (ABC News)
• Huntsman Slams Perry on Climate and Evolution: We Are “On the Wrong Side of Science and Therefore in a Losing Position.” (Climate Progress)
• Huntsman Pounds Perry on Climate Change and Fed (AP)
• In their own words: The Republican presidential field on climate change (The Hill)
• Huntsman camp knocks Perry on climate science: "Science clearly was not a mandatory course for Gov. Perry." (The Hill)
• Gov. Christie admits climate change is a real problem, that human activity plays a role (NJ Star-Ledger)
• Video: Gov. Christie: Withdrawing from Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, Says "New Jersey's Future is Green" (NJ Office of the Governor)
• Rick Perry gets four Pinocchios for his climate change conspiracy theories. (Washington Post)
• Politifact: Do scientists disagree about global warming? [No.] (Politifact)
• 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.
• Civil Disobedience at the White House Over Dirty Oil Pipeline:
• VIDEO: Bill McKibben: Why I Spent 2 Days in Jail Protesting the Keystone XL Tar Sands Oil Pipeline (Democracy Now!)
• Margot Kidder among protesters arrested at White House (CTV Canada)
• Is Canadian Oil Bound for China Via Pipeline to Texas? (National Geographic)
• Arrests continue at White House oil pipeline protest (The Hill)
• Tar Sands and the Carbon Numbers (Op-Ed, NY Times) [emphasis added]:
  
  We have two main concerns: the risk of oil spills along the pipeline, which would traverse highly sensitive terrain, and the fact that the extraction of petroleum from the tar sands creates far more greenhouse emissions than conventional production does.
• US Chamber assails NY Times over oil pipeline (The Hill)
• GET MORE INFO: Tar Sands Action.org:
  
  From August 20th - September 3rd we're planning a peaceful protest in Washington DC to defuse the largest carbon bomb in North America.

  With people power and time-tested tactics of civil disobedience - join thousands of people from across the continent in a wave of sustained sit-ins. Together we'll amplify our voices and escalate the movement and stop the Keystone XL pipeline to the Canadian tar sands

• Letter from Scientific Experts to President Obama Regarding Authorization of the Keystone XL Pipeline (TarSandsAction.org):
  
  When other huge oil fields or coal mines were opened in the past, we knew much less about the damage that the carbon they contained would do to the Earth's climate system and to its oceans.

  Now that we do know, it's imperative that we move quickly to alternate forms of energy. As scientists, speaking for ourselves and not for any of our institutions, we can say categorically that [the pipeline is] not only not in the national interest, it's also not in the planet's best interest.

• Exxon Mobil: Yellowstone River Oil Spill Cleanup:
• Exxon Mobil Estimates MT Spill Cleanup Will Cost $42 Million (AP):
  
  Cleaning up tens of thousands of gallons of crude oil that spilled from a pipeline and fouled a stretch of Montana's renowned Yellowstone River is expected to cost Exxon Mobil Corp. an estimated $42.6 million, according to documents obtained Monday by The Associated Press.
• GOP’s ‘Responsible Spending’: Pay Oil Companies to Help Cause Disasters, Then Pay Again to Clean Them Up (Think Progress Green)

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

• VIDEO: Inane Study Posits Alien Invasion As Reason to Cut Greenhouse Gas Emissions — Fox News Reponse Is Even More Inane (Think Progress Green)
• Fukushima Update: Large Zone Near Japanese Reactors to Be Off Limits (NY Times) [emphasis added]:
  
  Broad areas around the stricken Fukushima Daiichi nuclear plant could soon be declared uninhabitable, perhaps for decades, after a government survey found radioactive contamination that far exceeded safe levels, several major media outlets said Monday.
  ...
  The government is expected to tell many of these residents that they will not be permitted to return to their homes for an indefinite period. It will also begin drawing up plans for compensating them by, among other things, renting their now uninhabitable land.
• Australia passes CO2 offset laws, carbon pricing next (Reuters) [emphasis added]:
  
  Australia’s parliament endorsed the world’s first national scheme that regulates the creation and trade of carbon credits from farming and forestry on Monday, to complement government plans to put a price on carbon emissions from mid-2012.
  ...
  Known as the Carbon Farming Initiative (CFI), the new laws allow farmers and investors to generate tradeable carbon offsets from farmland and forestry projects. Land use including agriculture accounts for 23 percent of Australian emissions.
• Vietnam’s rice bowl threatened by rising seas (Guardian UK):
  
  Nguyen Thi Lim Lien issues a warning she desperately hopes the world will hear: climate change is turning the rivers of the Mekong Delta salty.

  “The government tells us that there are three grams of salt per litre of fresh water in the rivers now,” she says. “Gradually more and more people are affected. Those nearest the sea are the most affected now, but soon the whole province will be hit.”

• Congressional Research Service Report: No ‘train wreck’ from EPA utility rules (The Hill):
  
  Utility industry claims that looming Environmental Protection Agency rules for power plants will create an economic “train wreck” are overblown, the nonpartisan Congressional Research Service (CRS) says in a new report.

  Because EPA has yet to propose or finalize many of its clean air regulations, industry-sponsored studies predicting economic calamity “effectively underestimate the complexities of the regulatory process and overstate the near-term impact of many of the regulatory actions,” CRS says [PDF] in an Aug. 8 report that has been circulating on Capitol Hill in recent days.

• EPA will review regulations to eliminate 'unjustified burdens' (The Hill):
  
  The Environmental Protection Agency finalized a plan Tuesday to review dozens of regulations to ensure they are not overly burdensome, part of an administration-wide “lookback” mandated by President Obama.

  EPA’s final regulatory review plan comes amid growing GOP animosity toward the agency. Republicans and some moderate Democrats have cast EPA as the poster child of federal overreach and excessive regulation, pushing legislation to delay or block a slew of the agency’s rules.

• Down the Drain Goes Public's Right to Know About Fracking (The Tyee, British Columbia):
  
  What landed in the Tyee's inbox was entirely in keeping with the government's handling of a contentious proposal by a natural gas company to divert large quantities of water out of Williston Reservoir. When word leaked that the government had approved the diversion scheme, a rather strange statement was issued that began by noting that the provincial Cabinet minister in charge was unavailable.
• Is Gas-Drilling Industry Sucking PA's Creeks Dry? (Philadelphia Inquirer):
  
  The Marcellus Shale natural gas industry has a huge thirst for water - to hydraulically fracture a single gas well requires upward of a thousand tanker-trucks of water.
• Ford, Toyota team up on hybrid trucks: Partnership aimed at boosting fuel efficiency quicker, cheaper (The Detroit News)
• Analysis: Hurricane Irene could boost insurance pricing, shares (Reuters):
  
  Like speculators in the futures market who applaud the effects of drought on wheat prices, another disaster could ultimately cheer investors in insurance and reinsurance stocks. Major storms in 2004 and 2005 triggered a surge in insurance stocks after the fact.
• ConocoPhillips finds 9 new leaks in China oil spill (AFP):
  
  US oil giant ConocoPhillips, already facing legal action and mounting public anger over a huge oil spill off China’s northeast coast, has found nine new leaks in the same area, authorities said.
• Op-ed: No to Arctic Drilling (NY Times) [emphasis added]:
  
  The administration should put on the brakes. This is a reckless gamble we cannot afford. We can't prevent an Arctic blowout any more than we can avert disaster in the Gulf of Mexico or the North Sea. We don't have the infrastructure, the knowledge or the experience to cope with one if it occurs. It's irresponsible to drill in these waters unless we have those capabilities.

  When the National Commission on the BP Deepwater Horizon Oil Spill and Offshore Drilling, appointed by President Obama in May 2010, reported our findings and recommendations earlier this year, we specifically cited the need to address these shortcomings before exposing Arctic waters to this kind of risk.

• Human Excrement to Blame for Coral Decline (Scientific American)
• Libya: The Fall of Tripoli Won't Get Us Cheap Gas (Grist):
  
  It would be natural to imagine that the fall of Tripoli would mean a significant decrease in the cost of oil and the pain that the average consumer feels at the pump.... But the truth may not turn out to be so simple.
• Congress And the Corps: Budget Cuts May Slow Levee Rebuilding (St. Louis Beacon)
• Environmental Violations Found at Scores of Tribal Schools (Center for Public Integrity):
  
  Hundreds of Native American children attend schools that haven't properly disposed of hazardous waste, haven't contained asbestos in heating systems, and whose water systems exceed the maximum allowable level for arsenic in tap water - conditions barred under federal environmental laws.
• Climate Secret: NSF Quietly Closes Out Inspector General Investigation with Complete Vindication of Michael Mann (Climate Progress):
  
  NSF Inspector General: “Finding no research misconduct or other matter raised by the various regulations and laws discussed above, this case is closed.”
  ...
  And so after countless investigations — 3 in the U.K., 2 by Penn State, the EPA, the NOAA IG — that have all unanimously found the allegations against climate scientists and their research conclusions based on the hacked “ClimateGate” emails to be wholly unsubstantiated, a top GOP presidential candidate backed by the fossil fuel industry still gives voice to the Texas-sized lie (see “Denier Rick Perry Takes $11 Million from Big Oil, Then Claims Climate Scientists ‘Manipulated Data’ For Money“).

                 

Article Categories: Mainstream Corporate Media, Environment, Republicans, Green News, James Inhofe, BP Oil Disaster, EPA, Chris Christie, Japan, Fracking, Rick Perry