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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Romney and Paul confused about public lands; Wacked-out Winter 2012: Record cold in Europe, record warm in the U.S.; Most anti-environment Republican Party ever; PLUS: Never mind Clint Eastwood’s halftime — it was the greenest Super Bowl yet … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

Green News Report with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen 2/7/2012

‘Green News Report’ – February 7, 2012  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...   · · · · ·   ‘Green News Report’ – February 7, 2012  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): BP profits up, as oil spill victims still suffer; 7-yr oil leak in Gulf; MI River pushback on Corps levee ratings; San Onofre nuke plant shut down; Big Coal attacks climate scientist (again); Canada to poison wolves; Sacrificing the desert to save the earth; … PLUS: “Peak Everything”: special report … and much, MUCH more! …

STORIES DISCUSSED IN TODAY’S ‘GREEN NEWS REPORT’…

• Clint Eastwood’s ‘Controversial’ Celebration of the U.S. Auto Industry:
• Clint Eastwood: Super Bowl ad aimed at Americans, not politicians (LA Times) [emphasis added]:
  Well, Eastwood himself is now weighing in, telling both sides to give it a rest. There was “no spin” or selling intended in that ad, no politics, no subliminal message, no endorsements. It was simply meant to inspire Americans to do what they do best — get back in the game, no excuses, just get back in the game.
• Rush Limbaugh: Eastwood ‘scammed’ into making Chrysler Super Bowl ad (The Hill)
• Republican Pres. Candidates Unclear on Constitutional Public Lands:
• Romney To Nevadans: I Don’t Know ‘What The Purpose Is’ Of Public Lands (Hint: They Pump $1 Billion Into the State Economy) (Think Progress Green)
• Ron Paul Calls For The Elimination Of Public Lands (Think Progress Green)
• POLL: Conservation in the West: A survey of the attitudes of voters in six Western states (Colorado College State of the Rockies Project)
• Astonishing New Poll: 91 Percent Of Western Voters Say Protecting Public Lands Is ‘Essential’ To The Economy (Think Progress Green)
• Western voters of all stripes call themselves conservationists (E&E News)
• Poll: Most Montanans support public land protections, resource jobs (The Missoulian)
• New poll shows Arizona/western voters agree that public lands essential to economy (Grand Canyon Trust)
• League of Conservation Voters: The Most Anti-Environment Republican Party Ever:
• 2011 National Environmental Scorecard: 1st Session of the 112th Congress (League of Conservation Voters, LCV.org)
• The Most Anti-Enviornment House in History (LCV.org):
  Reps. Waxman (CA-30), Markey (MA-07) and Berman (CA-28) today released a new report showing that House Republican leaders have pushed through an astonishing 191 votes to weaken environmental protections.
• The Top 10 Anti-Environmental Things Congress Did in 2011 (Think Progress)
• Republicans Want to Throw Kids Under the Bus. Literally. (Mother Jones)
• House Republicans Field Transportation Bill Favoring Oil & Gas: (NOLA Times-Picayune) [emphasis added]:
  U.S. House Republican leaders proposed a $260 billion transportation spending bill Tuesday, but its prospects are slim because of controversy over provisions to allow heavier trucks and to pay for new projects with expanded oil and gas production.
• Boehner’s Last Stand: House Leader Wants to Kill Transit Funding
• Fracking Industry Against Fracking Rules:
• TX Fracking Disclosure Rule Takes Effect Today: (Ft. Worth Star-Telegram) [emphasis added]:
  A new Texas Railroad Commission rule requiring oil and natural gas operators to publicly disclose the chemicals used in hydraulic fracturing of natural gas and oil wells takes effect Wednesday. The rule also requires that operators disclose how much water is used in fracking, a process that may require 1 million to 5 million gallons for a well drilled in North Texas’ Barnett Shale.
• EPA Official Defends Findings on Fracking (Houston Chronicle)
• House Republicans Can’t Handle The Truth On Fracking (Think Progress Green) [emphasis added]:
  Because the EPA’s draft report deals a serious if not fatal blow to those claims, the industry is fighting furiously to discredit the EPA’s methods and conclusions in the Pavillion study.
• The real beneficiaries of energy subsidies: Don’t buy the GOP’s claims. Oil companies, not green alternatives, are making a killing from the government (Salon)
• Climate Science: Public Opinion Driven by Media Coverage and Politicians, Not Al Gore:
• Study: ‘The Greater the Coverage of Climate Change, the Greater the Public Concern’ (Climate Progress):
  Exclusive: “Exciting” Public Opinion Study Debunks Claim Al Gore Polarized the Climate Debate and Many Other Myths

  “The greater the quantity of media coverage of climate change, the greater the level of public concern.”

• AMS Certified Meteorologist Mark Johnson Claims ‘Earth Hasn’t Warmed In 15 Years’ (Think Progress Green)
• WACKED-OUT WINTER 2012: Record COLD in Europe:
• Cold Snap Slugs Europe; Thaw a Threat (Voice of America News)
• European cold snap toll tops 360 (The Australian)
• Is Climate Change Bringing the Arctic to Europe? (Joe Romm, Energy Collective):
  [T]he probability of cold winters with much snow in Central Europe rises when the Arctic is covered by less sea ice in summer. Scientists of the Research Unit Potsdam of the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research in the Helmholtz Association have decrypted a mechanism in which a shrinking summertime sea ice cover changes the air pressure zones in the Arctic atmosphere and impacts our European winter weather.
• Our Extreme Weather: Is Arctic Sea Ice Loss Partly to Blame? (Dr. Jeff Masters, Weather Underground)
• Eastern Europe scrambles to deal with brutal winter (CNN)
• Europeans struggle under record cold snap (AP)
• NYMEX-Crude rises on Europe cold snap (Reuters)
• VIDEO: Snow causes disruptions in much of Europe (USA Today)
• WACKED-OUT WINTER 2012: Record Warm in the U.S.:
• State of the Climate: National Overview, January 2012 (NOAA, National Climatic Data Center)
• January was USA’s 4th-warmest on record (USA Today) [emphasis added]:
  The national average temperature in January was 36.3 degrees F, which is 5.5 degrees F above the long-term average and the warmest since 2006, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s National Climatic Data Center. The other warmer Januarys were in 1990 and 1953. The data is based on records dating back to 1895.
• ‘Arctic Oscilliation’ Behind Season’s Mixed Winter Weather (NPR)
• Where’s the Snow? Not In Lower 48, But Elsewhere: (AP)
  Snow seems to be missing in action this winter for much of the United States. This January was the third weakest month on record for snow covering the ground for the U.S. Lower 48, according to the Global Snow Lab at Rutgers University. Records go back to 1967.
• Global Warming Hates Groundhog Day: Punxsutawny Phil Sees A Year Without Winter (Think Progress Green)
• Apparently Unaware of Global Warming, L.A. Times Remains “Perplexed by the Mild Weather Across the U.S.” (Climate Progress)
• The great northern migration of US cattle, due to TX drought: (Texas Tribune)
• Food Crisis As Drought & Cold Hit Mexico: (NY Times) [emphasis added]:
  A drought that a government official called the most severe Mexico had ever faced has left two million people without access to water and, coupled with a cold snap, has devastated cropland in nearly half of the country.
• Texas Heat and Drought Caused by Global Warming, NASA’s Hansen Says (Inside Climate News):
  Temperature data shows the Texas heat wave wouldn’t have occurred without warming, Hansen claims. Others aren’t ready to draw such a definitive conclusion.
• YES, that IS CLINT EASTWOOD, SINGING: (YouTube)

‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (Stuff we didn’t have time for in today’s audio report)…

• BP Profits Up, As Oil Spill Victims Still Suffer (Think Progress Green)
• Waterkeeper Groups Sue Over Gulf Oil Leak Gushing For Seven Years And Counting (DeSmogBlog):
  According to a lawsuit filed this week by the Waterkeeper Alliance and their Gulf Coast affiliates, there is a smaller oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico off the Louisiana coast that has been flowing nonstop for almost seven and a half years. While nowhere near as large as the oil leak from the Deepwater Horizon disaster — the lawsuit estimates the current leak to be releasing a few hundred gallons of oil per day — the fact that it has been flowing for more than seven years allows plenty of time for hundred of thousands, if not low millions, of gallons of oil to be released into the waters of the Gulf of Mexico.
• Officials Along Miss. River Push Back on Corps Levee Ratings: (NY Times):
  When the Army Corps of Engineers declared last year that the levees here were ‘unacceptable,’ it kicked up a storm of protest from officials and residents of the broad Mississippi River flood plain known as the American Bottom.
• Feds: ‘Unusual’ wear on new tubes at CA nuke plant (AP):
  Unusual wear has been found on hundreds of tubes that carry radioactive water at Southern California’s San Onofre Unit 2 nuclear plant, raising questions about the integrity of equipment the company installed in a multimillion-dollar makeover in 2009.

  The disclosure came two days after a tube leak at the plant’s other unit prompted operators to shut down the reactor as a precaution. A tiny amount of radiation could have escaped, but officials say workers and the public were not endangered.

• Salazar Cuts Back Plan to Develop Oil Shale on Public Lands: (Denver Post):
  Federal authorities are planning to scale back a Bush-era push to open 2 million acres of public lands in the Rocky Mountain region for commercial oil-shale development — with support from Colorado agricultural, municipal and recreation industry leaders.
• Big Coal Attacks Penn State Climate Scientist (Again) (Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones):
  We’ve documented the long-term effort to malign Pennsylvania State University climate scientist Michael Mann here rather extensively. Now a coal-backed group is running a smear campaign targeting an upcoming speaking event Mann is holding on campus.
• Tar Sands: Federal recovery plan for caribou suggests thousands of wolves stand to die (Calgary GlobalTV) [emphasis added]:
  Much of the habitat in question overlaps with the oilsands region — although experts and the federal report alike don’t hold the oilpatch solely responsible for the destruction of the caribou habitat. Rather, they say it’s a culmination of decades, even centuries, of industrial development in the region that has upset the delicate balance caribou need to thrive.
Canadian Government Poisoning Wolves to Slow Rapid Declines in Caribou Population Near Tar Sands (Climate Progress) [emphasis added]:
Canada’s caribou population are in steep decline. That’s due in part to the destruction of habitat through logging, expanding tar sands production, and other industrial development in the province of Alberta.

But rather than focus on habitat conservation efforts to protect threatened caribou populations in the province, Canadian officials are poisoning and shooting wolves that prey on caribou.

• Sacrificing the Desert to Save the Earth: (LA Times):
  Construction cranes rise like storks 40 stories above the Mojave Desert. In their midst, the ‘power tower’ emerges, wrapped in scaffolding and looking like a multistage rocket.
• “Global Warming Has Stopped”? How to Fool People Using “Cherry-Picked” Climate Data (Peter Gleick) [emphasis added]:
  The current favorite argument of those who argue that climate changes isn’t happening, or a problem, or worth dealing with, is that global warming has stopped.
  …
  The problem with this argument is that it is false: global warming has not stopped and those who repeat this claim over and over are either lying, ignorant, or exhibiting a blatant disregard for the truth [also known as lying – Ed.].
• California orders hike in number of super clean cars (LA Times):
  The package of Air Resources Board regulations would require auto manufacturers to offer more zero- or very low-emission cars such as battery electric, hydrogen fuel cell and plug-in hybrid vehicles in California starting with model year 2018.

  By 2025, one in seven new autos sold in California, or roughly 1.4 million, must be ultra-clean, moving what is now a driving novelty into the mainstream.

• Drought May Cause Shutdown of Texas Rice Production (Climate Progress):
  Although recent rains have put a dent in the Texas drought, a day of reckoning looms for the state’s long-grain rice growers, who pump millions into the economy in Southeast Texas each year and account for about 5 percent of America’s rice production. Come March 1, if there is less than 850,000 acre-feet of water in reservoirs along the Lower Colorado River, water managers will be forced to take the unprecedented step of withholding water from agricultural users, which will mean severe cuts to Texas rice production this year.
• Special Report: PEAK EVERYTHING (Bloomberg News) [emphasis added]:
  By 2030, The Global Middle Class Is Expected To Grow By Two-Thirds.

  That’s 3 Billion More Shoppers. They’ll All Want Access To Goods, Including Water, Wheat, Coffee and Oil. Is There Enough for Everybody?

  Can Business Satisfy Demand and Avoid Hitting ‘Peak Everything?’

• China Bans Airlines From Joining EU Emissions Scheme (Reuters):
  The Chinese government said on Monday it will ban the country’s airlines from participating in a European Union scheme to charge for carbon emissions from flights into and out of Europe and ban airlines from charging customers extra because of the EU plan.
• Russians Drill Into Ancient Lake Vostok Below Antarctic Glacier: (Washington Post):
  Russian scientists have drilled into the vast, dark and never- before-touched Lake Vostok 2.2 miles below the surface of Antarctica, the state-run Russian news agency RIA Novosti said Monday.
• New Diesel Exhaust Study Stalled By Industry & Congressional Objections (iWatch News):
  Tea Party Activists Fight Green Projects, Seeing UN Plot: (NY Times):

  Across the country, activists with ties to the Tea Party are railing against all sorts of local and state efforts to control sprawl and conserve energy. They brand government action for things like expanding public transportation routes and preserving open space as part of a United Nations-led conspiracy to deny property rights and herd citizens toward cities.
• GOP’s Sen. Burr Stands To Gain From Natural Gas Investments, Legislation: (Huffington Post):
  Sen. Richard Burr’s vocal opposition to the STOCK Act raised some eyebrows in Washington this week, and with good reason.
  Burr, a North Carolina Republican who was one of just three senators to vote against the ban on congressional insider trading Thursday, owns investments in the natural gas industry that would benefit from legislation he co-sponsored offering tax credits for natural gas-fueled vehicles.
• UN Declares Somali Famine Over, But Warns of Risks: (AP_:
  The United Nations said Friday that Somalia’s famine is over, but the world body’s Food and Agricultural Organization warned that continued assistance is needed to stop the region from slipping back.
• Colorado Goes Its Own Way to Regulate Forest Roads: (NY Times):
  A road into the piney woods can be fraught with consequences. That was the premise, more than a decade ago, behind a Clinton administration rule that restricted road building on millions of acres of national forests in the West. The so-called roadless rule, fought over in court from the start, was validated last year by a federal appeals panel, setting off a wave of euphoria among supporters and consternation among critics.
• STUDY: The Press And The Pipeline: Heavily Pro-Keystone XL Pipeline Coverage in the Media: (Media Matters)
A Media Matters analysis shows that as a whole, news coverage of the Keystone XL pipeline between August 1 and December 31 favored pipeline proponents. Although the project would create few long-term employment opportunities, the pipeline was primarily portrayed as a jobs issue. Pro-pipeline voices were quoted more frequently than those opposed, and dubious industry estimates of job creation were uncritically repeated 5 times more often than they were questioned.

• Skeptical Science: Get the FULL DEBUNKING of ALL Climate Science Denier Arguments
• VIDEO ANIMATION: Time history of atmospheric CO2 (NOAA Carbon Tracker YouTube channel):
• VIDEO: Animation Charts Modern Global Warming (NYT Green)
• Part 1: The brutal logic of climate change (David Roberts, Grist) [emphasis added]:
  It’s simple: If there is to be any hope of avoiding civilization-threatening climate disruption, the U.S. and other nations must act immediately and aggressively on an unprecedented scale. That means moving to emergency footing. War footing. “Hitler is on the march and our survival is at stake” footing. That simply won’t be possible unless a critical mass of people are on board. It’s not the kind of thing you can sneak in incrementally.

  It is unpleasant to talk like this. People don’t want to hear it.

• Part 2: The brutal logic of climate change mitigation (David Roberts, Grist)
• Climate Scientists Rebuke Rupert Murdoch: WSJ Denier Op-Ed Like ‘Dentists Practicing Cardiology’ (Think Progress Green)
• Saudi Oil Minister Calls Global Warming “Humanity’s Most Pressing Concern” (Climate Progress):
  “We know that pumping oil out of the ground does not create many jobs. It does not foster an entrepreneurial spirit, nor does it sharpen critical faculties.”
• World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns: If fossil fuel infrastructure is not rapidly changed, the world will ‘lose for ever’ the chance to avoid dangerous climate change (Guardian UK) [emphasis added]:
  The world is likely to build so many fossil-fuelled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be “lost for ever”, according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.
  …
  “The door is closing,” Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, said. “I am very worried – if we don’t change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever.”
• Concise Overview: The IPCC report on extreme climate and weather events (Real Climate)
• READ the IPCC Report: Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)
• The Real Global Warming Signal (Tamino)
• No, global warming hasn’t stopped (New Scientist)
• Top UN Climate Official Blasts U.S. Climate Policy: Americans Must Realize “This Is Their Future They’re Compromising” (Think Progress Green)
• VIDEO: Climate Scientists Michael Mann on “A Look Into Our Climate: Past To Present To Future” (TEDx, YouTube)
• Earth’s Plant Growth Fell Because of Climate Change, Study Finds (NYT Green)
• Heads in the Sand: Warning: “Climate change is occurring … and poses significant risks to humans and the environment,” reports the National Academy of Sciences. As climate-change science moves in one direction, Republicans in Congress are moving in another. Why?
  (National Journal) [emphasis added]:
  Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, says there’s no question that the influence of his group and others like it has been instrumental in the rise of Republican candidates who question or deny climate science. “If you look at where the situation was three years ago and where it is today, there’s been a dramatic turnaround. Most of these candidates have figured out that the science has become political,” he said.
  …
  Groups like Americans for Prosperity have done it.“