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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Just a flesh wound? UK smacked by extreme weather whiplash; Sec. Chu talks sexy, sexy energy efficiency; ‘Agent Orange Corn’? Dow Chemical says ‘Yes, please!’; PLUS: Slow-jamming the news? How about slow-walking climate change? …. All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

Green News Report with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen 4/26/2012

‘Green News Report’ – April 26, 2012  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...  |  Slow Jammin' the Climate Change   · · · · ·   ‘Green News Report’ – April 26, 2012  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...  |  Slow Jammin' the Climate Change

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): ExxonMobil profits: $109M a day on America’s pocketbook; Wind Tax Credit Stalls in Congress despite bipartisan support; U.S. mad cow find: lucky break or triumph of science?; Cheap, stable, printable liquid solar cells developed; Warm Spring May Mean Drought, Wildfires in West; Warm Ocean Currents Eroding Antarctic Ice Shelves; Coal’s Future Is Rocky at Best; On Chernobyl’s anniversary, Ukraine warns against nuclear power… PLUS: Donald Trump on ‘Monstrous Wind’ … and much, MUCH more! …

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

• CEM 2012: Sec. Chu Talks Sexy, Sexy Energy Efficiency:
• VIDEO: Steven Chu, US Energy Secretary addresses the Clean Energy Ministerial (UK Dept of Energy & Climate Change)
  
  
  

• Clean Energy Ministerial 3 (CEM3) Main Page
• Coalition of World Energy Ministers Commit to Improvements in Energy Efficiency, Renewable Energy, Energy Access (Press release, ENews Park Forest):
  Leaders from the 23-government Clean Energy Ministerial (CEM) and the UN Secretary-General’s Sustainable Energy for All initiative (SE4All) today outlined specific commitments by participating countries and private sector leaders which will promote improved energy efficiency, renewable energy technologies, and increased energy access around the world.
  …
  A SEAD-facilitated technical exchange also led to India becoming the first country in the world to adopt comprehensive standards for performance, safety, and quality of light-emitting diodes (LEDs) in February 2012. These standards will help keep poorly performing products from spoiling this critical global market for highly efficient lighting.
• Chu Says Efficiency Rules Can Cut Need for 200 New Power Plants (BusinessWeek)
• UK’s Cameron Urges ‘Financially Sustainanable’ Clean Energy (Bloomberg News)
• Climate Goals Require $5 Trillion Investment by 2020 (BusinessWeek)
• Doomsday warning from IEA boss (SmartPlanet) [emphasis added]:
  the world is on track to warm by 6 degrees C by the end of the century, when it needs to rein in the increase to 2 degrees C.
  …
  “The world’s energy system is being pushed to breaking point, and our addiction to fossil fuels grows stronger each year. Many clean energy technologies are available, but they are not being deployed quickly enough to avert potentially disastrous consequences.”
• Green energy ‘cheap within years’, says ‘passionate’ PM (BBC)
• International Energy Agency plea over climate warning (BBC)
• Britain Smacked by Extreme Weather Whiplash:
• Hosepipe ban stays in place despite April deluges (BBC)
• UK: Heavy Rain Sparks Flash Flood Warnings (Sky News)
• April showers batter Britain: Downpours cause flash floods and disruption around the country (MSN)
• Drought: Why are the Trafalgar Square fountains still on in the middle of a hosepipe ban? (Telegraph UK)
• Dr. Richard Alley Explains: Why the extreme weather? (USA Today:
  But here’s the difference between dice and climate, between Earth and Las Vegas. Even if gamblers avoid shady dice games and play at a state lottery or a licensed casino, many do lose money, but they can quit while they still have bus fare, and there’s a slight chance of striking it rich. We expect the climate changes from our CO2 to be costly, but we can limit those costs by including the best science in our planning, leaving us with much more than bus fare, and pointing to a sustainable and prosperous future.
• Critics Demand USDA Deny Approval of Dow Chemical GMO ‘Agent Orange Corn’:
• USDA To Decide Imminently On Novel “Agent Orange” Corn (Center For Food Safety) [emphasis added]:
  Biotech Companies Only Winners in Chemical Arms Race as Herbicide Resistant Crops Fail

  “This novel corn will foster resistant weeds that require more toxic pesticides to kill, followed by more resistance and more pesticides — a chemical arms race in which the only winners are pesticide/biotechnology firms.”

• MAKE YOUR VOICE HEARD: Petitions, Plant Pest Risk Assessments, and Environmental Assessments; Availability: Dow AgroScience, LLC, Corn Genetically Engineered for Herbicide Tolerance” PUBLIC COMMENT ENDS 4/27 (Regulations.gov)
• SIGN THE PETITION HERE: Tell USDA: Deny Dow’s petition to approve 2,4-D resistant corn (Change.org)
• USDA Extends Comment Period for Corn Genetically Engineered for Herbicide Tolerance (Press Release, USDA Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service)
• Dow Corn, Resistant to a Weed Killer, Runs Into Opposition (NY Times) [emphasis added]:
  Critics say that weeds will eventually develop resistance to those chemicals as well and that more sustainable methods are needed to control weeds, like planting cover crops and rotating crops.

  The new crops “ratchet up dependence on the use of herbicides, which is very much a treadmill,” said David A. Mortensen, a professor of crop and soil sciences at Pennsylvania State University. Scientists in Nebraska have already discovered a small amount of waterhemp – perhaps the most troublesome weed in the Corn Belt – that is resistant to 2,4-D.

• Analysis: Dow’s new corn: “time bomb” or farmers’ dream? (Reuters) [emphasis added]:
  A new biotech corn developed by Dow AgroSciences could answer the prayers of U.S. farmers plagued by a fierce epidemic of super-weeds. Or it could trigger a flood of dangerous chemicals that may make weeds even more resistant and damage other important U.S. crops.

  Or, it could do both.
  …
  “Massive amounts of 2,4-D… can cause major changes, threatening specialty crops miles away,” said Bode, an assistant Secretary of Agriculture in the Reagan administration.

• Protesters urge U.S. to scuttle Dow’s new GMO corn (Reuters)
• E.P.A. Denies an Environmental Group’s Request to Ban 2,4-D, a Widely Used Weed Killer (NY Times, 4/9/2012)
• If Only Obama Would ‘Slow Jam the News’ on Climate Change:
• VIDEO: Slow Jam The News with Barack Obama: Late Night with Jimmy Fallon (YouTube):
  
  

• Obama Finally Says ‘Climate Change’: Ready for the Fight: Rolling Stone Interview with Barack Obama (Rolling Stone):
  Part of the challenge over these past three years has been that people’s number-one priority is finding a job and paying the mortgage and dealing with high gas prices. In that environment, it’s been easy for the other side to pour millions of dollars into a campaign to debunk climate-change science. I suspect that over the next six months, this is going to be a debate that will become part of the campaign, and I will be very clear in voicing my belief that we’re going to have to take further steps to deal with climate change in a serious way. That there’s a way to do it that is entirely compatible with strong economic growth and job creation ““ that taking steps, for example, to retrofit buildings all across America with existing technologies will reduce our power usage by 15 or 20 percent. That’s an achievable goal, and we should be getting started now. [more of that sexy energy efficiency. – Ed.]
• Obama Edits Climate Change From His Earth Day Proclamation (Climate Progress)
• Corporate Media FAIL on Climate Change:
• STUDY: Climate Coverage Plummets On Broadcast Networks (Media Matters.org): Time Devoted To Climate Change Has Fallen Sharply Since 2009
• Americans on Environment News: We Want More! (Mother Jones):
  It may not come as much of a surprise that news on the environment drags far behind in popularity compared with, say, news on whether or not Lindsay Lohan wears a bra, but apparently Americans are beginning to realize there’s a problem. According to results from a nationwide poll released Thursday, roughly 79 percent of Americans believe environmental news needs a drastic overhaul-both in terms of how much it’s being covered and what’s making up the conversation.
• Local Media Fail To Cover Climate Denial, ALEC Link (Media Matters.org)

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

• Exxon Makes $104 Million In Profit Per Day So Far In 2012, While Americans Are Stuck With A Higher Gas Bill (Think Progress)
• Wind Tax Credit Stalls in Congress Despite Bipartisan support. So what’s the Disconnect here? (Climate Crock of the Week):
  Bottom line, if congress is serious about defunding all energy subsidies and making a truly level playing field, well and good, then start with the oil companies, and by the way, tell them they have to keep the Strait of Hormuz open on their own dime.
• Analysis: U.S. mad cow find: lucky break or triumph of science? (Reuters):
  The discovery this week of the fourth U.S. case of mad cow disease was one of two things for food safety experts: a validation of a decade-long focused surveillance regime or a lucky break that highlights the need to revisit previously scrapped efforts for more comprehensive surveillance.
  …
  Funding for cattle health programs in the proposed 2013 budget is set to fall by 20 percent compared to two years earlier.
• Cheap, stable, printable liquid solar cells developed (GizMag):
  Scientists at the University of Southern California (USC) have developed technology to cheaply produce stable liquid solar cells that can be painted or printed onto clear surfaces.
• Warm Spring May Mean Drought, Widlfires in West: (National Geographic):
  The early spring of 2012 raised both temperatures and eyebrows, including President Obama’s. … On April 10th, 61 percent of the lower 48 states were listed by the U.S. Drought Monitor to be in abnormally dry or drought conditions. And the Southwest, which largely relies on ice melt into the Colorado River Basin from the Rocky Mountains and previous years’ melt stored in the Lake Powell and Lake Mead reservoirs for its water supply, is poised for a dry, hot summer, because those areas received less than 70 percent of the average snowfall according to the USDA National Water & Climate Center.
• Warm Ocean Currents Eroding Antarctic Ice Shelves (Environment News Service):
  Warm ocean currents flowing beneath ice shelves are the main cause of recent ice loss from Antarctica, concludes a study by an international research team published today. The finding brings scientists closer to providing reliable projections of future sea level rise. Using measurements from NASA’s Ice, Cloud, and land Elevation Satellite, ICESat, in combination with computer models, the researchers were able to distinguish between warm ocean currents thawing the ice sheets from below and warm air melting them from above.
• Gulf Spill Photos: New Studies Show Impact on Coast: (National Geographic):
  In the depths of the ocean and on shore, science is only beginning to measure the long-term impact of the worst oil spill in U.S. history.
  On the second anniversary of the Deepwater Horizon drilling rig explosion, a slew of new studies paint a complex picture of how the Gulf of Mexico’s ecosystems absorbed the insult of 4.9 million barrels of crude oil.
• Activists Urge Discovery Channel to Acknowledge Climate Change Science: (LA Times):
  Forecast the Facts, the activist group that first confronted GM about its support of climate change doubters the Heartland Institute, now plans to muster a public campaign targeting the Discovery Channel. The purpose: to get Discovery to acknowledge the scientific consensus on man-made climate change in its programming.
• Four-Time Chapter 11 Champ Donald Trump: ‘Monstrous’ Wind Turbines Will Make Scotland ‘Go Broke’ (Climate Progress):
  “Scotland, if you pursue this policy of these monstrous turbines, Scotland will go broke,” Trump told the group. “They are ugly, they are noisy and they are dangerous. If Scotland does this, Scotland will be in serious trouble and will lose tourism to places like Ireland, and they are laughing at us.”
  …
  “When challenged to produce hard evidence about his claims on the negative impact of turbines, Trump said: “I am the evidence, I am a world class expert in tourism.”
• Ukraine: Yanukovych warns on nuclear power on Chernobyl anniversary (EuroNews)
• ‘Fracking’ advocates, critics gearing up in Mich. (BusinessWeek)
• Coal’s Future Is Rocky at Best (BusinessWeek)
• FARM BILL 2012: Senate Panel Unveils 2012 Farm Bill Overhaul (Gannett/Des Moines Register)
• Fees and Anger Rise in CA Water War: (NY Times):
  There are accusations of conspiracies, illegal secret meetings and double-dealing. Embarrassing documents and e-mails have been posted on an official Web site emblazoned with the words ‘Fact vs. Fiction.’ Animosities have grown so deep that the players have resorted to exchanging lengthy, caustic letters, packed with charges of lying and distortion. And it is all about water.
• A Ban on Some Seafood Has Fishermen Fuming (NYork Times)
• Insurance Comapnies Face Increased Risks from Warming: (Yale Environment 360):
  Given that insurers are likely to be among the first companies affected by climate change, you might expect the industry to be better prepared than most. “But that is not how it appears to many analysts, regulators, and industry representatives, who say insurers are showing a lack of urgency on the twin threats of massive future damage claims from weather-related events, and the prospect of growing climate change-related litigation.
• Damage to oceans could cost $2tr by 2100 (Business Green)
  Damage to natural services provided by oceans could cost the world $2tr a year by the end of the century if steps to curtail climate change are not taken, a study by the respected Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) said today.
• VIDEO: James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change (TED Talks):
  Top climate scientist James Hansen tells the story of his involvement in the science of and debate over global climate change. In doing so he outlines the overwhelming evidence that change is happening and why that makes him deeply worried about the future.

• 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)
• Must-Read: Economist William Nordhaus Slams Global Warming Deniers, Explains Cost of Delay is $4 Trillion (Climate Progress):
  Nordhaus’s blunt piece – “Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong” – is worth reading because he is no climate hawk.
  …
  “The skeptics’ summary is based on poor analysis and on an incorrect reading of the results.”
• 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)
• How to Buy Time in the Fight against Climate Change: Mobilize to Stop Soot and Methane: A short list of relatively simple actions taken to reduce greenhouse gases other than CO2 could help put the brakes on global warming–if implemented globally (Scientific American)
• 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.”
• VIDEO: Behold: The World’s First 24/7 Solar Plant is Up and Running (Treehugger)
• 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.“