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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Obama vs. Romney vs. Facts: fact-checking & debunking the 1st Presidential debate; Total Oil slams Shell Oil’s Arctic drilling; PLUS: A whole lotta shakin’ going on: more fracking earthquakes in Texas … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

Green News Report

with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen

10/4/2012

‘Green News Report’ – October 4, 2012  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...   · · · · ·   ‘Green News Report’ – October 4, 2012  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): “Culture of fear” at San Onofre nuclear plant; ‘Hundreds of problems’ at EU nuclear plants; Gasoline shortage closes CA gas stations; Enbridge CEO floats new light oil pipeline plans; US Solar industry pushes for China trade sanctions; Alaska-to-Asia natural gas pipeline plan timeline set; Exxon plans to drill near atomic waste dump in Arctic; Ocean acidification emerges as new climate threat … PLUS: Clean energy showdown in Arizona … and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Fracking earthquakes in Texas?:
• Unusual Dallas Earthquakes Linked to Fracking, Expert Says (Live Science):
  Three unusual earthquakes that shook a suburb west of Dallas over the weekend appear to be connected to the past disposal of wastewater from local hydraulic fracturing operations, a geophysicist who has studied earthquakes in the region says.
• Total Oil CEO Slams Arctic Drilling:
• Environmental risk of drilling in Arctic too high, CEO of oil giant Total says (NBC News)
• French Oil Company CEO Calls Arctic Oil Drilling a Potential “Disaster” (Treehugger):
  CEO Christophe de Margerie … says the risk of an oil spill from Arctic drilling was too high and the consequences if a spill occurred “would do too much damage to the image of the company.”
• Energy & Environment: Fact-checking & Debunking the 1st Presidential Debate:
• Transcript of Wednesday’s presidential debate (CNN)
• FactCheck: Romney’s Clean-Energy Whoppers (FactCheck.org)
• Obama vs. Romney: A StarkContrast on the Environment: (Yale 360):
  As the U.S. presidential campaign enters its final phase, Yale Environment 360 compares the sharply divergent views of President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney on the environment and energy.
• Romney Admits Pushing Misinformation In Debate (Think Progress):
  Fact checkers — including this blog — quickly pounced on the claim, explaining that only a tiny percentage of firms that received grants or loans from the Recovery Act have actually filed for bankruptcy. And now, the Romney campaign itself is walking back the GOP presidential candidate’s claim.
• The Biggest (And Least Discussed) Lie Of The Debate? Romney’s False Claim About Clean Energy Bankruptcies (Climate Progress) [emphasis added]:
  As Romney was riffing on funding education, he pivoted to his talking points on Obama’s support of renewable energy and let this whopper loose:

  “And these [clean energy] businesses, many of them have gone out of business, I think about half of them, of the ones have been invested in, have gone out of business.”

  Actually, it’s much more offensive than that.

  At a time when the U.S. clean energy industry is supporting thousands of innovative businesses in every state (many of them small businesses), hundreds of thousands of jobs (including tens of thousands in Romney’s home state of Massachusetts), and leveraging tens of billions in private capital, Romney casually tried to claim that “half” of businesses that received federal incentives have gone out of business. That’s not even remotely close to the truth.
  …
  Time Magazine’s Michael Grunwald confirmed today via twitter that the campaign was backtracking: “Now Romney camp tells me he misspoke, only meant to single out loan program.“

• Romney’s attack on green investment was massively, massively wrong (Grist)
• Why It’s Hard To Trust Romney On Oil Subsidies (Climate Progress)
• GOP Brain Explained: Why Cliff Stearns wants to subsidize successful [OIL] companies (Grist)
• U.S. coal stocks jump on Romney comments: analysts (Reuters)
• Oil groups hold their fire after Romney floats ending their tax incentives (The Hill’s E2 Wire)
• Climate change absent from first debate (The Hill’s E2 Wire)
• Comprehensive Fact-Checking of the Debate:
• 1st Debate: Romney Told 27 Myths In 38 Minutes (Think Progress)
• Taking Stock of Some of the Claims and Counterclaims (NY Times)
• Factchecking the first presidential debate of 2012 (Washington Post)
• UNMENTIONABLE: Climate Change:
• The Climate Silence Continues: Lehrer, Obama, And Romney Ignore Climate Change In First Debate (Climate Progress):
  Apparently, neither of the candidates — particularly Obama — has been watching the polls showing that climate could be a major factor in how undecided and Independent voters cast their ballots.

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

• Clean energy showdown in Arizona (Grist):
  Arizona has unbounded potential for solar and a rapidly growing solar industry, but it’s also got a government recently overrun by corrupt right-wingers. This year, the unbounded potential clashes with the corrupt right-wingery in the form of elections to an extremely important state commission that you’ve never heard of. At stake: whether Arizona will continue its dramatic solar expansion.
• Workers at San Onofre Nuclear Plant Report Culture of Fear, Deep Mistrust (Inside Climate News):
  Edison, the utility that runs San Onofre, is in upheaval as it digests new evidence that many of its employees are working in an environment of fear.
• Enbridge CEO floats new light oil pipeline plans (Reuters):
  Al Monaco, who took over as CEO on Monday, said the boom in light oil production from sources like the North Dakota Bakken has drastically shifted North America’s supply outlook, forcing deep price discounts for supplies not linked to international Brent crude pricing and prompting the need for new pipeline routes.

  “North America is in the process of being re-piped, both in terms of additional capacity required and the flow direction of crude and natural gas,” Monaco told investors and analysts at a company-sponsored symposium. “Enbridge is right in the middle of that transformation.”

• SolarWorld Says Unfair China Policies Rate Import Penalties (Bloomberg):
  U.S. solar-energy manufacturers led by SolarWorld AG (SWV) said they were forced to close plants and lay off workers because of unfair Chinese government policies, as they tried to persuade regulators that the U.S. should continue to impose penalties on imports from the Asian nation.

  Chinese exports of crystalline silicon photovoltaic cells and modules have flooded the global market, leading to a price collapse, Gordon Brinser, president of SolarWorld’s U.S. unit, said today at an International Trade Commission hearing in Washington…. “China’s massive government-funded solar capacity has caused this material injury,” Brinser said. “The import surge has been devastating to the U.S. industry.”

• Alaska-to-Asia natural gas pipeline plan timeline set (The Hill’s E2 Wire):
  The project would send Alaskan natural gas originally intended for the Lower 48 states to Japan and South Korea.
• California Gas Stations Begin to Shut on Record-High Prices (Bloomberg):
  Gasoline station owners in the Los Angeles area including Costco Wholesale Corp. (COST) are beginning to shut pumps because of supply shortages that have driven wholesale fuel prices to record highs.
• Exxon makes plans to drill near atomic waste dump in Arctic (Bloomberg):
  Exxon Mobil and its Russian partner Rosneft are taking steps to drill near the ocean-floor wasteland, eager to plumb an Arctic region estimated to hold enough crude to supply the world for five years. They’ve sidestepped environmental groups’ calls for a clean-up prior to exploration of the area off Russia’s northern coast, where Soviet ships dumped worn-out reactors and 17,000 containers of radioactive waste.
• ‘Hundreds of problems’ at EU nuclear plants (BBC):
  Hundreds of problems have been found at European nuclear plants that would cost 25bn euros (£20bn) to fix, says a leaked draft report.
• Ocean acidification emerges as new climate threat (Washington Post):
  Kris Holderied, who directs the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Kasitsna Bay Laboratory, says the ocean’s increasing acidity is “the reason fishermen stop me in the grocery store.”

  “They say, ‘You’re with the NOAA lab, what are you doing on ocean acidification?’ ” Holderied said. “This is a coastal town that depends on this ocean, and this bay.”

• Freaked-out climate scientists urge other freaked-out climate scientists to speak up, fight Man (Grist) [emphasis added]:
  In other words: We either give up economic growth voluntarily for a little while or suffer a climate that will reverse economic growth long-term.
• Republican Meteorologist to Mitt Romney: My Top Ten Reasons for Republicans to Accept Reality on the Climate (Huffington Post Green)

• Skeptical Science: Get the FULL DEBUNKING of ALL Climate Science Denier Arguments
• Report: Humans near tipping point that could dramatically change Earth (CS Monitor):
  Human activity is affecting Earth in many ways, but a new study suggests that continued population growth and its impact on climate and ecology could trigger a more profound chain reaction of effects within little more than a decade.
• 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.
• VIDEO ANIMATION: Time history of atmospheric CO2 (NOAA Carbon Tracker YouTube channel):
• VIDEO: Animation Charts Modern Global Warming (NYT Green)
• Thinking Big: NREL Study Shows 80 Percent Renewables Possible By 2050 (Climate Progress)
• 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.“