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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: They'd like to get their lives back: 3rd anniversary of BP's Oil Disaster in the Gulf; EPA victory over mountaintop removal coal mining; EPA slams State Dept's Keystone XL report; PLUS: Free at last: environmental activist Tim de Christopher freed - on Earth Day ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): America now has more solar energy workers than coal miners; Earth's cooling came to sudden halt in 1900; '800 Love Canals' remain; Jewell: 'One size doesn't fit all' on fracking; Denier myth: ‘Climate Change’ vs. ‘Global Warming’; Denying sea-level rise divides NC; Sichuan earthquake's threat to China's dams; WA: How Boeing killed water quality standards; TX fertilizer blast raises national security questions; EPA powerless over toxic flame retardant chemicals ... PLUS: Reality Gap: Americans clueless about global scientific consensus on human-caused climate change ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

• The Fossil Fuel Industry Tool Who Told You the BP Deepwater Horizon Disaster Wouldn't Happen: Steven F. Hayward and the 3rd anniversary of an historic failure... (The BRAD BLOG)
• Kind Of A Big Deal: EPA Slams State Dept's Keystone XL Pipeline Report:
• How much does EPA’s objection to Keystone XL matter? A lot. (Washington Post)
• EPA Wants State Dept. To Rework Analysis of Keystone XL Pipeline (Washington Post)
• EPA Releases Harsh Revioew of State KXL Environmental Report: (LA Times):
  
  The Environmental Protection Agency issued a sharply critical assessment of the State Department's recent environmental impact review of the controversial Keystone XL pipeline, certain to complicate efforts to win approval for the $7-billion project.

• Keystone Public Comments Won't Be Made Public, State Department Says (InsideClimate News, 3/25/13)
• How is the Keystone XL Protest Affecting the Broader Climate Movement? (Natural Capital)
• ANALYSIS: KXL: Better Know Your NEPA (Elana Schor)
• ANALYSIS: Oil-by-train may not be substitute for Keystone pipeline (Reuters)
• More than One Million Strong Against Keystone XL (Natl Wildlife Federation)
• EPA's Major Court Victory Over Mountaintop Removal Coal Mining:
• MTR: Appeals court backs EPA veto of Spruce Mine (WV Gazette):
  
  Coal industry officials and coalfield politicians have argued that EPA did not have the legal power to veto the Spruce Mine permit after it was issued. Their complaints about EPA's veto have been at the heart of their campaign to paint EPA as a rogue agency carrying out an illegal effort to destroy the Appalachian coal industry.
• Court backs EPA veto of mountaintop mining project: The appeals court remanded the case back to the federal district court to decide whether the EPA’s action was a violation of the Administrative Procedure Act... (The Hill's e2 Wire)
• Tim DeChristopher: Free At Last, Ironically on EARTH DAY:
• LISTEN: Brad's interview with Tim DeChristopher before his 2-yr prison sentence (The BRAD BLOG)
• VIDEO: Earth Day Exclusive: Tim DeChristopher Speaks Out After 21 Months in Prison for Disrupting Oil Bid (Democracy Now!) [emphasis added]:
  
  DeChristopher posed as a bidder, won drilling lease rights to 22,000 acres of land in an attempt to save the property from oil and gas extraction. The auction itself was later overturned and declared illegal, a fact that Tim’s defense attorneys were prevented from telling the jury. They were also barred from informing jurors that Tim had raised the money for the initial payment to the Bureau of Land Management, a payment the BLM refused to accept.
• A Dangerous Man: Tim DeChristopher Now Loose (Climate Crocks)
• VIDEO: Bidder 70 Film Trailer (Gathr Films YouTube Channel)




• BP Oil Disaster: 3rd Anniversary:
• The BP oil disaster: Three years later (Environmental Defense Fund) [emphasis added]:
  
  “Three years after the Gulf was inundated with BP oil, the wildlife, habitats and people of the Gulf are still feeling the effects of the disaster,” [National Wildlife Federation’s David] Muth said. “In 2012 alone, some 6 million pounds of BP oil was collected from Louisiana’s shorelines and 200 miles of coast remain oiled. We can’t allow BP off the hook for anything less than justice requires—a full payment for its recklessness so that real restoration of the Gulf’s ecosystem and economy can begin.”
• Full coverage on the ongoing BP Trial from the New Orleans Times-Picayune (NOLA.com)
• The Spilling Fields: How BP Made The Gulf Oil Disaster More Toxic While Covering It Up (Climate Progress)
• What BP Doesn’t Want You to Know About the 2010 Gulf Spill: The 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill was even worse than BP wanted us to know. (Daily Beast):
  
  Within days, the 32-year-old single mother was coughing up blood and suffering constant headaches. She lost her voice. “My throat felt like I’d swallowed razor blades,” she says.
• Florida Sues BP Over Gulf Oil Spill (NY Times)
• AUDIO: Louisiana Public Broadcasting Presents: "Louisiana Coastal Concerns: BP & Beyond" (Louisiana Public Radio)
• BP oil spill trial continues as demonstrators note upcoming 3-year anniversary of disaster (NOLA.com)
• New BP Data Show 20% of Offshore Responders Exposed to Chemical That Sickened Valdez Workers (NY Times)

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

• Closing the Consensus Gap on Climate Change (John Cook, Weather Underground):
  
  How many climate scientists agree that humans are causing global warming? If you asked the average person on the street, the response might surprise you. On average, the general public think less than half of climate scientists agree that humans are causing global warming. The reality is 97%. There is a huge gap between public perception of the scientific consensus on human-caused global warming and reality.
• How Americans see global warming — in 8 charts (Washington Post)
• Earth's cooling came to sudden halt in 1900, study shows (CS Monitor): An international study used tree rings and pollen to build the first record of global climate change, continent by continent, over 2,000 years.
• America now has more solar energy workers than coal miners (Treehugger):
  
  [There are] more solar energy workers in Texas than ranchers, that solar workers outnumber actors in California, and that across the whole 50 states, there are more solar workers than coal miners.
• New Interior chief Jewell: 'One size doesn't fit all' on fracking (The Hill's e2 Wire)
• Debunking The Dumbest Denier Myth (Again): ‘Climate Change’ Vs. ‘Global Warming’ (Climate Progress) [emphasis added]:
  
  [The] switch was championed by the GOP’s spinmaster, Frank Luntz, who, as it turns out, also championed switching from ‘global warming’ to ‘climate change’ in 2003. Scientists, environmentalists, progressives, and frankly the whole darn planet have always used both terms — hence the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, established in 1988.
• Denying sea-level rise: How 100 centimeters divided the state of North Carolina (Earth Magazine)
• EPA probes flame retardants but lacks power to ban (Chicago Tribune):
  
  As the Obama administration launches a broad investigation of flame retardants used in furniture and other household goods, the nation's top environmental regulators are running into the limitations of a federal law that makes it practically impossible to ban hazardous chemicals.
• 800 Love Canals: Toxic legacy's time bomb (Buffalo News):
  
  Nearly 800 hazardous waste sites are located in Erie, Niagara and Cattaraugus counties, and the majority of them are a threat to the largest source of fresh water in the world --- the Great Lakes.
• Sichuan quake highlights threat to China's dams (New Scientist) [emphasis added]:
  
  It's too early to know whether reservoir-building contributed to last week's quake. Of more immediate concern is the damage to dams and reservoirs, says Mian Liu of the University of Missouri in Columbia. According to the Ministry of Water Resources, two medium-sized and 52 small dams were damaged, with residents evacuated downstream of five of them.
• Less rainfall expected for the Hawaiian Islands (Eureka Alert)
• WA State: How Boeing, allies torpedoed state’s rules on toxic fish (Investigate West):
  
  Boeing asked to delay the process last year and allow more discussion because the company believed it would result in pollution limits that were “not economically viable, not technically feasible, and there’s questionable environmental benefit as well,” said Terry Mutter, Boeing’s director of environmental strategy.
• "Clout": What does an obscure Alaska road project say about Obama’s clout? (The Ticket, Yahoo News)
• West Fertilizer blast raises questions about ammonia plants in Iowa (USA Today)
• Report on U.S. Meat Sounds Alarm on Resistant Bacteria (NY Times):
  
  More than half of samples of ground turkey, pork chops and ground beef collected from supermarkets for testing by the federal government contained a bacteria resistant to antibiotics, according to a new report highlighting the findings.
• New Study Shows Once Again How "Climategate" Emails Were Distorted (Media Matters):
  
  [A] recent study re-confirms what that scientist was actually saying --- that much of recent heat has been trapped deep in the ocean.
• How Far Can Climate Change Go?: (Scientific American) [emphasis added]:
  
  How far can we push the planet?

• COVER STORY: It's Global Warming, Stupid (Businessweek):
  
  If all that doesn't impress, forget the scientists ostensibly devoted to advancing knowledge and saving lives. Listen instead to corporate insurers committed to compiling statistics for profit.
• Ocean Acidification: Animals are already dissolving in Southern Ocean (New Scientist)
• Global warming targets further out of reach, UN says (Phys.org):
  
  Based on current pledges, global average temperatures could rise by 3 to 5 degrees Celsius (5.4 to 9.0 degrees Fahrenheit) this century --- way above the two degrees Celsius being targeted, said a UN Environment Programme (UNEP) report.

• Skeptical Science: Get the FULL DEBUNKING of ALL Climate Science Denier Arguments
• 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)
• 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. ...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)
• 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 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)
• The Real Global Warming Signal (Tamino)

                 

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