‘Green News Report’ – June 27, 2013

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Brace for impact: Record extreme heat on the way for U.S.; Australia’s Prime Minister pays political price for carbon tax; Deadly chemical plant explosions brought to you by the chemical industry; Fracking studies say fracking causes water pollution; PLUS: MA’s climate hawk Ed Markey heads to the U.S. Senate … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): BP challenges Gulf spill payouts; 20% of households generate 50% of carbon pollution; Conservative media fabricate numbers on future carbon standards; New VW gets 78mpg; Prof invents machine that eats CO2 out of the air; Maine’s Republican governor vetoes climate change adaptation plan; Decoding Obama’s cryptic Keystone XL comments; Your body wash microbeads polluting Great Lakes; Obama’s climate action to boost jobs, economy; Marines push front lines of portable renewables … PLUS: “Failure is not an option” on climate, says astronaut-turned-NASA Administrator … and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Josh Fox Talks Fracking & Gasland 2 on the Daily Show
  • Bombshell Study Finds Drinking Water Near Fracking Wells Contaminated With Methane (Climate Progress)
  • Study links fracking to drinking water pollution (Grist)
  • Josh Fox: Fracked Gas Isn’t a Bridge Fuel—It’s a Gangplank (EcoWatch)
  • VIDEO: Josh Fox, Fracking & Gasland 2 (Daily Show)
  
  

• Record Heat Wave for U.S. Southwest:
• Heat Wave May Threaten World’s Hottest Temp. Record (Climate Central):
  A brutal and potentially historic heat wave is in store for the West as parts of Nevada, Arizona and California may get dangerously hot temperatures starting Thursday and lasting through next week. In fact, by the end of the heat wave, we may see a record tied or broken for the hottest temperature ever recorded on Earth. The furnace-like heat is coming courtesy of a “stuck” weather pattern that is setting up across the U.S. and Canada.
  …
  Extreme weather events, from floods to drought to heat waves, are often associated with blocked or “stuck” weather patterns. Such features were present during the deadly Russian heat wave of 2010, the European heat wave of 2003, and more recently during Hurricane Sandy, and the Alaskan heat wave and related flooding in Canada, for example.
• Heat-related disasters? There’s a map for that (Grist)
• Arctic Warming, Blocking Patterns & Extreme Weather:
• Arctic Warming is Altering Weather Patterns: Study (Climate Central)
• Scientists underscore Obama’s concerns about climate change and severe weather (E & E News)
• Melting sea ice, wobbly jet stream seen as culprits in Alberta floods (Calgary Herald)
• Calgary floods trigger an oil spill and a mass evacuation (Grist)
• 2013 Monsoon Floods in Nepal and India: What happened and what could have been done? (ICI-Mod):
  While the world is waking up to the news of the horrific scale of the recent flood disaster in the Mahakali basin of Nepal and Uttarakhand in India, several questions are being asked: what kind of climatic events led to this disaster? Could anything have been done to reduce the loss of life and property? What can we learn from this disaster for the future?
• Megadrought in U.S. Southwest: A Bad Omen for Forests Globally (Yale e360)
• UK: Millions in spending boost for new flood defences (Guardian UK):
  Figure for 2015-16 is an almost 50% increase compared with this year, with government pledging to increase sum in line with inflation until 2021
• Fracking Studies Show Fracking Causing Methane Water Contamination:
• The Growing Evidence of the Threat of Fracking to the Nation’s Groundwater (Peter Gleick, National Geographic)
• EPA abandons study that linked fracking, Wyoming water pollution (The Hill’s e2 Wire):
  The EPA said it will not complete or seek peer review of a 2011 draft study, which found that groundwater pollution in the Pavillion, Wyo., area was consistent with chemicals used in gas production. The EPA said it stands by its work but that it would now support further study led by the state of Wyoming.
• New Duke study bolsters finding of water contamination from drilling (E & E News)
• Fracking payouts ‘no compensation’ (BBC):
  Proposed benefits packages for areas around fracking sites would “go nowhere near compensating” those affected, a Lancashire campaign group has said
• AUS Prime Minister Julia Gillard Ousted After Carbon Tax:
• Can Kevin Rudd protect Australia’s climate change crediblity? (Guardian UK): Climate policy faces an uncertain future after Julia Gillard’s departure, with carbon price for the chop if Tony Abbott is elected
• Julia Gillard ousted as Australia prime minister (Guardian UK)
• Carbon tax: Fresh fire but using Gillard’s ammo (Sydney Morning erald)
• Deadly Chemical Explosions Brought To You By Chemical Industry:
• Probe of Texas fertilizer plant blast finds industry under lax regulation (CBS News) [emphasis added]:
  A federal agency investigating a deadly explosion at a Texas fertilizer plant told a Senate committee Thursday that regulation of the dangerous chemicals used in the industry fall under a “patchwork” of standards that are decades old and are far weaker than rules used by other countries.
  …
  The West Fertilizer Co. had no sprinkler systems, stored the chemical in wooden bins and did not report to local emergency responders the potential hazards of storing tons of ammonium nitrate because the law does not require them to do so, the report states.
• How many fertilizer plants are there in the United States? (Washington Post): [HINT: 6,044]
• Ed Markey, Climate Hawk, Moves To Senate:
• Climate Champion Ed Markey Wins Massachusetts Senate Race (Climate Progress):
  “first real ‘climate candidate.’”
• Markey, Obama are Climate Heroes; We Need Superheroes (Blue Mass Group)

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

• Protecting Planet Earth: Astronaut-turned-NASA Administrator: “Failure is not an option”: (NASA)
• NASA Image: “Failure Is Not An Option” (NASA.gov)
• BP oil spill: Oil giant challenges Gulf payments (CS Monitor):
  BP oil spill settlement payments are being aggressively contested by London-based BP. The company may seek to recover what BP calls ‘overpayments’ that businesses received from the court-supervised settlement program for the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.
• The 21 Percent: One Fifth Of Households Generate Half The Carbon Pollution (Climate Progress):
  Even if every house on your block looks the same, there’s a good chance they’re emitting vastly different amounts of pollution, a new study published this week by Environmental Science and Technology found.
• Conservative Media Fabricate Numbers On Future Carbon Standards (Media Matters)
• This Climate Fix Might Be Decades Ahead Of Its Time (NPR)
• CANADA: First Nations Opposed to Pipeline Warn Enbridge Against Trespassing (Vancouver Sun):
  An alliance of six British Columbia first nations formed to oppose Enbridge’s proposed Northern Gateway pipeline is warning the company against trespassing in their traditional territories as Enrbidge seeks temporary permits for drilling and tree removal.
• Maine Governor (R) Vetoes Bill Moving State Toward Climate Change Adaptation (Climate Progress)
• The significance of Obama’s cryptic Keystone comments (David Roberts, Grist):
  Amidst [Obama’s] gnomic utterances, it is possible to find support for any number of interpretations. Naturally I have my own. First off, contrary to some of my more confident counterparts on both sides, I don’t think it tells us much of anything about whether Obama will approve the pipeline. After all, Keystone’s carbon impact has always been, and remains, a point of contention.
• The microbeads in your body wash are slowly filling the Great Lakes with plastic (Grist)
• Obama Climate Change Proposals Will Be Job-Boosters, Experts Say (Huffington Post Green) [emphasis added]:
  House Majority Leader John Boehner (R-Ohio) blasted the expected proposal as “absolutely crazy.” … Such assertions are “wildly overstated,” said Richard Revesz, the director of the Institute for Policy Integrity at New York University. He framed Boehner’s remark as the latest iteration of a “job-killer meme” that has surfaced frequently in recent years as Republicans have sought to drum up fears about Obama’s environmental efforts.“We hear often that large swaths of the economy will be wiped out due to one regulation or another,” Revesz said. “Fortunately, and not surprisingly, we don’t see those predictions coming true.”
• Marines Push to Front Lines in Renewable Energy Innovation (Yale e360):
  A backpack that generates electricity? A vest that cools you in a hot tent? As the U.S. military looks to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels, the Marine Corps is leading the way with cutting-edge technology and innovative devices.
• Record-breaking Volkswagen is more fuel-efficient than your hybrid (Grist):
  The new VW Passat TDI gets a whopping 78 mpg, making it more fuel-efficient than ANY [gas-burning] CAR EVER, including hybrids. How do you like them German apples?
• Goodbye, Miami (Rolling Stone):
  By century’s end, rising sea levels will turn the nation’s urban fantasyland into an American Atlantis. But long before the city is completely underwater, chaos will begin
• Climate change making insurers reassess natural disaster policy (Raw Story)
• Researchers study 18,000 hours of deep sea footage, find ocean seafloor is covered in trash (Treehugger)
• Major pipeline study upends Keystone XL battle (E & E News):
  Larger pipelines carrying heavy Canadian oil sands fuel are at no greater risk of a spill than those running conventional crude, the National Academy of Sciences concluded today in a study hotly anticipated by both camps in the long-running debate over Keystone XL.
• Volvo testing wireless, in-road charging system for EVs (Autoblog Green)

FOR MORE on Climate Science and Climate Change, go to our Green News Report: Essential Background Page