‘Green News Report’ – August 27, 2013

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Yosemite Rim Fire threatens San Francisco’s water & electricity; Extreme weather around the world from China to Australia; New civil rights issue emerges at 50th anniv. of March on Washington; Vermont nuclear plant to close!; Fox ‘News” amazing new ‘news’ source! PLUS: ‘Hurricane Marco Rubio’? A call to name hurricanes after climate change deniers … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): China: renewables set to dominate policy; BP Launches Massive PR Campaign To Demonize Oil Spill Victims; Carbon targets, carbon taxes, and the search for Archimedes’ lever; Quiet hurricane season to end?; Bottle-nose dolphin die-off; Wind turbines do not impact real estate values; Sea levels sharply rise; Fukushima faces prospect of hundreds of leaky tanks? … PLUS: Saudis offer Russia secret oil deal if it drops Syria … and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Fox News FAIL: Gee, suddenly they care about the ‘Farmers Almanac’:
• VIDEO: Fox News’ Forecast Comes From Farmers’ Almanac, The “Ouija Board Of Weather”
  Fox Uses Dubious Cold Weather Prediction To Cast Doubt On Climate Change (MediaMatters.org)
• VIDEO: How Accurate is the Farmer’s Almanac? (KOLO-TV Reno, NV):
  “To me, the farmer’s almanac is like the Ouija board of weather,” KOLO 8 News Now’s Chief Meteorologist, Chris Larson said. “They gave people a general idea of the season and the planting seasons, but in terms of today, it’s pretty ridiculous to look at the farmer’s almanac for any sort of accurate or short term or mid-term forecast.”
• Yosemite Rim Fire Threatens SF Power, Water:
• Get the Latest Updates on the Yosemite Rim Fire at CalFire (CA.gov)
• 9 Scary Facts About the Yosemite Fire: Just another wildfire? Nope. This one’s different. Here’s why. (Mother Jones)
• Yosemite Rim Fire is taste of things to come (New Scientist)
• Rim Fire near Yosemite: Threat to San Francisco water supply not over (CS Monitor): The continuing threat to the Hetch Hetchy Reservoir from the Rim Fire near Yosemite underscores the unusually high stakes surrounding the firefighting effort. Moreover, the danger won’t be over even after the fire is out, some experts say
• VIDEO: San Francisco Reservoir Pelted with Yosemite Fire’s Ash (Bloomberg)
• Federal budget to fight wildfires is depleted (Washington Post)
• Western Wildfires Tax Firefighting Resources, Push Spending Past $1 Billion (AP)
• VIDEO: In 90 Seconds: How Climate Change Fuels Wildfires (Mother Jones): Higher temperatures, prolonged drought, and fire suppression policy combine to make fires worse.
• Extreme Weather Around the World:
• July 2013: Earth’s 6th Warmest July on Record (Dr. Jeff Masters’ Weather Underground)
• Winter records melt for Sydney (Sydney Morning Herald)
• ‘Worst China floods for more than a century’ (BBC)
• Chinese, Russian leaders talk over phone again on flood control (NZ Week)
• Most of Manila left underwater as record storms sweep parts of Asia (E & E News)
• How extreme will future heatwaves be? Choose your own adventure (Guardian UK)
• Climate Change An Emerging Civil Rights Issue At 50th Anniversary March on Washington:
• VIDEO: Rev. Lennox Yearwood’s Call to Climate Action at the ‘Realize the Dream Rally and March’ (about :33 mins. in, C-SPAN.org)
• Climate Change An Emerging Civil Rights Issue: (Green For All):
  Remember Hurricane Katrina? The hurricane that leveled New Orleans showed that severe weather in low-income neighborhoods and communities of color is a matter of life and death….It’s not difficult to see how injustice and inequality played out during Hurricane Katrina….African-Americans living in L.A. are more than twice as likely to die in a heat wave as other residents in the city, thanks to an abundance of pavement and lack of shade, cars and air conditioning in neighborhoods with the fewest resources.
• Vermont WIN: Entergy To Close Vermont Yankee Nuclear Power Plant:
• Entergy to shut controversial Vermont nuclear plant (Reuters):
  Entergy Corp will shut the Vermont Yankee nuclear power plant, citing high costs tied to regulation and competition from cheap natural gas, bringing to an end a long battle with politicians and environmentalists seeking to close it…. [T]he closure raises new problems for the New England state, including how long it would take to clean up the site.
• VIDEO: Climate Name Change: Name Hurricanes After Climate Science Deniers! (350Action.org via Climate Progress):

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

• BP Launches Massive PR Campaign To Demonize Oil Spill Victims (DeSmogBlog)
• Carbon targets, carbon taxes, and the search for Archimedes’ lever (David Roberts, Grist)
• Renewables to dominate Chinese energy transformation (BusinessGreen):
  Bloomberg New Energy Finance study highlights dominant role of clean energy in booming Chinese market, predicts national carbon price of $16 a ton
• The Calm Before the Storm? Quiet August for Hurricanes (Climate Central)
• Saudis offer Russia secret oil deal if it drops Syria (Telegraph UK): Saudi Arabia has secretly offered Russia a sweeping deal to control the global oil market and safeguard Russia’s gas contracts, if the Kremlin backs away from the Assad regime in Syria.
• Die-off of bottle-nose dolphins, caused by virus, is worst in 25 years (Washington Post)
• On Alaska Listening Tour, EPA Administrator Gets An Earful From Both Sides Of The Pebble Mine Debate (Climate Progress):
  According to the EPA, the mine footprint itself will destroy between 24 and 90 miles of salmon streams, and normal mine operations will pollute dozens more miles of river habitat with two contaminants known to cause acute effects on salmon.
• No Evidence of Residential Property Value Impacts Near US Wind Turbines (Science Daily)
• New Climate Report: Sea Level Up Again After Sharp Decline (Discover Magazine):
  [I]t’s newsworthy because sea level actually declined sharply in 2011 — a point that climate change skeptics didn’t hesitate to emphasize. In fact, at least one accused scientists of trying to hide the decline. Now it looks like the decline (yes, we knew about it because it obviously wasn’t hidden) was linked to La Niña — which has since transitioned into neutral conditions in the Pacific.
• Tepco Faces 132 Olympic Pools Worth of Radioactive Water (Bloomberg)
• Documents show Canadian government tweaking (twerking?) its U.S. sales pitch (E & E News) [emphasis added]:
  Critics of KXL charged Oliver and other pipeline promoters with putting a false all-American spin on the project to lock down U.S. support. “This is a clear instance of the pro-Keystone XL camp telling Americans what it thinks they want to hear about the tar sands pipeline, whether it’s true or not,” Natural Resources Defense Council international program attorney Anthony Swift said via email.
• Has the Shale Bubble Already Burst? (OilPrice.com):
  Just like the famous Gold Rushes of the 19th century, US shale gas development is turning out to be a limited and regional market opportunity.
• Obama’s “All of the Above” Energy Means More Fracking, Renewables, Nukes and Clean Coal (Scientific American)
• Australia could achieve 100% renewable power by 2030 (TckTckTck)
• Science Denier: GOP Congressman Rokita Says It’s ‘Arrogant’ To Believe In Man-Made Climate Change (Climate Progress)
• Might as well face it, you’re addicted to oil (Smart Planet):
  America, we need to talk.
  Have a seat.
  Remember when President George W. Bush told you seven years ago that you’re addicted to oil?
  It’s time to get serious about your problem. So here’s a little tough love.
• Why So Many Conservatives Deny The Climate Problem: They Hate The Solution (Climate Progress):
  That’s it. That is the logic behind the pervasive view on climate change on the right: We don’t like the solutions to this problem, so we officially declare this not to be a problem.

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

• Video Proof That Global Warming is a ‘Hoax’!: NASA Temperature Data 1888-2011 (The BRAD BLOG):



• NASA climate change video: This is the U.S. in 2100 (NASA).