‘Green News Report’ – September 3, 2013

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Japanese government finally takes over Fukushima as radiation levels spike; Pacific Island nations beg U.N. to act on climate, John Kerry steps up to help; Sequestration cuts helped to spread massive Yosemite Rim fire; PLUS: Hitting the brakes: Americans are driving less than ever … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Drill next door: Here’s what it looks like when fracking moves in; Warming helping crop pests’ spread; Fox News wonders what’s eroding our beaches; Hunter shoots the first endangered wolf seen in Kentucky in 150 years; US government paid $17B for weather-related crop disasters last year; CNBC: Animals will “snuggle” under Keystone XL Pipeline; CT takes on wood furnaces; Lead poisoning killing wildlife; Pollution, not rising temperatures, may be melting the Alps; Dogs the newest scientific measuring equipment … PLUS: Scientists leave GOP due to attitudes toward science … and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Did Climate Change-Driven Drought Exacerbate Syrian Conflict?: (Hullabaloo):
  Syria has been convulsed by civil war since climate change came to Syria with a vengeance. Drought devastated the country from 2006 to 2011. Rainfall in most of the country fell below eight inches (20 cm) a year, the absolute minimum needed to sustain un-irrigated farming.
• Fukushima: Radiation levels 18 times higher than previously though, Japanese government takes overt:
• Japan to fund costly ice wall around Fukushima reactors to contain radioactive water leaks (Washington Post)
• Fukushima radiation levels ’18 times higher’ than thought (BBC) [emphasis added]:
  The Tokyo Electric Power Company (Tepco) had originally said the radiation emitted by the leaking water was around 100 millisieverts an hour. However, the company said the equipment used to make that recording could only read measurements of up to 100 millisieverts. The new recording, using a more sensitive device, showed a level of 1,800 millisieverts an hour. The new reading will have direct implications for radiation doses received by workers who spent several days trying to stop the leak last week.
• VIDEO: Govt. sets policy to tackle Fukushima leak (NHK English)
• Japan government abandons hands-off approach to Fukushima clean-up (Reuters)
• Fukushima Leaks Prompt Government to ‘Emergency Measures’ (Bloomberg)
• Eating Fish From The Pacific Ocean Won’t Turn You Into A Mutant (Climate Progress)
• U.S. Nuke Plants Fail Security Tests:
• NRC spots problem during nuclear power plant safety drill (Pittsburgh Tribune-Review)
• Report: Nuclear Received 4 Times More Subsidies Than Solar in CA (GreenTech Media)
• Pacific Island Nations Urge U.N. to Act on Climate Change:
• Climate science ‘irrefutable’ says Kerry, as Pacific islands urge action (Al Jazeera America): US secretary of state bolsters case for curbing emissions on eve of Pacific Islands Forum to address rising sea levels
• VIDEO: Secretary Kerry address to the Pacific Islands Forum (PIF) on climate change (US Embassy Majuro)
• Transcript: US Secretary of State John Kerry’s speech delivered at the Pacific Islands Forum Climate Change Roundtable in the Majuro, Marshall Islands (Islands Business News)
• Yosemite Rim Fire: Sequestration Cuts Partly To Blame For Rapid Spread:
• Federal cuts blamed over Yosemite wildfire spread (Al Jazeera America):
  A cluster of controlled fire and tree-thinning projects approved by forestry officials but never funded might have slowed the progress of the massive wildfire in California, a wide range of critics said this weekend.
• How We Can Avoid More Catastrophic Wildfires Like the Inferno in Yosemite: Catastrophic fires are emblematic of our troubled relationship with nature. (Alternet)
• How Journalists Should Really Cover Wildfires: with historically informed stories contextualizing fires across time and space. (KCET)
• Rim fire: Pot-growing operation near Yosemite may have sparked blaze (LA Times)
• Americans Are Driving Less:
• Americans Are Driving Less In Nearly Every State (Climate Progress)
• Electric Car Sales Pass Gas Stations For The First Time (CleanTechnica)

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

• Scientists leave GOP due to attitudes toward science (Salt Lake Tribune) [emphasis added]
  Do the Republicans drive away researchers tackling the world’s key scientific problems?
  Scientists used to be well represented among the nearly half of Americans who voted Republican. But that’s changed over the years, and one poll found that just 6 percent of scientists call themselves part of the GOP now. What happened?
• PHOTOS: Drill next door: Here’s what it looks like when fracking moves in (Grist):
  [I]t was a surprise to suddenly find a 142-foot-tall drill rig in the backyard, parked in the narrow strip of land between there and the next subdivision to the east. It had appeared in the two days we’d been gone.
• VIDEO: Fox Wonders What’s Eroding Our Beaches (Media Matters)
• Hunter shoots the first endangered wolf seen in Kentucky in 150 years (Grist)
• VIDEO: CNBC Host Believes Animals Will “Snuggle” Under Keystone Pipeline (Media Matters): But An Expert Explains How Pipeline “Would Be A Disaster For Wildlife

(Media Matters)

• Warming helps crop pests spread: (Reuters):
  Crop-damaging pests are moving towards the poles at a rate of more than 25 km (16 miles) a decade, aided by global warming and human transport, posing a potential threat to world food security, a study showed on Sunday.
• US government paid $17 billion for weather-related crop disasters last year: (Grist):
  Desiccated corn and sun-scorched soybeans have been in high supply lately — and we’re paying through the nose for them. The federal government forked out a record-breaking $17.3 billion last year to compensate farmers for weather-related crop losses-more than four times the annual average over the last decade.
• Opinion: We stand on the precipice of change (Daily Climate) [emphasis added]:
  Dr. King’s key insight is not just that outright oppressors never give up their advantages willingly, but also that moderates never advocate any direct, non-violent, attack on the status quo because they are actually satisfied with it.
  …
  Thomas Jefferson thought that 15 percent of the general population was the number needed for accomplishing significant transformation. If he was correct, this may represent a tipping point. We may be on the precipice of major change.
• Fracking in TX: Seen as the future, also viewed with fear: (Al Jazeera America):
  The Eagle Ford shale geological formation unfurls through the lower third of Texas, stretching 400 miles long and 50 miles wide from East Texas to Mexico, from Brazos County northeast of Houston to the Burgos Basin just over the border.
• Out of Sight: Carcinogenic chemical spreads beneath Michigan town: (Environmental Health News):
  The small Michigan town of Mancelona is the site of one of the nation’s largest underground plumes of the toxic industrial solvent trichloroethylene. Wells dug to supply uncontaminated water are now themselves threatened.
• Connecticut takes on wood furnaces: (Danbury News Times):
  For years, the advocacy group Environment and Human Health Inc. has led the battle against outdoor wood furnaces, claiming their smoke is bad to breathe. Now it has an ally — Attorney General George Jepsen.
• Lead poisoning killing loons, necropsies show: (Portland Press Herald):
  A loon was beached on Cobbossee Lake in Winthrop, Maine, a maggot-filled wing wound keeping it from flying or resisting capture from a game warden.
• Pollution, not rising temperatures, may have melted Alpine glaciers: (NPR):
  Glaciers in the Alps of Europe pose a scientific mystery. They started melting rapidly back in the 1860s. In a span of about 50 years, some of the biggest glaciers had retreated more than half a mile.
• The latest in scientific field equipment: Fido’s nose: (Oregon Public Broadcasting):
  Conservation biologists have successfully trained dogs to use their sharp sense of smell to help in a variety of conservation tasks.
• Who distrusts whom about what in the climate science debate? (Cultural Cognition Project, Yale Law School):
  1. Members of the public do trust scientists.

  2. Members of culturally opposing groups distrust each other when they perceive their status is at risk in debates over public policy.

  3. When facts become entangled in cultural status conflicts, members of opposing groups (all of whom do trust scientists) will form divergent perceptions of what scientists believe.

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).