‘Green News Report’ – October 1, 2013

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Government Shutdown-palooza begins, and it affects a lot of ‘green’ stuff; It’s Yosemite National Park’s 123rd birthday – but Yosemite’s now closed, too; Florida sues Georgia over water; India to build world’s largest solar plant; PLUS: BP back in court over Gulf Oil Disaster … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): The real budget crisis: our ‘carbon budget’; Exploding Fuel Tankers Driving U.S. Army to Solar Power; NBC cancels show after NRA lobbyist shoots elephant in face, compares critics to Hitler; Fracking chemicals unknown, even to drillers; Billionaires Steyer, Paulson, and Bloomberg begin climate change campaign; NC man who made sea level rise disappear; Chile invests in tidal/wave power; FERC nominee Ron Binz withdraws amid coal pushback … PLUS: VIDEO: What our idyllic, non-dystopian future would look like if we fixed the world … and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Government Shutdown-Palooza:
• VIDEO: Obama: Government Shutdown Would Be ‘Height Of Irresponsibility,’ It’s ‘Entirely Preventable’, Monday 9/30/2013 (C-SPAN)
• VIDEO: President Obama Statement on Government Shutdown, Tuesday 10/1/2013 (C-SPAN)
• Yosemite National Park: Happy birthday! Too bad you’re shut down (LA Times)
• Government shutdown: NASA turns 55 – and turns out the lights (CS Monitor)
• U.S. shutdown idles 94 percent of EPA staff (Mother Nature News): EPA is being reduced to 6% of its workforce by a government shutdown, disrupting an array of services like pollution cleanup and public health research.
• EPA to be hit hard in shutdown, could delay renewable fuel standard (Reuters)
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency will take one of the biggest hits of any federal agency if the government shuts down this week, operating with under 7 percent of its employees, according to guidance issued by the agency.
• Oil futures drop while U.S. politicians continue battling over shutdown (Reuters)
• U.S. Geological Survey Office Braces For Potential Government Shutdown (Huffington Post Green)
• Recovering Colorado Turns to State Funds Amid Shutdown (Wall St. Journal)
• National Parks Roundup: Tourism Hit Feared (Wall St. Journal)
• Business and the Shutdown: The Oil Drilling Show Must Go On (Wall St. Journal)
• National Parks Will Close To The Public But Stay Open To Drilling If The Government Shuts Down (Climate Progress)
• BP Gulf Oil Spill Trial: Liability Phase Begins:
• BP oil spill trial: NOLA.com reporters cover it live from the courthouse (New Orleans Times-Picayune, NOLA.com)
• Second phase of BP trial over the 2010 Gulf oil spill focuses on flow rates, ‘top kills’ and ‘junk shots’ (NOLA.com)
• Environmental groups target BP as second phase of oil spill trial begins (NOLA.com)
• BP Tries To Argue Away Half The Oil It Spilled To Save Billions (Climate Progress):
  BP will argue its case against plaintiffs — including the federal government, multiple Gulf states and private claims seekers — who argue that BP “repeatedly lied to key decision makers about the flow rate of the well.”
• U.S. Water Wars: Florida vs. Georgia:
• Water War II: Florida sues Georgia (Atlanta Business Journal)
• Fla. asks US Supreme Court to stop Ga. water use (AP):
  Florida charged ahead Tuesday with a lawsuit against the state of Georgia that accuses its northern neighbor of consuming too much fresh water from a river system that serves three Southeastern states.
• India Announces World’s Largest Solar Power Plant:
• India’s Incoming Solar Power Plant Will Be Bigger Than the 10 Biggest in U.S. Combined (Motherboard):
  That’s way bigger than most nuclear and coal-fired power plants, and enough to power somewhere in the ballpark of 3 million American-style homes. It would also be about four times bigger than the ten biggest American solar plants combined.
• India To Set Up Ultra Mega Solar Power Plant — 4,000 MW Capacity (Clean Technica):
  The Indian government, in partnership with state-owned companies, is planning to set up the largest solar power plant in the world. The planned power project will have an installed capacity of 4,000 MW and will be located in the western state of Rajasthan.

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

• What Our Idyllic, Non-Dystopian Future Would Look Like If We Fixed the World (Motherboard/VICE):
  The book, The World We Made: Alex McKay’s Story from 2050, is told through the perspective of Alex, the non gender-specific protagonist living in the year 2050, reflecting on how the world came back from the brink of destruction. It’s due to come out next month.
• The Real Budget Crisis: ‘The CO2 Emissions Budget Framing Is A Recipe For Delaying Concrete Action Now’ (Climate Progress):
  The Washington establishment and the media have been mesmerized into inaction by a short-term budget crisis — funding the continued operation of the government. But it is the continued operation of a livable climate that should have their full attention.
• NBC cancels hunting show after NRA lobbyist shoots elephant in face, compares critics to Hitler (Treehugger)
• Fracking Chemicals May Be Unknown, Even To Gas Drillers, Lawsuit Documents Suggest (Huffington Post Green)
• Billionaires Unite!: Climate Change Rescue in U.S. Makes Steyer Converge With Paulson, Bloomberg (Bloomberg News)
• North Carolina: The man who made sea-level rise disappear: John Droz has notched a remarkable record fighting sea-rise science, coastal development limits and renewable energy plans. (Mother Nature Network)
• Exploding Fuel Tankers Driving U.S. Army to Solar Power (Bloomberg News);
  The U.S. Army is spending billions of dollars shifting toward solar energy, recycled water and better-insulated tents. The effort isn’t about saving the Earth. Instead, commanders have found they can save lives through energy conservation.
• Chile Funds Tidal/Wave Power Projects: (Bloomberg News)
• Obama FERC nominee Ron Binz withdraws amid coal pushback (Politico) [emphasis added]:
  “I think the implications of this fight are something worth pondering. If this kind of handling of a nomination becomes … the new normal, that’s going to make it a lot more difficult for good energy policy to grow,” he said. The career energy regulator and consultant said his record was “spun and respun” in an effort to show he was biased against coal and unfairly in favor of renewable power sources.“The caricature that they created had nothing to do with who I am and nothing to do with what I might’ve brought to FERC. It was just a blood sport,” he said.
• Internal Watchdog Confirms: GOP Probe Into EPA Emails Revealed Nothing (Climate Progress)
• No, the World Isn’t Cooling (Phil Plait, Slate)
• Faux Pause: Ocean Warming, Sea Level Rise And Polar Ice Melt Speed Up, Surface Warming To Follow (Climate Progress)
• Scientists as certain of climate change as they are that smoking kills (AP)
• Michael Mann: Climate-Change Deniers Must Stop Distorting the Evidence (Op-Ed) (Live Science)
• Good news! Around the world, mines, dams, and coal export terminals are losing. (On Earth Magazine):
  David 5, Goliath 0 (and Counting): Love the underdog? Well, get this: people around the globe are going up against Big Oil and Big Mining-and winning.
• Flame retardants banned years ago finally declining in women (Environmental Health News
• VIDEO: ‘Green Tea Coalition’ Fights for Solar in Georgia (The BRAD BLOG):
  [P]erhaps we can forgive Fox needing to find some way to save face here, but wouldn’t “Joining environmentalists to advance Tea Party values” have been equally as accurate, if not more so?
• North Carolina Returns EPA Grant To Study Fracking’s Effects On Streams And Wetlands (Climate Progress)

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).