‘Green News Report’ – February 18, 2014

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Obama’s plan to keep on truckin’…with much less oil; Secretary of State John Kerry goes ‘weapons grade’ on climate change; PLUS: It’s GNR’s 5th anniversary! So to celebrate, the Sunday network news shows all finally covered climate change — really badly… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Fracking boom spews toxic air emissions on Texas residents; CA city fights ‘environmental racism’; NC coal ash spill found 70 mi. downstream; Gov. McCrory denies involvement in Duke Energy sweetheart deal; Brazil: land disputes escalate over illegal mining; BP Oil Spill giving tuna heart disease; Arctic on track to warm 23 degrees F … PLUS: Michigan: Vast Spill Of Liquid Manure Hidden Under Snow … and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Networks Befuddle ‘While England Drowns, and Australia Burns, and California Dies of Thirst’: After year-long drought in coverage, Sunday ‘news’ shows add more heat than light to rising tide of global warming-related disasters… (The BRAD BLOG)
• Sunday shows’ climate disgrace: Cluelessness and false balance could cost lives (Salon): From using the wrong words, to hosting the wrong people, to questioning science, these shows are doing real damage
• Sunday News Shows FINALLY Cover Climate Change:
• Sunday Shows’ Climate Coverage Shows Media Vulnerability (Media Matters) [emphasis added]:
  The science of global warming is settled: according to one survey, 97 percent of climate scientists agree that climate change is real and that “humans are causing global warming.” But the Sunday shows, because they are built on a model of showing political conflicts, have difficulty putting that fact in context.
• In Debate With Bill Nye, Congresswoman Says Climate Policy Must Consider ‘Benefits Of Carbon’ (Climate Progress)
• VIDEO: Fox News Discusses Climate Change. Insanity Ensues. (Climate Progress)



• VIDEO: ABC ‘This Week’: Extreme Weather Panel (ABC News)
• VIDEO: Are Calif. drought, harsh winter weather due to climate change? (CBS News)
• VIDEO: Marsha Blackburn Clashes with Bill Nye, David Gregory About Climate Change (NBC News)



• Viewers Guide to David Gregory’s “Hey, I’m self-aware…” segment on climate change. (PressThink):
  Having ignored the debate, Meet the Press figured it would step in and advance the debate. But in order to push back, as David Gregory self-consciously planned to do, you had to have someone pushing, first. You needed as a Meet the Press guest a figure whose way of flirting with denialism was to go there on camera: a show off. Only against that ground could Gregory show up as a figure of resistance.
• Obama Tightens Fuel Efficiency & Emissions Standards For Heavy Trucks:
• Why Obama’s New Fuel Standards For Big Trucks Matter (Climate Progress)
• Obama to announce plan to tighten truck fuel standards (USA Today)
• FACT SHEET: Opportunity For All: Improving the Fuel Efficiency of American Trucks (WhiteHouse.gov): Bolstering Energy Security, Cutting Carbon Pollution, Saving Money and Supporting Manufacturing Innovation
• Obama Proposes ‘Climate Resilience Fund’ Amid Historic CA Drought:
• VIDEO: In drought-ravaged Calif, Obama talks preparation for climate change (CS Monitor):
  Speaking on water needs in California, President Barack Obama said the US must plan ahead for weather-related disasters. He announced $160 million in federal financial aid, which will cover loss of livestock and help families affected by water shortages.
• Failure to prepare for extreme weather costs billions (USA Today) [emphasis added]:
  Failing to prepare for extreme weather events has cost the United States $1.15 trillion in economic losses from 1980 to 2010 and could cost another trillion in coming years, a Department of Homeland Security official told a Senate panel Wednesday.
• GAO Report: Extreme Weather Events: The Costs of Not Being Prepared [pdf] (Government Accountability Office)
• Record Number of Billion-Dollar Disasters Globally in 2013 (Climate Central)
• U.S.-China Joint Statement on Climate Change (US State Department)
• Newt Gingrich Misspells John Kerry’s Name In Twitter Rant Calling For His Resignation (Talking Points Memo)
• Sec. John Kerry Bluntly Calls Climate Change A “Weapon of Mass Destruction”:
• Kerry calls climate change a weapon of mass destruction, derides skeptics (Washington Post)
• John Kerry Calls Climate Change ‘World’s Most Fearsome’ Weapon Of Mass Destruction (Climate Progress):
  Well, since the costs of addressing climate change “are far less” than the cost of inaction — and since fossil fuel combustion is the primary cause of climate change — it seems pretty self-evident that the cheapest climate strategy is to leave the dirtiest pools of carbon in the ground. And there aren’t many bigger, dirtier pools of carbon than the Canadian tar sands.
• Transcript: Sec. of State John Kerry Remarks on Climate Change (US State Department) [emphasis added]:
  [W]hen they tell us over and over again that our climate is changing, that it is happening faster than they ever predicted, ever in recorded history, and when they tell us that we humans are the significant cause, let me tell you something: We need to listen. When 97 percent of scientists agree on anything, we need to listen, and we need to respond…And they agree that, if we continue to go down the same path that we are going down today, the world as we know it will change – and it will change dramatically for the worse.
• On Keystone XL, John Kerry, and the global interest (Climate Science Watch):
  If the U.S. ‘national interest’ is in pushing short-term fossil fuel industry interests in its dealings with the rest of the world, then the ‘national interest’ and the global interest are not the same.
• How the U.S. Exports Global Warming (Rolling Stone)

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

• California city wages war against ‘environmental racism’ (Al Jazeera America)
• NC Coal Ash Spill: Gov. McCrory Denies Duke Coal Ash Deal Involvement (AP) [emphasis added]:
  North Carolina’s top environmental official says he briefed Gov. Pat McCrory about a negotiated settlement with Duke Energy that would have fined the $50 billion corporation $99,000 to resolve violations for groundwater contamination leaching from two huge coal ash dumps.
• Coal Ash Lines River 70 Miles From NC Spill Site (AP)
• Brazil land disputes spread as Indians take on wildcat miners (Reuters)
• BP’s oil spill pollution causing heart problems in tuna (AFP) [emphasis added]:
  The reason people have more heart attacks when air pollution levels rise may have been revealed by a study on the impact of the BP oil spill on tuna, scientists said Thursday….They collected oil samples and young fish from the site and studied the impact of both fresh and ‘weathered’ oil on the fish heart muscles.

  The researchers found that chemicals in the oil blocked the potassium and calcium channels that regulate heart rate and rhythm.

• Fracking Boom Spews Toxic Air Emissions on Texas Residents (InsideClimate News): Eight-month investigation reveals that the Texas State Legislature is more intent on protecting the industry than protecting residents’ health
• VIDEO: Oklahoma Earthquake Swarm on ‘The Rachel Maddow Show’ (State Impact Oklahoma):
  “[W]hen the Dallas/Fort Worth Airport needed to stop its earthquake spike a few years ago, they temporarily shut down the wells that were injecting fracking fluid into the ground at high pressure on the airport property, and lo and behold those earthquakes stopped.”
• Oklahoma’s Earthquake ‘Swarm’ in One Chart (State Impact Oklahoma)
• Fracking Boom Spews Toxic Air Emissions on Texas Residents (Climate Science Watch)
• Lawmakers divided on their role in export debate (E & E News) [emphasis added]:
  Larsen was questioning activists’ and lawmakers’ wanting to use the coal export debate to discuss related issues — mainly whether more coal shipments will make it tougher for governments to deal with climate change and carbon dioxide pollution.
• Billionaire Tom Steyer Plans To Drop Serious Cash To Pressure Lawmakers On Climate Change (Talking Points Memo)
• Energy industry sides with GOP incumbents in open Senate races (E & E News):
  Energy industry donors made significant investments in the re-election bids of both Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) and Sen. Mary Landrieu (D-La.) during the final months of 2013, while also opening their checkbooks to boost a trio of Republicans seeking seats where veteran Democratic senators are retiring.
• Arctic Autumns On Track To Warm A Staggering 23°F, NOAA Warns (Climate Progress)
• Oil well blowout in North Dakota out of control, leaking (Reuters)
• Keystone XL: Kerry’s State Department Ignored Obama’s Climate Action Plan (Price of Oil) [emphasis added]:
  In fact, all of the scenarios used by the State Department result in emissions that put us on a path to 6 degrees C (11 F) of global warming according to the International Energy Agency (IEA). IEA Chief Economist Fatih Birol described 6 degrees as nothing short of “a catastrophe for all of us.”
• Michigan: Vast Spill Of Liquid Manure Hidden Under Snow (Talking Points Memo):
  The valve failure resulted in a plume of what is thought to be pure liquid cow manure spreading through county waterways toward the Rabbit River, at least five miles, toward the village of Hopkins.
• New York, California move to ban beauty products containing microbeads (Grist): The microscopic balls of hard plastic flow down drains, get into rivers and oceans, and enter the food chain.
• US scientists achieve ‘turning point’ in fusion energy quest (Reuters):
  U.S. scientists announced on Wednesday an important milestone in the costly, decades-old quest to develop fusion energy, which, if harnessed successfully, promises a nearly inexhaustible energy source for future generations.
• Economist Says Best Climate Fix A Tough Sell, But Worth It (NPR) [emphasis added]:
  If people would simply pay the cost of using the atmosphere as a dump for carbon dioxide, that would create a powerful incentive to dump less and invest in cleaner ways to generate energy. But how do you do that? “We need to put a price on carbon, so that when anyone, anywhere, anytime does something that puts carbon dioxide in the atmosphere, there’s a price tag on that,” he says.

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).