‘Green News Report’ – March 25, 2014

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Deadly — and predicted — landslide disaster in Washington State; Meet the nation’s newest oil spill, now in Galveston Bay; Air pollution from fossil fuels kills 7 million people a year; PLUS: The never-ending legacy of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, 25 years later… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Plane search hampered by ocean garbage problem; BP oil causing fish deformities; Wind and Solar Harvest Enough Energy Now to Pay Back Manufacture Plus Add Storage; Global warming has not stopped, will go on for centuries; Kids living near big roads have higher cancer rates; Does US oil boom mean more oil spills?; WI towns fight to control local frac sand mining; Los Alamos nuclear storage accident diverts waste to Texas; Global energy demand vs. agriculture for water supplies … PLUS: Warming Is Big Risk For People: ‘the polar bear is us’ … and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Washington State Landslide Predicted in 1999:
• Rescuers scour Washington state mudslide rubble; toll expected to rise (Reuters)
• Risk of slide ‘unforeseen’? Warnings go back decades (Seattle Times):
  “We’ve known it would happen at some point,” he told The Seattle Times on Monday. “We just didn’t know when.”
• WA Landslide Predicted In 1999: The Liquid Earth (The Atlantic, January 1999):
  Landslides and other “ground failures” cost more lives and more money each year than all other natural disasters combined, and their incidence appears to be rising. Nevertheless, the government devotes few resources to their study — and the foolhardy continue to build and live in places likely to be consumed one day by avalanches of mud.
• What Climate Change Could Mean for Northwest Landslides (EarthFix, Oregon Public Broadcasting)
• Landslide Kills 8 People In Washington As Climate Change Makes Them More Likely In The Future (Climate Progress)
• Exxon Valdez Oil Still Impacting Alaska 25 Years Later:
• AUDIO: The Lingering Legacy Of The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill (NPR)
• Exxon Spill – 25 Years of Tears (Shannyn Moore, Just A Girl From Homer) [emphasis added]:
  Meanwhile, dozens of Alaskans, displaced from their identity, committed suicide while waiting for justice.

  You know why? Oil rules. It’s bigger than governments. For all the nut-jobs hoarding Mormon food and bullets talking about the “New World Order”? It’s here. It’s called Big Oil. It’s why countries are invaded, wars are waged and media pretends it isn’t happening.

• 25 years later, oil spilled from Exxon Valdez still clings to lives, Alaska habitat (Anchorage Daily News)
• PHOTOS: 25 Years Later, A Heartbreaking Look Back At Exxon’s Alaska Oil Spill (Climate Progress)
• 25 years after Exxon Valdez, oil spills ain’t what they used to be (Grist):
  [T]he main legacy that environmentalists produced in the wake of the Exxon Valdez was 1990’s Oil Pollution Act. The act set up a structure for oil spill response (mostly, local fishermen trained to respond to oil spills by using air quality equipment, booms, and skimmers) and an Oil Spill Liability Trust Fund, which can provide up to $1 billion worth of cleanup for any “oil liability incident.”
• Exxon Valdez Oil Spill Litigation Update: 1990-2011 (Faeger Baker Daniels Law Firm)
• Eight years after Exxon settlement, some seek $100 million from ‘reopener’ clause (Alaska Dispatch)
• Galveston Bay Oil Spill Already Impacting Texas Economy:
• Dike, ports closed after barge collides with ship (Galveston County Daily News):
  The two vessels collided about 12:30 p.m. at the intersection of the Texas Ship Channel, the Intracoastal Waterway and Houston Ship Channel. Coast Guard officials declined to say whether one vessel struck the other, saying the investigation was in its early stages. They would not say whether fog contributed to the accident.
• Houston ship lane remains shut as cleanup drags on; Exxon cuts output (Reuters)
• Galveston Bay Oil Spill: Wildlife Damage Expected to Get ‘Much Worse’ (Weather Channel)
• Oil Spill Shuts 10% of Refining Capacity (Environmental Leader)
• Fox News: Galveston Bay Oil Spill Is ‘A Distraction’:
• VIDEO: Fox Uses Galveston Bay Oil Spill To Push For Keystone XL Pipeline (Media Matters)
• W.H.O.: Air Pollution Kills 7 Million A Year Worldwide:
• Polluted air linked to 7 million deaths in 2012 : WHO (Reuters):
  Air pollution deaths are most commonly from heart disease, strokes or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease. It is also linked to deaths from lung cancer and acute respiratory infections.
• Air Pollution Kills 7 Million a Year, WHO Says (NBCNews)

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

• Plane search hampered by ocean garbage problem (CNN) [emphasis added]:
  “It isn’t like looking for a needle in a haystack,” Conservation International senior scientist M. Sanjayan said of the difficulty in finding the Boeing 777 aircraft. “It’s like looking for a needle in a needle factory. It is one piece of debris among billions floating in the ocean.”
• Wind and Solar Harvest Enough Energy Now to Pay Back Manufacture Plus Add Storage (Scientific American):
  Renewable power can pay for its own manufacture via energy produced plus cover the cost of adding batteries.
• UN IPCC Big Climate Report: Warming Is Big Risk For People (AP) [emphasis added]:
  If you think of climate change as a hazard for some far-off polar bears years from now, you’re mistaken. That’s the message from top climate scientists gathering in Japan this week to assess the impact of global warming. In fact, they will say, the dangers of a warming Earth are immediate and very human.

  “The polar bear is us…“

• CDC: Higher cancer risk for kids living near busy roads (USA Today):
  CDC review of seven studies involving over 8,000 children suggests a link between childhood leukemia and exposure to high levels of auto exhaust. Direct cause-effect needs more study, researchers say.
• Global warming has not stopped, will go on for centuries: WMO (Reuters) [emphasis added]:
  U.N. weather agency chief Michel Jarraud said ocean temperatures, in particular, were rising fast, and extreme weather events, forecast by climate scientists, showed climate change was inevitable for the coming centuries.
• Galveston oil spill: Does oil boom mean more spills? (CS Monitor):
  Galveston oil spill released heavy sticky oil into Galveston Bay Saturday, shutting down a major shipping route and creating a large oil slick. The safety record of oil tankers has improved dramatically over recent decades. Does Galveston oil spill highlight risks of increased tanker traffic?
• The fight over frac sand mining: (The Madison (WI) Isthmus): Wisconsin towns want regulatory control. Will the state take it away from them?
• Los Alamos Lab Turns To Texas To Temporarily Store Radioactive Waste (Reuters)
• California drought: Central Valley farmland on its last legs (San Francisco Chronicle)
• Global Energy Thirst Threatens to Worsen Water Woes: UN (Bloomberg)
• Why The Exxon Valdez Spill Was A Eureka Moment For Science (KQED)
• Can’t see Beijing’s tourist sites through the haze? Smog insurance is for you! (Grist)
• Fish Embryos Exposed to Oil From BP Spill Develop Deformities, a Study Finds (NY Times):
  Embryos of tuna and amberjack that were exposed to crude oil collected from the Deepwater Horizon spill developed heart and other deformities that would probably kill some of the developing fish and shorten the lives of others, a new study by a team of marine scientists reported on Monday.
• Chevron creates its own news outlet for a poor city that it pollutes (Grist):
  But the Richmond Standard is not your typical, well-intentioned but underfunded local reporting initiative; it’s a Chevron propaganda rag that’s run and written by the company’s flacks.
• Study Tallies Economic Risks Of Oregon Coal Export Project (EarthFix, Oregon Public Broadcasting)
• Climate Scientists: We’re Alarmed. Here’s Why You Should Be, Too. (Climate Progress):
  [T]he American Association for the Advancement of Science, has issued an uncharacteristically blunt call to action on climate change. The must-read new report by the AAAS’s Climate Science Panel, “What We Know” has several simple messages: We are as certain that humans are responsible for most recent climate change as we are that cigarettes kill.
• Here’s How NASA Thinks Society Will Collapse: Too much inequality and too few natural resources could leave the West vulnerable to a Roman Empire-style fall.
• Goldman Sachs: Solar Is On The Way To Dominating The Electricity Market (Business Insider):
  Goldman Sachs has set an estimated date for when they believe residential solar power becomes competitive with existing electric across the U.S…. 2033.

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).