‘Green News Report’ – May 13, 2014

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Yep, looks like we broke Antarctica; President Obama wants to take action on climate change — while Not-President Rubio definitely doesn’t (lucky Florida!); Severe weather whiplash smacks the country; Spate of coal deaths around the world; PLUS: Solar panels finally back on the White House roof… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Germany sets new solar energy record, generates 75%; Ranchers forced to give up land for fracking; Republicans block bipartisan energy efficiency bill in Senate; Stopping climate change almost impossible if China doesn’t quit coal; War over Water in the South; Can game theory help international climate negotiations? … PLUS: “Climate Change War” Is Not a Metaphor, says retired admiral … and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Fossil Fuel Deaths: Coal Mining Accidents in U.S. and Turkey:
• Two miners killed at Boone County operation (Charleston Gazette)
• Hundreds trapped in Turkey coal mine (Al Jazeera)
• Severe Weather Whiplash Smacks the Country:
• National Climate Assessment 2014: Landmark Report Warns Time Is Running Out To Save U.S. From Climate Catastrophe (Climate Progress)
• Parts of some Plains states drier than Dust Bowl (AP)
• 400 Miles of Wyoming Highway Shut Down After Spring Snow Storm (NBC News)
• This Year’s Wildfires Could Incinerate the Nation’s Fire Budget (Mother Jones)
• Texas Panhandle Wildfire Destroys 89 Homes (ABC News)
• Oklahoma Wildfires: New Fire Near Woodward Injures 2, Forces Evacuations (The Weather Channel)
• Yep, We Broke The Antarctic:
• West Antarctic Ice Sheet Collapse Has Already Begun, Scientists Warn (Guardian UK) [emphasis added]:
  The collapse of the Western Antarctica ice sheet is already under way and is unstoppable, two separate teams of scientists said on Monday. The glaciers’ retreat is being driven by climate change and is already causing sea-level rise at a much faster rate than scientists had anticipated.
• VIDEOS: West Antarctica Ice Sheet Destabilizing: (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
• NASA-UCI Study Indicates Loss of West Antarctic Glaciers Appears Unstoppable (NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory)
• West Antarctic Ice Sheet’s Collapse Triggers Sea Level Warning (NBC News):
  “It has passed the point of no return,” the research team’s leader, Eric Rignot of the University of California at Irvine, told reporters during a NASA teleconference on Monday. The second study projected that the glacial retreat in Antarctica’s Amundsen Sea Embayment, which includes Thwaites Glacier, would result in 4 feet (1.2 meters) of sea level rise — and open the way to more widespread retreats.
• New Studies Suggest Many Coastal Cities Eventually To Be Abandoned With Antarctic Ice Collapse (Climate Progress) [emphasis added]:
  “[I]t is possible that a worst-case version would shift the time of rapid retreat forward into this century…each degree of warming costs more than the previous degree, and adding Greenland’s ice or parts of East Antarctica’s ice to the marine parts of West Antarctica would raise the costs a lot more.
• Sen. Marco Rubio Flips Flops on Climate Change:
• The Utter Predictability of Climate Change Denial (Bad Astronomer, Slate)
• VIDEO: Sen. Marco Rubio: Yes, I’m Ready to be President: (ABC News This Week):
  And the — the question is, what do we do about the fact that we have built expensive structures, real estate and population centers, near those vulnerable areas?
  …
  I do not believe that human activity is causing these dramatic changes to our climate the way these scientists are portraying it. That’s what I do not. And I do not believe that the laws that they propose we pass will do anything about it, except it will destroy our economy.
• Rubio clarifies climate change comments (The Hill):
  “The issue is not whether the climate is changing — as always, it is changing. The issue is whether there are legislative proposals before us that can do anything about it. And what I have said, and what I disagree with, is the notion that if we pass Cap and Trade, for example, it will stop this from happening,” he said.
• VIDEO: Marco Rubio joins GOP climate denying crew (All in with Chris Hayes, MSNBC)
• VIDEO: Marco Rubio in 2007 Accepted Climate Change, Supported Carbon Caps (YouTube)



• President Obama: New Initiatives to Boost Energy Efficiency, Take Action on Climate Change:
• FACT SHEET: President Obama Announces Commitments and Executive Actions to Advance Solar Deployment and Energy Efficiency (White House.gov)
• President Obama Unveils New Climate Actions at Walmart Visit (National Geographic):
  Obama announced more than a half-dozen actions to support training for workers in solar power, require higher efficiency for industrial-quality equipment and appliances from escalators to walk-in refrigerators, adjust building codes to reduce emissions from new construction, and bolster energy efficiency in federal buildings through $2 billion in improvements.
• With Corporate Help, Obama Annoucnes Actions on Renewable Energy: (Reuters):
  The president, who will make the announcement during a visit to Wal-Mart in Mountain View, California, will also highlight commitments by corporations to lift solar generation at their facilities.
  Wal-Mart, Apple Inc, Yahoo Inc, Google Inc and Ikea were among the companies making such commitments.
• Obama’s choice of Wal-Mart draws fire (USA Today)
• GRAPH: Top 20 Companies by Installed Solar Capacity (Solar Energy Information Association) Wal-mart ranks #1.
• Obama Pledges $2B in Energy Efficiency Funding, Lauds Wal-Mart Solar Roofs (Renewable Energy World)
• VIDEO: President Obama Announces Energy Efficiency Initiatives at Mountain View Wal Mart: (KRON-TV, San Francisco):



• Solar Panels Are Back on the White House Roof:
• Solar panels here to stay atop White House roof (Washington Post):
  In the White House video, Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz said putting solar panels on the residence “are a really important message, that solar is here. We are doing it, we can do a lot more. I am very bullish on the future of solar energy as a key part of our clean energy future,” he adds.
• A Brief History of White House Solar Panels (About.com)
• Solar Panels on the Roof of the White House (White House.gov)

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

• “Climate Change War” Is Not a Metaphor: The U.S. military is preparing for conflict, retired Navy Rear Adm. David Titley says in an interview (Slate) [emphasis added]:
  “There will be a discrete event or series of events that will change the calculus. I don’t know who, I don’t know how violent…. Let me give you a few examples of how that might play out. You could imagine a scenario in which both Russia and China have prolonged droughts. China decides to exert rights on foreign contracts and gets assertive in Africa. If you start getting instability in large powers with nuclear weapons, that’s not a good day.”
• Germany Sets New Record, Generating 74 Percent Of Energy Needs From Renewable Energy (Climate Progress):
  On Sunday, Germany’s impressive streak of renewable energy milestones continued, with renewable energy generation surging to a record portion — nearly 75 percent — of the country’s overall energy demand by midday.
• Ranchers forced to give up land for fracking (Al Jazeera America):
  Landowners in the Midwest are finding out the hard way that owning the land doesn’t mean you own what’s underneath
• Amid Pipeline and Climate Debate, Energy-Efficiency Bill Is Derailed (NY Times):
  A bipartisan bill to encourage energy efficiency in buildings died in the Senate on Monday, derailed by the contentious debate over the Keystone XL pipeline and President Obama’s plans to issue new climate change regulations.
• CHINA: Incinerator Protest In China Leaves Dozens Injured (Huffington Post Green)
• Stopping Climate Change ‘Almost Impossible’ If China Can’t Quit Coal, Report Says (Climate Progress)
• VIDEO: A war over water in the South (MSNBC Daily Rundown)
• Game Theory: Climate negotiation as a bargaining game (Science Daily):
  It’s a simple model that doesn’t take into account such things as national pol­i­tics and enforce­ment sce­narios, but it has an impor­tant fea­ture: It reveals poten­tial bar­riers to suc­cessful nego­ti­a­tions that might be hidden in more com­plex models.
• EPA’s next challenge: Protect communities in nation’s industrial dumping grounds (Grist):
  [M]uch of the problem lies in permitting, which often concentrates polluters in or around those racially redlined communities because they are the paths of least resistance. People struggling with poverty, underemployment, and failed schools have little time or energy to tussle with corporations.
• Federal Oversight Of Pipelines Grossly Inadequate, Watchdog Report Finds (AP)
• NRC Urges New Quake Study for Indian Point Nuclear Power Plant (NY Times):
  Dozens of reactors at more than 20 sites across the eastern and central parts of the country need to be re-evaluated, the commission said, because of new estimates from the United States Geological Survey. The agency’s study compared the amount of ground movement predicted when the plants were designed, and the amount calculated more recently.
• Japanese space agency hopes to harness solar power in 25 years (CBS News):
  [T]he Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency has proposed a plan to create a series of geosynchronous-orbiting satellites that could collect solar power, beaming it back to Earth. The agency also reportedly hopes to have it done within the incredibly ambitious timeline of 25 years.
• NASA tests growing lettuce in space (Telegraph UK):
  Astronauts can look forward to fresh vegetables as result of experiment by American space agency.
• New solar breakthrough could be the final nail in coal’s coffin (Salon):
  Researchers figured out how to make solar cells out of safer, environmentally friendly materials.
• Why are so many white men trying to save the planet without the rest of us? (Guardian UK): Climate change affects minorities and women, the elderly and the poor. But the leadership of the environmental movement is pale and male. That doesn’t look like progress.
• ABC Wind “Victims” Rebuked as Wind’s Winning Streak Rolls On (The Green Miles):
  Did the Hobarts withhold information about the mold and radon on their property? Or did ABC choose to withhold it for some other reason? In either case, ABC didn’t tell viewers the whole story.
• Solar Cells the Size of a Pencil Point (Fox Business):
  North Carolina-based Semprius says it has produced the world’s most efficient solar cells – and they’re the size of the period at the end of this sentence.
• How to Solve Global Warming: It’s the Energy Supply (Scientific American):
  Restraining global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius will require changing how the world produces and uses energy to power its cities and factories, heats and cools buildings, as well as moves people and goods in airplanes, trains, cars, ships and trucks, according to the IPCC. Changes are required not just in technology, but also in people’s behavior.

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).