‘Green News Report’ – May 29, 2014

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Obama ups the rhetoric on action against global warming; Speaker Boehner says he’s ‘not qualified to debate climate science’, but knows pollution regulations are bad; Majority of Americans support reducing emissions; Victory for fossil fuels over clean energy in Boehner’s Ohio; PLUS: Solar. Freakin’. Roadways!!!… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Wall St. Journal’s ‘shameful’ climate denial; U.S. power plants already succeeding in reducing emissions; Something is killing baby puffins in the North Atlantic; Debunking the Chamber of Commerce’s bogus claims; Coal industry export dreams withering away; Climate CoLab wants you to solve climate change; Exxon CEO: “No viable pathway” to reduce carbon emissions; Germans digging ‘home-made’ electricity…. PLUS: Corporate consolidation of farmland a risk to world food security: study … and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Obama Warns West Point Cadets on Impacts of Climate Change:
• Obama Warns U.S. Faces Diffuse Terrorism Threats (NY Times)
• Remarks by the President at the United States Military Academy Commencement Ceremony (White House.gov)
That spirit of cooperation needs to energize the global effort to combat climate change — a creeping national security crisis that will help shape your time in uniform, as we are called on to respond to refugee flows and natural disasters and conflicts over water and food, which is why next year I intend to make sure America is out front in putting together a global framework to preserve our planet.
• VIDEO: President Obama Speaks to West Point Graduates (White House.gov)
• New Emissions Rules Coming For Coal Plants:
• President Said to Be Planning to Use Executive Authority on Carbon Rule (NY Times) [emphasis added]:
  President Obama will use his executive authority to cut carbon emissions from the nation’s coal-fired power plants by up to 20 percent, according to people familiar with his plans, which will spur the creation of a state cap-and-trade program forcing industry to pay for the carbon pollution it creates.
• White House Stresses Widespread Energy Progress Ahead of New Climate Rule (NY Times)
• Economic Benefits of the Clean Air Act (EPA.gov):
  The study’s central benefits estimate in 2020 exceeds costs by a factor of more than 30-to-1, and the high benefits estimate exceeds costs by 90-to-1.
• Ahead of Proposed U.S. Power Plant Rules, the Spin Scramble Begins (National Geographic)
• The stage is set for climate showdown (MSNBC)
• Why Coal-Dependent Utilities Shouldn’t Be So Scared of Carbon Regulations (GreenTech Media):
  There are dozens of technologies that can fill in the gap left by coal plant closures. The biggest hurdle isn’t cost-it’s failure of imagination.
• New Carbon Dioxide Rules Could Boost Energy Efficiency and CHP (Energy Efficiency Markets)
• Republicans & Fossil Fuel Industry Attack Unseen Power Plant Regulations:
• The Chamber of Commerce is Wrong Again: Carbon Pollution Limits Will Lower Electricity Bills by Billions of Dollars, and Generate Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs (NRDC)
• John Boehner: ‘I’m Not Qualified To Debate The Science Over Climate Change’ (Climate Progress) [emphasis added]:
  “Listen, I’m not qualified to debate the science over climate change,” Boehner said when asked by a reporter whether he thinks climate change is a problem, and whether he would support taking action to fix it….Boehner’s most recent choice of language, however, allowed him to skirt the responsibility of taking a side one way or another on climate change by referencing his lack of scientific background.
• Debunking: Setting the Record Straight on the Chamber of Commerce’s Report (EPA.gov)
• U.S. Chamber of Commerce Uses Familiar Scare Tactic on Pollution Rules: New Report Twists Data to Exaggerate Cost of New Pollution Rules (EDF) [emphasis added]:
  A study conducted by economists Dallas Burtraw (Resources for the Future) and Matt Woerman (University of California), for instance, concludes benefits will likely outweigh costs by more than 3 to 1.
• Conservatives Are Missing the Point of Obama’s Climate Change Plan (New Republic)
• Americans Support and WANT Emissions Reductions, Climate Change Action:
• Americans support limits on CO2 (Yale University Project on Climate Communication) [emphasis added]:
  A national opinion survey we conducted in April of this year finds that – by nearly a two to one margin – Americans support setting strict limits on carbon dioxide emissions from existing coal-fired plants, even if the cost of electricity to consumers and companies increases.
• Americans care deeply about ‘global warming’ – but not ‘climate change’ (Guardian UK)
  We found that the term “global warming” is associated with greater public understanding, emotional engagement, and support for personal and national action than the term “climate change.”
  …
  For example, the term “global warming” is associated with: Greater certainty that the phenomenon is happening, especially among men, Generation X (31-48), and liberals…
• Victory for Fossil Fuels: Ohio Rolls Back Renewable Energy Standard:
• ‘It’s an example of Ohio returning to the Dark Ages’ (MSNBC):
  The measure doesn’t completely eliminate Ohio’s renewable energy rules; it just renders them meaningless for a couple of years, at which point policymakers will presumably take another look. The severity of the climate crisis will only get worse in the interim, though that apparently isn’t alarming to the new policy’s proponents.
• Ohio Is Poised To Be The First State To Roll Back Its Renewable Energy Standard (Climate Progress)
• Ohio Legislature Votes To Delay And Weaken State’s Renewable Energy Law (Huffington Post Green)
• INNOVATION: Hilarious Video Introducing Solar Freakin’ Roadways:
• Hilarious: VIDEO: Solar Freakin’ Roadways (Solar Roadways via Scott Brusaw):



• Should we cover all our roads with solar panels? (Vox.com)
• This Parking Lot Is Paved With Solar Panels (Wired)
• Solar roadways destroys crowdfunding goal, raises $1.5m with 3 days to go (Treehugger)
• Solar Roadways: Energy-Generating Roads Made Out of Glass and Solar Cells (Treehugger, August 2007)

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

• Corporate consolidation of farmland a risk to world food security (Guardian UK):
  The world’s food supplies are at risk because farmland is becoming rapidly concentrated in the hands of wealthy elites and corporations, a study has found.
• U.S. Power plants already reducing emissions: (The Hill):
  The country’s top 100 electricity producers have reduced emissions of major pollutants in recent years, showing that they could likely handle the new limits on carbon dioxide coming soon from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), according to a new report.
• Something is wrong on the East Coast, and it’s killing baby puffins (Mother Jones):
  Disappearing puffins, stray whales, invading sailfish: The North Atlantic is in a bad way. Here’s why.
• A bogus claim that electricity prices will ‘nearly double’ because of clean coal technology (Washington Post):
  The Fact Checker takes no position on the EPA regulations, which some contend will increase the cost of the electricity and make it difficult to build new coal plants, but this ad does not pass the laugh test.
• Boehner Says He’s ‘Not Qualified’ To Talk About Climate Science. Here’s How Scientists Responded. (climate Progress)
• WSJ’s shameful climate denial: The scientific consensus is not a myth (Salon) [emphasis added]:
  What they’re really trying to do is keep us from moving on to the actual debate, which is no longer about whether scientists agree that climate change is happening: it’s about whether the world should continue to barrel down the highway at breakneck speeds without the benefit of seat belts. Bast and Spencer believe we should.
• Are Environmentalists Winning the Fight Over Coal Exports? (Motley Fool)
• Climate CoLab thinks you could be the one to fix global warming (Grist):
  By crowdsourcing ideas on everything from enacting carbon taxes to reducing bus emissions and designing more efficient buildings, Climate CoLab hopes to dig up “new angles, new perspectives, new ways of looking at things,” the lab’s community manager, Laur Fisher, says.
• Exxon CEO: “No viable pathway” to reduce carbon emmissions (Dallas Morning News):
  “My view on this is that achieving certain emissions levels that someone’s model says will make a difference, but there’s no one that has a viable pathway to achieve that,” he said. “What if everything I’m doing doesn’t work. Or the reasons for all this happening aren’t what we thought.”
• ‘Home-made’ electricity takes off in Germany (Phys.org):
  Ten years ago Meier fitted his four-star hotel, the 45-room Park Hotel Post, set in a 19th century building, with a gas-fuelled power-and-heat cogeneration unit. It cost him nearly 50,000 euros ($68,000), but Meier said “the investment paid for itself even faster than I had expected.”
• BP asks U.S. Supreme Court justice to block Gulf spill payments (Reuters):
  The company acted after the New Orleans-based 5th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals lifted an injunction earlier in the day that had prevented payments being made. Last week, the court had decided not to revisit a decision rejecting BP’s bid to block payments to businesses that could not trace their economic losses to the disaster.
• Texas oil and gas regulator says it can’t link water contamination to gas drilling (The Texas Republic) [emphasis added]:
  The amount of explosive gas tainting a North Texas neighborhood’s water supply has increased in recent years, but the state’s oil and gas regulator says it can’t link the methane to drilling activity nearby, according to a report it released Wednesday…. The agency will not investigate further.
• California: Fracking moratorium dies in state Senate (Sacramento Bee)
• Northern hemisphere hits carbon dioxide milestone in April (Reuters):
  Carbon dioxide levels throughout the northern hemisphere hit 400 parts per million (ppm) for the first time in human history in April, an ominous threshold for climate change, the World Meteorological Organization said on Monday.
• Solar Farmers in Japan to Harvest Electricity With Crops (Bloomberg News):
  Makoto Takazawa and his father Yukio earned 1.7 million yen ($16,700) last fiscal year selling electricity from solar panels that hang in a giant canopy above their farm east of Tokyo. The cash was almost nine times more than they made from the crops growing in the soil below.
• Australia: Winter heatwaves are nice, as extreme weather events go (Phys.org):
  hot nights are increasing in intensity and frequency at faster rates than hot days, and that warm winter days (whether they are part of a warm spell or not) are also increasing further and faster than hot summer days.
• I Don’t Want to Be Right: Why people persist in believing things that just aren’t true: (The New Yorker)
  Facts and evidence, for one, may not be the answer everyone thinks they are: they simply aren’t that effective, given how selectively they are processed and interpreted. Instead, why not focus on presenting issues in a way keeps broader notions out of it-messages that are not political, not ideological, not in any way a reflection of who you are?
• VIDEO: Colbert Embraces Conservative Solution to Climate Change: ‘F*ck It’ (The Colbert Report)
• End fossil fuel burning, save $71 trillion – and preserve civilization as we know it (Grist) [emphasis added]:
  It would cost the world $44 trillion to end our fossil fuel addiction by 2050 and switch to clean energy. Worse, this figure is $8 trillion higher than the IEA’s last estimate, published two years ago…. And now the good news: We can save $115 trillion in fuel costs by 2050 if we move away from dirty energy, making for net savings of $71 trillion.

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).