‘Green News Report’ – July 10, 2014

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Debunking Neil Cavuto of Fox ‘News’ and the 1970’s ‘global cooling’ myth; Anti-science nuttery alive and well in Kentucky…and Mars; BP oil still contaminating fish in the Gulf; Canada’s tar sands linked to cancer spike in First Nations tribes; PLUS: Popular pesticide may be killing off the birds and the bees … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Federal government still spending billions to subsidize fossil fuels; Global warming at root of ‘utterly unprecedented’ summer flood; Helsinki’s ambitious plan will make cars obsolete; Most Americans say they’ll vote against climate change deniers; Carbon pollution standards reduce electricity rates; Greenpeace tells Lego ‘everything is not awesome’; Fossil fuels are the new subprime investments; Australia climate politics stranger than fiction … PLUS: Even if coal were free, it couldn’t compete with solar … and much, MUCH more! …

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

• No, Neil Cavuto, Scientists Didn’t Predict An Ice Age in the 1970s:
• VIDEO: On Fox News, Climate Change Is Still Up For Debate (Media Matters)
• What were climate scientists predicting in the 1970s? Not an ice age. (Skeptical Science):
  The fact is that around 1970 there were 6 times as many scientists predicting a warming rather than a cooling planet. Today, with 30+years more data to analyse, we’ve reached a clear scientific consensus: 97% of working climate scientists agree with the view that human beings are causing global warming.
• BP’s Oil Spill Still Contaminating Fish in the Gulf:
• Research shows Gulf of Mexico oil spill caused lesions in fish: scientists (Reuters):
  “We matched up the oil in the livers and flesh with Deepwater Horizon like a fingerprint,” lead researcher Steven Murawski, a professor at the University of South Florida’s College of Marine Science in Tampa, told Reuters. He said the findings debunk arguments that fish abnormalities could have been caused by other factors including oil in coastal runoff and oil from naturally occurring seeps in the Gulf.
• Canadian Tar Sands Linked to Cancer Clusters:
• Study finds unusual contamination in animals near oilsands (Calgary Herald):
  The impact on health in communities downwind of development is “clear and worrisome,” researcher Stephane McLachlan told a news conference Monday in Edmonton. “Something unique is happening in Fort Chipewyan, especially around cancer.”
  …
  Conducted in collaboration with the Athabasca Chipewyan and Mikisew Cree First Nations, the study found fish and animals consumed as part of a traditional diet contained unusually high concentrations of contaminants emitted during the extraction and upgrading of bitumen.
• Just Killing Everything: Bee-Killing Pesticide Linked To Decline in Birds:
• Declines in insectivorous birds are associated with high neonicotinoid concentrations (Nature):
  [I]n the Netherlands, local population trends were significantly more negative in areas with higher surface-water concentrations of imidacloprid…Future legislation should take into account the potential cascading effects of neonicotinoids on ecosystems.
• Neonicotinoids linked to recent fall in farmland bird numbers (Guardian UK) [emphasis added]
  Research demonstrates for the first time the knock-on effects to other species of class of insecticides known to harm bees.
• VIDEO: Second Silent Spring? Bird Declines Linked to Popular Pesticides (National Geographic):
  Pesticides don’t just kill pests. New research out of the Netherlands provides compelling evidence linking a widely used class of insecticides to population declines across 14 species of birds.
  …
  “I think we are the first to show that this insecticide may have wide-scale, significant effects on our environment,” said Hans de Kroon, an expert on population dynamics at Radboud University and one of the authors of the paper.
• Rich Republicans Most Likely To Deny Global Warming:
• Study: Rich Republicans Are the Worst Climate Deniers (Mother Jones) [emphasis added]:
  We already knew about the “smart idiot” effect. Now, meet the “rich idiot” effect.
  …
  “Among individuals with conservative political orientations, there is a correlation between occupying advantageous positions within industrial economic systems and an unwillingness to acknowledge the risks associated with climate change,” [Jeremiah Bohr of the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign] writes. “Perhaps to validate their economic interests, these individuals are more likely to process information on climate science through political filters that result in denying the risks produced by climate change.”
• Anti-Science Nuttery in Kentucky:
• VIDEO: Actual KY State Senator: Mars Temps Exactly the Same as Earth, and It’s Warming Too!!! (The BRAD BLOG):
  “I will simply point out that I think in academia we all agree that the temperature on Mars is exactly as it is here. Nobody will dispute that. Yet there are no coal mines on Mars. There are no factories on Mars that I’m aware of.”
• Republican Calls Climate Change A Hoax Because Earth And Mars Have ‘Exactly’ Same Temperature (Huffington Post Green)
• In Kentucky’s Senate race, coal is where the heart is (Guardian UK):
  Coal has assumed out-sized importance in the upcoming election as a devastating sequence of mine shut downs and job losses in eastern Kentucky have put the region up for grabs

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

• Even if coal were free, it couldn’t compete with solar (Renew Economy):
  Last week, for the first time in memory, the wholesale price of electricity in Queensland fell into negative territory – in the middle of the day….There were several reasons for this. A restricted interconnector to NSW added to the volatile trading, as did uncertainty about the carbon price. But the overall softening of prices was primarily the result of the newest and one of the biggest power stations in the state – rooftop solar PV.
• Federal Government Still Spending Billions To Subsidize Fossil Fuels (Huffington Post Green):
  Over the past five years, the Obama administration has repeatedly called for cutting fossil fuel subsidies in the form of tax breaks and other incentives. But the amount of money the federal government forfeits through subsidies has increased steadily over that time period, reaching $18.5 billion last year, according to a new report from the environmental group Oil Change International.
• Changing climate at root of ‘utterly unprecedented’ summer flood (Vancouver Sun) [emphasis added]:
  While as horrified as anyone by the flooding [John Pomeroy, director of the centre for hydrology at the University of Saskatchewan] is perhaps not quite as surprised. It fits with a “regime shift” in the climate system that is bringing more prolonged summer storms to the Prairies, says Pomeroy. Combine that with what he describes as Canada’s woeful flood forecasting and management systems and the result is costly disaster.
• Helsinki’s ambitious plan to make car ownership pointless in 10 years (Guardian UK):
  Finland’s capital hopes an ambitious ‘mobility on demand’ system that integrates all forms of transport in a single payment network could essentially render private cars obsolete/
• Chevron Admits The Truth: Oil Shale Will Use Huge Amounts Of Western Water (Climate Progress)
• Politics & Global Warming, Spring 2014 (Yale Project for Climate Communication) [emphasis added]:
  We find that registered voters are 2.5 times more likely to vote for a congressional or presidential candidate who supports action to reduce global warming. Further, registered voters are 3 times more likely to vote against a candidate who opposes action to reduce global warming.
• The Chamber is Wrong Again: Carbon Pollution Limits Will Lower Electricity Bills by Billions of Dollars, and Generate Hundreds of Thousands of Jobs, Not the Reverse (NRDC Switchboard)
• Lego told ‘everything is not awesome’ in viral Greenpeace video: With nearly 1m page views, film of an oil-stricken Arctic built from Lego bricks is latest salvo in campaign against Shell deal (Guardian UK)
• Despite Ohio Freeze, Renewable Energy Continues To Be Hot (Clean Technica)
• “Fossil industry is the subprime danger of this cycle” – solar is the future. (Jeremy Leggett’s Blog) [emphasis in original]:
  The cumulative blitz on exploration and production over the past six years has been $5.4 trillion, yet little has come of it. Output from conventional fields peaked in 2005. Not a single large project has come on stream at a break-even cost below $80 a barrel for almost three years. “What is shocking is that upstream costs in the oil industry have risen threefold since 2000 but output is up just 14pc,” said Mark Lewis, from Kepler Cheuvreux.
• Climate Politics Are Stranger Than Fiction In Australia (Climate Progress):
  This week, a conservative government led by fossil fuel-friendly prime minister Tony Abbott was unable to repeal the carbon pricing due to another faction holding sway in the Senate — a group of four Palmer United Party (PUP) senators, a new party founded by mining multimillionaire Clive Palmer.
• Renewable Energy Provided 1/3 of Germany’s Energy in First Half of 2014 (Climate Progress):
  Thanks to favorable weather and record production from solar and wind power, renewable energy accounted for approximately 31 percent of Germany’s electricity generation in the first half of 2014.
• Zero carbon and economic growth can go together, UN study says (Guardian UK):
  The top 15 emitter countries could make deep cuts to emissions while also tripling economic output, according to the study
• World Bank: Fighting Climate Change Would Boost Global Economy Up To $2.6 Trillion A Year (Climate Progress) [emphasis added]:
  An important new World Bank report concludes that just a few key policies aimed at cutting carbon pollution would boost the global economy. The study … finds that if all six embrace three sets of policies for clean transportation plus energy efficiency in industry in buildings, “the annual benefits of just these policies in 2030 include an estimated GDP growth of between $1.8 trillion and $2.6 trillion.” Furthermore, the report found that “these policies alone would account for 30 percent of the total reduction needed in 2030 to limit global warming to 2°C [3.6°F].”

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).