‘Green News Report’ – August 12, 2014

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: If it seems like there’s more extreme weather — you’re right; What sanctions? ExxonMobil begins drilling with Russia in the Arctic; Methane rising in the melting Arctic; PLUS: Oops: Looks like the U.S. State Dept. vastly underestimated emissions from the Keystone XL pipeline … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): China Will Install More Solar This Year Than The U.S. Ever Has; Bamboo is the new ‘green’ steel; California Drought Transforms Global Food Market; Uranium mining poisons Navajo drinking water; Colgate Total Ingredient Triclosan Linked to Hormones, Cancer; Right-Wing Press’ New Climate Change Lie; Media Still Disproportionately Including Views of Climate Change Skeptics; The World’s Biggest PR Firm Is In Denial About Its Climate Change Denial… PLUS: When Did Republicans Start Hating the Environment? Roughly 1991… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• We Miss You: VIDEO: Robin Williams In 2002: ‘It Is Beyond Global Warming At This Point. It’s Cooking!’ (Climate Progress)
• Wait, What?: Record Cold East + Record Warm West = Average Weather for United States? (Slate) [emphasis added]:
  New data released Tuesday from NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center shows that so far in 2014, the temperature of the contiguous United States has been almost exactly normal. Boring, right? Wrong. From the recurring polar vortex to catastrophic floods to California’s stunning drought, the weather this year has been anything but normal. What gives?
• Extreme Weather On the Rise Around the World:
• VIDEO: Dr. Jeff Masters On Linking Extreme Weather Events to Climate Change (The Real News)
• ‘Unprecedented’ Flooding Event in Detroit Fits Global Warming Pattern (Mashable) [emphasis added]:
  One of the major findings of climate science studies during the past several years is that heavy downpours have increased in frequency and intensity during the past three to five decades, particularly in the Midwest and Northeast U.S.
• Twin Tropical Systems to Douse Hawaii This Week (Slate)
• Study: Melting Arctic Linked to Extreme Weather Swings:
• Rapidly Warming Arctic Leading to Deadly Extreme Weather Events (Mashable):
  Rapid Arctic warming since 2000 may be reshaping and rerouting the narrow current of high winds across the Northern Hemisphere known as the jet stream, forcing it to act like a giant stop light at 30,000 feet. This leads to stalled and prolonged weather systems that can bring deadly extreme heat and rainfall events, a new study has found.
• Global warming: Rapid rise in Arctic temperatures linked to changes in extreme weather and global wind patterns (Independent UK) [emphasis added]:
  A study has found that the number of extreme weather events, such as heatwaves, floods and droughts, has almost doubled over the same period and that this increase can be linked with unusual wind patterns in the upper atmosphere, influenced by warmer Arctic temperatures.
• Methane Rising From Melting Arctic:
• If We Release a Small Fraction of Arctic Carbon, ‘We’re Fucked’: Climatologist (Motherboard) [emphasis added]:
  “Even if a small fraction of the Arctic carbon were released to the atmosphere, we’re fucked,” he told me. What alarmed him was that “the methane bubbles were reaching the surface. That was something new in my survey of methane bubbles,” he said. “The conventional thought is that the bubbles would be dissolved before they reached the surface and that microorganisms would consume that methane, and that’s normal,” Box went on. But if the plumes are making it to the surface, that’s a brand new source of heat-trapping gases that we need to worry about… Methane getting to the surface—that’s potent stuff.”
• SWERUS-C3: First observations of methane release from Arctic Ocean hydrates (Stockholm University):
  ”This was somewhat of a surprise,” writes chief scientist Örjan Gustafsson, Stockholm University, in his latest blog entry… At several places, the methane “bubbles“ even rose to the ocean surface. What’s more, results of preliminary analyses of seawater samples pointed towards levels of dissolved methane 10-50 times higher than background levels.
• Despite U.S. Sanctions, Exxon Drills For Oil in Russia’s Arctic:
• ExxonMobil starts drilling for oil in Russia’s Arctic (Reuters):
  Although U.S. sanctions over the crisis in Ukraine are not designed to halt joint projects by Russian and U.S. companies, they nevertheless aim to starve Rosneft of dollar financing and ban access to modern technology.
• Exxon drilling Russian Arctic shows oil sanctions lack bite (Fuel Fix) [emphasis added]:
  Sanctions, what sanctions? Exxon Mobil Corp. will start drilling a $700 million well in the Arctic Ocean tomorrow, Russia’s government said, showing that for all the talk of action against Vladimir Putin’s oil industry, the largest U.S. energy company is undeterred.
• ExxonMobil And Russia Began Drilling For Oil In The Arctic On Saturday (Climate Progress)
• State Dept. Report Vastly Underestimates Emissions From Keystone XL Pipeline:
• Keystone XL could mean more carbon emissions than estimated, study says (LA Times)
• Study: Keystone carbon pollution more than figured (AP)
• Impact of the Keystone XL pipeline on global oil markets and greenhouse gas emissions (Nature Climate Change)
• Media Ignore Reports Debunking The Keystone XL Talking Point They Trumpeted (Media Matters)

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

• When Did Republicans Start Hating the Environment? Roughly 1991, according to a new study. (Mother Jones)
• China Will Install More Solar This Year Than The U.S. Ever Has (Climate Progress)
• California Drought Transforms Global Food Market (Bloomberg) [emphasis added]:
  [C]rop switching is one sign of a sweeping transformation going on in California — the nation’s biggest agricultural state by value — driven by a three-year drought that climate scientists say is a glimpse of a drier future. The result will affect everything from the price of milk in China to the source of cherries eaten by Americans. It has already inflamed competition for water between farmers and homeowners.
• Uranium mining poisons Navajo drinking water (AZ Central):
  For ages, they drank from a well less than a mile from their home. Then they learned that poison lurked there.Uranium is gurgling up all over Navajo country.
• Colgate Total Ingredient Triclosan Linked to Hormones, Cancer; Spotlights FDA Process (Bloomberg):
  The chemical triclosan has been linked to cancer-cell growth and disrupted development in animals. …Total is safe, Colgate says, citing the rigorous Food and Drug Administration process that led to the toothpaste’s 1997 approval as an over-the-counter drug. A closer look at that application process, however, reveals that some of the scientific findings Colgate put forward to establish triclosan’s safety in toothpaste weren’t black and white — and weren’t, until this year, available to the public. .
• The Right-Wing Press’ New Climate Change Lie No, global warming is not on “hiatus” (The New Republic):
  It was pretty much the opposite of what [climatologist Nathan] Loeb was trying to say. But it’s not an isolated incident…. Needless to say, the conservatives have it all wrong. And the science really isn’t that hard to understand.
• Media Still Disproportionately Including Views of Climate Change Skeptics (Yale e360):
  Despite strong agreement among a majority of climate scientists that human activities are contributing to global warming, media coverage still disproportionately includes the views of contrarian scientists…When asked how often they were contacted by the media to comment on climate change issues, scientists holding views most skeptical of humans’ contributions to climate change reported being contacted most often.
• VIDEO: Siberian Crater Mystery Solved – and the news isn’t good (EcoWatch):
  [Dr. Michael] Mann said that, while the percentage of methane found inside these craters has been as high as 9 percent compared to an atmospheric level of fraction of a fraction of a percent and methane is more closely linked to warming than carbon emissions, it’s premature to throw up our hands and give up.
• The World’s Biggest PR Firm Is In Denial About Its Climate Change Denial (Motherboard):
  But it’s pretty simple: enacting a policy that states you will not “accept a client that seeks to deny climate change” requires dismissing those clients that seek to deny climate change. Otherwise, it’s not a policy, it’s just a blog post. The firm can only credibly claim that policy is sincere by severing ties with ALEC and API.
• Canada ignores climate warnings in drive for tar sands oil (RTCC):
  The report, Canada in a Changing Climate, concentrates on impacts and adaptation, but does not mention the causes, or the fact that Canada is now an international pariah in the environmental community because of its exploitation of tar sands for oil.
• DR Tucker’s take on Klein’s look at ‘Capitalism vs. the Climate’ (Douglas Craig, Redding.com):
  Is the manner in which we have created and maintained economic policy in the last 60 years helpful or harmful to the biosphere on which all life on Earth depends? We can forget socialism and communism and simply ask the question about our current economic trajectory and where it is taking us.
• GAO Report Finds Problems with EPA Groundwater Protection Program (Center for Effective Government)
• Bamboo, the new “green steel” (Treehugger):
• Corrupt Executives Sent To Prison For Pumping Toxic Leaded Fuel Overseas (Huffington Post Green)
• First 100°F Temperature on Record in the Baltics (Weather Underground)
• Beijing to Ban Coal Use to Curb Air Pollution, State Media Says (Reuters)
• June 2014 was Earth’s warmest on record as ocean temperatures surged (Washington Post) [emphasis added]:
  The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reports that June was the globe’s warmest in 134 years of records following its report that May was also the hottest on record. These reports are feeding anticipation that 2014 could become the warmest year on record.

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).