‘Green News Report’ – August 14, 2014

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Broken climate: Historic storms and floods paralyze cities from Nebraska to Detroit to Long Island, while California breaks heat records – again; China dumping coal, breaking solar records; PLUS: President Jimmy Carter criticizes climate-denying Republicans as ‘nutcases’… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Oil companies fracking into drinking water sources; More critical U.S. energy facilities face rising flood risks; Electricity blackouts have doubled since 2003; Rules block solar panels in many states with abundant sunlight; Japan replaced half its nuclear power with energy efficiency… PLUS: ‘Natural capital’: putting a price on nature is a neoliberal road to ruin … and much, MUCH more! …

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

• “Best of the Left” Podcast: #849 The planners and the deniers (Best of the Left)
• Historic deluges and flooding across the U.S.:
• VIDEO: Strong Storms Shatter Records on Long Island, Cars Nearly Submerged (NBC News)
• Astounding, record-smashing rainfall swamps Long Island; 11 inches in 3 hours (Washington Post)
• New York Suburbs Get Entire Summer’s Worth of Rain (AP)
• VIDEO: Flash flood at Nebraska hospital bursts through cafeteria doors, quickly fills already-soaked room (AP)
• 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)
• Wait, What?: Record Cold East + Record Warm West = Average Weather for United States? (Slate)
• 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.
• Roasting California:
• 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.
• President Jimmy Carter: “Nutcases” Blocking Climate Action:
• VIDEO: President Carter calls for carbon tax at Aspen renewable energy conference (KDVR Denver):
  “The biggest problem we have right now is some nutcases in our country who don’t believe in global warming. I think that they are going to change their position because the evidence of the ravages of global warming is coming or is already there.”
• Jimmy Carter Blasts ‘Nutcases’ Who Block Climate Action (EcoWatch)
• China Taking Action on Climate Change & Pollution with Renewable Energy:
• Beijing to Ban Coal Use to Curb Air Pollution, State Media Says (Reuters)
• China Will Install More Solar This Year Than The U.S. Ever Has (Climate Progress)

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

• Put a price on nature? We must stop this neoliberal road to ruin (Guardian UK):
  As Lakoff has pointed out, these people are trying to do the right thing but they are completely failing to apply a frames analysis. A frame is a mental structure through which you understand an issue. Instead of framing the issue with our own values and describing and projecting our values – which is the only thing in the medium- to long-term that ever works – we are abandoning them and adopting instead the values of the people who are wrecking the environment. How could there be any long-term outcome other than more destruction?
• Oil companies fracking into drinking water sources, new research shows (LA Times):
  Energy companies are fracking for oil and gas at far shallower depths than widely believed, sometimes through underground sources of drinking water, according to research released Tuesday by Stanford University scientists.
• New Maps Show Flooding Risks for Critical U.S. Energy Facilities (Yale e360):
  A new mapping tool shows critical energy infrastructure in the U.S., such as power plants, refineries, and crude oil rail terminals, that may be vulnerable to coastal and inland flooding, as well as areas that may be prone to flooding in the future.
• Weather-Related Blackouts Doubled Since 2003: Report (Climate Central):
  A tenfold increase in major power outages (those affecting more than 50,000 customer homes or businesses), between the mid-1980s and 2012. Some of the increase was driven by improved reporting. Yet even since 2003, after stricter reporting requirements were widely implemented, the average annual number of weather-related power outages doubled.
• Rules prevent solar panels in many states with abundant sunlight (LA Times):
  [W]hile Florida advertises itself as the Sunshine State, power company executives and regulators have worked successfully to keep most Floridians from using that sunshine to generate their own power.
• Japan Replaced Half Its Nuclear Power With Energy Efficiency. Could The U.S. Do Something Similar? (Climate Progress)
• Huge gap in pollution exposure by race surprises U of M researchers (MinnPost)
• Japanese farmers ditching pesticides for flightless ladybugs as new ‘biopesticide’ (Japan News):
  If biopesticides are widely used, harmful insects that have built up a tolerance chemical pesticides can be reduced, while also lessening the negative environmental impact chemical pesticides have on the environment.
• Four Years Later, BP’s Oil Spill Is Still Killing Gulf Wildlife (Climate Progress)
• Sec. Kerry pushes ‘climate-smart agriculture’ (The Hill):
  Kerry said that the world’s fish stocks are in “serious trouble” and that the only way to mitigate climate or weather-related threats to food security is to tackle climate change, especially for regions in Africa that rely heavily on fish for food.
• Cloud-Seeding Can’t Save China’s Farmers from Serious Drought (Wall St. Journal)
• >Australia: Climate change measures like ‘primitive civilisations offering up sacrifices to appease the gods’, says Maurice Newman (Sydney Morning Herald)
• Mining for Votes In Coal States: Paul Ryan On Climate Change (Legal Planet)
• Humans to Blame for Much of Recent Glacier Melt (Climate Central):
  Their conclusions, detailed online Aug. 14 in the journal Science Express, were that while just 25 percent of the melt since the mid-19th century could be linked to human-induced warming — suggesting that natural variation was the dominant factor behind melt early in the period — that fraction increased to 69 percent for the period from 1991 to 2010.
• Former Hillary aide sought to ‘neutralize’ greens on Keystone (The Hill)
• If We Release a Small Fraction of Arctic Carbon, ‘We’re Fucked’: Climatologist (Motherboard)
• When Did Republicans Start Hating the Environment? Roughly 1991, according to a new study. (Mother Jones)
• 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. .
• 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).