‘Green News Report’ – August 27, 2015

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: The 10th anniversary of Hurricane Katrina; NASA warns at least 3 ft. of sea level rise now locked in; Obama heads to the Arctic to highlight global warming impacts; PLUS: Switching to clean energy will cost less than fossil fuels in the long run, say the tree huggers at Citigroup… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): New Orleans’ greatest threat may be Gulf ‘Loop Current’; From Venezuela to Russia, oil price drop brings fears of unrest; West Africa’s air pollution is reaching dangerously high levels; N.J. judge approves controversial Christie, Exxon settlement; Attorney hounding climate scientists secretly funded by coal industry; Big Food is spending millions to block transparency; U.S. regulator sued for withholding public info on GMO crops; Groups push for new federal mining rules; Illegal logging destroys large area of Monarch butterfly’s Mexico habitat… PLUS: EU watchdog says pesticides harmful to bees. Industry disagrees… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• 10th Anniversary of Hurricane Katrina:
• VIDEO ARCHIVES: Hurricane Katrina 2005 News Media Coverage (YouTube)
• The BradShow: Live from the anti-war protests at the Bush Ranch in Crawford, TX with Cindy Sheehan and more… (BradBlog.com)
• National Weather Service bulletin for New Orleans region Aug. 28, 2005 (Wikipedia)
• VIDEO: Hurricane Katrina Anniversary – Remembering America’s worst natural disaster in a century and the scars it left on New Orleans and the Gulf Coast (NBC News)
• New Orleans, September 2005: The city that went under in the surging waters of Hurricane Katrina has not returned, not to the way it used to be. (NY Times)
• The resilience strategy: what threats will New Orleans be facing in 50 years’ time? (Guardian UK):
  Jeff Hebert was moved to return home to New Orleans by the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina. In the decade since, he has been at the heart of efforts to rebuild a stronger city, culminating in today’s launch of a future masterplan
• The Deadly Choices at Memorial: Strained by Katrina, a hospital faces deadly choices (NY Times, 8/9/2009)
• 10 Essential Stories About Hurricane Katrina (TIME)
• Refuge of last resort: Five days inside the Superdome for Hurricane Katrina (USA Today)
• Hurricane Katrina changed Louisiana’s political landscape (New Orleans Times-Picayune)
• Stop Blaming Me for Hurricane Katrina: Ten years later, the name ‘Brownie’ is still identified with the government’s failures. (Politico)
• A look at the $50 billion battle to save Louisiana (Grist)
• Obama’s ‘Climate Change Tour’ Heads to Alaska:
• High hopes for Obama’s historic visit to the ‘unraveling’ Arctic (Mashable):
  No state is feeling the affects of climate change more than Alaska. And yet no state has such a vested interest in the continued production and consumption of fossil fuels. This duality will present the White House with some thorny questions during Obama’s visit.

  Peer-reviewed research published in the past several years has shown that what is happening in the Arctic, including the Alaskan Arctic, has repercussions in the lower 48 states, in the form of jet stream undulations that contribute to extreme weather events.

• Obama’s Alaska trip will help him present a more dramatic view of climate change (E&E News)
• Obama to speak ‘frankly’ on 11-day climate change tour (USA Today)
• Before Obama’s Alaska Trip, Climate Group Charges Hypocrisy (NY Times)
• Sea Level Rise is Accelerating:
• Rising Sea Levels More Dangerous Than Thought (Scientific American):
  Consequences of global sea level rise could be even scarier than the worst-case scenarios predicted by the dominant climate models
• Global sea levels have risen 8cm since 1992, Nasa research shows (Guardian UK):
  Scientists say warming waters and melting ice were to blame for levels rising faster than 50 years ago and ‘it’s very likely to get worse’
• The troubling reasons why NASA is so focused on studying sea level rise (Washington Post):
  The overall thrust of the new presentation is that while NASA isn’t saying — yet — that sea level will be worse than expected this century, it’s certainly rushing to study the possibility, using all the tools at its disposal.
• VIDEO: Sea Level Science (NASA)
• NASA Science Zeros in on Ocean Rise: How Much? How Soon? (NASA)
• Citgroup Report: Clean Energy Economy Cheaper Than Fossil Fuel Economy:
• The BradCast: Carly’s Climate Clap-Trap or The Fiorina Follies (The BRAD BLOG)
• Climate wonks focus on economics. They need to pay more attention to politics (Vox.com) [emphasis added]:
  The clean path requires roughly the same total spending on energy as the status quo path….After reviewing the evidence, the report says this: “Given that all things being equal cleaner air has to be preferable to pollution, a very strong ‘Why would you not?’ argument begins to develop.”
• VIDEO: Climate change could cost the world TRILLIONS (CNBC)
• Citigroup: Renewables will triumph and natural gas will help (Grist)

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

• New Orleans’ Greatest Threat Is Climate Change Plus The ‘Loop Current’ Plus A Future Katrina (Climate Progress):
  The key point: All things being equal, if a storm taking the same track of Katrina (or Gustav) occurred in 2050, then, rather than weakening before making landfall, it will probably strengthen considerably, creating far more havoc. To understand why, let’s first answer the question — How did Katrina turn into a powerful Category Five hurricane so rapidly?
• From Venezuela to Iraq to Russia, Oil Price Drops Raise Fears of Unrest (NY Times):
  “The hemorrhaging of government budgets reliant on oil will force dramatic cuts in spending or dangerous increases in borrowing, if not both,” Mr. Goldwyn said. “The countries without significant foreign exchange reserves are most at risk, and they include Nigeria, Angola, Algeria, Venezuela and Iraq. The countries which need to sustain investment to maintain political legitimacy need to be worried, and that’s Brazil, Russia and even Iran.”
• West Africa’s air pollution is reaching dangerously high levels—and we don’t know the worst of it (Quartz):
  Air pollution in fast-growing West African cities is reaching dangerous levels. But the worst part, according to a new study published by Nature magazine this week, is that we know almost nothing about the pollutants emerging from these new urban centers and their impact on weather systems, crops, and public health at large.
• N.J. judge approves controversial Christie, Exxon settlement (Newark Star-Ledger):
  The Texas oil giant agreed to pay $225 million to settle the decade-old suit, in which the state alleged damage to wetlands, marshes and waterways surrounding two refineries, known as Bayway and Bayonne….The state was initially seeking $8.9 billion — $2.5 billion to clean up the sites and $6.4 billion to restore wetlands and forestlands. The footprint of the contamination spanned more than 1,800 acres at the two sites.
• Tutu, Klein and Chomsky call for mass climate action ahead of Paris conference (Guradian UK):
  Artists, journalists, scientists and academics among 100 signatories calling for mobilisation on scale of slavery abolition and anti-apartheid movements
• Attorney Hounding Climate Scientists Covertly Funded By Coal Industry (The Intercept):
  Christopher Horner, an attorney who claims that the earth is cooling, is known within the scientific community for hounding climate change researchers with relentless investigations and public ridicule, often deriding scientists as ‘communists’ and frauds. … New court documents reveal one source of Horner’s funding: big coal.
• Big Food is Spending Millions to Lobby for Less Transparency (Civil Eats):
  From GMO labeling to pesticides to the source of the meat you buy, a handful of companies are spending heavily to keep information off your food labels/
• U.S., China Reach ‘Clean Coal’ Agreement (AP):
  U.S. and China officials took a major step Tuesday toward an agreement to advance “clean coal” technologies that purport to reduce the fuel’s contribution to climate change-and could offer a potential lifeline for an industry that has seen its fortunes fade.
• Power Plants on Indian Reservations Get No Break on Emissions Rules (InsideClimate News):
  Four of the dirtiest plants, which sit on Native American soil, were expecting more lenient goals under the Clean Power Plan, but the EPA shifted gears.
• U.S. Regulator Sued for Withholding Information on GMO Crops (Reuters):
  A food safety advocacy group sued an arm of the U.S. Department of Agriculture on Tuesday, saying it illegally withheld public information on genetically engineered crops.
• Groups Push for New Federal Mining Rules (The Hill):
  A coalition of environmental groups and Native American tribes is asking officials to overhaul federal mining standards ahead of new uranium mining near the Grand Canyon….“The Animas River disaster must mark the end of the days where irresponsible mining threatens our region’s livable future,” Anne Mariah Tapp, the energy program director for the Grand Canyon Trust, said in a statement.
• EU Watchdog Says Pesticides Harmful To Bees, Industry Disagrees (Reuters):
  Widely-used pesticides made by Bayer CropScience and Syngenta pose a risk to bees, the European Union’s food safety watchdog said on Wednesday, reinforcing previous research that led to EU restrictions.
• Monarch Butterflies Face Pesticides in U.S., Illegal Logging in Mexico (Washington Post):
  Illegal logging on a key sanctuary in Mexico threatens monarch butterflies already decimated by herbicides sprayed on milkweed in the U.S.
• VIDEO: Carly Fiorina did a 4-minute riff on climate change. Everything she said was wrong. (Vox.com):
  Fiorina’s comments are a farrago of falsehoods and red herrings, a derp different in character from science-denial derp, but no less derpy….the trick for the aspiring Republican moderate is to acknowledge the scientific consensus on climate change while maintaining opposition to any policy that might penalize fossil fuels or advantage renewable energy.
• Ex Machina: No Techno-Fix For Irreversible Ocean Collapse From Carbon Pollution (Climate Progress):
  The Nature Climate Change study examined what would happen if we continue current CO2 emissions trends through 2050 and then try to remove huge volumes of CO2 from the air after the fact with some techno-fix. The result, as co-author John Schellnhuber, director of the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, put it, is “we will not be able to preserve ocean life as we know it.”
• Every country is now pledging to tackle CO2 emissions. It’s still not enough. (Vox.com):
  In other words, if the world wants to stay below 2°C of global warming – which has long been considered the danger zone for climate change – these pledges are only a first step. Countries will have to do a whole lot more than they’re currently promising. And the IEA has a few ideas for what “do a whole lot more” might entail.
  …
  1. Increase energy efficiency in the industry, buildings, and transport sectors.
  2. Progressively reduce the use of the least efficient coal-fired power plants and banning their construction.
  3. Increase investment in renewable energy technologies in the power sector from $270 billion in 2014 to $400 billion in 2030.
  4. Gradually phase out fossil fuel subsidies to end-users by 2030.
  5. Reduce methane emissions in oil and gas production.
• Now’s Your Chance to Help Save the Imperiled Monarch Butterfly-and Get Paid to Do So (Take Part) [emphasis added]:
  Another threat, according to Grant, has been well-intentioned individuals who have planted a tropical form of milkweed, which competes with native varieties and is not beneficial to monarchs or other pollinators.

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).