‘Green News Report’ – April 19, 2016

Follow @GreenNewsReport…

(Or use “Click here to listen…” link below.)

IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Another historic rain event, this time in Houston; Hillary Clinton’s big plan to eliminate lead contamination within 5 years; World Bank president warns world must stop building new coal plants; PLUS: Sound familiar? March 2016 was the hottest March on record… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Saudis are going for the kill but the oil market is turning anyway; The Clinton-Sanders debate exchange on climate change was a dumpster fire; How cheap does solar power need to get before it takes over the world?; Baltimore student activist honored for fight against trash-burning power plant; Consensus: “Virtually all climate scientists agree warming is manmade”; EU bans two endocrine-disrupting weedkillers; EPA: U.S. has been emitting a lot more methane than we thought… PLUS: ‘La la la la la. I can’t hear you’: Deniers double down on denial
… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Another Historic Rain Event in the U.S.: Houston:
• Houston floods: Disaster zone declared after ‘historic’ rainfall (BBC)
• Massive Flash Flood in Houston (Weather Underground):
  [M[ore than 1200 high-water rescues were reported as the Houston area was socked on Monday morning by a huge mesoscale convective system (MCS) that drifted southeast across the area, dumping eye-popping amounts of rain.
• VIDEO: ‘Unprecedented’: 5 Dead as Record Rainfall Floods Houston (NBC Today Show):
  Gov. Greg Abbott declared a state of disaster in nine counties, hundreds of flights were canceled, mass transit was shut down and schools were closed after a season’s worth of rain fell in just a matter of hours.
• Across U.S., Heaviest Downpours On The Rise (Climate Central, 5/27/15)
• March 2016’s the Hottest March on Record:
• Global Summary Information – March 2016 (NOAA):
  This also marks the 11th consecutive month a monthly global temperature record has been broken, the longest such streak in the 137-year record.
• Earth’s Temperature Just Shattered the Thermometer (Bloomberg):
  Only three months in, and 2016 will almost certainly be the hottest year on record.
• Sec. Clinton Proposes Eliminating Lead Health Threat in 5 Years:
• Hillary Clinton Just Released A Plan To Target This Often-Ignored Environmental Issue (Climate Progress),/li>
• Hillary Clinton Wants to Eliminate Lead Within Five Years (Mother Jones):
  I’m especially happy to see Hillary acknowledge the importance of remediating lead in soil, which usually doesn’t get much attention. But that’s where all the lead from automobile emissions settled, and it’s worst in low-income urban neighborhoods that are dense with traffic.
• No new lead crises in 5 years? Clinton has a plan (Grist):
  “There are a lot of Flints across our country where children are exposed to polluted air, unhealthy water and chemicals that can increase cancer risk.” Studies show that some 500,000 U.S. children under the age of 5, who are predominantly black and Latino, have high levels of lead in their bloodstreams…When it comes to water contamination, we don’t even know where most of the problematic pipes are concentrated; best guesses range from 3 to 10 million lead service lines in America.
• VIDEO: Hillary Clinton speaks to National Action Network (YouTube)
• Conventional Strawberries Top EWG’s ‘Dirty Dozen’ List:
• Dirty Dozen: EWG’s 2016 Shopper’s Guide to Pesticides in Produce (Environmental Working Group)
• The ‘Dirty Dozen’: Group lists produce with the most pesticides (CNN)
• The Dirty Dozen and Clean Fifteen: 2016s list of fruits, vegetables with the most pesticides (Global News Canada)
• Disturbing New Evidence About What Common Pesticides Can Do to Brains (Mother Jones):
  That work remains to be done, Zylka said. “What’s most disturbing to me is that we’ve allowed these chemicals to be widely used, widely found on food and in the environment, without knowing more about their potential effects,” he said.
• World Bank Warns World Must Stop Building Coal Plants:
• VIDEO: 2016 Spring Meetings Opening Press Conference: World Bank Group President Jim Yong Kim (World Bank)
• World Bank head warns against new coal power plants (Climate Change News):
  “On climate change we must deliver on the promises that were made in Paris. But we’re seeing countries around the world signing agreements for the dirtiest source energy in the world, coal. So we’re working with countries right now to make renewable energy cheaper than coal.”
• World Bank Targets 30GW Of Renewable Energy In New Climate Action Plan (Planet Save):
  The World Bank Group unveiled its ambitious new plan to aid developing countries in fulfilling their COP21 pledges by adding 30GW of renewable energy – doubling its current contributions to global energy capacity….Not only does this action plan provide a concrete focus on clean energy, it points to green transport, climate-smart agriculture, and urban resilience. In short, it directly addresses the impacts of climate change.
• World Bank Group Unveils New Climate Action Plan (World Bank)
• Solar Roofs Could Provide Narly Half of U.S. Power:
• Rooftop solar panels could provide nearly half US power (Guardian UK) [emphasis added]:
  And that isn’t the half of it. The study only estimates the solar power potential of existing, suitable rooftops, and does not look at the immense potential of ground-mounted photovoltaics (PV), said NREL senior energy analyst Robert Margolis in a press release. “Actual generation from PV in urban areas could exceed these estimates by installing systems on less suitable roof space.”…The new study doubles the estimate from a 2008 NREL study on US rooftop solar potential.
• NREL Raises Rooftop Photovoltaic Technical Potential Estimate (U.S. National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

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

• Saudis are going for the kill but the oil market is turning anyway (Telegraph UK) [emphasis added]:
  The collapse of OPEC talks with Russia over the weekend makes absolutely no difference to the balance of supply and demand in the global oil markets…Any one of these countries could spin out of control. It is not far-fetched to imagine two or three occurring at the same time. This would change the dynamics of the oil markets in a heartbeat and would bring the ageing post-Lehman expansion of the global economy to an abrupt halt, exposing the nasty pathologies that have been building up. It never was cheap oil that threatened our economies. The scare earlier this year was misguided. It is the next oil supply crunch we should fear most.
• The Clinton-Sanders debate exchange on climate change was a dumpster fire (Vox.com):
  It served primarily as a proxy battle, another way for Sanders to accuse Clinton of being corrupt and for her to deny it. He remained on the attack and she on the defensive, so he likely won the exchange, but on questions of climate policy it was unilluminating. What it revealed, for the most part, are the candidates’ flaws…
• How cheap does solar power need to get before it takes over the world? (Vox.com):
  A provocative recent essay in Nature Energy by two solar analysts, Varun Sivaram and Shayle Kann, argues that solar still has some hard economic obstacles to overcome before it can become a major energy source and provide (let’s say) one-third of our power. Overcoming these hurdles could mean the difference between solar leveling off as a niche technology and solar taking over the world.
• Baltimore student activist honored for fight against trash-burning power plant (Baltimore Bay Journal):
  A young Baltimore woman who’s helped lead a grassroots fight against a trash-burning power plant in her community has been honored with a top environmental prize for her efforts. Destiny Watford is one of six recipients of this year’s Goldman Environmental Prize, which every year honors environmental activists from around the world.
• La la la la la. I Can’t Hear you. Deniers Double Down on Denial (Clmate Crocks):
  “In our view, the fact that so many scientists agree so closely about the [causes of the] earth’s warming is, itself, evidence of a lack of evidence for [human caused] global warming.” – D. Ryan Brumberg and Matthew Brumberg
• Consensus: “Virtually All Climate Scientists Agree Warming Is Manmade” (InsideClimate News):
  Ninety to 100 percent of climate scientists agree that the planet is warming due to human activity, according to a peer-reviewed paper published Wednesday in the journal Environmental Research Letters. The study, called a ‘consensus on consensus,’ synthesizes findings from prior published research.
• Europe Bans Two Endocrine-Disrupting Weedkillers (Guardian UK):
  The European commission has ordered a ground-breaking moratorium on two endocrine-disrupting weedkillers that have been linked to thyroid cancer, infertility, reproductive problems and foetal malformations.
• New Report Outlines Climate Change Challenges On Canada’s Arctic Coast (CBC):
  Canada’s longest — and most northern — coastline will soon have to combat vast challenges such as storms, floods, erosion and melting sea ice in the wake of climate change, according to a Natural Resources Canada report.
• Study: Humans Have Caused All The Global Warming Since 1950 (Guardian UK):
  Global warming attribution studies consistently find humans are responsible for all global warming over the past six decades.
• The U.S. Has Been Emitting A Lot More Methane Than We Thought, Says EPA (Washington Post):
  The Environmental Protection Agency has released a major upward revision to its estimates of total emissions of methane, a hard-hitting if short-lived greenhouse gas, in an annual inventory that the agency submits to the United Nations. The revisions will further up the stakes in a political battle over regulations that the agency is preparing to issue that could affect operations at thousands of oil and gas wells.
• Refinery Proposed Next To Theodore Roosevelt Natl. Park Raises Concerns (National Parks Traveler):
  While falling oil prices have slowed production from North Dakota’s oil and natural gas fields, a company sees that lull as the perfect opportunity to build a crude oil refinery in the state. However, its proposed location just three miles from Theodore Roosevelt National Park has raised concerns from the National Park Service and conservation groups about how it will impact the park.
• Major Oil Exporters Fail to Agree on Production Freeze (NY Times):
  Officials from 18 oil-producing nations failed on Sunday to reach a deal to freeze oil production at current levels.
• Powerful Earthquake Hits Ecuador’s Coast (NPR):
  “The death toll from Saturday’s earthquake has risen to 262. The new number was given to reporters Sunday night. President Rafael Correa, who cut short a trip to Rome to return to Ecuador, said he expects the death toll to rise. Government officials say there are many people who are still missing.
• Dangerous Work for “Crap Money”: The Dark Side of Recycling (Mother Jones):
  Some of America’s riskiest jobs involve processing our old stuff.
• Judge says energy companies bilked California out of $1.1 billion on electricity deals (Sacramento Bee):
  The energy crisis of 2001 was a product of the state’s botched deregulation scheme, which forced the big utilities to sell most of their generating plants and then buy their power on a daily spot market. Legislators believed the spot market would produce low prices. But the plan backfired. Prices soared, and the state was hit with a series of rolling blackouts when supplies ran short. It was later revealed that energy traders at the now-defunct Enron Corp., as well as other companies, manipulated the market to produce shortages and send prices skyrocketing.
• CO2’s Role in Global Warming Has Been on the Oil Industry’s Radar Since the 1960s (InsideClimate News):
  The oil industry’s leading pollution-control consultants advised the American Petroleum Institute in 1968 that carbon dioxide from burning fossil fuels deserved as much concern as the smog and soot that had commanded attention for decades.
• Want to fight climate change? Here are the 7 critical life changes you should make (Grist) [emphasis added]:
  So, given the imperfections of this world, what is a lone wolf such as yourself to do? Here are some conclusions gleaned from this study: 1. Buy the most fuel-efficient car you can afford, then drive it as little as possible….

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).