‘Green News Report’ – June 21, 2016

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: OUR 700TH EPISODE!!! Heat wave shatters records across the Southwest, as California’s snowpack melts away; Bernie Sanders wants YOU to fight climate change; PLUS: President Obama warns climate change is coming for your national parks… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): The Enormous Threat To America’s Last Grasslands; Document Dump: Lawsuit Reveals Extent Of DuPont’s C8 Cover Up; Solar Impulse Leaves New York On Trans-Atlantic Flight Without Fuel; Permafrost Soil Under North Slope Lakes Is About To Thaw; Hot Mess: States Struggle To Deal With Radioactive Fracking Waste; As Wind Power Lifts Wyoming’s Fortunes, Coal Miners Left in the Dust… PLUS: Texas Tribe Wins 10-Year Fight Over Its Use Of Eagle Feathers… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Heat wave shatters records across the Southwest:
• Summer Is Here. So Is a Deadly Heat Wave. (NY Times)
• VIDEO: Wildfires and deadly heat wave hit Southwest U.S. (CNN)
• The science behind this crazy heat wave: (LA Times):
  “Things are definitely out of whack here,” said Bill Patzert, a climatologist at the Jet Propulsion Laboratory. “This heat wave is not only unusual in its intensity, it is potentially deadly.”…“In our work, we’ve found that by the middle of the century, L.A. will experience two to three times the numbers of hot days like this, and by the end of the century, there will be four to five times the number of extremely hot days,” Hall said.
• VIDEO: Excessive Heat Warnings Issued for LA, Vegas and Phoenix (ABC News)
• Flight to Phoenix returns to Houston due to heat (Phoenix 3TV)
• Extreme Heat Is Defining Climate Change (Climate Central)
• Heat wave sparks new wildfires across 9 states:
• Firefighters hold ‘sleeping giant’ wildfire in check in California (Reuters)
• Scherpa Fire Edges Closer to ExxonMobil Refinery (Santa Barbara Independent)
• Multiple Western States Are Ablaze With Wildfires (Climate Progress)
• California’s snowpack melts away:
• Going, going, GONE — California’s snowpack has vanished (Discover):
  For all intent and purposes, this vital source of water for tens of millions of Californians, and one of the world’s most productive agricultural economies, has vanished prematurely. The culprit: a sunny and warm spring. And with La Niña probably on the way, things could get worse before they get better.
• Melting snow, water releases and La Niña complicate California’s drought picture (Sacramento Bee)
• California drought bummer: Sierra water runoff coming up short (SF Gate):
  The Department of Water Resources now projects that the mountains will produce about three quarters of normal runoff during the months of heaviest snowmelt, shorting the rivers and reservoirs that typically provide a third of California’s water — and cementing a fifth year of historic drought for the Golden State.
• Bernie Sanders wants YOU to fight climate change:
• VIDEO: Bernie Sanders National Live Stream Address
• Transcript: The Political Revolution Continues (Bernie Sanders.com):
  We need people who are dedicated to public service and can provide the services we need in a high quality and efficient way…It means that as we combat climate change and transform our energy system away from fossil fuels, we need scientists and engineers and entrepreneurs who will help us make energy efficiency, solar energy, wind energy, geothermal and other developing technologies as efficient and cost effective as possible. It means that as we rebuild our crumbling infrastructure, we need millions of skilled construction workers of all kinds. It means that when we talk about growing our economy and creating jobs, we need great business people who can produce and distribute the products and services we need in a way that respects their employees and the environment.
• President Obama warns climate change is coming for your national parks:
• Obama says climate change already damaging national parks (AP)
• FACT SHEET: Obama Administration Recognizes the 100th Anniversary and Economic Benefits of America’s National Parks (White House.gov)
• VIDEO: Obama In Yosemite -Full Speech (The Uptake)
• Remarks by the President at Sentinel Bridge, Yosemite National Park (White House.gov):
  [S]tudies show that every dollar we invest in our national parks generates $10 for local economies. And these parks help to drive our national outdoor industries -– boots and tents, and mountain bikes and snowmobiles -– and that industry supports 6 million American jobs and almost $650 billion in spending every year. That’s a lot of fleeces and headlamps.

  So as we look back over the last 100 years, there’s plenty to celebrate about a national parks system that is the envy of the world. But when we look to the next century, the next 100 years, the task of protecting our sacred spaces is even more important. And the biggest challenge we’re going to face in protecting this place and places like it is climate change.

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

• The Enormous Threat To America’s Last Grasslands (Washington Post):
  Over the past few years, Neil Shook has watched his world burn acre by acre. ‘I could tell something was happening,’ Shook recalled, when he first noticed the plumes of smoke in 2011. By 2013, fires were raging every day, sending smoke billowing into the air — imagery that reminded Shook of Kuwait’s burning oil wells during the Persian Gulf War.
• Texas Tribe Wins 10-Year Fight Over Its Use Of Eagle Feathers (McClatchy):
  Ten years after a federal agent crashed a pow-wow of a Texas tribe and seized their ceremonial eagle feathers, the tribe has won a settlement that lets members keep the feathers – and get court costs paid, too.
• It’s The First New U.S. Nuclear Reactor In Decades. (Washington Post):
  In an immaculate control room at the Watts Bar nuclear plant, green bars flash on a large screen, signaling something that has not happened in the United States in two decades.
• Document Dump: Lawsuit Reveals Extent Of DuPont’s C8 Cover Up (DeSmog Blog):
  Corporate heavyweight DuPont is back in court right now, defending their decision to poison entire communities along the Ohio River by releasing a toxic chemical known as C8 into the river. C8 is a chemical that is used in the manufacturing of the company’s blockbuster product Teflon.
• Solar Impulse Leaves New York On Trans-Atlantic Flight Without Fuel (NPR):
  A solar-powered airplane took off from New York’s John F. Kennedy International Airport early Monday, in a bid to have the Solar Impulse 2 craft cross the Atlantic Ocean and land in Spain on Thursday.
• Permafrost Soil Under North Slope Lakes Is About To Thaw (Alaska Dispatch):
  In northernmost Alaska, permafrost is steadily warming and large amounts of thaw are expected by the end of the century. But for some spots, the thaw is about 70 years ahead of that predicted pace, new research shows.
• B.C. Indigenous Leaders Bring Case Against LNG Terminal To Ottawa (Toronto Globe & Mail):