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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Sanders and Clinton supporters come together — mostly — to adopt the greenest positions ever in a Democratic Party Platform… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Solar-Powered Plane Leaves Spain For Egypt; Dupont, Chemours Handed Another Loss in Teflon Chemical Case; Assailants Abduct, Murder Activist in Honduras; June Was Record-Hot For U.S., Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters Surge; House Hearing On EPA Rule Turns Ugly As Rep Calls Regulations ‘Un-American’; Global Cloud Coverage Shifting in Ominous Sign of Climate Change; ‘Healing’ detected in Antarctic ozone hole… PLUS: As Congress Calls Out Fossil Fuel Deception, ExxonMobil Continues to Fund Climate Science Denial… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Democratic Party Platform Draft Committee Passes ‘Most Progressive’ Dem Platform in History:
• Democratic Platform Drafting Meeting Concludes: (Dem Convention):
  This draft will now go to the full Platform Committee for final approval at a meeting in Orlando, Florida on July 8th and 9th. The document approved by the full Platform Committee, consisting of 187 members from across the country, will be presented for ratification at the Democratic National Convention in July.
  …
  Climate Change and Clean Energy: Moving beyond the “all of the above” energy approach in the 2012 platform, the 2016 platform draft re-frames the urgency of climate change as a central challenge of our time, already impacting American communities and calling for generating 50 percent clean electricity within the next ten years…
• Democrats Pass Most Aggressive Climate Change Plan in Party History (Bernie Sanders 2016 Campaign):
  The accord commits Democrats to fight for a price on carbon, methane and other greenhouse gases and for massive investment in renewable energy sources like wind and solar power. It will also further advance the goals of the grassroots environmental movement by applying the formula that was used to evaluate and ultimately oppose the Keystone XL pipeline to all future fossil fuel pipeline projects. All federal decision making should look at the proposal’s impact on the climate, according to the new platform language.
• Sanders’ final win: Climate action in the Democratic platform (Grist):
  Pushed left by backers of Senator Bernie Sanders, Democratic leaders adopted a draft platform over the weekend that commits the party to a more aggressive stance on climate change — more aggressive, in some areas, than the positions of the party’s presumptive nominee.
• Hillary Clinton could run on strongest climate change platform ever (Guardian UK):
  The Democrats’ draft platform won’t be ratified until the convention, but climate activists are already hailing it as a ‘monumental victory’…The Clinton camp said, after the platform was adopted, that she does not support a carbon tax and the draft still needs to be ratified at the Democratic national convention in Philadelphia this month.
• Michael Hoexter: Democratic Party Platform 7/1/16 Draft Would Lock In Catastrophic Climate Change (Nakes Capitalism) [emphasis added]:
  It should come as no surprise that the Democratic party plans for taking on climate change are grossly inadequate…At this point in history, cutting imaginary deals (none are usually forthcoming) or preemptive compromises with climate change deniers means departing from the stark reality of our current and worsening geophysical situation as regards warming emissions and the degradation of the climate and ocean chemistry in large part from those emissions. We must now be positioning ourselves in relationship to the “object” of policy itself rather than to the views of opponents that are not sufficiently grounded in both natural science and the most plausible socio-economic tools for fixing the problem.

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

• Solar-Powered Plane Leaves Spain For Egypt (AP):
  An experimental solar-powered airplane has left Spain for Egypt in the penultimate leg of its globe-circling voyage.
• Dupont, Chemours Handed Another Loss in Teflon Chemical Case (Bloomberg):
  DuPont Co. was found liable for a man’s testicular cancer in the second lawsuit to go to trial in 3,500 lawsuits over a toxic Teflon chemical found in Ohio and West Virginia waters, for which spinoff Chemours Co. had agreed to bear the cost.
• Unknown Assailants Abduct, Murder Activist in Honduras (TeleSUR):
  Another Indigenous activist has been murdered in Honduras, with local activists reporting Wednesday night that a woman identified as Yaneth Urquia Urquia was found dead near a garbage dump with severe head trauma.
• As Congress Calls Out Fossil Fuel Deception, ExxonMobil Continues to Fund Climate Science Denial (Union of Concerns Scientists):
  Despite ongoing claims by the company to NOT be funding climate denial, the reports once again reveal that the oil and gas giant has continued to financially support many groups that work to undermine climate science, while labeling such funding as corporate social responsibility.
• June Was Record-Hot For U.S., Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters Surge (Washington Post):
  Last month was the hottest June on record for the Lower 48. If this kind of headline is starting to feel like a record on repeat, you’re correct — it’s the second June in a row that’s become the warmest on record for the U.S., although that fact is dwarfed by the string of globally hot months we’ve experienced over the past year.
• House Hearing On EPA Rule Turns Ugly As Rep Calls Regulations ‘Un-American’ (Climate Progress):
  Members of the House Energy and Commerce Committee harshly questioned the EPA’s acting assistant administrator, Janet McCabe, on Wednesday, saying that the Clean Power Plan, the EPA’s rule to reduce carbon emissions from the electricity sector, was overly burdensome on the American economy and was part of the EPA’s longstanding war on industry.
• Trump’s Denial Of Climate Science At Odds With World Leaders (AP):
  If elected president, Donald Trump would be the only head of state in the world to contend that climate change is a hoax, according to a study
• China’s Worst Flooding Since 1998 Kills 173, Takes Economic Toll (Bloomberg):
  Weeks of torrential rain across central and southern China have caused the country’s worst flooding since 1998, killing 173 people, ruining farms and cutting major transportation arteries — and creating potential headwinds to economy growth.
• Global Cloud Coverage Shifting in Ominous Sign of Climate Change (Bloomberg):
  We didn’t know enough about clouds until now. What a new study reveals is bad news.
• ‘Healing’ detected in Antarctic ozone hole BCC):
  Researchers say they have found the first clear evidence that the thinning in the ozone layer above Antarctica is starting to heal. The scientists said that in September 2015 the hole was around 4 million sq km smaller than it was in the year 2000 – an area roughly the size of India. The gains have been credited to the long term phasing out of ozone-destroying chemicals.
• Warning from the past: Future global warming could be even warmer (Niels Bohr Institute):
  “The research shows that climate sensitivity was higher during the past global, warm climate than in the current climate. This is bad news for humanity as greater climate sensitivity from warming will further amplify the warming…”
• 7 Things You Should Do After Watching ‘How to Let Go of the World’ (Eco Watch):
  ‘How to Let Go of the World’ is unlike any other documentary you’ve ever seen on climate change. Traveling to 12 countries on six continents, the film acknowledges that it may be too late to stop some of the worst consequences and asks, what is it that climate change can’t destroy? What is so deep within us that no calamity can take it away?

FOR MORE on Climate Science and Climate Change, go to our Green News Report: Essential Background Page

• NASA climate change video: This is the U.S. in 2100 (NASA).