‘Green News Report’ – August 16, 2016

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Another historic, deadly rainfall event hits the U.S., dislocates tens of thousands — this time in Louisiana (again); Another wildfire in California (again) forces evacuation of more than 4,000; July 2016 was the hottest month ever recorded on Planet Earth (again); PLUS: Dr. Jill Stein is now officially the Green Party’s nominee for President. We’ll tell you her position on climate change… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): A court ruling that could save the planet; Brazil’s Amazon Hot, Dry and Ablaze; Secret ‘Chemtrail’ Spraying Not Real, Scientists Agree; New study: it would be cheap to retrain coal workers for solar jobs; California Farm Communities Pay Price For Decades Of Fertilizer Use; A closer look at Trump’s sentence-like word strings on coal, China, and the size of the Earth… PLUS: Americans More Polarized Than Ever On Climate… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Another historic, deadly rainfall event – this time in Louisiana:
• Billion-Dollar Flood Has Louisiana Reeling (Weather Underground)
• Why the extreme Louisiana floods are worrying but not surprising (Mashable):
  If such rainstorms seem familiar to you, that’s because they’ve been in the news more frequently lately. According to Steve Bowen, a meteorologist for the insurance company Aon Benfield, there have been nine 1-in-1,000-year rainfall events in the U.S. since 2010 alone, including a deadly flooding event in West Virginia in June and a devastating flash flood in Ellicott City, Maryland in late July.
• Americas Latest 500-Year Rainstorm Is Underway Right Now in Louisiana (Pacific Standard Magazine):
  Observers are calling the record floods a ‘classic signal of climate change’ –and high-resolution models predict another one to two feet of rain by Saturday evening.
• What we can say about the Louisiana floods and climate change (Washington Post)
• Another round of record wildfires in California:
• Northern California Wildfire Reduces Streets to Smoldering Rubble, Destroys Over 175 Structures (ABC News)
• Roaring wildfire devastates California town (USA Today)
• California In Flames Right Now, With Fires Fueled By Historic Drought (Washington Post):
  California is burning. The state has nine active wildfires as large as 25 acres or more, including the massive Clayton fire north of San Francisco that forced nearly 1,500 residents to flee their homes after it erupted Saturday in dry conditions created by the state’s extreme drought. On Sunday the blaze doubled in size.
• What’s behind Lake County’s back-to-back wildfire catastrophes? Blame the drought: (Sacramento Bee)
• July 2016 was the hottest month ever recorded:
• NASA: Last Month Was Earth’s Hottest In Recorded History (AP):
  NASA calculates that Earth just broiled to its hottest month in recorded history. Even after the fading of a strong El Nino, which spikes global temperatures on top of man-made climate change, July burst global temperature records.
• This Is No Ordinary Heat Wave In The Eastern U.S.” Humidity Extreme (Mashable):
  From New Orleans to Portland, Maine, the heat and humidity has hit oppressive levels for the second long stretch this summer. In New York City, for example, entire blocks smell like hot garbage, and the air feels like a wet blanket, with heat indices approaching 110 degrees Fahrenheit.
• Dr. Jill Stein, Green Party nominee, on climate change and renewable energy:
• VIDEO: Green Party candidate Jill Stein says we need a jobs program like the ‘New Deal’ (CNBC):
  She said the United States needs an emergency jobs program like the New Deal – “a green New Deal” to solve “the emergency of climate change,” and a cancellation of student debt to “liberate a generation to lead us forward to the economy of the future.”
• Power to the People Plan (Jill Stein, Green Party, 2016):
  A Green New Deal: Create millions of jobs by transitioning to 100% clean renewable energy by 2030, and investing in public transit, sustainable agriculture, and conservation.
• Presidential Candidate Stein Declares Climate Emergency, Calls For Immediate Halt In New Fossil Fuel Infrastructure, & Massive Green Jobs Creation (Jill 2016)

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

• A closer look at Trump’s sentence-like word strings on coal, China, and the size of the Earth (David Roberts, Vox):
  [I]t is my solemn duty to inform you that Trump has said more things. In this case, he has commented on subjects close to my heart (or at least my spleen), namely coal and coal workers. It is difficult to analyze these things he has said, as they are less things than disconnected fragments of things, lurching about and careening off one another in a kind of linguistic demolition derby. But we shall do our best.
• California Farm Communities Pay Price For Decades Of Fertilizer Use (Sacramento Bee):
  A pollutant that has leached into California aquifers since farmers first began using synthetic fertilizer continues to accumulate and would not be removed from groundwater even if the state’s agriculture businesses abruptly quit using nitrogen-based materials to boost the productivity of their crops.
• A court ruling that could save the planet (Napa Valley Register) [emphasis added]:
  The social cost of carbon is meant to capture the economic damage of a ton of carbon emissions. The assumptions that go into the analysis, and the resulting number, matter a lot, because they play a key role in the cost-benefit analysis for countless regulations — not only the Obama Administration’s Clean Power Plan, but also fuel economy rules for automobiles and trucks and energy efficiency rules for appliances, including refrigerators, microwave ovens, clothes washers, small motors, and clothes driers. The cost-benefit analysis can in turn help agencies to determine the level of stringency for such regulations, and indeed whether to go forward at all.
• New study: it would be cheap to retrain coal workers for solar jobs (David Roberts, Vox):
  How closely do the skills in the coal industry match needed skills in the solar industry? What would it cost to retrain coal workers for the (closest matching) solar job? And where could that money come from? The answers are all pretty hopeful: The skills match pretty well, it wouldn’t cost that much, and there are a number of possible sources of funding.
• Brazil’s Amazon Hot, Dry and Ablaze (ENS):
  Brazil’s National Space Research Institute, INPE, registered over 53,000 forest fires in the country up to Friday, and warns that the hot, dry weather may make things worse, if law enforcement efforts are not increased. This warning indicates that many of the fires are the result of human activities, such as slash and burn agriculture.
• Feds Tighten Controls On Abandoned Pipelines (The Hill):
  Abandoned pipelines are facing new scrutiny from the Obama administration. The Transportation Department’s Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration (PHMSA) issued an advisory bulletin Monday that tightens controls on pipeline operators.
• As Earth Warms, Americans More Polarized Than Ever On Climate (CS Monitor):
  Just as scientists are warning that our planet’s climate is set to overshoot critical thresholds, Americans have become more divided than ever along partisan lines over global warming.
• Secret ‘Chemtrail’ Spraying Not Real, Scientists Agree (ENS):
  Long-lasting white trails left behind by aircraft are caused by well-understood physical and chemical processes, not a secret, large-scale atmospheric spraying program, concludes new research from Carnegie Science, University of California-Irvine, and the nonprofit Near Zero.
• Duke Energy asks S.C. customers to pay cleanup costs for coal ash (Charlotte Business Journal):
  Duke Energy is asking for the first $1.5 million installment on what to date is a $500 million coal-ash cleanup bill as part of Duke Energy Progress’ proposed 14.5 percent rate increase in South Carolina.
• Epic Mideast Heat Wave Could Be Global Warming’s Hellish Curtain-Raiser (Washington Post):
  Record-shattering temperatures this summer have scorched countries from Morocco to Saudi Arabia and beyond, as climate experts warn that the severe weather could be a harbinger of worse to come.
• Environmental records shattered as climate change ‘plays out before us’ (Guardian UK):
  Temperatures, sea levels and carbon dioxide all hit milestones amid extreme weather in 2015, major international ‘state of the climate’ report finds.

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).