‘Green News Report’ – July 13, 2017

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Iceberg the size of Delaware finally breaks off of Antarctica; Tesla will build the world’s biggest battery in 100 days — or it’s free; Trump’s EPA moves to revive the controversial Pebble Mine in Alaska; PLUS: France moves to phase out coal and the internal combustion engine… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions; Ranchers fight KXL pipeline by building solar panels on its route; CA cap-and-trade program headed for crucial vote with controversial compromises; UK invests millions in vehicle-to-grid battery storage; Conservative lawmakers want to bar military programs for climate change research, adaptation; Coastal towns confront retreat vs. stay as sea levels rise; Environmental groups challenge EPA decision to allow unlimited dumping of fracking chemicals into Gulf of Mexico; Puget Sound oyster industry struggling as ocean acidifies… PLUS: Nuclear plant shutdowns a crisis for small towns… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• SPEAK UP for your marine national monuments (Regulations.gov)
• VIDEO: During record heat wave, major TV stations in Phoenix and Las Vegas completely ignored the impact of climate change (Media Matters):
  The stations did not mention a new study connecting global warming to extreme heat, but found time to discuss climate change’s impact on coffee.
• Iceberg the size of Delaware finally breaks free from Antarctica:
• One of the biggest icebergs in recorded history just broke loose from Antarctica (Washington Post):
  There is a debate over whether this event can be attributed in any way to climate change. Scientists don’t have all the data that they would need to show what is happening in the environment of the floating Larsen C ice shelf, which is affected not only but air temperatures above it but also ocean temperatures below it…But Eric Rignot, the NASA and University of California-Irvine researcher, is convinced of a climate role. “For me, there is no doubt that this event is not part of a natural cycle,” he said by email. “The Larsen C ice shelf will not collapse for another few decades, most likely, but this calving is unique in the history of the ice shelf since first seen by human eyes by the Norwegian explorer Carl Anton Larsen in 1893.”
• What Does the Antarctic Ice Shelf Break Really Mean? (Scientific American)
• Trillion-Ton, Delaware-Size Iceberg Breaks Off Antarctica’s Larsen C Ice Shelf (Inside Climate News):
  Ice shelves act as giant buffers slowing the flow of land ice toward the ocean. While this break was driven by natural processes, it reflects concerns in the region.
• EPA moves to revive controversial Pebble Mine in Alaska:
• COMMENT HERE: EPA proposes to withdraw Clean Water Act restrictions for Pebble Mine; 90-day public comment period (EPA.gov)
• Controversial Alaskan gold mine could be revived under Trump’s EPA (Washington Post):
  The Environmental Protection Agency on Tuesday proposed withdrawing its 2014 determination barring any large-scale mine in the area because it would imperil the region’s valuable sockeye salmon fishery. The agency said it would accept public comments on the proposal for the next 90 days…Even if the EPA eventually does withdraw its opposition, Pebble Mine would have to undergo a federal environmental review and clear other state hurdles before construction could begin.
• EPA takes step toward ending ‘pre-emptive veto’ of Pebble Mine (Alaska Public Media)
• Tesla to build world’s biggest battery:
• Elon Musk’s big battery brings reality crashing into a post-truth world (Guardian UK):
  For months, politicians and fossil fuel industry have lied about the viability of renewables. Now Tesla’s big battery in South Australia will prove them wrong .
• Everything you need to know about Tesla’s battery in South Australia (Rupert Murdoch’s News Corp):
  When it’s finished it will be the largest lithium-ion battery in the world. So how will Elon Musk’s big gamble actually work?
• VIDEO: Tesla to build world’s biggest lithium ion battery in South Australia (Guardian UK):
  Elon Musk’s company Tesla will partner with French utility Neoen to deliver the lithium ion battery designed to improve the security of electricity network.
• Australia needs Tesla battery to prevent summer blackouts, regulator says (Guradian UK)
• Tesla wades into Australia’s battle over energy future (Reuters)
• China pilot project: 6 million went 100 percent renewable for 1 week:
• A Vast Chinese Province Just Went a Week Without Fossil Fuels (Mother Jones):
  Qinghai, a Tibetan plateau province in the country’s northwest, derived all of its power from wind, solar, and hydro-electricity from June 17 to June 23. The experiment was part of a trial run by the government to see if the electricity grid could cope without the kind of constant, reliable energy normally provided by fossil fuels. The Chinese government claims that Qinghai’s week without fossil fuels sets a new global benchmark. In May last year, Portugal (population 10 million) ran its electricity for four consecutive days without fossil fuels. But Qinghai had some advantages…
• Six Million People in China Just Went 100% Renewable for a Week (Inverse):
  It’s the first major test of renewable energy on the grid in China.
• France to phase out gasoline engines, coal, oil and gas exploration:
• France wants to ban sale of gas and diesel cars by 2040, end coal by 2022 (Ars Technica):
  In an address on Thursday, France’s environment minister, Nicolas Hulot, said that the country would aim to phase out electricity from coal-fired plants by 2022 and end the sale of gas and diesel internal combustion cars by 2040.
• France to stop granting oil exploration licences (France 24)

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

For a comprehensive roundup of daily environmental news you can trust, see the Society of Environmental Journalists’ Daily Headlines page

• Just 100 companies responsible for 71% of global emissions, study says (Guardian UK):
  A relatively small number of fossil fuel producers and their investors could hold the key to tackling climate change.
• California’s New Cap-and-Trade Plan Heads for a Vote—with Compromises (Inside Climate News):
  The new state plan for cutting greenhouse gas emissions would extend carbon trading to 2030, but also protect industry from some future regulations…Another twist in the legislation restricts future regulation of large sources of emissions, including refineries. It would also prevent local regulators from imposing technology or other emissions controls beyond the cap-and-trade limits. Environmental advocates says this can lead to harmful local pollution—collateral damage to the global carbon problem—as smokestack industries trade their way into compliance.
• Nuclear plant shutdowns a crisis for small towns across the USA (LOHUD):
  Vernon’s dilemma, in many ways, mirrors the unique challenges being faced by towns across the USA — from California’s Pacific coast to the Florida’s Gulf Coast — where nuclear power plants have shut down.
• ‘The island is being eaten’: how climate change is threatening the Torres Strait (Guardian UK):
  In Boigu, part of Australia but just six kilometres from Papua New Guinea, roads are being washed into the sea.
• Pipelines secured as wildfires rage in western Canada (Reuters):
  The fires have disrupted timber and mining operations, damaged a regional electric utility and forced more than 14,000 people from their homes in the interior of the province. On Friday, British Columbia declared its first state of emergency since 2003.
• UK offers £20m for vehicle-to-grid energy storage (Treehugger):
  With the future of transportation looking increasingly electric, skeptics will worry about the impact on the grid. Can we really handle so much added demand, and will it cause blackouts when we all get home from work?
• Green Groups Sue U.S. EPA Over Smog Rule Delay (Reuters):
  Environmental and public health groups asked a U.S. Appeals Court in a lawsuit filed on Wednesday to force the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency to reverse its decision to delay issuing a set of smog cleanup rules.
• New Harvard Analysis Highlights How Media Failed the People of Flint (Colorlines):
  More than two years have passed since the water crisis in Flint, Michigan hit the national headlines. But the water crisis itself unfolded over three years ago in 2014—not 2015 when the rest of the country found out about it.
• Lobbying: K Street Work Expands For Pruitt’s Pals (E&E News):
  Business has been good for U.S. EPA Administrator Scott Pruitt’s friends from his political days in Oklahoma.
• Ranchers Fight Keystone XL Pipeline by Building Solar Panels in Its Path (Inside Climate News):
  It’s one of several creative protests against pipeline companies trying to use eminent domain to take private land. A Nebraska hearing is planned for August.
• Newsweek failed to disclose fossil fuel ties in an article promoting industry groups’ claims (Media Matters):
  Newsweek also failed to disclose the fossil fuel funding of the story’s sources.
• Conservative Groups Urge Lawmakers To Gut Climate Programs In Military (Reuters):
  A coalition of 14 conservative groups urged U.S. lawmakers on Wednesday to support an amendment to the House of Representatives’ annual defense bill that would prevent the Pentagon from implementing climate-change and green energy policies meant to save taxpayers money and protect the planet.
• Climate Change Dilemma for Coastal US: How Much Flooding Is Too Much? (Bloomberg):
  In the Florida Keys, residents are facing a question that may soon plague communities up and down the U.S. coastline: How much water are they willing to live with?
• Proposed EPA Permit Violates Clean Water Act, Group Alleges (WWLT-New Orleans):
  An environmental group is accusing the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency of violating federal pollution laws by allowing oil and gas companies to dump an unlimited quantity of fracking chemicals into the Gulf of Mexico.
• Official Who Nixed Everglades From UN Endangered List Gets Trump Job (Miami Herald):
  An Interior Department official who removed the Everglades from the United Nations’ endangered-sites list during the Bush administration is back.
• Rising From The Ashes, A Buffalo Suburb Ends Its Dependence On Coal (Grist):
  Sixteen months ago, the coal-fired Huntley Generating Station, which sits on the banks of the Niagara River, stopped producing power for first time since World War I.
• CO2 Turns Puget Sound Acidic And Region’s Oysters Struggle To Survive (Investigate West):
  It’s a calamity that threatens Washington state’s $270-million-a-year shellfish industry. And it has the Taylors — after a century-plus producing shellfish in the Evergreen State — exploring every potential angle to steel their mollusks against the corrosive effects of ocean acidification.
• Mining Firm Gets Federal OK to Dump Tailings in B.C. Trout Streams (DeSmog Blog Canada):
  Two fish-bearing creeks will be used for 2.3 billion tonnes of toxic tailings from the proposed Kerr-Sulphurets-Mitchell (KSM) mine in northwest B.C., wiping out habitat for several populations of small Dolly Varden fish.
• The Uninhabitable Earth: When will climate change make earth too hot for humans? (New York Magazine):
  Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak — sooner than you think.
• A beginner’s guide to the debate over 100% renewable energy (Vox):
  Clean-energy enthusiasts frequently claim that we can go bigger, that it’s possible for the whole world to run on renewables – we merely lack the “political will.” So, is it true? Do we know how get to an all-renewables system? Not yet. Not really.
• No country on Earth is taking the 2 degree climate target seriously (Vox):
  If we mean what we say, no more new fossil fuels, anywhere.

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).