‘Green News Report’ – July 12, 2018

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Environmental groups mobilize against Judge Brett Kavanaugh, Donald Trump’s anti-regulation nominee to the U.S. Supreme Court; New report finds Trump Administration’s proposed coal bailout means more pollution, and more death; Companies begin harnessing poo power to generate electricity in North Carolina and New York; PLUS: Shell Oil CEO calls on UK to speed up transition to electric vehicles… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Wheeler tells EPA employees, ‘You can’t lead unless you listen’; House Republicans vote to gut lauded law that saved America’s fisheries; US judge allows lawsuits over Monsanto’s Roundup to proceed to trial; In about-face, utilities urge EPA to keep mercury rule; Climate science denier sued by his allies at denial think tank; The Russian pipeline to Germany that Trump is so mad about, explained; Heatwave seems to make manmade climate change real for Americans; Bhopal: World’s worst industrial disaster is still unfolding; Scientists assessed the ‘grim’ options for using nuclear power for decarbonization … PLUS: Russian mining firm puts Trump’s face on its asbestos products… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Environmental groups begin to mobilize against Trump’s anti-regulation Supreme Court nominee:
• AUDIO: Trump’s SCOTUS Pick Little More Than a Loyal ‘Republican Foot Soldier’: ‘BradCast’ 7/10/2018 (The Brad Blog):
  “There is a very strong chance that, with Justice Kavanaugh’s vote in the near future, the Supreme Court could not only tell the EPA it no longer has to regulate carbon, but actually say the EPA doesn’t have authority to regulate carbon.”
• How Brett Kavanaugh Could Reshape Environmental Law From the Supreme Court (NY Times):
  “It’s a neutral principle, although the effect isn’t always neutral,” Richard J. Lazarus, a law professor at Harvard, said. “Congress stopped making clean air laws after 1990, so the E.P.A. has to work with increasingly tenuous statutory language. In effect, his approach to environmental law would make it harder to address current problems so long as Congress remains out of the lawmaking business.”
• Supreme Court nominee has been a foe of emissions rules (Reuters)
• Judge Brett Kavanaugh’s Record on the Environment (Legal Planet)
• Brett Kavanaugh Has a Shaky Track Record on the Environment (Slate)
• Here Are Six Things You Can Do Right Now To Help Stop Trump’s Supreme Court Nominee (Sierra Club)
• Law Prof. Snape on why you should take his warning that Kavanaugh is ‘Voldemort’ seriously (Climate Progress)
• Sierra Club Statement On Trump’s Nomination Of Brett Kavanaugh To The Supreme Court (Sierra Club)
• Earthjustice Calls On Senate to Reject Kavanaugh for Supreme Court (Common Dreams)
• The Environmental Stakes Are High: How Brett Kavanaugh, President Trump’s new Supreme Court nominee, could impact wildlife, public lands, and our health for generations to come. (NRDC)
• New Trump Supreme Court pick gives environmental groups a lot to fear as consensus strategy emerges (Climate Progress)
• Judge Dread: What could replacing Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy with Brett Kavanaugh do to the environment? (Sierra Magazine)
• Trump DOE’s proposed bailout of coal plants means more pollution, deaths:
• Retirements and Funerals: The Emission, Mortality, and Coal-Mine Employment Effects of a Two-Year Delay in Coal and Nuclear Power Plant Retirements (Resources For the Future):
  A leaked US government memo proposes preventing the scheduled retirement of coal and nuclear power plants for two years. Using a detailed simulation model, we estimate the effects of such a policy on emissions, mortality, and coal-mine jobs.
• Trump’s Plan to Save Coal May Put Lives at Risk From Pollution (Bloomberg):
  For every 4.5 coal mining jobs supported by the drafted policy, one American would die from the surge in air pollution tied to generating electricity from the fossil fuel, according to modeling by the independent, nonprofit research group Resources for the Future.
• Researchers find Trump’s plan to save coal plants would boost premature deaths (Climate Progress):
  Mortality rates would cancel out the potential economic benefits of keeping coal plants open…Perry’s proposal would have delayed the retirement of about 25,000 megawatts of coal generation and 20 megawatts of nuclear. Over 25 years this plan would have caused 27,000 premature deaths, $217 billion in environmental costs, and $46 billion in non-environmental costs, according to the RFF researchers.
• Trump coal plan could lead to 1 pollution-related death for every 2 jobs: study (the Hill)
• Editorial: Propping up coal, nuclear would be needless, destructive (Columbus Dispatch)
• Companies begin harnessing ‘poo power’ to generate electricity:
• Duke Energy Is Betting on Pig Power to Curb Fossil Fuels (Bloomberg):
  Duke Energy Corp., one of the largest U.S. utilities, began generating power in March for its North Carolina customers using “renewable” natural gas created by capturing methane from the waste produced by 62,000 hogs. National Grid Plc, meanwhile, is set to open a plant that will process gas from wastewater to serve New York customers. Overall in 2018, 26 renewable natural gas plants will open in the U.S., bringing the total to 92.
• Renewable Gas — Vision for a Sustainable Gas Network [PDF] (National Grid PLC)
• CR&R Environmental renewable natural gas pumped into SoCalGas pipelines (Daily Energy Insider)
• Shell CEO pushes UK to speed up transition to electric vehicles:
• Shell would support UK bringing forward petrol ban from 2040 (Guardian):
  Shell, one of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies, has backed calls for the UK to bring forward its 2040 ban on new petrol and diesel car sales. Ben van Beurden, chief executive of the Anglo-Dutch group, said he welcomed the idea of bringing forward the ban, as it would provide clarity and make it easier for companies like Shell to make investment decisions and also shift consumer attitudes.
• BP buys UK’s biggest electric car charger network for £130m (Guardian UK)
• Oil giant buys UK’s largest electric vehicle charging network (Treehugger)
• Shell CEO Calls For UK To Ban Gas/Diesel Car Sales Sooner (Clean Technica)
• Britain to ban sale of all diesel and petrol cars and vans from 2040 (7/25/2017)

‘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

• Wheeler Tells EPA Employees, ‘You Can’t Lead Unless You Listen.’ (Washington Post)
• House Republicans Vote To Gut Lauded Law That Saved America’s Fisheries (Huffington Post)
• US Judge Allows Lawsuits Over Monsanto’s Roundup To Proceed To Trial (Reuters)
• In about-face, utilities urge EPA to keep mercury rule (E&E News)
• He Sues to Discredit Climate Scientists. Now He’s Being Sued by His Allies (NY Times)
• The Russian pipeline to Germany that Trump is so mad about, explained (Washington Post)
• Heatwave seems to make manmade climate change real for Americans (Guardian UK)
• Bhopal: The World’s Worst Industrial Disaster Is Still Unfolding (The Atlantic)
• Trump Pardons Oregon Ranchers Whose Case Sparked Bundy Takeover Of Refuge (Oregonian)
• Scientists assessed the options for using nuclear power for decarbonization. They are grim. (Vox)
• Why Starbucks’ Straw Ban Is an Environmental Milestone (The New Republic)
• Why Scott Pruitt lasted so long at the EPA, and what finally did him in (Vox)
• The great nutrient collapse: The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention. (Politico)
• Russian Mining Firm Puts Trump’s Face On Its Asbestos Products (Guardian UK)
• Black Lung Indictments Allege Coal Mine Managers Lied About Health Safety (Inside Climate News)
• The world’s bleak climate situation, in 3 charts: We’ve got a long way to go and a short time to get there. (Vox)
• AUDIO: An Inconvenient ‘BradCast’ with Al Gore (The BRAD BLOG):
  Guest Host Angie Coiro’s exclusive interview with the former Vice President on elections, pollution, persuasion, activism, and hope…
• The Climate Risks We Face (NY Times):
  To stabilize global temperature, net carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to zero. The window of time is rapidly closing to reduce emissions and limit warming to no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the goal set in the Paris climate accord. The further we push the climate system beyond historical conditions, the greater the risks of potentially unforeseen and even catastrophic changes to the climate – so every reduction in emissions helps.
• 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).