‘Green News Report’ – November 1, 2018

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: DOJ investigating Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke; New study finds even more buildup of heat in the oceans, thanks to global warming; G.M. calls for a national electric vehicle sales mandate; PLUS: Teen climate activist in Sweden launches a kids’ strike to combat climate change… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Freak summer weather and wild jet-stream patterns are on the rise because of global warming; Colorado ballot: Why Big Oil chose the nuclear option; Trump administration’s clean-cars rollback is riddled with errors; Venice just flooded while its costly flood gate sits unfinished; The extinction of wilderness; Solar geoengineering may not halt ocean warming; The ocean seafloor is dissolving because of climate change; EPA quietly telling states they can pollute more; Driven by warming waters, marine life is on the move… PLUS: Weather 2050: America is warming fast. See how your city’s weather will change… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Interior Dept. Inspector General refers Zinke investigation to DOJ:
• Zinke’s own agency watchdog just referred him to the Justice Department (Washington Post):
  A referral to the Justice Department means prosecutors will explore whether a criminal investigation is warranted. While an agency’s inspector general regularly issues reports on the findings of its inquiries, it refers cases to the Justice Department only when it has determined that there could be criminal violations.
• Interior watchdog referred Zinke probe to Justice days before move to replace agency IG (The Hill):
  One source described the timing as “incredibly circumspect” and raised questions about whether the plan to have Tufts fill a position traditionally occupied by a career staffer was in reaction to the investigation that was referred to the DOJ.
• VIDEO: Sources: Justice Department investigating Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke (CNN)
• Zinke could face months-long Justice investigation (The Hill)
• A Guide to the Ryan Zinke Investigations (NY Times):
  The inspector general’s office also has closed nine inquiries related to Mr. Zinke, in some cases because he was cleared, and in others because of a lack of cooperation.
• Zinke’s heir apparent ready to step in (Politico)
• Earth’s oceans absorbing much more heat than previously understood:
• Startling new research finds large buildup of heat in the oceans, suggesting a faster rate of global warming (Washington Post):
  “We thought that we got away with not a lot of warming in both the ocean and the atmosphere for the amount of CO2 that we emitted,” said Resplandy, who published the work with experts from the Scripps Institution of Oceanography and several other institutions in the United States, China, France and Germany. “But we were wrong. The planet warmed more than we thought. It was hidden from us just because we didn’t sample it right. But it was there. It was in the ocean already.”
• Climate change: Oceans ‘soaking up more heat than estimated’ (BBC):
  This new calculation shows that far more heat than we thought has been going into oceans. But it also means that far more heat than we thought has been generated by the warming gases we have emitted. Therefore more heat from the same amount of gas means the Earth is more sensitive to CO2.
• General Motors calls for national electric vehicle sales mandate:
• GM calls for national EV sales program (Utility Dive):
  A national ZEV program could push more automakers to invest in electrification technology, and lower the overall price by getting more cars on the market…Automakers would also benefit from the flexibility of a national target that replaces narrower statewide ZEV targets (similarly, automakers have said they want to maintain a national emissions reduction target rather than meeting a patchwork of state targets).
• GM Gaslights the American People, Supporting a National EV Program While Fighting the Clean Car Standards (Sierra Club)
• General Motors CEO: We call for federal electric and zero-emission vehicle policies (op-ed, Mary Barra, USA Today)
• The Trump Administration Flunked Its Math Homework: The administration’s clean-cars rollback is riddled with errors. (The Atlantic)
• Delta Airlines ditches plastic straws:
• Delta plans to ditch plastic straws, stirrers on board next year (CNBC):
  Starting in mid-2019, Delta, the second-largest U.S. airline, which flies more than 180 million passengers a year, will stop wrapping amenities kits for international business class travelers in plastic and stop using plastic straws and stirring sticks throughout the cabin, the airline said Wednesday. Delta said it has already taken similar steps in its lounges and in April started rolling plastic utensils for coach-class meals in a napkin instead of in plastic.
• UK government announces plans to ban plastic straws, cotton-buds, and stirrers (CNBC)
• Swedish teen climate change activist Greta Thunberg launches kids’ strike:
• VIDEO: Teen Climate Activist to Crowd of Thousands: ‘We Can’t Save the World by Playing by the Rules Because the Rules Have to Change’ (Common Dreams):
  “The politics that’s needed to prevent the climate catastrophe—it doesn’t exist today,” says Greta Thunberg, a 15-year-old from Sweden. “We need to change the system.”
• VIDEO: Greta Thunberg at Helsinki rally (Twitter)
• Greta Thunberg: Our lives are in your hands. This is my cry for help. (Medium):
  The future of all the coming generations rests on your shoulder. Those of us who are still children can’t change what you do now once we’re old enough to do something about it.
• The Fifteen-Year-Old Climate Activist Who Is Demanding a New Kind of Politics (New Yorker):
  Sometimes the world makes so little sense that the only thing to do is engage in civil disobedience…“They were always talking about how we should turn off lights, save water, not throw out food,” she told me. “I asked why and they explained about climate change. And I thought this was very strange. If humans could really change the climate, everyone would be talking about it and people wouldn’t be talking about anything else. But this wasn’t happening.”
• Kids’ Strike: The Swedish 15-year-old who’s cutting class to fight the climate crisis (Guardian)
• VIDEO: Obama: Nov. 6 “might be the most important election of our lifetimes” (WBAY-Green Bay, WI)

‘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

• Weather 2050: America is warming fast. See how your city’s weather will be different in just one generation. (Vox)
• Study: Freak summer weather and wild jet-stream patterns are on the rise because of global warming (Washington Post)
• Why Big Oil Chose the Nuclear Option to 112: Amendment 74 (Westword)
• The Trump Administration Flunked Its Math Homework: The administration’s clean-cars rollback is riddled with errors. (The Atlantic)
• Three quarters of Venice just flooded while its costly flood gate sits unfinished (Washington Post)
• The Extinction of Wilderness: The world’s untouched lands and oceans are rapidly disappearing, and scientists are calling for action. (The New Republic)
• Solar geoengineering may not halt ocean warming, study says (Carbon Brief)
• “Red Tide Rick”: Florida’s Senate race was Rick Scott’s to lose, but he is haunted by his environmental record (Washington Post)
• Extinction Rebellion: 15 environmental protesters arrested at civil disobedience campaign in London (Guardian)
• The Seafloor is Dissolving Because of Climate Change (VICE Motherboard)
• Trump’s EPA concludes communities don’t have the right to know about potentially toxic emissions (Climate Progress)
• ‘We obviously are suspicious’ — Dems prep for 2019 (E&E news)
• EPA quietly telling states they can pollute more (CNN)
• Ocean shock: Driven by warming waters, marine life is on the move — and life on land is forever changed. (Reuters)
• Green groups spend record sums to flip ‘most anti-environmental Congress in history’ (McClatchyDC)
• How to build a climate movement before your 17th birthday (Grist)
• The Trump administration just approved a plan to drill for oil in Alaska’s federal waters. It’s a major first. (Washington Post)
• What genuine, no-bullshit ambition on climate change would look like: How to hit the most stringent targets, with no loopholes. (David Roberts, Vox)
• A Global Shift To Sustainability Would Save Us $26 Trillion (Vox)
• Project Drawdown: 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (Drawdown.org)
• An Optimist’s Guide to Solving Climate Change and Saving the World (Vice)
• The great nutrient collapse: The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention. (Politico)
• 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)
• 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).