‘Green News Report’ – November 29, 2018

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: The world is not doing nearly enough to cut emissions, warns new U.N. report; Amazon’s new headquarters in Queens, NY will be hit with rising seas; House Democrats introduce a price on carbon; PLUS: Australia grapples with massive wildfire outbreak amid record heat waves… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Trump’s comments defending his climate change denial are bonkers; The Depravity of Climate Denial; World’s emissions gap is widening — here’s how to close it; Adani’s controversial Carmichael coal mine to go ahead with plans to self-fund entire operation; UK company has ambitious plan to replace natural gas with hydrogen; Why focusing on money misses the big climate picture; Cost of keeping Asian carp from Great Lakes nearly triples; Rivian launches an all-electric 7-seat SUV with over 410 miles of range; Brazil backs out of hosting 2019 U.N. climate change meeting; Stop letting Republicans lie on TV about climate science.. PLUS: 3 issues to watch at the COP24 climate summit… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• The world is not doing nearly enough to cut emissions, warns new U.N. report:
• Mind the Gap: Nations must triple efforts to reach 2°C target, concludes annual review of global emissions, climate action (U.N. Environment Programme):
  It is still possible to keep global warming below 2°C, but the technical feasibility of bridging the 1.5°C gap is dwindling. Global CO2 emissions increased in 2017, after a three-year period of stabilization. If the emissions gap is not closed by 2030, it is extremely unlikely that the 2°C temperature goal can still be reached.
• World must triple efforts or face catastrophic climate change, says UN (Guardian UK):
  Rapid emissions turnaround needed to keep global warming at less than 2C, report suggests. Joyce Msuya, deputy executive director of UN Environment, said: “The science is clear: for all the ambitious climate action we’ve seen, governments need to move faster and with greater urgency. We’re feeding this fire, while the means to extinguish it are within reach.” Global emissions have reached what the UN has called “historic levels” of 53.5 gigatonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent, and are showing no signs of peaking, despite a levelling off in the past decade.
• VIDEO: CNN meteorologist Brandon Miller lays out the facts from the recent US government climate change report (CNN)
• UNEP: Limiting warming to 1.5C requires fivefold increase in climate commitments (Carbon Brief)
• Australia grapples with massive wildfire outbreak, record heat wave, deluges and floods:
• Catastrophic fire risk declared in central Queensland, properties gutted at Finch Hatton (ABC Australia):
  Central Queensland is facing a “catastrophic” fire risk as several blazes threaten properties around Deepwater and the area from Ambrose to Mount Larcom, north-west of Gladstone, where fire emergencies have been declared.
• Queensland bushfires: Morrison pledges assistance amid ‘catastrophic’ conditions (Guardian UK):
  The Queensland premier Annastacia Palaszczuk, said 29 state schools and five non-state schools had been closed immediately in areas where dangerous blazes were threatening people and property. “This is the first time we have had this category in Queensland,” she said. “Unprecedented, uncharted, but we have a plan and we are going to follow that plan. That is why we have taken the urgent action of closing schools.”
• Fire shuts down towns, schools, rail and roads across Queensland (Queensland Times)
• Flash flood swamps Sydney, Australia, killing three during ‘epic’ storm (Washington Post)
• Great Barrier Reef: record heatwave may cause another coral bleaching event (Guardian UK)
• Amazon’s new headquarters in Queens, NY will be hit with rising seas:
• Climate Change Could Sink Amazon’s New York Headquarters (The New Republic):
  [T]he site could be partially underwater by 2050. By the next century, it will be completely submerged, according to the environmental research group Climate Central’s most recent projections…“If a developer is protecting its own site, where is that water that it’s displacing going to go?” said Linda Shi, an assistant professor at Cornell’s School of Architecture, Art, and Planning who studies urban environmental governance. “It’s going to go to the many places that don’t have elevated buildings and flood walls.”
• VIDEO: Amazon’s HQ2 in Queens will be ‘square in the danger zone for frequent flooding’ (CNBC):
  New research from Climate Central and Zillow shows the area could see significant coastal flooding by 2020. By 2050, extreme projections of sea level rise have low-lying buildings under water. “One of the reasons Amazon got so big was long-term thinking, but building in the lowest spot in Queens is not long-term thinking,” said Benjamin Strauss, CEO and chief scientist at Climate Central. “This is clearly building square in the danger zone for frequent flooding.”
• General Motors to cancel production of the Chevy Volt:
• The Chevy Volt Is A Dream Car And Now GM Is Killing It (Huffington Post):
  GM officials say a major reason to trim its factories and workforce now is to prepare for a future with more electric vehicles…It’s impossible to know how seriously to take this explanation, to tell whether GM is really making a long-term bet on hybrids and plug-ins, or simply shedding production lines that are less profitable, for the moment, in order to make money for today’s executives and shareholders. But it would certainly be in society’s interest for GM to be thinking about the future in the way that it claims.
• General Motors to close Detroit, Ohio, Canada plants (Detroit Free Press)
• Chevy Volt was going to save Detroit. Now its workers are losing jobs (Detroit Free Press)
• The plug-in hybrid car hit its stride, just in time to die (Bloomberg)
• Bipartisan carbon fee legislation introduced in U.S. House:
• U.S. Rep. Ted Deutch pushes carbon tax to curb climate change (Sun-Sentinel)
• Sure, the New Bipartisan Carbon Tax Will Go Nowhere, but Here’s Why It Matters (Mother Jones):
  “The status quo is not sustainable. It’s not survivable.”
• Bullet points on the carbon tax bill led by @RepTedDeutch (Noah Kaufman, Twitter)

‘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

• Trump on climate change: “People like myself, we have very high levels of intelligence but we’re not necessarily such believers” (Washington Post)
• World’s emissions gap is widening, UN warns. Here’s how to close it (Inside Climate News)
• Fourth National Climate Assessment, Vol. 2: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States [PDF] (U.S. Global Change Research Program)
• 3 Issues to Watch at the COP24 Climate Summit (World Resources Institute)
• Adani’s controversial Carmichael coal mine to go ahead with plans to self-fund entire operation (ABC Australia)
• Why the Migrant Caravan Story Is a Climate Change Story: Central America is ground zero for climate change. (Yes Magazine)
• Stop letting Republicans lie on TV about climate science (The New Republic)
• The Depravity of Climate Denial (Paul Krugman, NY Times)
• A UK company has ambitious plan to replace natural gas with hydrogen (QZ)
• It’s not the economy, stupid: Here’s why focusing on money misses the big climate picture: (Grist)
• Rivian launches an all-electric 7-seat SUV with over 410 miles of range (Electrek)
• Cost Of Keeping Asian Carp From Great Lakes Nearly Triples (AP)
• Brazil Backs Out of Hosting 2019 Climate Change Meeting (NY Times)
• Climate Change Could Crash World’s Largest Cod Fisheries (Inside Climate News)
• 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)
• Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-OR) wants to phase out all gas vehicles by 2040 (Pamplin Media Group)
• 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.

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

• NASA Video: If we don’t act, here’s what to expect in the next 100 years:
• NASA climate change video: This is the U.S. in 2100 (NASA).