‘Green News Report’ – December 13, 2018

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Very bad news in the latest Arctic Report Card; Coal state Democratic Senator gets top energy committee position; Washington state Governor unveils ambitious climate change legislation; PLUS: Trump EPA rolls back yet another major water protection rule… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Welcome to the Eocene, where ice sheets turn into swamps; Big Oil’s covert campaign to rewrite American car emissions rules; The race to understand Antarctica’s most terrifying glacier; Democrats shift toward impact on jobs as climate change moves to front of 2020 agenda; California is turning farms into carbon-sucking factories; Radical fixes get a boost at climate talks; California wildfires take toll on insurance industry; Minneapolis moves to eliminate mandatory parking… PLUS: More floods and more droughts: climate change delivers both… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Very bad news in the latest Arctic Report Card:
• Arctic Report Card 2018: Tracking recent environmental changes relative to historical records (NOAA)
• VIDEO: Arctic Report Card 2018 (NOAA)
• VIDEO: AGU 2018 Fall Meeting Press Conference – Arctic Report Card 2018: (American Geophysical Union):
  This year’s peer-reviewed report led by the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration will also include special reports on the health of caribou and reindeer populations, harmful algal blooms, microplastic pollution, and connections between Arctic weather patterns and severe weather in the more populous mid-latitudes.
• Warming in Arctic Raises Fears of a ‘Rapid Unraveling’ of the Region (NY Times):
  Persistent warming in the Arctic is pushing the region into “uncharted territory” and increasingly affecting the continental United States, scientists said Tuesday.
• The Arctic Ocean has lost 95 percent of its oldest ice — a startling sign of what’s to come (Washington Post):
  The finding suggests that the sea at the top of the world has already morphed into a new and very different state, with major implications not only for creatures such as walruses and polar bears but, in the long term, perhaps for the pace of global warming itself.
• An Upheaval at the Ends of the World (The Atlantic):
  The pristine environments at both poles of the Earth are changing, perhaps irreversibly, according to a new pair of federal studies.
• Rapidly disintegrating Arctic sea ice leaves scientists ‘shocked’ (Climate Progress):
  Unlike students who fail a test in school, there are no do-overs or make-up exams for humanity’s failure in the Arctic (and everywhere else on the planet).
• Trump EPA rolls back another major clean water rule, WOTUS:
• VIDEO: EPA and Army Propose New “Waters of the United States” Definition (EPA)
• Golf course owners, farmers, property developers greet Trump water protections rollback (Climate Progress):
  One Republican approvingly declared the EPA to be “the Environmental Farm Protection Agency” for its favoring of agriculture over water rules.
• Hunters Need to Stand Up for the Clean Water Act (Outside Magazine):
  “Big polluters could not have crafted a bigger free pass to dump if they wrote it themselves,” says Blan Holman, managing attorney for the Southern Environmental Law Center’s office in Charleston, South Carolina.
• The EPA Is Planning to Jeopardize the Water Quality for 117 Million Americans (Mother Jones)
• EPA falsely claims ‘no data’ on waters in WOTUS rule (E&E News):
  The Trump administration says it doesn’t know how many streams it is proposing to exclude from Clean Water Act jurisdiction today. The slides, obtained by E&E News under the Freedom of Information Act, contradict what EPA Office of Water chief Dave Ross told reporters on a press call previewing the new rule late yesterday.
• How does Trump compare to Obama on WOTUS? (E&E News)
• Coal state Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin gets top spot on Energy Committee:
• Joe Manchin Will Be the Top Democrat on the Energy Committee (Mother Jones):
  The pro-coal senator once shot a bullet through a cap-and-trade bill.
• Sen. Joe Manchin to take top Democratic slot on Energy committee amid uproar on left (Washington Post)
• Coal-loving Joe Manchin gets key Senate Energy job after Bernie Sanders turns it down (Salon)
• From the editor: Manchin appointment shows Democratic Party leaders’ true colors (PV Magazine)
• Republicans are eager for Joe Manchin to rise on energy panel — and not because he supports coal (Washington Examiner)
• WA State Gov. Inslee unveils ambitious climate change legislation:
• Inslee wants 100 percent clean energy in Washington by 2045 (AP)
• Electric ferries, no more coal power: After carbon-fee defeat, Inslee rolls out clean-energy proposals (Seattle Times):
  Other proposals in Inslee’s legislative package include phasing out “super-pollutant” hydrofluorocarbons used in air conditioning, a clean-fuels standard targeting auto emissions, incentives for electric vehicles and increased energy-efficiency regulations for buildings.
• Jay Inslee Believes a Climate Candidate (Like Himself?) Can Beat Trump in 2020 (Rolling Stone):
  “No nation has followed Donald Trump off the cliff with climate change. Not a single one. We want to keep it that way.”
• Inslee’s 2019 Climate Plan Won’t Include Carbon Pricing (The Stranger)

‘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

• Live updates from UN COP24 climate talks, from the Associated Press (AP)
• Welcome to the Eocene, where ice sheets turn into swamps (Grist)
• The Oil Industry’s Covert Campaign to Rewrite American Car Emissions Rules (NY Times)
• The Race to Understand Antarctica’s Most Terrifying Glacier (Wired)
• More Americans view climate change as ‘imminent’ threat: Reuters/Ipsos Poll (Reuters)
• Democrats shift toward impact on jobs as climate change moves to front of 2020 agenda (Washington Post)
• California is turning farms into carbon-sucking factories (Grist)
• Carbon removal is now a thing’: Radical fixes get a boost at climate talks (Washington Post)
• California wildfires take toll on Allstate’s bottom line (Crain’s Chicago Business)
• More Floods and More Droughts: Climate Change Delivers Both (NY Times)
• VIDEO: National Geographic Special — Paris to Pittsburgh (National Geographic)
• Minneapolis Moves to Eliminate Mandatory Parking (StreetsBlog USA)
• London mayor unveils plan to tackle ‘climate emergency’ (Guardian UK)
• Fourth National Climate Assessment, Vol. 2: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States [PDF] (U.S. Global Change Research Program)
• 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.

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).