‘Green News Report’ – February 14, 2019

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Banning cars, cows and ice cream?! Republicans move quickly to demonize the Green New Deal; New study warns insects are declining at an alarming rate; Massive public lands bill passes in the Senate; PLUS: Los Angeles ditches natural gas for electricity… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): If Not the Green New Deal, Then What?: We asked two GND critics to share their good-faith alternatives for reversing climate change; EPA Scientists: The Toxic Chemicals Our Agency Won’t Regulate Are Definitely in Our Drinking Water; TVA board rebukes Trump, votes to close two coal-fired power plants; School climate strike children’s garners academics’ support; Landmark Australian ruling rejects coal mine over global warming; Weedkiller ‘raises risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma by 41 percent; With Democrats in Charge, House Science Committee Talks About Climate Science… PLUS: PGE, NextEra team up for largest wind-solar-storage project in US… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Republicans launch frenzy of attacks demonizing the Green New Deal:
• Race is on to define ‘Green New Deal’ (E&E News):
  The decision by Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) to bring up the “Green New Deal” for a Senate vote is prompting a rush to define the terms of progressive Democrats’ ambitious proposal to tackle climate change.
• McConnell says Senate will vote on ‘Green New Deal’ as he seeks to portray Democrats as radical (Washington Post):
  “I’ve noted with great interest the Green New Deal,” McConnell told reporters at the Capitol on Tuesday afternoon. “And we’re going to be voting on that in the Senate. We’ll give everybody an opportunity to go on record and see how they feel about the Green New Deal.”
• The Daily 202: Green New Deal vote foreshadows GOP efforts to make sure 2020 is not just a referendum on Trump (Washington Post)
• A “Socialist Fever Dream”: Can the G.O.P. Turn A.O.C. into 2020 Kryptonite? (Vanity Fair):
  Mitch McConnell hopes to turn the Green New Deal into an electoral nightmare. But polling shows the voting public may be more aligned with Ocasio-Cortez than Republicans think.
• House Republicans reveal how they’ll attack the growing popularity of a Green New Deal (Climate Progress)
• The Republican Assault On The Green New Deal Begins (Huffington Post)
• Fact Check: What’s in the Green New Deal, and what’s not:
• Here’s what the Green New Deal actually says (CNN)
• Ocasio-Cortez retracts erroneous information about Green New Deal backed by 2020 Democratic candidates (Washington Post):
  More than a dozen media outlets, particularly in conservative outlets, reported on policies in the FAQ page that the co-signers of the Green New Deal resolution have not agreed to support.
• Resolution on a Green New Deal [PDF] (Office of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez)
• Green New Deal (New Consensus)
• AUDIO: ‘Green New Deal’ Rising – interview with Vox.com’s David Roberts, ‘BradCast’ 2/8/2019 (The Brad Blog)
• Fact Check: 7 questions about the Green New Deal (Politifact)
• AOC’s Green New Deal Resolution Is Utopian – and Pragmatic (NY Magazine)
• Poll: Millenials really support the Green New Deal:
• Young People Really, Really Want a Green New Deal (The Nation):
  New polling data show that millennials are more enthusiastic than older generations about radical efforts to save the planet and create jobs.
• The Millennial Era of Climate Politics Has Arrived (The Atlantic)
• Senate overwhelmingly passes sweeping, bipartan public lands bill:
• The Senate just passed the decade’s biggest public lands package. Here’s what’s in it. (Washington Post):
  The measure protects 1.3 million acres as wilderness, the nation’s most stringent protection, which prohibits even roads and motorized vehicles. It permanently withdraws more than 370,000 acres of land from mining around two national parks, including Yellowstone, and permanently authorizes a program to spend offshore-drilling revenue on conservation efforts.
• Land Conservation Bill Protecting Yellowstone Gateway Passes Senate: ‘One of the Biggest Bipartisan Wins…Ever Seen in Congress’ (Newsweek)
• Republican Utah Sens. Mitt Romney, Mike Lee on opposite sides of sweeping public lands bill (Deseret News)
• The Senate Just Did Something Surprisingly Good for Our Land (Esquire)
• Disturbing new analysis warns insects are declining at an alarming rate
• Worldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers (Science Direct)
• Plummeting insect numbers ‘threaten collapse of nature’ (Guardian UK):
  The 2.5% rate of annual loss over the last 25-30 years is “shocking”, Sánchez-Bayo told the Guardian: “It is very rapid. In 10 years you will have a quarter less, in 50 years only half left and in 100 years you will have none.”
• Global insect decline may see ‘plague of pests’ (BBC)
• Insects could be gone in a century; catastrophic collapse to ensue (Treehugger)
• Global insect collapse ‘catastrophic for the survival of mankind’ (Climate Progress)
• CA Gov. Newsom scales back high speed rail project:
• Gov. Gavin Newsom pledges to scale back high-speed rail and twin-tunnels projects in State of the State speech (LA Times)
• California’s Bullet Train Goes Off the Rails (David Dayen, American Prospect):
  Green New Deal supporters must draw lessons from this nightmare. The U.S. doesn’t do infrastructure properly, and that’s debilitating to moonshot projects like high-speed rail… If we don’t learn from this, establish best practices, and prioritize that which can save the planet and create jobs, the vision of a green future will never be realized.
• Newsom scales back controversial Delta twin tunnels plan (San Jose Mercury News):
  California’s new governor drops Jerry Brown’s plan, calls for one tunnel, smaller project.
• VIDEO: Trump demands California return $3.5 billion from ‘disaster’ high-speed rail project (Sacramento Bee):
  “We’re building high-speed rail, connecting the Central Valley and beyond,” Newsom replied. “This is California’s money, allocated by Congress for this project. We’re not giving it back.”
• Los Angeles ditches natural gas for electricity:
• Los Angeles ditches plan to invest billions in fossil fuels, Mayor Eric Garcetti says (LA Times)
• Mayor Garcetti: LADWP will phase out Natural Gas Operations at Three Power Plants (press release, Los Angeles Mayor’s Office)
• VIDEO: Garcetti on how LA is introducing new efforts to combat climate change (MSNBC)
• VIDEO: Garcetti announces decision to forgo plans to rebuild coastal natural-gas plants (ABC News-Los Angeles)
• Mayor Garcetti: LA Won’t Invest $5 Billion to Rebuild Coastal Gas Plants (Green Tech Media):
  “This is the beginning of the end of natural gas,” said the mayor of Los Angeles…“It is time to wean ourselves off of carbon-based energy,” Garcetti said. “Period.”

‘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

• If Not the Green New Deal, Then What?: We asked two GND critics to share their good-faith alternatives for reversing climate change. (New Republic)
• EPA Scientists: The Toxic Chemicals Our Agency Won’t Regulate Are Definitely in Our Drinking Water (Mother Jones)
• The Green New Deal Is What Realistic Environmental Policy Looks Like (op-ed, NY Times)
• TVA board rebukes Trump, votes to close two coal-fired power plants (Climate Progress)
• Donald Trump and Amy Klobuchar threw down over climate change this weekend (Grist)
• 224 academics: School climate strike children’s brave stand has our support (Guardian UK)
• Landmark Australian ruling rejects coal mine over global warming: The case is the first time a mine has been refused in the country because of climate change (Nature)
• Weedkiller ‘raises risk of non-Hodgkin lymphoma by 41%’ (Guardian UK)
• With Democrats in Charge, House Science Committee Talks About Climate Science (Inside Climate News)
• Wall Street Is More Than Willing to Fund the Green New Deal (Bloomberg)
• PGE, NextEra team up for largest wind-solar-storage project in US (Utility Dive)
• Heading South: Warming To Change How US Cities Feel in 2080 (AP)
• Harley-Davidson Embraces A New Sound As It Enters The Electric Era (NPR)
• Critics Protest Proposed Drilling In Alaska’s Arctic Refuge (AP)
• 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)
• 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.

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).