‘Green News Report’ – March 7, 2019

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Toxic coal ash waste found contaminating groundwater in 39 states; Plastic pollution contaminating deepest ocean trenches; Heatwaves sweeping the oceans ‘like wildfires’; Former U.S. military and intelligence officials slam Trump White House for ignoring military on climate change; PLUS: Senate Democrats go on offense as Republicans lie about the Green New Deal… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Who will be the 2020 climate candidate?; There really, really isn’t a silver bullet for climate change; Trump EPA report touts that vehicle CO2 emissions are at a record low; Access to green parks in childhood associated with happier adulthood; Trump again seeks deep cuts to renewable energy funding; Climate change deniers target climate science education in schools; Trump Administration plans to end endangered species protections for wolves; Awash with plastic bottles and lacking a law, Kenya struggles to recycle… PLUS: The Michael Bloomberg bombshell the media missed… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Toxic coal ash waste found contaminating groundwater in 39 states:
• First Comprehensive, National Study of Coal Ash Pollution Finds Widespread Groundwater Contamination (Environmental Integrity Project)
• Coal Ash Contaminates Groundwater at 91% of U.S. Coal Plants, Tests Show (Inside Climate News):
  In all, unsafe levels of contamination were reported in groundwater at sites in 39 states and Puerto Rico. Illinois has the most power plants with polluted ash storage sites with 16, followed by Texas, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, North Carolina and Missouri, all with more than 10…The results come as President Donald Trump’s EPA, led by former coal and energy industry lobbyist Andrew Wheeler, is weighing further changes to the Obama-era EPA rules with the goal of cutting utility compliance costs.
• VIDEO: Coal ash contaminating groundwater nationwide, groups say (CNN):
  Fifty-two percent of those sites are contaminated with cancer-causing arsenic, and 60% are polluted with lithium, which is linked to neurological damage, according to the report.
• Duke Energy disputes findings of environmental report critical of coal ash operations (Charlotte Observer)
• Heatwaves are sweeping the oceans ‘like wildfires’:
• Marine heatwaves threaten global biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services [PDF] (Nature)
• Heatwaves sweeping oceans ‘like wildfires’, scientists reveal (Guardian UK):
  The number of heatwaves affecting the planet’s oceans has increased sharply, scientists have revealed, killing swathes of sea-life like “wildfires that take out huge areas of forest”. The damage caused in these hotspots is also harmful for humanity, which relies on the oceans for oxygen, food, storm protection and the removal of climate-warming carbon dioxide the atmosphere, they say.
• Ocean Heat Waves Are Threatening Marine Life” (NY Times)
• Deep-sea creatures found eating plastic pollution:
• A Troubling Discovery in the Deepest Ocean Trenches (The Atlantic):
  [S]ince they sit at the bottom of the trench food webs, their catholic appetite can doom entire ecosystems. “They’re like bags of peanuts,” Jamieson says. “Everything else eats amphipods—shrimp, fish—and they’ll end up consuming plastics, too. And when the fish die, they get consumed by amphipods, and it goes round and round in circles.”
• Former military leaders rebuke Trump for ignoring military on climate change:
• Letter to the President of the United States: 58 Senior Military and National Security Leaders Denounce NSC Climate Panel (Center for Climate and Security):
  We write to you as former US national security leaders to offer our support to our uniformed military, civilian national security professionals, and members of the scientific community, who across the past four Administrations have found that climate change is a threat to US national security.

  Climate change is real, it is happening now, it is driven by humans, and it is accelerating.

• Why ex-military leaders are trying to stop Trump’s panel to counter climate science (Washington Post):
  “This letter is not an attack on the president, it is an offer of dialogue,” said Andrew Holland, chief operating officer of the American Security Project…[T]here is yet another goal to the letter, according to Holland: “To offer clear support” to career officers still working on climate and security issues within the federal bureaucracy.
• White House’s plans to counter climate science reports ‘will erode our national security,’ 58 former officials warn (Washington Post)
• Trump rollbacks equivalent to additional emissions of 54 coal plants:
• Special Report: Six Trump Administration Rollbacks Will Result in More than 200 Million Metric Tons of Additional GHG Emissions Each Year (State Energy and Environmental Impact Center, NY University)
• How Much Would Trump’s Climate Rule Rollbacks Worsen Health and Emissions? (Inside Climate News):
  The increased sickness and mortality would be the products of climate change as well as increased pollution, such as smog and particulate matter, the report said.
• Trump’s climate rollbacks could lead to 200 million metric tons of extra emissions each year (Fast Company):
  Dismantling the rules could also lead to millions of additional asthma attacks, tens of thousands of premature deaths, and means that the economy will forgo hundreds of billions of dollars of benefits, including the health costs that would have been saved if the rules had stayed in place.
• Senate Democrats go on offense, while Republicans lie about the Green New Deal:
• Tempers Flare in the U.S. Senate Over Green New Deal, Climate Change (ABC News):
  [Sen. John Cornyn, R-TX] was interrupted by the Senate’s top Democrat, Chuck Schumer of New York, who pointedly asked of Cornyn: “Does he believe that climate change is real? Does he believe it’s caused by humans? And does he believe this body ought to do something about it? I’d appreciate an answer.”
• Mitch McConnell wants a Green New Deal vote. Democrats should take him up on it. (Vox)
• Senate Showdown Over Green New Deal (EcoWatch)
• Pressed by Climate Activists, Senate Democrats Plan to ‘Go on Offense’ (NY Times)
• Climate change rhetoric heats up in the Senate, but legislating will be much harder (Axios)
• Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s Green New Deal gets first fight in Senate (Axios)
• It’s the Green News Report’s 10th anniversary!
• Thank you for keeping the Green News Report alive on your public airwaves by supporting our work!

‘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

• Who Will Be the 2020 Climate Candidate? There Are Lots of Choices (NY Times)
• Trump EPA report touts that vehicle C02 emissions are at a record low (EcoWatch)
• There Really, Really Isn’t a Silver Bullet for Climate Change (The Atlantic)
• Greener Childhood Associated With Happier Adulthood (NPR)
• Trump Again Seeks Deep Cuts in Renewable Energy Funding (Bloomberg)
• Post-Hurricane Harvey, NASA tried to fly a pollution-spotting plane over Houston. The Trump EPA said no (LA Times)
• Climate change deniers target climate science education in schools (AP)
• The Bloomberg bombshell the media missed (Climate Progress)
• Exxon and Chevron just announced big plans to surge oil and gas output from top US field (CNBC)
• Can climate change be the issue that finally spurs heavy youth turnout? (Washington Post)
• US Plans End To Wolf Protections; Critics Say It’s Premature (AP)
• Awash with plastic bottles and lacking a law, Kenya struggles to recycle (Reuters)
• County Fines Trump Golf Course For Cutting Trees In Potomac Floodplain (Washington Post)
• Report Details the Potential Danger of Toxic Floodwaters (WVTF)
• Hidden Scandal: U.S. Schoolkids Exposed To Water Tainted By Toxic Lead (Guardian UK)
• Prospect of Commercial Fishing In Central Arctic Ocean Poses Big Questions (NPR)
• Climate change and war: Nuclear Winter From an India-Pakistan War Could Kill 2 Billion (Weather Underground)
• U.S. Supreme Court revives India power plant lawsuit (Reuters)
• SEJ Backgrounder: Green New Deal Proposes Sweeping Economic Transformation (Society of Environmental Journalists)
• Explainer: The ‘Green New Deal’: Mobilizing for a just, prosperous, and sustainable economy (New Consensus)
• 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).