‘Green News Report’ – August 20, 2019

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Another major city suffers a lead contamination crisis; U.S. fracking boom causing a spike in global methane emissions; Long-term exposure to air pollution like smoking a pack of cigarettes a day, says new report; PLUS: 2020 Democratic candidate warns Senate filibuster must end to solve the climate crisis… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Earth’s future is being written in fast-melting Greenland; Why do American cities fail to protect our water?; Standing Rock Sioux Tribe sues to shut Dakota Pipeline as company plans to double capacity; Iceland holds funeral for first glacier lost to climate change; Trump’s rollback of auto pollution rules shows signs of disarray; Coal reclamation funds dwindle while Congress dawdles; 4 last wolves in Washington pack killed by state hunters… PLUS: Climate Refugia: Scientists search for safe havens for vulnerable species… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Newark, NJ grapples with widening lead contamination water crisis:
• Filtered Newark water still had 4 times federal level for lead. Feds don’t know why. (NJ.com):
  The drinking water inside two Newark homes contained almost four times the allowable federal level for lead, despite using nationally-certified filters meant to eliminate dangerous levels of the contaminant, state officials said…Newark’s source of lead is more than 15,000 old lead pipes that connect underground water mains to homes. One of the city’s water treatment plants, the Pequannock plant, failed at properly treating the water which caused corrosive water to flow through the distribution system and eat away at the lead infrastructure.
• Newark water crisis prompts new calls for feds to test residents for lead (NJ.com)
• VIDEO: Newark hands out bottled water after its filter program fails to fix lead problem (CNN):
  The city “has gradually gone from absolutely denying there are any lead problems to now admitting they have an issue,” said Erik D. Olson, a drinking water expert at the Natural Resources Defense Council, a nonprofit environmental advocacy group that has taken legal action against the city.
• Newark’s water crisis prompting other towns to ask: What about us? What we know. (NJ.com)
• Newark’s lead contamination crisis could be worse than Flint’s. Residents say the city is handling it all wrong. (Business Insider)
• High Lead Levels Found in Sampling of Vermont Schools’ Water (Bloomberg)
• ‘Tasting Funny for Years’: Lead in the Water and a City in Crisis (NY Times):
  The differences in their exteriors speak as much to the residents’ uneven struggle to lurch out of poverty, as it does to the economic inequality inherent in the current crisis.
• Washington Post: For parts of U.S., 2C is already here:
• 2°C Beyond the Limit: Extreme Climate Change Has Arrived In America (Washington Post):
  Today, more than 1 in 10 Americans — 34 million people — are living in rapidly heating regions, including New York City and Los Angeles. Seventy-one counties have already hit the 2-degree Celsius mark.
• VIDEO: New analysis finds parts of the U.S. have already warmed close to critical 2-degree level (PBS NewsHour)
• Five takeaways from The Post’s analysis of warming climates in the United States (Washington Post)
• Shale gas fracking boom causing spike in global methane emissions:
• Fracking boom tied to methane spike in Earth’s atmosphere (National Geographic):
  The chemical signature of methane released from fracking is found in the atmosphere, pointing to shale gas operations as the culprit.
• Fracking causing rise in methane emissions, study finds (Guardian UK)
• Trump administration eases rule on methane leaks on public land (Reuters, 9/18/2018)
• Study: Longterm exposure to air pollution like smoking pack of cigarettes a day:
• Association Between Long-term Exposure to Ambient Air Pollution and Change in Quantitatively Assessed Emphysema and Lung Function (Journal of the American Medical Association)
• Air Pollution Is Like Smoking a Pack of Cigarettes a Day to Those With Lung Disease: Study (US News):
  In the largest and longest study of its kind, researchers found that air pollution linked to climate change can significantly worsen lung disease.
• Air Pollution May Be As Harmful To Your Lungs As Smoking Cigarettes, Study Finds (NPR):
  [E]xposure to air pollution may lead to the same changes in the lung that give rise to emphysema…”In the past, the EPA has not accepted that COPD is caused by long-term, chronic air pollution,” says George Thurston, a professor of environmental medicine at NYU Langone Health. But, now, this study adds to the evidence that the benefits of cleaning the air are even larger than previously calculated because the findings suggest that long-term exposure to air pollution is damaging to lung health
• Exposure to polluted air is like smoking a pack a day, study says (CNN)
• Ground-level Ozone Basics (EPA.gov)
• 2020 Dem Inslee warns ending Senate filibuster essential to passing climate legislation:
• VIDEO: WA Gov. Jay Inslee – ‘End the filibuster’ (MSNBC)
• The Democratic debate over filibuster reform, explained (Vox)
• Harry Reid to Dems: Kill the Filibuster to Tackle the Climate Crisis (Daily Beast)
• Ambitious Climate Plans Might Need a Radical Legislative One: Ending the Filibuster (NY Times, 6/10/2019):
  [G]iven the bitter divide in Washington over climate change, even if Democrats recaptured a Senate majority next year, it would be nearly impossible for a climate bill to gain enough Republican support to meet the 60-vote requirement.

‘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

• Earth’s future is being written in fast-melting Greenland (AP)
• Climate Refugia: Scientists search for safe havens for vulnerable species (Undark)
• From Flint to Newark to Pittsburgh: Why do American Cities Fail to Protect Our Water? (Rolling Stone)
• Standing Rock Sioux Tribe sues to shut Dakota Pipeline as company plans to double capacity: (Inside Climate News)
• The U.S. is already transforming Greenland, and it’s imperiling Americans here at home (Washington Post)
• Iceland holds funeral for first glacier lost to climate change (Guardian UK)
• Trump’s Rollback of Auto Pollution Rules Shows Signs of Disarray (NY Times)
• Judge lets Fish & Wildlife Service shield names of trophy hunters (E&E News)
• Coal reclamation funds dwindle while Congress dawdles (E&E News)
• Toxic spill from northwest Indiana steel mill kills fish, forces closure of Lake Michigan beaches (Chicago Tribune)
• 4 Last Wolves In Washington Pack Killed By State Hunters (AP)
• EPA deleted scientists’ concerns about Pebble analysis (E&E News)
• 5 Things to Watch at This Month’s Big Wildlife Trade Treaty Meeting (The Revelator)
• Plastic Recycling Is A Myth’: What Really Happens To Your Rubbish? (Guardian UK)
• Global Warming Is Worsening China’s Pollution Problems, Studies Show (Inside Climate News)
• ERCOT reserves drop below 2,300 MW, forcing Texas grid to call for energy emergency (Utility Dive)
• The Planet Needs a New Internet: climate change will come for our internet, too. (Earther)
• VIDEO: A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (The Intercept)
• This Is How Human Extinction Could Play Out (Rolling Stone)
• 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).