‘Green News Report’ – November 7, 2019

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: 11,000 scientists issue dire warning on climate change; The planet just broiled through the hottest October ever recorded; Trump EPA moves to weaken water standards, again; PLUS: Honolulu and Maui County sue Big Oil over climate damages… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Voters flip Virginia state legislature, clearing way for climate and clean energy policies; ‘Whiskey in punch’? Justices probe Clean Water Act’s limits; Young climate activists chain selves to Washington pier amid pipeline delivery; Banned ozone-harming gas, once on the rise, now declining again; Dumped fishing gear is the biggest plastic polluter in the ocean, study finds; NASA methane gas detectors find ‘super emitters’ in California; Wall Street increasingly weighing risk from climate change… PLUS: Unplugging PG&E is easier said than done… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• October 2019 was the hottest October ever recorded:
• October breaks global heat records for all Octobers past (Earther)
• Warmest October on record occurred in 2019, Europe’s climate monitor says (EuroNews)
• Last month was the warmest October on record globally. Here’s what it means for climate change (CNN)
• Earth sizzles through October as another month ranks as the warmest on record (Washington Post)
• 2019 Arctic Sea Ice Minimum Tied for Second Lowest On Record (NASA)
• Arctic ice reached record low for month of October (EuroNews)
• Melting arctic sea ice linked to emergence of deadly virus in marine mammals (Phys.Org):
  Phocine distemper virus (PDV), a pathogen responsible for killing thousands of European harbor seals in the North Atlantic in 2002, was identified in northern sea otters in Alaska in 2004, raising questions about when and how the virus reached them.
• 11,000 scientists issue dire warning on climate crisis:
• World Scientists’ Warning of a Climate Emergency (BioScience):
  “We declare clearly and unequivocally that planet Earth is facing a climate emergency…To secure a sustainable future, we must change how we live. [This] entails major transformations in the ways our global society functions and interacts with natural ecosystems…The climate crisis has arrived and is accelerating faster than most scientists expected. It is more severe than anticipated, threatening natural ecosystems and the fate of humanity.
• VIDEO: Climate crisis: 11,000 scientists warn of ‘untold suffering’ (Guardian UK):
  Prof William Ripple, of Oregon State University and the lead author of the statement, said he was driven to initiate it by the increase in extreme weather he was seeing. A key aim of the warning is to set out a full range of “vital sign” indicators of the causes and effects of climate breakdown, rather than only carbon emissions and surface temperature rise.
• 11,000 scientists warn of ‘untold suffering’ caused by climate change (CNN)
• Super Typhoon Halong joins ranks of most powerful storms:
• Category 5 Super Typhoon Halong among strongest storms ever observed by satellite (Washington Post)
• NASA-NOAA satellite finds super typhoon Halong finally weakening (Phys.Org)
• Pacific Ocean heat waves and sea urchins killed California’s kelp forests:
• Marine heat wave and multiple stressors tip bull kelp forest to sea urchin barrens (Nature/Scientific Reports)
• Massive California Kelp Decline Linked to Ocean Heat, Voracious Sea Urchins (KQED):
  The study links the reduction in the seaweed’s population to a confluence of environmental and ecological stressors, including a marine heat wave, a sea star die-off and the emergence of an “urchin barrens,” large swaths of subtidal zones overtaken by kelp-hungry purple sea urchins.
• The return of the blob: How can we help fisheries adapt to warming waters? (Environmental Defense Fund)
• These Purple Creatures Are Eating All Our Kelp. It’s Time to Eat Them (Nation Swell):
  These “parking lots,” called urchin barrens, occur when thousands of purple urchins enter a kelp forest and mow it down…While this is happening off the coasts off of Japan, Tasmania, Norway and Australia, California’s coasts are experiencing traumatic changes.
• Trump EPA moves to weaken clean water standards for coal plants, again:
• Trump EPA Targets More Coal Ash Rules for Rollback. Water Pollution Rules, Too. (Inside Climate News):
  The Trump administration made another attempt on Monday to prop up the sagging coal industry by proposing to relax two Obama-era rules meant to curb water pollution from power plants and clean up the ponds utilities use to store toxic coal ash.
• Trump Administration Proposes Relaxing Rules On Waste From Coal Plants (NPR)
• EPA to scale back federal rules restricting waste from coal-fired power plants (Washington Post)
• Honolulu and Maui County sue Big Oil for climate change damages:
• VIDEO: Press conference by Honolulu Mayor Kirk Caldwell (Mayor Kirk Caldwell Facebook page):
  Honolulu leaders demand fossil fuel companies pay for climate change costs and damages through a lawsuit to be filed by the city.
• City Announces Plans To Sue Oil Companies For Climate Change Damage (Hawaii News Now)
• Honolulu and Maui to Join More Than a Dozen U.S. Communities Suing Fossil Fuel Companies for Climate Change Damages (Union of Concerned Scientists)
• Maui To File Next Climate Suit Against Big Oil (Climate Liability News)
• Exxon’s Own Research Confirmed Fossil Fuels’ Role in Global Warming Decades Ago (Inside Climate News)

‘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

• Voters Flip Virginia Legislature, Clearing Way for Climate and Clean Energy Policies (Inside Climate News)
• Young climate activists chain selves to Washington pier amid pipeline delivery (Guardian UK)
• Unplugging PG&E Is Easier Said Than Done (Mother Jones)
• Banned Ozone-Harming Gas, Once on the Rise, Declines Again (NY Times)
• ‘Whiskey in punch’? Justices probe Clean Water Act’s limits (E&E News)
• 5 things to know about Supreme Court Clean Water Act face-off (E&E News)
• Dumped Fishing Gear Is Biggest Plastic Polluter In Ocean, Finds Report (Guardian UK)
• NASA Flew Gas Detectors Above California, Found ‘Super Emitters’ (Bloomberg)
• Wall Street Increasingly Weighs Risk From Climate Change (Reuters)
• Keystone Pipeline Spill Hardens Landowner Opposition To Expansion Bid (Reuters)
• VIDEO: Hero Politician Shuts Down Heckler With ‘OK Boomer’ During Climate Speech in New Zealand (Earther)
• N.H. Landfill Wins Permit Renewal To Send Runoff Into Merrimack River (WBUR)
• What Does ’12 Years to Act on Climate Change’ (Now 11 Years) Really Mean? (Inside Climate News)
• 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).