‘Green News Report’ – February 18, 2020

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Yet another state now grappling with extreme rains and floods; Antarctica hits another record high; Trump EPA trying to gut yet another public health pollution standard; PLUS: CNBC investment guru warns the writing is on the wall for fossil fuels… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Anti-pipeline protests shut down Canadian rail networks; Global financial giants swear off funding Alberta’s dirty tar sands; Peach grower awarded $265 million from Bayer, BASF in weedkiller lawsuit; Huge locust outbreak in East Africa reaches South Sudan; 211 million gallons of sewage spilled into Fort Lauderdale waterways; Hundreds of thousands of mussels cooked to death on New Zealand beach in heatwave…PLUS: It’s official: Federal judge shuts down the largest oil refinery on the East Coast… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Billionaire Jeff Bezos pledges $10 billion toward new climate solutions fund:
• Jeff Bezos commits $10 billion to fight climate change (AP):
  Bezos, the world’s richest man, said in an Instagram post that he’ll start giving grants this summer to scientists, activists and nonprofits working to protect Earth…Amazon, the company Bezos runs, has an enormous carbon foodprint. Last year, Amazon officials said the company would work to have 100% of its energy use come from solar panels and other renewable energy by 2030.
• Jeff Bezos commits $10 billion to fight climate change (The Verge)
• How Google, Microsoft, and Big Tech Are Automating the Climate Crisis (Gizmodo, 2/21/2019):
  These deals are explicitly aimed at streamlining, improving, and rendering oil and gas extraction operations more profitable…[S]omehow big tech’s sweeping embrace of the oil industry has managed to escape wider notice and criticism.
• Amazon Employees for Climate Justice Statement on Jeff Bezos’ Earth Fund (Amazon Employees for Climate Justice):
  We applaud Jeff Bezos’ philanthropy, but one hand cannot give what the other is taking away. The people of Earth need to know: When is Amazon going to stop helping oil & gas companies ravage Earth with still more oil and gas wells? When is Amazon going to stop funding climate-denying think tanks like the Competitive Enterprise Institute and climate-delaying policy? When will Amazon take responsibility for the lungs of children near its warehouses by moving from diesel to all-electric trucking?
• Billionaire Jeff Bezos Figures He Might as Well Try to Help the Planet He Currently Lives On (Earther)
• Amazon ‘threatens to fire’ climate change activists (BBC, 1/3/2020)
• Antarctica breaks another high temperature record:
• Antarctic temperature rises above 20C for first time on record (Guardian UK):
  The Antarctic has registered a temperature of more than 20C (68F) for the first time on record, prompting fears of climate instability in the world’s greatest repository of ice.
• VIDEO: January 2020 was hottest on record, while Antarctica is warmer than it’s ever been, with NASA Goddard chief scientist Gavin Schmidt (CBS News)
• Antarctica broke two temperature records in a week (Vox):
  “We have never seen anything like this.”
• The Enormous but Hidden Consequences of Antarctica’s Record Heat (Mother Jones)
• Ancient Antarctic ice melt caused extreme sea level rise 129,000 years ago – and it could happen again (The Conversation)
• Mississippi & Tennessee the latest victims of extreme rains and record floods:
• Mississippi historic flood waters will recede later this week. But not before more rain could cause issues for thousands (CNN)
• VIDEO: Flooding prompts state of emergency in Mississippi (CBS News)
• Historic, unprecedented’ flooding swamps southern USA; Mississippi and Tennessee hardest hit (USA Today)
• Michigan: $100 million to repair damages from 2019 record Midwest floods:
• Repairs of high water damage in Michigan could reach $100 million (AP)
• Trump EPA moves to gut another public health pollution standard:
• The EPA is about to change a rule cutting mercury pollution. The industry doesn’t want it. (Washington Post):
  The agency plans to declare that it is not “appropriate and necessary” for the government to limit harmful pollutants from power plants, even though every utility in America has complied with standards put in place in 2011 under President Barack Obama. While it will technically keep existing restrictions on mercury in place, it means the government would not be able to count collateral benefits — such as reducing soot and smog — when it sets limits on toxic air pollutants.
• Legal Analysis: Rolling Back the Mercury and Air Toxics Standards: Proposed Withdrawal of “Appropriate and Necessary” (Harvard Environmental & Energy Law Program)
• Buying Their Way Out of Environmental Regulations (Sludge)
• EPA’s independent science board says agency ignored its advice on mercury rule (The Hill, 12/31/2019)
• CNBC’s Cramer warns of the ‘death knell’ for fossil fuel investments:
• VIDEO: Cramer sees oil stocks in the ‘death knell phase,’ says they are the new tobacco (CNBC):
  “I’m done with fossil fuels … they’re just done. We’re starting to see divestment all over the world,” Cramer said. “You’re seeing divestiture by a lot of different funds. It’s going to be a parade. It’s going to be a parade that says, ‘Look, these are tobacco and we’re not going to own them.’”
• BP Pledges to Cut Emissions to Zero but Offers Few Details (NY Times)
• VIDEO: Investor Impact of Oil Major BP Aiming For Net Zero Carbon Emissions By 2050 (Bloomberg/Oil Price.com)
• Fossil Fuels Aren’t Even a Very Good Investment (The New Republic)

‘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

• Anti-Pipeline Protests Shut Down Canadian Rail Networks (EcoWatch)
• Global Financial Giants Swear Off Funding an Especially Dirty Fuel (NY Times)
• Peach Grower Awarded $265 Million From Bayer, BASF in Weedkiller Lawsuit (Reuters)
• Huge locust outbreak in East Africa reaches South Sudan (AP)
• 211 million gallons of sewage spilled into Fort Lauderdale waterways, officials say (Guardian UK)
• Hundreds of thousands of mussels cooked to death on New Zealand beach in heatwave (Guardian UK)
• It’s official: Federal judge shuts down the largest oil refinery on the East Coast (Grist)
• Tesla’s Cybertruck Has a Huge Cowboy Problem (Marker/Medium)
• Researchers claim solar efficiency breakthrough for flexible ‘skin’ (Guardian UK)
• Cheap natural gas is making it very hard to go green. (Treehugger)
• Seeding oceans with iron may not impact climate change (Phys.org)
• Australia: Public support for new coalmines falls even among Coalition voters, ANU poll finds (Guardian UK)
• Will Spring Flooding in 2020 Repeat Last Year’s Disaster? There Are Some Troubling Signs. (Weather Channel)
• 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)
• 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).