‘Green News Report’ – June 25, 2020

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Minnesota sues Exxon Mobil for lying to the public about climate change; Justice Department whistleblowers expose corrupt investigation into California deal with automakers; PLUS: Chemical giant Bayer to pay billions to settle Monsanto weedkiller lawsuits… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): District of Columbia sues four oil majors for misleading consumers on climate change; Trump insists on fireworks at Mt. Rushmore, increasing risk of wildfire and COVID spread; Black households pay more for energy than white households: analysis; Facebook ‘fact check’ policy creates loophole for climate denial groups; The danger of Amazon’s $2 billion climate change venture capital fund; Court rejects logging plan for Tongass Nat’l Forest; ‘Bomb trains’: LNG shipments by rail approved in U.S…. PLUS: Video: A Bold Vision of DERP Down Under… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Chemical giant Bayer to pay billions to settle Monsanto weedkiller and other lawsuits:
• Bayer paying up to $10.9B to settle Monsanto weedkiller case (AP):
  The company said the settlement over Roundup, which is made by its Monsanto subsidiary, involves about 125,000 filed and unfiled claims. Under the agreement, Bayer will make a payment of $8.8 billion to $9.6 billion to resolve current litigation, and $1.25 billion to address potential future litigation, even as the company continues to maintain that Roundup is safe.
• Bayer to Pay Over $10 Billion to Settle Roundup Cancer Cases (Modern Farmer)
• Roundup Maker to Pay $10 Billion to Settle Cancer Suits (NY Times):
  Bayer faced tens of thousands of claims linking the weedkiller to cases of non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. Some of the money is set aside for future cases.
• Bayer bets on science in bid to prevent future Roundup lawsuits: legal experts (Reuters)
• DOJ whistleblowers expose corrupt investigation in CA deal with automakers:
• VIDEO: DOJ Official John Elias Opening Statement (C-SPAN)
• DOJ whistleblower: California emissions probe was ‘abuse of authority’ (The Hill)
• House panel digs into DOJ auto emissions probe (Politico)
• DOJ launches antitrust probe over California emissions deal with automakers (CNBC 9/6/2019)
• Minnesota sues Exxon Mobil, Kochs, and API for lying to the public about climate science:
• VIDEO: Ellison announces lawsuit against ExxonMobil, Koch Industries, American Petroleum (KTSP-TV Minneapolis)
• Alleging Consumer Fraud, Minnesota Sues Exxon, Koch, and API for Climate Change Deception (Drilled):
  The nuisance suits have concentrated on companies with refineries and pipelines, such as Exxon. This suit, however, focuses on knowingly and actively deceiving the public— it is targeting the refiners and distributors not just of fossil fuel products, but of climate change denial, an arena where both API and Koch have been major players.
• Minnesota Sues Oil Companies, Institute Over Climate Change (AP)
• Exxon Knew: The Road Not Taken – Exxon’s Own Research Confirmed Fossil Fuels’ Role in Global Warming Decades Ago (Inside Climate News)
• Exxon’s Snake Oil: 100 years of deception (Columbia Journalism Review)
• Texas Justices Hand Exxon Setback in California Climate Cases (Inside Climate News)
• NC: Federal court strikes down ‘ag-gag’ law:
• North Carolina ‘Anti-Sunshine’ Law Struck Down as Unconstitutional (Food & Water Watch):
  Under North Carolina’s “Anti-Sunshine Law”, officially titled the Property Protection Act, organizations and journalists who conduct undercover investigations, and individuals who expose improper or criminal conduct by North Carolina employers, were susceptible to suit and substantial damages if they make such evidence available to the public or the press.
• Federal judge: North Carolina ‘ag-gag’ law violates First Amendment (Reporters Commitee For Freedom of the Press):
  While the district court rejected the animal rights groups’ arguments that the law violated their Fourteenth Amendment rights, the court ruled that its provisions penalizing the unauthorized recording of images or sound, as well as the unauthorized collection of documents, “fail to pass muster under the First Amendment.”
• No more ag-gag laws. They are affront to accountability, Constitution (Editorial Board, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette)
• MT: Federal judge cancels oil lease on Blackfeet Tribal lands:
• Court rules to cancel energy lease on land sacred to tribes (AP):
  “These leases should never have been issued in the first place,” Murray said. “Today’s ruling shows that these companies and their lawyers were not just on the wrong side of history but were also on the wrong side of the law when they waged their 40-year crusade to drill our ancestral land.”
• In Victory for Blackfeet Nation, Appeals Court Upholds Protection of Sacred Badger-Two Medicine (press release, EarthJustice)

‘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

• VIDEO: Post Covid Recovery: A Bold Vision of DERP DownUnder (Climate Crocks)
• District of Columbia sues four oil majors for misleading consumers on climate change (Reuters)
• Trump Plans Fireworks at Mt. Rushmore. Virus And Wildfire Could Spread (Washington Post)
• Black Households Pay More for Energy Than White Households, New Analysis Finds (The Hill)
• Facebook Policy Favors Climate Denial Group (Climate Crocks)
• The Tuesday Primaries That You Didn’t Hear About Were a Big Deal for the Green New Deal (Earther)
• Video: Kentucky’s Primary Shows Environmental Justice is an Issue for Voters (Inside Climate News)
• The Danger of Amazon’s $2 Billion Climate Fund (Earther)
• Court Sends Feds Back To The Drawing Board Over Tongass Timber Sale (KRBD)
  

• EPA Won’t Appeal Losses On Science Board Grantees Policy (The Hill)
• LNG Shipments By Rail Approved In US Amid Pipeline Battles (AP)
• Unremediated Yukon Asbestos Mine Poses Health Hazards, Flood Risk (The Narwhal)
• EPA will no longer regulate toxic compound in drinking water (Axios)
• Exxon’s Snake Oil: 100 years of deception (Columbia Journalism Review)
• 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.

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FOR MORE on Climate Science and Climate Change, go to our Green News Report: Essential Background Page

• NASA Video: If we don’t act, here’s what to expect in the next 100 years:
• NASA climate change video: This is the U.S. in 2100 (NASA).