‘Green News Report’ – November 12, 2020

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: President-Elect Joe Biden begins rebuilding U.S. climate policy at home and abroad; Federal Reserve warns climate change threatens to destroy the financial system; Renewable energy industry defies COVID, gets set for record growth; PLUS: Trump White House racing the red light to roll back environmental standards and wreck federal science on the way out the door… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Trump’s most profound Llegacy will probably be climate damage; Hurricanes are staying stronger even over land as oceans warm from climate change, study finds; What the Election Results (So Far) Mean for Climate and Energy Policy; Shell Wants Biden to Reverse Methane Emissions Rollback; Wall Street braces for climate change scrutiny under Biden; San Francisco bans natural gas in new buildings… PLUS: Solastalgia: As climate change alters beloved landscapes, we feel the loss… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Tropical Storm Eta hits South Florida AGAIN:
• Tropical Storm Eta dumps blustery rain on Florida west coast (AP)
• VIDEO: Tropical Storm Eta hits Florida with dangerous storm surge and heavy rain (CBS News)
• 2020’s next tropical storm likely to develop, will be Iota (WSTP-Tampa Bay)
• 2020 Atlantic hurricane season breaks all-time record while leaving Gulf Coast battered (Washington Post)
• Extreme weather explained: How climate change makes storms stronger (Deutsche-Welle)
• Trump White House racing the redlight to roll back regulations and wreck federal science:
• White House races to wrap up rules before Trump exits (E&E News)
• As the West Burns, the Trump Administration Races to Demolish Environmental Protections (The Intercept)
• Trump rolled back more than 125 environmental safeguards. Here’s how. (Washington Post)
• Was a Federal Scientist’s Dismissal an 11th-hour Bid to Give Climate Denial Long-Term Legitimacy? (Inside Climate News)
• White House plans to put denier in charge of climate program (E&E News)
• Trump removes head of climate science report (Politico)
• Trump’s ‘Stephen Miller acolytes’ in the civil service could destroy a Biden administration from within, insiders say (Independent UK)
• Trump Issues Order Giving Him More Leeway to Hire and Fire Federal Workers (NY Times)
• White House demoted FERC Chair Chatterjee over diversity training (E&E News)
• Former FERC Chair Chatterjee on demotion by Trump: ‘I don’t give a f@&!’ (Yahoo News)
• Trump quietly fires three agency heads amid presidential vote count (NY Post)
• Biden begins rebuilding US climate policy at home and abroad:
• How Biden aims to amp up the government’s fight against climate change (Washington Post):
  President-elect Joe Biden is poised to embed action on climate change across the breadth of the federal government, from the departments of Agriculture to Treasury to State — expanding it beyond environmental agencies to speed U.S. efforts to mitigate global warming and to acknowledge that the problem touches many aspects of American life.
• Biden to Move Fast to Strike Down Trump’s Environmental Agenda (Bloomberg)
• 9 Things the Biden Administration Could Do Quickly on the Environment (NY Times)
• The 39 Things Biden Should Do First on Climate Change (Bloomberg)
• Joe Biden is bringing up climate change in his 1st calls with foreign leaders (The Week/Yahoo News)
• VIDEO: U.K. PM Boris Johnson on Biden, Trump (C-SPAN)
• How Biden Could Use the Presidential Bully Pulpit to Drive Climate Action (The Nation)
• Biden to Move Fast to Strike Down Trump’s Environmental Agenda (Bloomberg Environment)
• Federal Reserve warns for first time that climate change could destabilize financial markets:
• Federal Reserve warns of climate ‘fire sale’ (E&E News):
  “Given the uncertain timing and severity of future climate-related flooding and the associated opacity of asset exposures, investors in real-estate-linked assets may react abruptly to new information about a region’s exposure to climate-related financial risks,” the report said. “A sharp repricing, in turn, could create incentives to fire sale such assets by leveraged financial and nonfinancial firms.”
• In First For Fed, US Central Bank Says Climate Poses Stability Risks (Reuters)
• IEA: Renewables set for record growth:
• Renewables 2020: Analysis and forecast to 2025 (International Energy Agency)
• Renewable energy defies Covid-19 to hit record growth in 2020 (Guardian UK):
  The IEA report published on Tuesday says almost 90% of new electricity generation in 2020 will be renewable, with just 10% powered by gas and coal. The trend puts green electricity on track to become the largest power source in 2025, displacing coal, which has dominated for the past 50 years.
• Federal Reserve Applies To Join Group Of Banks Managing Climate Risks (The Hill)
• Renewable electricity will hit a record this year and knock off coal’s 50-year reign by 2025: IEA (MarketWatch)

‘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

• Solastalgia: As climate change alters beloved landscapes, we feel the loss (National Geographic)
• What Will Trump’s Most Profound Legacy Be? Possibly Climate Damage (NY Times)
• Hurricanes are staying stronger even over land as oceans warm from climate change, study finds (Washington Post)
• What the Election Results (So Far) Mean for Climate and Energy Policy (GreenTech Media)
• Shell Wants Biden to Reverse Methane Emissions Rollback (Bloomberg)
• “Murder hornet” nest with nearly 200 queens destroyed “in the nick of time” (CBS News)
• Transition 2020: Wall Street braces for climate change scrutiny under Biden (Politico)
• ‘Collective exhale’: Will Trump’s loss stem EPA retirements? (E&E News)
• 75 ways Trump made America dirtier and the planet warmer (Guardian UK)
• How One Firm Drove Influence Campaigns Nationwide for Big Oil (NY Times)
• Green New Deal Breaker? Not in This Election… (Climate Crocks)
• San Francisco bans natural gas in new buildings (KRON-TV San Francisco)
• Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration (Pro Publica)
• 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.

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).