‘Green News Report’ – February 9, 2021

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Rescue operations underway after massive glacier burst in India; Glacial ‘outburst’ flood risk rising everywhere due to global warming; Hacker tried to contaminate Florida city’s drinking water; PLUS: GM’s new electric vehicle Super Bowl ad gets hilarious pushback… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Waiting 10 years to start eliminating emissions will cost the US more than $3.5 trillion; California rains starting later, extending fire season: study; Disillusioned ExxonMobil Engineer Quits to Take Action on Climate Change; Court rejects MT coal mine expansion; Global warming triggers earlier pollen; Tiny, Oily, Little Hands Give Petrosexuals Away; GOP Congressman Wants To Remove 4 Dams To Save Idaho’s Salmon; Incinerator That Turns Waste To Energy Is Shutting Down… PLUS: Black Community Fights Project On Coast Land Fouled By Arsenic, Lead… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Hacker attempted to contaminate Florida city’s drinking water:
• Someone tried to poison Oldsmar’s water supply during hack, sheriff says (Tampa Bay Times):
  Pinellas Sheriff Bob Gualtieri said the attacker tried to raise levels of sodium hydroxide, also known as lye, by a factor of more than 100…“The protocols that we have in place, monitoring protocols, they work — that’s the good news,” said Oldsmar Mayor Eric Seidel. “Even had they not caught them, there’s redundancies in the system that would have caught the change in the pH level.
• VIDEO: Treatment Plant Intrusion Press Conference (Pinellas Co. Sheriff/Youtube)
• Are Hackers Targeting Critical Infrastructure More Often? (GovTech, 10/17/2020)
• Hack against US is ‘grave’ threat, cybersecurity agency says (12/17/20)
• India: Hundreds missing after glacier outburst flood:
• Race to find dozens still missing as survivors recall horror of India glacier disaster (CBS News):
  The disaster has been blamed on rapidly melting glaciers in the Himalayan region, exacerbated by global warming…Building activity for dams and dredging riverbeds for sand and the clearing of trees for new roads – some to beef up defense on the Chinese border – may also have played a role in destabilizing the area.
• VIDEO: At least 26 dead, scores missing after glacier collapse unleashes a wall of water in India (CBS News):
  The Rishaganga power station was operating when it was completely destroyed by the wall of water unleashed by the Nanda Devi glacier’s partial collapse on Sunday.
• How does a glacier burst? Flooding in India leaves 26 dead and 165 missing. (USA Today)
• Before Himalayan Flood, India Ignored Warnings of Development Risks (NY Times):
  Long before a deadly flood hit two hydroelectric dams, scientists warned repeatedly that such projects were dangerous in a fragile region made more so by global warming.
• Himalayan glaciers are melting twice as fast as last century (CNN, 6/20/2019)
• Threat of glacier ‘outburst’ floods rising around the world:
• For a City Staring Down the Barrel of a Climate-Driven Flood, A New Study Could be the Smoking Gun (Inside Climate News):
  A lawsuit is leaning on the new research that found a global warming fingerprint on the melting glacier threatening to send an outburst flood into Huaraz, Peru…
• Increased outburst flood hazard from Lake Palcacocha due to human-induced glacier retreat (Nature Geoscience)
• EXPLAINER: How glaciers can burst and send floods downstream (AP)
• Bad earnings news for Big Oil majors:
• Oil giants Exxon Mobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips post massive losses to cap off challenging 2020 (Houston Chronicle/MSN)
• Oil companies’ losses in 2020 were staggering. And that was before the government focused on climate change. (Washington Post):
  Over the longer term, the European majors have proclaimed their ambitions to go totally green by mid-century, though several clean-energy executives resigned from Shell in December amid an internal debate about the pace of change. Even ExxonMobil, which has been more inert on that score, announced this week that it will launch a $3 billion carbon-capture-and-sequestration affiliate that will be called ExxonMobil Low Carbon Solutions.
• Exxon, BP announce billions in losses for 2020 (The Hill)
• Hilarious responses to GM’s all-electric vehicle Super Bowl ad:
• Ford ‘brilliantly’ steals spotlight from GM Super Bowl ad in Twitter battle (Detroit Free Press):
  “Kudos to Ford for doing what every Super Bowl commercial thinks it can do, which is get an international audience,” said Melissa Bradley, a business professor at Georgetown University. “It’s a hell of a move to go head-to-head with a country where you don’t even sell what they’re trying to buy. You’re definitely punching above your weight class.”
• VIDEO: Scandinavian YouTube Responds to GM’s Will Ferrell Super Bowl Ad (Car & Driver/MSN)
• Norway responds to GM and Will Ferrell’s EV challenge… with mackerel-slapping? (The Newxt Web)
• VIDEO: Norwegian EV Associations answer to General Motors and Will Ferrell. Bring it on! (Norsk elbilforening Youtube)
• General Motors announces plan for all-electric lineup by 2035 (Guardian)

‘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

• Waiting 10 years to start eliminating emissions will cost the US more than $3.5 trillion (Quartz)
• California rains starting later, extending fire season: study (Reuters)
• A Disillusioned ExxonMobil Engineer Quits to Take Action on Climate Change and Stop ‘Making the World Worse’ (Inside Climate News)
• Scientists warn over misuse of climate models in financial markets (Reuters)
• Court rejects Montana coal mine expansion (Billings Gazette)
• Judge blocks another bid to shut down Line 3 construction (AP)
• Nothing to sneeze at: Global warming triggers earlier pollen (AP/MSN)
• Tiny, Oily, Little Hands Give Petrosexuals Away (Climate Crocks)
• UN chief urges leaders to start Cop26 climate negotiations online (Guardian)
• EV Company With Almost No Revenue Posts 3,000% Gain in 8 Months (Bloomberg)
• Siberia: Peat fires continue to burn at air temperature of -50C in northeastern Yakutia (Siberian Times)
• States Clash With Pentagon on PFAS Water Limits, Polluted Sites (Bloomberg)
• Black Community Fights Project On Coast Land Fouled By Arsenic, Lead (Biloxi Sun Herals)
• Montana Senator Says He’ll ‘Block’ Deb Haaland’s Interior Nomination (Indian Country Today)
• This GOP Congressman Wants To Remove 4 Dams To Save Idaho’s Salmon (Idaho Stateman)
• Incinerator That Turns Waste To Energy Is Shutting Down (AP)
• Black Lies Matter: Chevron Revealed Behind Racially Tinged Climate Denial Campaign (Climate Crocks)
• How climate change could undo 50 years of public health gains (Grist)
• 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).