‘Green News Report’ – July 13, 2021

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Western electric grid stress-tested by massive wildfires and 3rd extreme heat wave in a month; California Gov. Newsom expands state drought emergency declaration; June 2021 the hottest June ever recorded in U.S. history; PLUS: Rightwing weather? Fox ‘News’ to launch its own weather channel… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): 5 ways the West is struggling to cope with historic heat waves; Italy Shielding a Glacier from Heat; 43 bodies found in Arizona borderland amid brutal heat; US drilling approvals increase despite Biden climate pledge; Studies Converge On The Benefits Of A Rapid Clean Energy Transition; Climate Scientists Take Swipe At Exxon Mobil, Industry In Leaked Report; UN Sets Out Paris-Style Plan To Cut Extinction Rate By Factor Of 10… PLUS: On climate policy, there’s one main thing and then there’s everything else… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• 3rd extreme, record-breaking heat wave sweeps U.S. West in a month:
• Heat wave roasts the West as wildfires explode in size (Axios)
• Nights are warming faster than days in the U.S. (Axios):
  Nights on average are heating up faster than days in most parts of the United States – a trend caused by climate change, according to the 2018 National Climate Assessment Report.
• Death Valley, California, breaks the all-time world heat record for the second year in a row (Yale Climate Connections)
• Death Valley Hits 130 Degrees as Heat Wave Sweeps the West (NY Times):
  Temperatures were broiling from Utah to California as another “heat dome” led Western states to set up cooling centers and issue motel vouchers.
• Western North American extreme heat virtually impossible without human-caused climate change (World Weather Attribution Network):
  During the last days of June 2021, Pacific northwest areas of the U.S. and Canada experienced temperatures never previously observed, with records broken in many places by several degrees Celsius.
• Europe, Scandinavia also see record heat:
• Record temperatures felt across the world (Deustche-Welle):
  Whether in Lapland, Canada or India, summer temperatures are unusually high this year. Even the Southern Hemisphere is seeing this trend, with New Zealand recording its warmest winter in 100 years.
• Spain hit by heatwave as temperatures reach 44ºC (AFP)
• Morocco swelters in a record heatwave (Phys.Org)
• Nordic countries endure heatwave as Lapland records hottest day since 1914 (Guardian UK)
• NOAA: June 2021 hottest June in North America:
• June 2021 was the hottest June on record for U.S. (NOAA):
  Exceptional heat waves from coast to coast helped push June 2021 to the No. 1 spot on the list of hottest Junes on record for the U.S. The first six months of 2021 also brought eight billion-dollar weather disasters, ranging from destructive severe weather to a historic deep freeze, according to experts from NOAA’s National Centers for Environmental Information.
• North America endured hottest June on record (Guardian UK):
  Satellite data shows temperature peaks are lasting longer and rising higher.
• Billion-Dollar Weather and Climate Disasters: Overview (NOAA)
• Heat-intensified wildfires stress-test Western electric grid:
• Heat Wave Pounds Western Power Grids (Climate Crocks)
• How an Oregon wildfire almost derailed California’s power grid (San Diego Union Tribune/LA Times)
• Wildfires rage across over 1 million acres in U.S. West and Canada (Axios)
• Western water reservoirs reach dangerously low levels:
• The Colorado River is drying up faster than federal officials can keep track. Mandatory water cuts are looming. (Colorado Sun):
  Plummeting reservoir levels at Mead and Powell solidify Arizona cutbacks next year and near-future threats to all the Compact states, from Colorado to California.
• Severe drought threatens Hoover dam reservoir – and water for US west (Guardian UK):
  Had the formidable white arc of the Hoover dam never held back the Colorado River, the US west would probably have no Los Angeles or Las Vegas as we know them today. No sprawling food bowl of wheat, alfalfa and corn. No dreams of relocating to live in a tamed desert. The river, and dam, made the west; now the climate crisis threatens to break it.
• ‘Unrecognizable.’ Lake Mead, a lifeline for water in Los Angeles and the West, tips toward crisis (San Diego Union Tribune/LA Times)
• Colorado River reservoirs at risk of becoming ‘dead pools’ (AZ Public Radio)
• CA Gov. Newsom issues voluntary water conservation order:
• Governor asks Californians to voluntarily cut water use (AP)
• As Drought Conditions Intensify, Governor Newsom Calls on Californians to Take Simple Actions to Conserve Water (Office of Gov. Gavin Newsom)
• VIDEO: Governor Newsom visits Lopez Lake, asks Californians to voluntarily cut water use (KSBY)
• European carmakes fined automakers $1 billion for holding back emissions tech:
• EU Commission fines Volkswagen and BMW $1 billion for emissions collusion (CNN)
• EU fines Volkswagen, BMW $1 bln for emissions cartel (Reuters):
  The European Commission fined German carmakers Volkswagen and BMW a total of 875 million euros ($1 billion) on Thursday for colluding to curb the use of emissions cleaning technology they had developed. The case, separate to the so-called ‘Dieselgate’ scandal over software designed to cheat on vehicle emissions tests, sets a precedent by extending the application of European competition law to technical-level talks between industry players.
• ‘Rightwing weather’?: Fox News to launch 24-hour streaming weather channel
• Fox News’ planned 24-hour weather channel has climate experts worried (Guardian UK):
  “The danger of [Fox News Media] running a weather channel is that if they pervert news about the weather anything like how they’ve perverted news about climate change and energy politics, millions of Americans will be further misled about this crisis,” said Geoffrey Supran, research fellow at Harvard University’s department of the history of science. “It’s been shown that the most important predictors of public support for climate action are understanding that this crisis is real, human-caused, serious and solvable,” Supran said.
• VIDEO: Chris Hayes Slams Murdoch Over Fox Weather Plans: Don’t Forget the ‘Incalculable Human Misery’ He Unleashed (Mediaite)
• VIDEO: Can You Trust a Weather Report from Fox News? (Climate Crocks)
• Good News, Oil Companies! Fox Is Launching a Weather Channel (Earther):
  Fox Weather will reportedly be launching later this year. Sorry, what?

‘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

• 5 ways the West is struggling to cope with historic heat waves (Yahoo News)
• In Italy: Shielding a Glacier from Heat (Climate Crocks)
• Forty-three bodies found in Arizona borderland amid brutal heat (Guardian UK)
• US drilling approvals increase despite Biden climate pledge (AP)
• On climate policy, there’s one main thing and then there’s everything else (David Roberts, Volts)
• Studies Converge On The Benefits Of A Rapid Clean Energy Transition (Energy Innovation)
• Climate Scientists Take Swipe At Exxon Mobil, Industry In Leaked Report (Politico)
• Hydrogen Is One Answer to Climate Change. Getting It Is the Hard Part. (NY times)
• UN Sets Out Paris-Style Plan To Cut Extinction Rate By Factor Of 10 (Guardian UK)
• Crushing climate impacts to hit sooner than feared: draft UN report (AFP/France 24):
  Climate change will fundamentally reshape life on Earth in the coming decades, even if humans can tame planet-warming greenhouse gas emissions, according to a landmark draft report from the UN’s climate science advisors obtained by AFP. Species extinction, more widespread disease, unliveable heat, ecosystem collapse, cities menaced by rising seas — these and other devastating climate impacts are accelerating and bound to become painfully obvious before a child born today turns 30.
• Nations Must Drop Fossil Fuels, Fast, World Energy Body Warns (NY Times)
• Electric cars: What will happen to all the dead batteries? (BBC)
• Climate Fund Choices for Investors Are Multiplying (Bloomberg/Yahoo)
• 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).