‘Green News Report’ – September 14, 2021

Follow @GreenNewsReport…

(Or use “Click here to listen…” link below.)

IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Second monster storm in two weeks drowns the U.S. Gulf Coast; Biden urges Congress to invest in hardening the nation’s infrastructure; EPA moves to protect drinking water from PFAS ‘forever chemicals’ and industrial wastewater; PLUS: Another nail in the coffin for the massive zombie Pebble Mine in Alaska… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

Click here to listen or download MP3 (6 mins)…

Link:
Embed:

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Climate-driven extreme heat threatens $500 bln in new U.S. costs by 2050; Federal Government Sells Flood-Prone Homes To Often Unsuspecting Buyers; Big Oil’s ‘Wokewashing’ Is The New Climate Science Denialism; Meat accounts for nearly 60 percent of all greenhouse gases from food production, study finds; Emails, docs show TVA’s ties to fight against federal regs… PLUS: Record Number of Environmental Activists Murdered… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Tropical Storm Nicholas drowns Texas and Louisiana:
• Nicholas brings debris, storm surge to Texas as Cat 1 hurricane (Yale Climate Connections):
  In the 24 hours ending at 11 p.m. EDT Monday, Nicholas intensified by 35 mph, meeting the National Hurricane Center’s minimum definition of rapid intensification (a 35 mph increase in winds in 24 hours).
• Nicholas Live Updates: Power Outages Climb in Texas After Hurricane Landfall (Weather Channel)
• Tropical Storm Nicholas slows, dumps rain along Gulf Coast (NBC)
• Parts Of The Texas Gulf Coast May See 20 Inches Of Rain From Tropical Storm Nicholas (NPR)
• Climate change is making hurricanes stronger, slower and wetter. Ida checked all the boxes (CNN)
• Democrats hash out details of Biden’s Build Back Better plans:
• Democrats’ climate investments would create 7.7 million new jobs and add nearly $1 trillion to the economy by 2031, report says (Business Insider)
• Committee OKs methane fee, launches debate on climate plan (E&E News)
• Energy in the House (Politico Morning Energy)
• Schumer vows Dems will deliver aggressive climate provisions (Politico)
• The time for Congress to act on climate is now (The Hill)
• Schumer rejects Manchin’s ‘strategic pause’ on $3.5T bill (Politico)
• Joe Manchin’s Dirty Empire: The West Virginia Senator Reaps Big Financial Rewards From a Network of Coal Companies With Grim Records of Pollution, Safety Violations, and Death (The Intercept)
• Biden urges Congress to pass his Build Back Better infrastructure jobs plan:
• VIDEO: After touring California wildfire damage, Biden rebuts complaints about cost of combating climate change (Yahoo News)
• Biden presses for climate change measures as he tours fire-ravaged states in West (Washington Post/MSN)
• Out West, Biden Points To Wildfires To Push For Big Rebuild (AP):
  “We can’t ignore the reality that these wildfires are being supercharged by climate change,” Biden said, noting that catastrophic weather doesn’t strike based on partisan ideology. “It isn’t about red or blue states. It’s about fires. Just fires.”
• Biden Tours Western Fire Center And Tells Firefighters, ‘You Saved Lake Tahoe’ (NPR)
• VIDEO: Biden, in Idaho, calls for new jobs to combat wildfires and climate change (CBS News)
• Biden EPA updates Clean Water Act for PFAS, slaughterhouse discharge:
• EPA wastewater rules to set first PFAS limits (E&E News)
• EPA Announces Plans for New Wastewater Regulations, Including First Limits for PFAS, Updated Limits for Nutrients (EPA)
• EPA to Revise Outdated Water Pollution Standards for Slaughterhouses (Civil Eats):
  For the first time since 2004, the agency is set to update national water pollution standards for slaughterhouses, known for releasing significant amounts of phosphorous and nitrogen into waterways.
• EPA To Address Slaughterhouse Waste Causing Algae Blooms, Breeding Bacteria (NPR)
• Biden EPA takes next step to cancel Pebble Mine:
• Biden administration moves to halt Pebble mine (Anchorage Daily News)
• EPA revives Pebble mine veto (E&E News):
  Trout Unlimited President Chris Wood, whose group had sued EPA to revive the veto process, called the Pebble mine “one of the supreme bad ideas of all time” because it would have endangered such a strong fishery. He noted that conservation groups have spent $17 billion trying to revive destroyed salmon habitat in the Snake River, saying, “All we have to do to keep this wild salmon fishery intact is just leave it alone.”…Biden sought to boost support for his big rebuilding plans, saying every dollar spent on “resilience” would save $6 in future costs.
• Another blow for Pebble Mine (Grist):
  The Environmental Protection Agency, or EPA, asked a federal court to block a gold mine threatening the biggest sockeye salmon run in the world in Alaska’s Bristol Bay, under the Clean Water Act.

‘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

• Climate-driven extreme heat threatens $500 bln in new U.S. costs by 2050 (Thompson Reuters Trust)
• Federal Government Sells Flood-Prone Homes To Often Unsuspecting Buyers (NPR)
• Big Oil’s ‘Wokewashing’ Is The New Climate Science Denialism (Guardian UK)
• Meat accounts for nearly 60 percent of all greenhouse gases from food production, study finds (Guardian UK)
• Emails, docs show TVA’s ties to fight against federal regs (E&E News)
• Record Number of Environmental Activists Murdered (BBC)
• What the Air Quality Index Actually Means (KQED)
• Where Canada’s Federal Parties Stand On Three Big Climate Issues (The Narhwal)
• Report: Climate Change Could See 200 Million Move By 2050 (AP)
• Formosa Plastics To Pay Nearly $3 Mln To Settle Air Pollution Charges (Reuters)
• Norway’s Center-Left Heads To Victory In General Elections (AP)
• California’s Disappearing Salmon (Washington Post)
• Washington to destroy third murder hornet nest in battle to save bees (Guardian UK)
• 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 9 Years) Really Mean? (Inside Climate News)
• VIDEO: A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (The Intercept)
• 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.