‘Green News Report’ – December 16, 2021

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Biden pledges hope and help for victims of deadly December tornado outbreak; The 12 Days of Christmas are getting warmer; U.S. businesses face mounting flood risks, new report warns; Toyota joins electric vehicle revolution; PLUS: New York City becomes the largest city in the U.S. to ban natural gas in new buildings… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Give me control of the weather weapons, you cowards; PR giant Edelman’s dirty pro-oil PR; Should poison be dropped on a mouse-infested island? California weighs plan; Democrats try to flip the script on energy prices; Democrats $2 trillion spending plan in peril as talks snag on Machin’s demands; States volunteer to take more cuts to CO River water; Army Corps drops support for Yazoo Pumps flood control project; High rates of methane spewing from Permian oilfield operations;… PLUS: Cold, heat, fires, hurricanes and tornadoes: The year in weather disasters… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Alex Jones says Joe Biden may have used “weather weapons” to create tornadoes that killed scores in the central US (Media Matters)
• Midwest hit with more extremely weird December extreme weather:
• ‘Really abnormal’ storms and tornadoes tear through Great Plains and midwest (Guardian UK):
  Meteorologist says no need to ask if it’s linked to climate crisis: ‘All events nowadays are augmented by climate change.’

• Unprecedented Midwest wind storm caps 2021’s siege of extreme weather (Washington Post/MSN):
  It unleashed the most hurricane-force wind gusts of any storm since at least 2014. Tornadoes carved paths in places they never had before in December. Fires erupted. Walls of dust turned day to night.
• Historic storm brings damaging winds, “unprecedented” tornado risk (Axios)
• Historic’ wind storm slamming Central U.S., with rare tornado threat in the north (Washington Post):
  “The Central U.S. has never seen a December storm like this,” tweeted Bill Karins, a meteorologist for MSNBC. “Multi-hazard, life-threatening weather today.”
• Biden pledges hope and help for victims of deadly December tornado outbreak:
• VIDEO, transcript: Joe Biden Visits Kentucky, Addresses Tornado Damage (Rev.com)
• Biden pledges ‘whatever it takes as long as it takes’ in tornado-battered Kentucky (Washington Post)
• Biden says feds will cover 100% of the cost to clean up from Kentucky tornado for the first 30 days of recovery (CNN)
• VIDEO: ‘There’s no red tornadoes, there’s no blue tornadoes,’ Biden tells local leaders in Mayfield (Washington Post)
• A single Kentucky Republican travels with Biden to survey tornado and storm damage (CNN)
• Biden surveys tornado damage in Kentucky ahead of remarks on ‘extreme weather’ (ABC News)
• Tornado outbreak offers a grim climate warning (Axios)
• VIDEO: “This Isn’t a Natural Disaster”: Climate Scientist Michael Mann on Deadly Tornadoes in 8 States (Democracy Now!)
• EXPLAINER: Was tornado outbreak related to climate change? (AP)
• Globally, 41 extreme weather disasters have hit the planet in 2021 (so far):
• Two billion-dollar weather disasters in November; 41 so far in 2021 (Yale Climate Connections)
• Swiss Re report: Global weather disasters caused insured losses of $101B in 2021 (E&E News)
• Winter tornadoes likely to get even stronger:
• Study: Winter tornadoes to get more powerful as world warms (AP):
  Not peer reviewed yet, it was presented in poster form as a peak at new research to be published later. “There is a potential for events in the future that are more intense that would not have been as intense in the current climate,” said study author Jeff Trapp, head of atmospheric sciences at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign. “Bearing in mind that these high end events are still going to be rare.”
• Winter Tornadoes Will Be 9 Times Stronger By 2099 If Global Warming Isn’t Curtailed: Study (Newsweek/MSN)
• The 12 Days of Christmas are getting warmer:
• The Warming Twelve Days of Christmas (Climate Central):
  On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me: a partridge and some warming…Climate change threatens symbols of the holiday season, from Christmas tree growth, winter recreation, and cozy drinks to Arctic wildlife.
• Lower 48 states could have warmest December on record (Axios)
• How your odds of a white Christmas have changed (CNN)
• Reports warns of rising flood risk for U.S. businesses:
• The 4th National Risk Assessment: Climbing Commercial Closures (First Street Foundation/ARUP)
• Businesses face mounting flood risks (Axios):
  The report also drives home the increased costs, both in time and money, of flooding during the next few decades as sea levels rise and heavy precipitation events aggravate inland flooding.
• How rising groundwater caused by climate change could devastate coastal communities (MIT Technology Review)
• Toyota belatedly joins electric vehicle revolution:
  • Japan’s Toyota promises more electric models, investment (AP):
    Toyota Motor Corp. plans to sell 3.5 million electric vehicles globally in 2030, he said, up from its earlier plan to sell 2 million zero emission hydrogen and battery electric vehicles a year worldwide by 2030. Toyota now sells about 10 million vehicles globally a year.
  • Toyota Unveils 15 New EV Concepts, Says Lexus Will Be Electric-Only (The Drive)

• New York City Council votes to ban methane gas in new buildings:
• The largest city in the U.S. bans natural gas in new buildings (NPR):
  “This bill was about prioritizing people over profits and properties,” Council member Alicka Ampry-Samuel, who led the effort to pass the bill, said at a rally outside city hall Wednesday afternoon. “We are at a point in our lifetimes that we need to act. We need to make sure we are protecting and saving our environment.”
• N.Y.C.’s Gas Ban Takes Fight Against Climate Change to the Kitchen (NY Times):
  New York City is set to ban gas-powered stoves, space heaters and water boilers in all new buildings, a move that would significantly affect real estate development and construction in the nation’s largest city and could influence how cities around the world seek to reduce the burning of fossil fuels, which drives climate change.
• New York City’s natural gas ban is a major milestone for city climate policy (Quartz)
• VIDEO: New York City Council Votes To Ban Natural Gas From All New Construction (CBS New York)

‘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

• Give Me Control of the Weather Weapons, You Cowards (Earther)
  

• Cold, heat, fires, hurricanes and tornadoes: The year in weather disasters (Washington Post)
• PR giant Edelman’s dirty PR (Heated.World)
• Should poison be dropped on a mouse-infested island? California weighs plan (Guardian UK)
• Democrats try to flip the script on energy prices (Axios)
• Democrats’ $2 Trillion Spending Plan In Political Peril As Talks Snag (Washington Post)
• States Volunteer To Take More Cuts In Colorado River Water (AP)
• Enviros Call For Stronger EPA Action On Falsified Chemical Assessments (The Hill)
• Sen. Warren Asks SEC To Investigate Compensation At Fossil Fuel Giants (Washington Post)
• Dene Oppose Federal Regulations To Release Oilsands Tailings Water (CBC)
• Corps Withdraws Decision Allowing Yazoo Pumps Flood Control Project (WLBT)
• Volunteers Are Growing Oyster Gardens To Help Restore Reefs (AP)
• High Rates Of Methane Spewing From Permian Oilfield Operations: Report (Reuters)
• Green Upheaval: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Foreign Affairs)
• VIDEO: 2050: what happens if we ignore the climate crisis (Guardian UK)
• Guilt, grief and anxiety as young people fear for climate’s future (Reuters)
• 99.9 percent Of Scientists Agree Climate Emergency Caused By Humans (Guardian UK)
• An Empire of Dying Wells: Old oil and gas sites are a climate menace. Meet the company that owns more of America’s decaying wells than any other. (Bloomberg)
• 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.