‘Green News Report’ – February 3, 2022

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Gas stoves are worse for climate and indoor pollution than previously known — even when turned off; Massive chemical plant fire in North Carolina forces thousands to evacuate; EPA pushes USPS to ditch new gas-powered mail delivery trucks; PLUS: Interior Department gives out billions to states to clean up millions of leaking abandoned oil and gas wells… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): How Manchin used politics to protect his coal profits; Glorified electric golf carts for all!; Warming oceans leave no safe havens for coral reefs; Texas grid wobbles, but is holding in winter storm (so far); Climate change may be fueling increase in major Northeast snowstorms; Ocean layers losing oxygen due to global warming; The 11 slides that finally convinced Boris Johnson about global warming; In the new world of long-duration battery storage, and old technology holds it own… PLUS: Greenflation: The world isn’t ready for climate-driven inflation… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Today’s snark courtesy of Yale’s James Hamblin (Twitter):
  “So we’re all supposed to “prepare for blizzard conditions” just because the scientific establishment and the media say so? And anyone who says it will be sunny and 70 is canceled? All’s I’m saying is, lots of $ changing hands in snow shovel industry. Do your own meteorology.”
• NC chemical plant fire forces evacuations:
• Rain Helps Supress Plant Fire, but Explosion Risk Remains (AP):
  Overnight rain helped suppress an uncontrolled fire at a North Carolina fertilizer plant, but fire officials are warning that it has also pushed smoke closer to the ground, creating a health hazard.
• VIDEO: Blaze at North Carolina fertilizer plant packed with 600 tons of ammonium nitrate still burning (ABC News)
• VIDEO: 6,000 urged to evacuate as North Carolina fertilizer plant fire threatens an ammonium nitrate explosion (CNN)
• Gas stoves are worse for the climate than previously known:
• Gas stoves in kitchens pose a risk to public health and the planet, research finds (Washington Post)
• Your gas stove could be hurting everyone around you (Popular Science)
• Methane and NOx Emissions from Natural Gas Stoves, Cooktops, and Ovens in Residential Homes (Environmental Science and Technology)
• Gas Stoves in the US Emit Methane Equivalent to the Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Half a Million Cars (Inside Climate News):
  Running gas ovens and stove top burners in small kitchens with poor ventilation resulted in emissions that within a few minutes surpassed the Environmental Protection Agency’s safety standards for outdoor air concentrations of nitrogen dioxide, an irritant that can aggravate asthma and may contribute to the development of the disease.
• Your gas stove is always polluting, even when it’s turned off
  (Vox):
  Scientists may have just found a source of missing methane in cities…When we fire up a gas stove, we’re releasing a powerful climate pollutant into kitchens and beyond. But a new study found that this isn’t just happening when the stove is on. Even when turned off, a typical gas stove will send methane up to the atmosphere.
• Gas stoves are bad for you and your family:
• Stanford Scientists Find the Climate and Health Impacts of Natural Gas Stoves Are Greater Than Previously Thought (Sierra Sun Times)
• AUDIO: We need to talk about your gas stove, your health and climate change
  solutions for indoor air pollution (NPR, 10/7/2021)
• Revealed: how the gas industry is waging war against climate action (Guardian, 8/20/2020)
• Big Oil’s Strategy Is Stalling The Energy Transition (Forbes)
• Gas stoves can generate unsafe levels of indoor air pollution (Vox, 5/11/2020)
• How to transition away from gas-powered stoves and appliances:
• A TikTok food star on why gas stoves are overrated (Vox):
  As the natural gas industry tries to defend its turf, chefs are touting the benefits of induction cooking.
How to Use an Induction Cooktop (An Easy Guide for Beginners) (The Cookery Space)
• The Electrify Everything Course (Nate the House Whisperer):
  Soup to nuts on the basics of home electrification from someone who has done it.
• EPA offers $500 tax credit for Heat pumps, EV chargers and these home improvements (Market Watch)
• Climate change is already harming agriculture:
• Climate change: Key crops face major shifts as world warms (BBC):
  Key coffee regions in Brazil, Indonesia, Vietnam and Colombia will all “drastically decrease” by around 50 percent by 2050. Suitable areas for cashews and avocados will increase but most will be far from current sites of production.
• U.S. Drought- and Flood-Related Crop Insurance Payouts Have Tripled Since 1995 (Yale e360):
  Over the last 25 years, drought-related insurance payments rose by more than 400 percent, while payments related to excess rainfall rose by close to 300 percent, according to the report, which is based on publicly available data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Over that same period, the number of insured acres rose by less than 85 percent.
• Crop losses from climate crisis cost billions of dollars in insurance payouts (Environmental Working Group)
• ‘Climate Can’t Wait’: US Crop Losses Have More Than Tripled Since 1995 (Common Dreams):
  Payouts to U.S. farmers for crops destroyed by droughts and flooding surged by over 340% from 1995 to 2020, and the cost of the nation’s federal crop insurance program is only expected to increase as the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis continues to exacerbate extreme weather and disrupt agriculture.
• Interior Dept. releases funds to clean up abandoned oil and gas wells:
• Biden administration to give states $1.15 billion to plug orphaned wells, which leak planet-warming methane (Washington Post)
• Biden administration to offer $1.2 billion for states to clean up planet-warming methane leaks (CNN)
• Biden Administration Announces $1.15 Billion for States to Create Jobs Cleaning Up Orphaned Oil and Gas Wells (Interior Department)
• Documenting orphan wells across the United States (Environmental Defense Fund)
• EPA pushes USPS to ditch gas-powered mail delivery trucks
• Biden officials push to hold up $11.3 billion USPS truck contract, citing climate damage (Washington Post):
  EPA officials declined to invoke this rarely used power. Instead, senior administration officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal deliberations, said they decided to send the warning letters to the Postal Service to give its leadership a chance to voluntarily change course.
• EPA says USPS truck contract is ‘seriously deficient’ in acknowledging climate concerns (Washington Post)
• The Post Office Is Buying Gas-Powered Trucks, Despite Biden Climate Order (NY Times)

‘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

• How Manchin used politics to protect his coal company (E&E News)
• The Rise of Greenflation: The world isn’t ready for climate-driven inflation (The Atlantic)
• Glorified Electric Golf Carts For All (Vice)
• Warming Ocean Leaves No Safe Havens for Coral Reefs (Inside Climate News)
• Texas Grid Wobbles, but Holding in Winter Storm (Climate Crocks)
• Climate change may be fueling increase in major Northeast snowstorms (Washington Post)
• Research: Ocean Layers Losing Oxygen due to Warming (Climate Crocks)
• Revealed: The 11 slides that finally convinced Boris Johnson about global warming
  (Carbon Brief)
• In the New World of Long-Duration Battery Storage, an Old Technology Holds Its Own (Inside Climate News)
• How Climate and the Nord Stream 2 Pipeline Undergirds the Ukraine-Russia Standoff (Inside Climate News)
• Feeling Hopeless About the Climate? Try Our 30-Day Action Plan (The Revelator)
• 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.