‘Green News Report’ – May 5, 2022

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: European Union proposes official embargo on Russian oil; Plummeting water levels in major reservoirs prompt new, ‘unprecedented’ cutbacks, reveal grim secrets; PLUS: California A.G. launches probe into oil industry deception over plastic pollution… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Beyond Doomscrolling and into Action; Senate Panel Approves Kigali Amendment in Bipartisan Vote; Chevron calls police to intimidate striking refinery workers; Texas Plans a Texas-Sized Response to Rising Seas; US Offshore Wind: Fossil Fuel Is Toast; E.U.’s Russian Oil Ban Could Reduce Global Emissions; Supreme Court Leak Strikes Fear Among Environmental Lawyers; In the Wake of Coup, Gold Mining Boom Is Ravaging Myanmar… PLUS: Jamestown: America’s First English Settlement Now Endangered – because of climate change… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• EU proposes official embargo on oil from Russia (but not natural gas):
• VIDEO: EU plans Russian oil ban and war crimes sanctions (BBC):
  But Hungarian government spokesman Zoltan Kovacs said his country would veto it in its current form: “They exactly know that what they are proposing is against Hungarian interests… and if we do that we are completely going to ruin the Hungarian economy.” Slovakia as well as Hungary currently relies on Russian oil and under the initial proposal would be given until the end of 2023 to find alternative suppliers.
• E.U. proposes ban on Russian oil imports by end of year (Washington Post)
• Europe is planning to ditch Russia’s oil. Will it go after its gas? (CNN)
• VIDEO: Russia Sanctions — Von der Leyen Says EU Plans to Phase Out Oil Imports Amid Ukraine War (Youtube)
• Oil ends sharply higher as EU proposes plan to phase out Russian oil within 6 months (Market Watch)
• China, India quietly increasing imports of Russian fossil fuels
• China’s independent oil refiners are buying Russian supplies on the cheap, report says (Yahoo News):
  Independent refiners in China are buying Russian oil on the cheap, according to the Financial Times, in moves that threaten to inflame tensions with the US and other Western governments.
• India Wants To Buy Russian Oil, At Below $70 A Barrel (Oil Price)
• VIDEO: Who is buying Russian gas? (Youtube)
• Plummeting water levels in major reservoirs prompt new cutbacks, reveal grim secrets
• Colorado River Reservoirs Are So Low, Government Will Delay Releases (NY Times)
The decision will keep more water in Lake Powell on the Arizona-Utah border, instead of releasing it downstream to Lake Mead. Both reservoirs are at their lowest points.
• Lake Powell officials take unprecedented, emergency steps to delay water releases as level plummets (CNN)
• Lake Mead plummets to unprecedented low, exposing original 1971 water intake valve (CNN)
• VIDEO: Las Vegas police: Body found in barrel at Lake Mead may have been there for decades (Fox5 Las Vegas)
• Powell’s looming power problem (High Country News)
• Drought-starved Lake Mead reveals a decades-old barrel with a body inside (Guardian UK)
• Is That an Outlaw Lawn? Las Vegas Has a New Approach to Saving Water (NY Times)
• CA Attorney General launches probe into oil industry deception over plastic pollution:
• California Is Investigating Big Oil for Allegedly Misleading the Public on Recycling (PBS Frontline):
  Attorney General Rob Bonta said the fossil fuel industry benefited financially from the industry’s misleading statements, which he said go back decades. Bonta has so far subpoenaed Exxon Mobil, seeking information and documents….

  The announcement cited NPR and FRONTLINE’s 2020 investigation into the oil and gas industry, which uncovered documents showing top officials knew that recycling plastic was unlikely to work but spent tens of millions of dollars telling the public the opposite. Starting in the 1980s, the industry launched dozens of ads, nonprofits and campaigns touting the benefits of recycling plastic — and placing the responsibility on consumers — even as their own documents warned that recycling was “infeasible” and that there was “serious doubt” that plastic recycling “can ever be made viable on an economic basis,” the investigation found.

• California Attorney General Investigates the Oil and Gas Industry’s Role in Plastic Pollution, Subpoenas Exxon (Inside Climate News):
  The investigation mirrors those of attorneys general across the country who have taken legal action against the fossil fuel industry for its role in climate change.
• VIDEO: CA AG launches plastic pollution investigation; targets ExxonMobil (ABC7 Los Angeles)
• Exxon rejects California AG allegations on role in plastic pollution (Reuters)
• VIDEO: Plastics Industry Insiders Reveal the Truth About Recycling (PBS Frontline, 3/31/2020):
  It was the late 1980s, and the plastics industry was under fire.Facing heightened public concern about ever-increasing amounts of garbage, the image of plastics was falling dramatically. State and local officials across the country were considering banning some kinds of plastics in an effort to reduce waste and pollution. But the industry had a plan; a way to fend off plastic bans and keep its sales growing.
• How Big Oil Misled The Public Into Believing Plastic Would Be Recycled (NPR, 9/11/2021)

‘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

• Beyond Doomscrolling and into Action (Currently HQ)
• How reliant is the world on Russia for oil and gas? (BBC)
• Senate Panel Approves Kigali Amendment in Bipartisan Vote (E&E News)
• Chevron Calls to Police During Strike Prompt Pushback, Strain on Resources (KQED)
• Texas Plans a Texas-Sized Response to Rising Seas (Washington Post)
• US Offshore Wind Says The Quiet Part Out Loud: Fossil Fuel Is Toast (Clean Technica)
• Crucial tropical forests were destroyed at a rate of 10 soccer fields a minute last year (CNN)
• E.U.’s Russian Oil Ban Could Reduce Global Emissions (E&E News)
• Stanford Gets $1.1 Billion for New Climate School From John Doerr [and will accept fossil fuel funding] (NY Times)
• EPA Recommends Army Corps Not Reissue PolyMet Permit (Duluth News Tribune)
• Supreme Court Leak Strikes Fear Among Environmental Lawyers (Washington Post)
• In the Wake of Coup, Gold Mining Boom Is Ravaging Myanmar (Yale e360)
• Floods Threaten N. Dakota Dam, Border Area (Grand Forks Herald)
• Arctic Inupiaq Leaders Take Aim At Biden Oil Policy (Indian Country Today)
• Jamestown: America’s First English Settlement Now Endangered – because of climate change (BBC)
• U.S. Plastic Recycling Rate Drops To Close To 5% – Report (Reuters)
• Get Ready for Another Energy Price Spike: High Electric Bills (NY Times)
• Brazil Dams: 1 Million Live Close To Danger (DW)
• Four solutions to mitigate climate change, from the IPCC (Dr. Michael Mann, Penn Today)
• UN warns Earth ‘firmly on track toward an unlivable world’ (AP)
• Environmental Sacrifice Zones: 8 Places We’ve Given Up-Probably Forever (Environmental Health Network)
• “Rare Earths” from Coal Waste (Climate Crocks)
• 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.