‘Green News Report’ – August 9, 2022

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: GNR Special Coverage: U.S. Senate Democrats pass landmark climate legislation, the first in U.S. history… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Biden surveys flood damage in Kentucky, pledges more US help; ‘The Biggest Uncertainty Is Us’: sustainable choices must become the easiest, most affordable ones; Don’t listen to the climate doomists: ‘end times’ narrative only benefits fossil fuel interests; Why it took Congress so long to act on climate; Mexico desparate for water while beverage companies drain aquifers; EPA finds history of DDT dumping off of L.A.’s coast even worse than expected; Study connects climate hazards to nearly 60 percent of infectious diseases; Renewed shelling around Ukraine’s largest nuclear plant raises new fears… PLUS: Peter Dykstra: The Birth of Greenwashing… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Climate-intensified extreme rainfall pummels Death Valley National Park:
• Death Valley National Park roadway buried in record-breaking rains closed for another week (Desert Sun)
• VIDEO: Today in Global Weirding: Death Valley’s Flood, More Grief in Kentucky (Climate Crocks)
• ‘They are not slowing down’: The rise of billion-dollar disasters (Washington Post)
• We haven’t built for this climate (Axios):
  “One thing is clear: The modeled climate impacts we assumed were 25 to 50 years away are in some cases already occurring today,” Bowen said. “The cost-benefit to invest now to save real money tomorrow should be an important driving factor to how we assess risk and limit potential physical damage and loss of human life.”
• Heavy Downpours Increasing (NOAA, Global Change Report, 2014)
• Senate Democrats pass landmark Inflation Reduction Act:
• Biden’s landmark climate and spending bill – what’s in it, and what got cut? (Guardian UK)
• Inflation Reduction Act One-page Summary [PDF] (Senate Democrats)
• The Inflation Reduction Act, explained (Vox)
• Experts Break Down Historic Climate Bill (Climate Crocks)
• Here’s what’s in the Inflation Reduction Act, the sweeping health and climate bill passed Sunday (The Hill)
• Why utilities are lining up behind the climate bill (E&E News)
• Manchin’s Donors Include Pipeline Giants That Win in His Climate Deal (NY Times)
• Democrats, Sinema reach deal on Inflation Reduction Act, after key changes to tax policies (Washington Post/MSN)
• Here’s how the Inflation Reduction Act’s rebates and tax credits for heat pumps and solar can lower your energy bill (MarketWatch)
• Fighting inflation with climate action (NY Times)
• Reaction to the I.R.A:
• How the Inflation Reduction Act might impact you – and change the U.S. (Washington Post):
  The package, while smaller than Democrats’ initial ambitions, would transform huge sectors of the U.S. economy and affect millions of Americans.
• AUDIO: Dr. Michael Mann: ‘It Is a Good Day’: 36 Years After Being Warned, Senate Dems Finally Pass Major Climate Bill [‘BradCast’ 8/8/2022, The BRAD BLOG):
  [T]here’s a lot more work to be done, and there are some things in the bill that some of us wish weren’t there. There are some incentives for fossil fuel interests…”If you want more progress, if you want more aggressive legislation — and I certainly do and I think we should expect it — then we need a larger majority in the U.S. Senate that can pass more aggressive climate legislation.”
• ‘A long time coming’: Al Gore, other climate activists celebrate Senate passage of IRA (Yahoo News)
• The Manchin Climate Deal Is Both a Big Win and a Deal With the Devil (New Republic)
• Landmark US Climate Bill Will Do More Harm than Good, Groups Say (Earth Island Journal)

‘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

• Biden Surveys Flood Damage In Kentucky, Pledges More US Help (AP)
• ‘The Biggest Uncertainty Is Us’: Katharine Hayhoe, a climate scientist, says sustainable choices must become the easiest, most affordable ones. (NY Times)
• Don’t listen to the climate doomists: Jonathan Franzen’s ‘end times’ narrative only benefits fossil fuel interests (New Statesman)
• Five Decades in the Making: Why It Took Congress So Long to Act on Climate (NY Times)
• Mexico Desperate For Water While Drinks Companies Use Billions Of Litres (Guardian UK)
• Peter Dykstra: The Birth of Greenwashing (Environmental Health Network)
• History of DDT Ocean Dumping Off L.A. Even Worse Than Expected, EPA Finds (LA Times)
• Electric Cars Too Costly for Many, Even With Aid in Climate Bill (NY Times)
• Study Connects Climate Hazards To 58% Of Infectious Diseases (AP)
• How Young Californians Cope To Beat Climate Anxiety and Doom (LA Times)
• EPA Seeks To Add DINP Plasticizer To Toxics Release Inventory (Environmental Health Network)
• Billions in Feds’ Spending on Megafire Risks Seen as Misdirected (Bloomberg)
• Explainer: On China, US and Climate, Action, Not Talk Is Key (AP)
• Swamped By Public Outcry, Oregon Withdraws Controversial Wildfire Risk Map (Oregon Public Radio)
• After Rockets Strike Near Nuclear Plant, Ukraine and Russia Trade Blame (NY Times)
• Tijuana Sewage Spill Shutters Calif. Beach And Shoreline, Yet Again (San Diego Union-Tribune)
• The 7 climate tipping points that could change the world forever (Grist)
• The 1977 White House climate memo that should have changed the world (Guardian UK)
• 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.