‘Green News Report’ – September 13, 2022

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Torrential rains break historic California heat wave, capping Summer of Extreme Heat in the Northern Hemisphere; All reactors shut down at besieged Ukrainian nuclear plant; Will climate champion Charles muzzle his advocacy as King?; PLUS: Looming showdown over energy permitting reform in Congress… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Four major climate tipping points close to triggering (study); Summer is ending, but climate disasters keep coming; New study more than triples estimated costs of climate change damages; Air conditioning has a climate problem. New technology could help; Video games get a new boss monster: Climate change; Energy crisis pushes Europe toward pricing experiments;
On Facebook, misleading coverage of California’s energy woes overshadowed extreme climate-driven heat… PLUS: The biggest permitting reform would be more money…. and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Torrential rains break California’s record-shattering extreme heat wave:
• No September on record in the West has seen a heat wave like this (Washington Post):
  The heat wave that’s been gripping California and other parts of the West for 10 days and counting is the most severe ever recorded in September, weather experts have said — confirming what California’s governor is calling the “hottest and longest on record” for the month.
• Dozens of drivers trapped by mudslides as heavy rain and flash floods soak California (Yahoo News)
• VIDEO: Tropical storm Kay snaps the record-breaking heat wave in west (ABC News)
• These are the four largest fires currently burning in the Western US (The Hill/MSN)
• Smoke from raging Pacific Northwest fires spreads far inland, worsening air quality (The Hill)
• California, West Heat Wave Smashes Monthly, All-Time Records (Weather Channel)
• Summer of Extreme Heat set new records in Europe:
• Europe just had its hottest summer on record (Washington Post)
• This Hot Summer Is One of the Coolest of the Rest of Our Lives (Scientific American):
  Heat waves broke temperature records around the world this past summer, but it will still be one of the coolest summers of the next few decades.
• The implications of this summer’s scorching heatwave (MEI)
• Middle East warming twice as fast as rest of planet:
• The Middle East is warming up twice as fast as the rest of the world (Washington Post)
• Climate Change and Weather Extremes in the Eastern Mediterranean and Middle East (Review of Geophysics, AGU)
• How Middle East heating faster than world average may affect 400 million people (Hindustan Times)
• U.K. gets a new King, a new Prime Minister, a new energy policy:
• How King Charles III might rule (Vox)
• A king for the climate takes the throne in England (E&E News):
  When Prince Charles became King Charles III on Thursday after the death of his mother, Queen Elizabeth II, his decadeslong crusades to elevate environmental protection ascended to the throne with him. Charles gave his first speech on the topic in 1970…
• PM Truss: UK to cap domestic energy prices, end fracking ban (AP)
• UK PM Liz Truss, New UK Leader, Lays Out Sweeping Plan to Cap Energy Prices (NY Times)
• Truss threatens UK’s net zero commitments with U-turn on fracking (Yorkshore Bylines)
• Rising seas to regularly inundate U.S. coastal properties by 2050:
• Rising seas could swallow millions of U.S. acres within decades (Washington Post)
• Rising seas fueled by climate change to swamp $34B in US real estate in just 30 years, analysis finds (USA Today)
• Looming fight over permitting reform in Congress:
• Progressive opposition grows ahead of permitting bill release (E&E News)
• Sanders blasts permitting reform as Democrats’ divide grows (E&E News)
• Manchin Permit Plan Mimics Rejected Capito-Inhofe Amendment to Inflation Reduction Act (Hill Heat):
  In August, Manchin told West Virginia Metro News that his permit plan “is something the Republican Party has wanted for the last five to seven years I’ve been with them.” Explaining the plan to attach his permit bill to the government-funding continuing resolution, “It either keeps the country open, or we shut down the government. That’ll happen Sept. 30, so let’s see how that politics plays out.”
• VIDEO: Senate Budget Chair Bernie Sanders (I-VT) opposing Manchin-Schumer deal on legislation overhauling permitting process for energy projects (C-SPAN)
• A third of U.S. House Democrats oppose Manchin permitting deal in stopgap spending bill (AP)
• Over 650 Progressive Groups Vow to Fight ‘Dirty’ Manchin Deal ‘With Everything We’ve Got’ (Common Dreams)
• All reactors now safely shut down at Ukrainian nuclear power plant:
• Ukraine nuclear plant ‘hanging by a thread’ – IAEA (Yahoo News)
• EXPLAINER: Ukraine’s nuclear power plant shutdown cuts risks: (AP):
  The last of the Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia plant’s six nuclear reactors was shut down Sunday because Russia’s military actions in Ukraine had repeatedly cut reliable external power supplies. That power is needed to prevent the reactors from overheating to the point of a meltdown that could breach the surrounding concrete and steel containment buildings and spew radiation through Ukraine, Russia and other nearby countries.
• Russia-Ukraine War: Mapping damages at Europe’s largest nuclear power plant (India Today)
• IAEA: Second back-up power line to ZNPP restored (Ukrinform)

‘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

• Study: Four major climate tipping points close to triggering (AP)
• Summer is ending, but climate disasters keep coming (E&E News)
• New study more than triples estimated costs of climate change damages (Yale Climate Connections)
• Energy crisis pushes Europe toward pricing experiments (E&E News)
• On Facebook, misleading coverage of California’s energy woes overshadowed extreme climate-driven heat (Media Matters)
• Maps show where extreme heat shattered 7,000 records this summer (Washington Post)
• ‘Clairvoyant’ 2012 climate report warned of extreme weather (AP)
• British PM Liz Truss reveals plan to freeze energy prices. Would it work in US? (ABC News/MSN)
• Is It OK to Take a Law-Firm Job Defending Climate Villains? (NY Times)
• The Biggest Permitting Reform Would Be More Money (David Dayen, The American Prospect)
• Air conditioning has a climate problem. New technology could help. (NY Times)
• Video games get a new boss monster: Climate change (E&E News)
• Study: Four major climate tipping points close to triggering (AP)
• VIDEO: See what three degrees of global warming looks like (The Economist/YouTube)
• 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.