‘Green News Report’ – April 11, 2023

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Scientists find dramatic, abnormal rise in sea levels in U.S. Gulf, Southeast; Biden EPA limits air pollution from chemical and plastics plants; March 2023 was the second hottest March ever recorded; PLUS: Global warming is boosting home runs in Major League Baseball… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Earth could warm 3 degrees if nations keep building coal plants; EPA car rule to push huge increase in EV sales; Part of law to ban gas from federal buildings was never implemented; Years of drought force shutdown of salmon fishing season off California; Like East Palestine, communities around US grapple with toxic exposure; Bangladesh’s energy plan faces gas dilemma as fuel crisis bites; Mass transit systems in American cities face post-pandemic fiscal cliff; Climate deniers ejected from teachers conference for deceptive comic book… PLUS: A jail for wayward polar bears? You must be in Churchill, Canada…

… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• March 2023 was the 2nd hottest March on record:
• Earth has second-warmest March even before arrival of planet-heating El Niño (Washington Post/MSN)
• March was the second warmest on record, researchers say (The Hill)
• Surface air temperature for March 2023 (Copernicus)
• World’s oceans hit new, all-time record high temperatures:
• El Niño Brings Record Ocean Temperatures – Here’s What That Means for You (CNN/Yahoo News)
• ‘Headed off the charts’: world’s ocean surface temperature hits record high (Guardian)
• Earth has second-warmest March even before arrival of planet-heating El Niño (Washington Post):
  The unusually warm month occurred even before the projected arrival of the El Niño climate pattern, which increases global temperatures…”These March statistics are not surprising, as we’re breaking monthly records almost [every] year now,” Kim Cobb, a climate scientist and professor of environment and society at Brown University, wrote in an email.
• ‘Abnormal’, ‘dramatic’ rise in sea levels observed in U.S. Gulf, Southeast:
• Sea levels rising rapidly in southern U.S., study finds (Yahoo News)
• Study Finds Shockingly Fast Sea Level Rise Around U.S. Southeast and Gulf Coast (Earther)
• VIDEO: Seas have drastically risen along southern U.S. coast in past decade (Washington Post):
  The new findings are striking in part because the rapid rise appears to be caused by profound changes in the ocean…Scientists are not entirely on the same page about the causes driving the phenomenon, or whether the recent acceleration in rising seas will continue at such a rapid clip.
• U.S. Southeast, Gulf coasts experiencing record sea-level rise (UPI/MSN):
  The coasts of the southeastern United States and the Gulf of Mexico are seeing record sea-level rise caused by man-made climate change and a peak in natural weather variability… Researchers at New Orleans’ Tulane University warn that the annual sea rise of half an inch detected over the past 12 years was further proof of the “urgency of the climate crisis for the Gulf region” and called for a major, sustainable effort to combat it….Sea level rise has accelerated to unprecedented rates three times the global average during the 20th century.
• Acceleration of U.S. Southeast and Gulf coast sea-level rise amplified by internal climate variability (Nature)
• ‘Scary’ new data on the last ice age raises concerns about future sea levels (Washington Post)
• EPA limits air pollution from chemical and plastics plants:
• For the First Time in Nearly Two Decades, the EPA Announces New Rules to Limit Toxic Air Pollutants From Chemical and Plastics Plants (Inside Climate News)
• VIDEO: EPA Administrator Regan Announces New Action to Protect Communities Living Near Chemical Plants (EPA/Youtube)
• Biden administration pushes to revitalize coal communities with clean energy projects (CNBC/MSN)
• EPA tightens mercury emissions limits at coal power plants (AP)
• Biden EPA cracks down on mercury pollution from power plants (CNBC)
• Wal-mart to dramatically expand its EV fast-charging network:
• How Walmart could help make EV charging ubiquitous (Axios)
• Walmart will add thousands of EV charging stations to stores by 2030 (CNBC)
• Global warming is boosting home runs in Major League Baseball:
• Climate Change Is Making Baseball Worse (Earther):
  Baseball players are hitting more home runs. Is it sheer talent, or warmer air?…Day-to-day variations in temperature are huge in determining the course of a baseball game. This has been known for a long time.
• Climate change adding 50+ homers a year in MLB, study says (AP):
  It’s basic physics. When air heats up, molecules move faster and away from each other, making the air less dense. Baseballs launched off a bat go farther through thinner air because there’s less resistance to slow the ball. Just a little bit farther can mean the difference between a homer and a flyout, said Alan Nathan, a University of Illinois physicist who wasn’t part of the Dartmouth study.
• Global warming, home runs, and the future of America’s pastime (Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society)

‘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

• Earth Could Warm 3 Degrees if Nations Keep Building Coal Plants, New Research Warns (Inside Climate News)
• AP sources: EPA car rule to push huge increase in EV sales (AP)
• Part Of Law To Ban Gas From Federal Buildings Gas Was Never Implemented (NPR)
• Years of drought force shutdown of salmon fishing season off California (Washington Post)
• Mass transit systems in American cities face post-pandemic fiscal cliff (Yahoo News)
• PFAS Blood Test Costs a Barrier for Many Who Fear High Exposure (Bloomberg)
• Businesses face more and more pressure from investors to act on climate change (NPR)
• Plugging Millions Of US Abandoned Wells Is A Monumental Task (Washington Post)
• Climate Deniers Ejected From Teachers Conference For Deceptive Comic Book (Washington Post)
• A Jail For Wayward Polar Bears? You Must Be In Churchill, Canada… (Guardian)
• E. Palestine Not Alone: Communities Around US Grapple With Toxic Exposure (The Hill)
• Challenge To Biden ‘Cost Of Carbon’ Policy Dismissed (AP)
• Bangladesh’s Energy Plan Faces Gas Dilemma As Fuel Crisis Bites (Thompson Reuters Foundation)
• Logging Plan on Yellowstone Border Shows Limits of Biden Climate Policy (Inside Climate News)
• New climate paper calls for charging big US oil firms with homicide (Guardian)
• Why It’s Time to Officially Get Over Your EV Range Anxiety (Inside Climate News)
• Building Steam in Lithium Valley (The American Prospect)
• Feeling Overwhelmed About Going All-Electric at Home? Here’s How to Get Started (Inside Climate News)
• 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)
• Feeling Hopeless About the Climate? Try Our 30-Day Action Plan (The Revelator)
• VIDEO: 2050: what happens if we ignore the climate crisis (Guardian UK)
• 99.9 percent Of Scientists Agree Climate Emergency Caused By Humans (Guardian UK)
• 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)
• 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.