‘Green News Report’ – May 23, 2023

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Western states reach landmark agreement to stave off multi-decade drought crisis on Colorado River; World’s lakes are shrinking due to human overuse and climate change; PLUS: Minnesota Democrats poised to enact landmark environment and climate legislation… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): A CO2 pipeline rupture in Mississippi has lessons for future projects; Competition, abundant minerals, Biden tax breaks lead EV price drop; More than a third of the area charred by wildfires in Western North America can be traced back to fossil fuels; Supply crunch on electrical transformers needed to avoid blackouts and quit fossil fuels; Could Guyana’s Exxon ruling scare big oil off risky exploration?; US’s largest clean energy transmission project hits major milestone… … PLUS: New York’s public housing is sinking — literally… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Colorado River basin states reach landmark deal to stave off drought crisis:
• Breakthrough proposal would aid drought-stricken Colorado River as 3 Western states offer cuts (AP)
• Colorado River states reach deal with Biden to protect drought-stricken river (Washington Post)
• A Breakthrough Deal to Keep the Colorado River From Going Dry, for Now (NY Times):
  The agreement struck over the weekend runs only through the end of 2026, and still needs to be formally adopted by the federal government. At that point, all seven states that rely on the river — which include Colorado, New Mexico, Utah and Wyoming — could face a deeper reckoning, as its decline is likely to continue.
• States reach landmark deal on water cuts to stave off a crisis on the Colorado River (CNN):
  The water cuts would be split up among farmers, tribes and cities who are working with the federal government on short-term payments in exchange for water savings. Most of the cuts would be compensated with at least $1 billion in federal funds from the Inflation Reduction Act. About 1.5 million acre-feet of that water is set to be cut by the end of 2024.
• Colorado fracking industry doubled its water use amid mega-drought:
• Colorado Frackers Doubled Freshwater Use During Megadrought, Even as Drilling and Oil Production Fell (Inside Climate News):
  In the middle of the longest-running drought in more than a thousand years, Colorado energy companies diverted rising volumes of the state’s freshwater resources for fracking, a new analysis shows…Colorado standards governing what water sources energy companies can access for fracking and how they dispose of wastewater are unsustainable and “incredibly wasteful,” concluded Kyle Ferrar, FracTracker’s western program coordinator, in the report.
• Evaluation of the Capacity for Water Recycling for Colorado Oil and Gas Extraction Operations (FracTracker Alliance)
• ‘Halliburton Loophole’ Lets Fracking Firms Pollute Water Without Oversight (EHN)
• World’s lakes are shrinking to due human overuse and climate change:
• The world’s largest lakes are shrinking dramatically, and scientists say they have figured out why (CNN):
  The results were “staggering,” the report authors said. They found that 53 percent of the lakes and reservoirs had lost significant amounts of water, with a net decline of around 22 billion metric tons a year – an amount the report authors compared to the volume of 17 Lake Meads. More than half of the net loss of water volume in natural lakes can be attributed to human activities and climate change, the report found.
• More than half of the world’s lakes have shrunk in past 30 years, study finds (Guardian)
• EPA’s new rule to require utilities to clean up toxic coal ash waste dumps:
• EPA rule would force clean-up of toxic coal ash dumped in landfills, ponds near power plants (AP)
• E.P.A. Announces Crackdown on Toxic Coal Ash From Landfills (NY Times)
• EPA proposes stricter limits on coal plant water pollution (AP)
• EPA Proposes to Expand its Regulations on Dumps of Toxic Waste From Burning Coal (Inside Cliamte News):
  The action was prompted by a lawsuit seeking to close a glaring loophole that had left many of the nation’s mountains of coal ash without federal regulations, but the agency would still exempt some disposal sites.
• Minnesota lawmakers agree to ‘game-changing’ environment and clean energy legislation:
• AUDIO: State lawmakers agree to ‘historic’ environment and climate bill (Minnesota Public Radio):
  State lawmakers have reached an agreement on what backers say is a historic environment, energy and climate budget bill that will make transformative investments to help Minnesota combat climate change and move more aggressively toward a carbon-free economy…The $2 billion package tackles big conservation issues like so-called “forever chemicals,” or PFAS, and chronic wasting disease, while also addressing long-standing environmental justice concerns.
• Minnesota Legislature passes energy bill with $2,500 EV rebates, ‘pre-weatherization’ (MinnPost)
• b>Minnesota lawmakers reach historic deal on environment, climate and energy (Minneapolis Star-Tribune):
  The bill features a broad ban on PFAS and $1 billion in new spending for environment and energy projects.

‘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

• A CO2 pipeline rupture in Mississippi has lessons for future projects (NPR)
• Competition, abundant minerals, Biden tax breaks lead EV price drop (Climate Crocks)
• More than a third of the area charred by wildfires in Western North America can be traced back to fossil fuels, scientists find (CNN)
• The U.S. is running low on electrical transformers needed to avoid blackouts and quit fossil fuels (Huffington Post)
• Could Guyana’s Exxon ruling scare big oil off risky exploration? (Guardian)
• Water, Water Everywhere, Yet Local U.S. Planners Are Lowballing Their Estimates (Inside Climate News)
• Hansen: Earth on Track for Catastrophic Warming (Climate Crocks)
• The little-known unintended consequence of recycling plastics: polluting microplastics that wind up in water or the air (Washington Post)
• The US’s largest clean energy transmission project just hit a major milestone (Electrek)
• New York’s public housing is sinking — literally (Grist)
• This East Coast bus depot will make its own carbon-free fuel (Canary Media)
• Denmark is getting off fossil fuels. Are there lessons for Canada? (CBC)
• California governor seeks to speed up water, clean energy projects delayed by lawsuits, permits (AP)
• Recycling ‘end-of-life’ solar panels, wind turbines, is about to be climate tech’s big waste business (CNBC)
• When will global warming actually hit the landmark 1.5º C limit? (Nature)
• These are the places most at risk from record-breaking heat waves as the planet warms (CNN)
• 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)
• 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.