‘Green News Report’ – May 25, 2023

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Super Typhoon Mawar slams into Guam; Global heating could expose billions to unlivable temperatures by 2100; Fossil fuel industry owes the world $23 trillion in climate reparations, new study concludes; PLUS: Climate activists disrupt oil industry shareholder meetings… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Supreme Court weakens EPA power to enforce Clean Water Act; Chevron’s carbon offsets are mostly junk and some may harm, research says; France bans short-haul flights as it looks to cut transport emissions; Lawmakers near deal on energy permitting in debt ceiling talks; Energy Department cancels $200M Microvast battery grant in Texas due to GOP opposition; In Panama, legal rights given to sea turtles, boosting ‘rights of nature’; Interior’s oil plan is coming. Here’s what to watch; U.N. slams carbon removal as unproven and risky…PLUS: The global treaty to save the ozone layer has also slowed Arctic ice melt… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• VIDEO: Rep. Jared Moskowitz (D-FL) trolls Republicans over natural gas stoves (Twitter):
  “The good news for you today is that if you have to shut down your business because the country defaults, your gas stove will still be there. And so, you know, I look forward to the legislation of our time, the appliance bill of rights.”
• Super Typhoon Mawar slams into Guam:
  • VIDEO: Powerful Typhoon Mawar slams Guam with heavy rain and damaging winds (CNN):
    No storm-related deaths had been reported as of Thursday morning local time, the governor’s press secretary, Krystal Paco-San Agustin, said.
  • Most of Guam without power, water after Typhoon Mawar exits (Reuters/MSN)
  • After Guam: Category 5 Super Typhoon Mawar rapidly intensifies to 175 mph winds
    After slamming the U.S. territory of Guam on Wednesday as a Category 4 storm, Typhoon Mawar put on an impressive burst of rapid intensification, becoming a formidable Category 5 super typhoon…This makes Mawar tied for third place as the strongest typhoon ever observed in May.

• Billions at risk from ‘unprecedented’ climate warming:
• Quantifying the human cost of global warming (Nature)
• Global heating will push billions outside ‘human climate niche’ (Guardian)
• Nearly 2 billion at risk from “unprecedented” climate conditions (Axios):
  The nearly 1.2°C (2.16°F) increase in global average surface temperatures to date has already knocked more than 600 million people out of the “human climate niche” in which society has historically thrived…Unprecedented heat exposure is defined as having a mean annual air temperature of 84.2°F (29°C), which the scientists found correlated with more frequent spikes to greater than 40°C (104°F), and potentially lethal wet bulb temperatures of greater than 28°C (82.4°F).
• Global temperature rise could see billions live in places where human life doesn’t flourish, study says (CNN/MSN):
  “That’s a profound reshaping of the habitability of the surface of the planet and it could lead potentially to large scale reorganization of where people live,” Lenton, director of the Global Systems Institute at the University of Exeter, said in a video shared by the institute.
• Billions Of People Could Face Unlivable Temperatures By 2100, Study Finds (Earther)
• Simultaneous heat wave/blackout would overwhelm emergency capacity in Phoenix:
• Heat Wave and Blackout Would Send Half of Phoenix to E.R., Study Says (NY Times):
  New research warns that nearly 800,000 residents would need emergency medical care for heat stroke and other illnesses in an extended power failure. Other cities are also at risk.
• Phoenix is not prepared for a simultaneous heat wave and blackout, new research shows (AZ Republic/MSN)
• Heat wave and black out would hospitalize half of Phoenix residents (Axios)
• WMO: climate disasters have killed 2 million since 1970:
• UN agency: 2 million killed, $4.3 trillion in damages from extreme weather over past half-century (AP):
  Most of the economic damage between 1970 and 2021 came in the United States – totaling $1.7 trillion – while nine in 10 deaths worldwide took place in developing countries. The economic impact, relative to gross domestic product, has been felt more in developing countries, WMO says.
• Deadly skies: Extreme weather has killed 2 million people since 1970, UN report says (USA Today/MSN)
• VIDEO: More than 2 million have been killed by climate change disasters (KNX-Los Angeles)
• ‘Time to Pay the Piper’: 21 fossil fuel companies owe trillions in climate reparations:
• Time to pay the piper: Fossil fuel companies’ reparations for climate damages (One Earth Journal)
• Fossil Fuel Firms Owe $209 Billion a Year in Climate Reparations, Study Says (Mother Jones):
  It is the first time researchers have quantified the economic burden caused by individual companies that have extracted—and continue to extract—wealth from planet-heating fossil fuels.
• Oil companies owe the world trillions in climate reparations (Fast Company):
  This study calculates the exact cost: Exxon made $56 billion last year. Under a proposed new framework, it would have to start paying $18 billion a year in climate reparations.
• Climate protesters disrupt Big Oil shareholder meetings:
• Climate protesters dragged from Shell shareholder meeting as they rush stage (AP)
• VIDEO: Shell AGM disrupted by protesters causing hours of delay to the event (Sky News):
  Shell’s chairman attempts to silence the protesters from the stage, but is unsuccessful and the meeting is delayed by three hours.
• Climate activists put heat up shareholder meetings (Japan Today):
  Climate activists are using shareholder meetings to turn up the heat on corporations about their carbon footprints, from flooding them with questions to more colorful tactics like singing or throwing cake at executives. Last week’s Volkswagen shareholders meeting was particularly testy, with a cake landing on the podium where supervisory board member Wolfgang Porsche, who was celebrating his 80th birthday, was sitting.

‘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

• Supreme Court weakens EPA power to enforce Clean Water Act (Washington Post)
• Chevron’s Carbon Offsets Are Mostly Junk And Some May Harm, Research Says (Guardian)
• France bans short-haul flights as it looks to cut transport emissions (CNBC/MSN)
• The global treaty to save the ozone layer has also slowed Arctic ice melt (Grist)
• California unlikely to run short of electricity this summer thanks to storms, new power sources (AP)
• Lawmakers near deal on energy permitting in debt ceiling talks (Washington Post)
• Energy Department cancels $200M Microvast battery grant in Texas due to GOP opposition (Utility Dive)
• GOP-controlled House Fails To Override Biden Veto Maintaining Solar Tariffs (The Hill)
• In Panama, Legal Rights Given To Sea Turtles, Boosting ‘Rights of Nature’ (AP)
• Interior’s Oil Plan Is Coming. Here’s What To Watch. (E&E News)
• U.N. Slams Carbon Removal As Unproven And Risky (E&E News)
• Pipeline Co. Spent Big on Police Gear Against Standing Rock Protesters (The Intercept)
• Plans for I-55 Expansion in Chicago Raise Concerns Over Community Health (Inside Climate News)
• Hansen: Earth on Track for Catastrophic Warming (Climate Crocks)
• 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.