‘Green News Report’ – June 6, 2024

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: May 2024 was the hottest May ever recorded globally; Earth just saw 12 straight months of unprecedented heat; Heat deaths in the U.S. hit a new record in 2023; The world’s largest solar farm is now online — in China; PLUS: The U.N. Secretary-General has a message for the world… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Big Auto and the death of traffic congestion reform; Misinformation poses a bigger threat to democracy than you might think; U.N. weather agency explains why it is “climate crunch time” after the hottest 12 consecutive months on record; Phoenix using ice immersion to treat heatstroke victims as Southwest bakes in triple digits; Sweden to ban bottom trawling in its waters; After Tesla, the surprising next best-selling electric vehicle in America is this electric bike… PLUS: Clean energy saves farms in bad years… and much, MUCH more! …

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

• May 2024 was the hottest May ever recorded globally:
• May 2024 is the 12th consecutive month with record-high temperatures (Copernicus):
  Carlo Buontempo, C3S Director, comments: “It is shocking but not surprising that we have reached this 12-month streak. While this sequence of record-breaking months will eventually be interrupted, the overall signature of climate change remains and there is no sign in sight of a change in such a trend.” He also adds: “We are living in unprecedented times, but we also have unprecedented skill in monitoring the climate and this can help inform our actions. This string of hottest months will be remembered as comparatively cold but if we manage to stabilise the concentrations of GHGs in the atmosphere in the very near future we might be able to return to these ‘cold’ temperatures by the end of the century.”
• Earth records hottest May on record in 12th consecutive month of record heat (Yahoo News)
• Last 12 months were the hottest 12 months ever recorded:
• A year of record global heat has pushed Earth closer to dangerous threshold (Washington Post/MSN)
• VIDEO: Earth has hit 12 record-breaking months of heat. Here’s what it means. (ABC News):
  [T]he heat is not expected to relent. There is an 86% likelihood that at least one of the next five years, between 2024 and 2028, will surpass 2023 to become the warmest on record, the WMO report found. There is also an 80% chance that at least one of those years will temporarily exceed the 1.5-degree Celsius threshold, according to the report.
• WMO – world likely to breach 1.5C within next five years:
• Global temperature is likely to exceed 1.5°C above pre-industrial level temporarily in next 5 years (WMO)
• World may breach 1.5C warming within 5 years: WMO (AFP)
• 92% of last year’s heat was caused by humans:
• Earth is warming at a record rate, with 92% of last year’s heat caused by humans, study finds (AP):
  “Acceleration if it were to happen would be even worse, like hitting a global tipping point, it would be probably the worst scenario,” Seneviratne said. “But what is happening is already extremely bad and it is having major impacts already now. We are in the middle of a crisis.”
• Tracking the unprecedented impact of humans on the climate (Carbon Brief):
  Our new scientific assessment of how humans are affecting the climate is nothing short of alarming, yet it does contain some encouraging news…[G]reenhouse gas emissions have not yet risen beyond pre-pandemic levels and there is evidence that the rate of increase in CO2 emissions over the past decade has slowed compared to the 2000s.
• VIDEO: What’s behind recent extreme heat events and record high temperatures (Ginger Zee, ABC News)
• In 2023, world saw 26 additional days of heat globally, on average:
• Climate Change Added 26 Days of Extreme Heat Over the Last Year (Yale e360):
  The analysis defined “extreme” heat as hotter than 90 percent of local weather since 1991. Researchers tallied days where climate change had doubled the odds of such heat. Countries nearest the equator — Indonesia, Brazil, the Democratic Republic of the Congo — saw the greatest uptick in extreme heat. In the most severe cases, Suriname and Ecuador saw more than 150 extra days.
• US set new record for heat deaths in 2023
• 2023 set a record for U.S. heat deaths. Why 2024 could be even deadlier (AP):
  [M]ore than two dozen doctors, public health experts, and meteorologists told the AP that last year’s figure was only a fraction of the real death toll. Coroner, hospital, ambulance and weather records show America’s heat and health problem at an entirely new level…Last summer’s heat wave killed differently than past ones that triggered mass deaths in northern cities where people weren’t used to the high temperatures and air conditioning wasn’t common. Several hundreds died in the Pacific Northwest in 2021, in Philadelphia in 1998 and in Chicago in 1995. Nearly three-quarters of the heat deaths last summer were in five southern states that were supposed to be used to the heat and planned for it.
• ‘Highway to Climate Hell’ – UN Sec.-General Guterres excoriates fossil fuel industry obstruction:
• UN Chief Rebukes Fossil Fuel Industry Supporters As Climate Records Break (Reuters):
  The U.N. chief, a longtime critic of oil and gas companies’ role in driving climate change, called the industry out for spending billions on “distorting the truth, deceiving the public, and sowing doubt” about climate change, while investing just “a measly 2.5%” of its total capital on clean energy alternatives. He went further in a speech at the American Museum of Natural History in New York, criticizing financial institutions as well as media and public relations firms for supporting the industry’s advertisements and accepting content sponsorships.
• ‘Godfathers of climate chaos’: UN chief urges global fossil-fuel advertising ban (Guardian):
  António Guterres says world faces ‘climate crunch time’ and announces dire new scientific warnings of global heating.
• UN Chief Calls For Ban on Fossil Fuel Advertising (DeSmog Blog):
  “Many in the fossil fuel industry have shamelessly greenwashed, even as they have sought to delay climate action — with lobbying, legal threats, and massive ad campaigns,” Guterres told an event at New York City’s American Museum of Natural History. “They have been aided and abetted by advertising and PR companies — Mad Men fuelling the madness,” Guterres said, speaking in the museum’s Hall of Ocean Life, which is dominated by a 94-foot-long blue whale model suspended from the ceiling. “I call on these companies to stop acting as enablers to planetary destruction. Stop taking on new fossil fuel clients, from today, and set out plans to drop your existing ones.”
• UN chief wants a tax on profits of fossil fuel companies, calling them ‘godfathers of climate chaos’ (AP):
  U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres called Wednesday for a “windfall” tax on profits of fossil fuel companies to help pay for the fight against global warming, calling them the “godfathers of climate chaos.”
• VIDEO: A Moment of Truth: Special Address on Climate (U.N. Web TV)
• UN chief wants a tax on profits of fossil fuel companies, calling them ‘godfathers of climate chaos’ (AP)
• Transcript: Secretary-General’s special address on climate action “A Moment of Truth” (United Nations)
• World’s largest solar farm opens in China:
• VIDEO: World’s biggest solar farm goes online, big enough to power a country (Independent UK):
  The world’s biggest solar plant has come online in China, capable of powering a small country with its annual capacity of more than 6 billion kilowatt hours. The facility in a desert region of the north-west province of Xinjiang covers 200,000 acres – roughly the same area as New York City.
• IEA Renewables 2023: Executive summary (IEA):
  2023 saw a step change in renewable capacity additions, driven by China’s solar PV market…In 2023, China commissioned as much solar PV as the entire world did in 2022, while its wind additions also grew by 66% year-on-year. Globally, solar PV alone accounted for three-quarters of renewable capacity additions worldwide.

‘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

• Video Explainer: The U.N. weather agency says that it is “climate crunch time” after the hottest 12 consecutive months on record. (Ginger Zee, ABC News)
• Misinformation poses a bigger threat to democracy than you might think (Nature)
• Big Auto And The Death Of Traffic Congestion Reform (The Lever News)
• Phoenix using ice immersion to treat heatstroke victims as Southwest bakes in triple digits (AP)
• New BYD Hybrid Can Drive Non-Stop for More Than 2,000 Kilometers (Bloomberg/Yahoo News)
• After Tesla, the surprising next best-selling electric vehicle in America is this electric bike (Electrek)
• Clean Energy Saves Farms in Bad Years (This Is Not Cool blog)
• Sweden to ban bottom fishing in territorial waters (Euractiv)
• How a water scientist hopes to save California habitats that could be pumped dry (LA Times)
• Meth-addict fish, aggro starlings, caffeinated minnows: animals radically changed by human drugs – study (Guardian)
• Boiling Point: Why razing Joshua trees for solar farms isn’t always crazy (LA Times)
• Is the Atlantic Overturning Circulation Approaching a Tipping Point? (The Oceanography Society)
• How Oil Companies Manipulate Journalists (Drilled)
• Abrupt reduction in shipping emission as an inadvertent geoengineering termination shock produces substantial radiative warming (Nature)
• Texas’ First Flood Plan Estimates 5 Million Live In Flood-Prone Areas (Texas Tribune)
• How Reviving Medieval Farming Offers Wildlife An Unexpected Haven (Guardian)
• VIDEO: PBS Newshour on Extreme Heat Across the Planet (This Is Not Cool blog)
• What to do when facing extended summer power outages (AP)
• How To Spot 5 Of The Fossil Fuel Industry’s Biggest Disinformation Tactics (Guardian)
• The Oceans We Knew Are Already Gone (The Atlantic)
• ‘In A Word, Horrific’: Trump’s Extreme Anti-Environment Blueprint (Guardian)
• Plug-in hybrids vs. electric cars: We did the math on which is better for you (Washington Post)
• How to electrify your life when you rent (The Verge)
• Complete Series: Farmers Under Attack for Supporting Clean Energy (This Is Not Cool blog)
• These are the places most at risk from record-breaking heat waves as the planet warms (CNN)
• Feeling Overwhelmed About Going All-Electric at Home? Here’s How to Get Started (Inside Climate News)
• Feeling Hopeless About the Climate? Try Our 30-Day Action Plan (The Revelator)
• 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)
• Project Drawdown: 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (Drawdown.org)
• An Optimist’s Guide to Solving Climate Change and Saving the World (Vice)