‘Green News Report’ – November 5, 2009

IN TODAY’S AUDIO REPORT: The German Chancellor goes green in the U.S. Congress … PLUS: Ups and downs, high drama, and a huge twist in the roller coaster of Senate climate legislation … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’: America’s Most Toxic Cities — See where your city ranks!; California Lawmakers pass sweeping water legislation; Hunting for Tuna: The Environmental Peril Grows; Philippines targets $2.5 billion geothermal development; Canadian Government Powerless to Recall Toxic Toys; Farm Groups oppose EPA Review of Weed-killer Atrazine … PLUS: The Snows of Kilimanjaro: going, going, gone ….

Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today’s episode follow below…

• German Chancellor Goes for the Green in a Joint Session of Congress:
• ‘We Cannot Afford Failure’: Merkel Lends Obama Support on Climate Change (Der Spiegel)
• German leader likens the struggle against global warming to the Berlin Wall (Grist)
• TRANSCRIPT: Angela Merkel’s Speech: ‘We Have No Time to Lose’ (Der Spiegel) [emphasis added]:
  I am convinced that, just as we found the strength in the 20th century to tear down a wall made of barbed wire and concrete, today we have the strength to overcome the walls of the 21st century, walls in our minds, walls of short-sighted self-interest, walls between the present and the future.
• WATCH: German Chancellor Address to Joint Session of Congress, Nov. 3, 2009 (C-SPAN)
• Climate treaty may need extra year (Reuters) [emphasis added]:
  Many world leaders have been saying in recent days that Copenhagen may agree a “politically binding” deal but that time is too short to agree a “legally binding” text
  ….
  A Japanese official said “unless it’s agreed within six months after Copenhagen it will perhaps be the following year because of the U.S. mid-term elections.” About a third of the U.S. Senate is up for re-election in November 2010.
• The Roller Coaster of Drama over Senate Climate Legislation:
• Dems End-Run Boycotting GOP, Vote 11-1 for Climate Bill (NY Times)
• Climate Bill Makes It Out Of Committee–Er, Sort Of (The New Republic)
• Sen. Whitehouse: ‘The Party of No’ has become the ‘Party of No Show.’ (Wonk Room)
• It’s Official: No Climate Bill This Year (Mother Jones)
• WATCH: Lindsey Graham Rebukes Fellow Republicans: ‘The Green Economy Is Coming’ (Wonk Room)
• WATCH: Al Gore Talks Senate Climate Legislation with Rachel Maddow: PART 1 and PART 2 (MSNBC)
• Climate Bill Forecast: Cloudy, With a Chance of Lobbying: Flurry of lobbying cash obscures U.S. climate debate (AFP)
• Climate Bill Clears Senate Committee 11-1 (Wall St. Journal)
• Republicans walk out of Senate hearing on climate-change bill: GOP senators demand a full EPA analysis of the measure, which could take five weeks. Democrats say the EPA’s partial study is sufficient. (LA Times)
• In Reversal, Boxer Sharply Curbs Clean Air Act Regulation Of Greenhouse Gases (Wonk Room)

‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’: More green news not covered in today’s audio report…

• America’s Most Toxic Cities: Poor air quality, lack of clean water and a high rate of superfund sites make these metros most contaminated. (Forbes):
  An urban skyline dotted with puffing smokestacks isn’t the only measure of a city’s cleanliness (or lack thereof). Most major cities suffer from a range of unseen hazards. Contaminants can seep into the ground from bygone chemical spills or shuttered steel mills. Invisible leaks at industrial complexes discharge harmful substances into the air, or the normal course of business requires factories to expel toxins that eventually find their way to the water supply
• SEE WHERE YOUR CITY RANKS: The Full List of Forbes Most Toxic Cities In America (Forbes)
• Lawmakers pass water package after removing Sacramento project (Sacramento Bee)
• Hunting for Tuna: The Environmental Peril Grows (Time)
• Philippines targets $2.5 billion geothermal development (Reuters)
• Canadian Feds Powerless to Recall Toxic Toys (AP)
• Farm Groups oppose EPA review of atrazine (Des Moines Register)
• The golden, melting, re-freezing and ultimately disappearing snows of Kilimanjaro (Reuters) [emphasis added]:
  Papa Hemingway probably didn’t see this coming.

  When he wrote “The Snows of Kilimanjaro” in the 1930s, Ernest Hemingway described the summit of that African mountain as “wide as all the world, great, high, and unbelievably white in the sun.”

  It’s still wide, but may not be white much longer, according to a new study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences that says the remaining ice fields atop Kilimanjaro in Tanzania could be gone in 20 years or less, a casualty of climate change. Changes in clouds and precipitation play a minor role but the scientists say it’s mostly due to global warming.