‘Green News Report’ – January 27, 2011

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: From the greenest State of the Union speech ever, to the State of Wisconsin — Obama calls for clean energy jobs, and as the GOP flip-flop on ‘Cap and Trade’ continues, Gingrich calls for abolishing the EPA, and Sarah Palin calls on donuts to save the nation… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Cost of climate change two times higher than Fed’s estimate; Australia’s PM calls for ‘flood tax’ for cleanup costs; Rise in childhood cancers parallels rise in toxic chemicals; The Oscar-nominated short Green Doc you must see; TX defies EPA on power plant pollution permit; Was Genghis Khan history’s greenest conqueror?; 20 dead in Colombia coal mine blast; PA fracking blowout dumps toxic chemicals in state forest … PLUS: SkepticGate!: Climate change-denying scientist revealed to be funded by oil industry ….

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

• Sarah Palin Calls Obama’s “Sputnik Moment” a “WTF Moment”: (Media Matters.org)

• “Snowmageddon” Hits Northeast AGAIN, Hilarious Fox News FAIL… AGAIN:
• Record Snow Again Buries Northeast (Reuters) [emphasis added]:
  A thick blanket of snow covered Northeast on Thursday, as the fifth major storm of the winter set snowfall records, delayed the opening of financial markets and clogged Washington highways with abandoned cars.

  Snow fell from Virginia to Maine on Wednesday night and into Thursday morning, putting additional strain on cities and states already faced with overwhelming budget deficits.

• Fox Tries To Debunk Global Warming, Fails Miserably (Media Matters.org):
  In an article titled, “Five Reasons the Planet May Not Be Its Hottest Ever,” FoxNews.com sought to debunk the fact that Earth has warmed over the past 30 years, as well as the notion that human activity has contributed to the warming. But Fox largely ignored climate science and botched basic facts in the article, portions of which “are utter nonsense” and “do not make sense” according to climatologists consulted by Media Matters, including one of the skeptics cited by Fox.
• From the GREENEST State of the Union….:
• White House fact sheet details Obama’s SOTU energy plan (The Hill)
• Obama Budget Seeks To End Oil, Gas Subsidies (Reuters)
• Obama Calls for Clean Energy And High-Speed Rail in State of the Union (Guardian UK)
• Obama Sets 2035 Clean Electricity Target (Reuters)
• Oil industry pans Obama’s state of the union address (The Hill)
• VIDEO: Republican “Response” via the Tea Party: Bachmann’s response to State of the Union (CNN)
• Republican Response: Transcript: GOP Response From Rep. Paul Ryan (R-WI) (NPR)
• VIDEO: Republicans Were For Cap-And-Trade Before They Were Against It (The Rachel Maddow Show, MSNBC)
• Obama ‘Ducks & Covers’ On Climate (NYT Dot Earth)
• Is Energy Really ‘Non-Partisan”? (Kate Sheppard, Mother Jones)
• Obama Was Wrong Not To Mention Climate Change in His State of the Union (David Roberts, Grist)
• How Clean Is Obama’s Clean Energy Standard? (AP)
• ….To the State of Wisconsin: Obama Talks Clean Energy at Solar Panel Factory in Green Bay:
• In Wisconsin, the scale of Obama’s task is made plain (Toronto Globe & Mail) [emphasis added]:
  The President built on the theme of his Tuesday night State of the Union speech and his call for the United States to “out-innovate, out-educate and out-build” the rest of the world to stave off its own decline.

  “The nation that leads the world in clean energy will lead the global economy in the 21st century,” Mr. Obama told workers at Orion Energy Systems, a small company that develops energy-efficient lighting. “This is not something that I’m making up to fill up time in a speech. China is making these investments. They have already captured a big chunk of the solar market partly because we fell down on the job.”

• Obama takes his message to Wisconsin (Washington Post)
• President Surprised In Manitowoc: Unexpected Connection Between City, “State Of The Union”, and SPUTNIK (WISN Milwaukee):
  When the president mentioned America’s “sputnik moment” during his State of the Union address, he didn’t know Manitowoc already had America’s first “sputnik moment.”

  A circle marks the spot where the Russian satellite fell to earth in September 1962. The 10-pound chunk landed in the middle of a busy downtown street.

• VIDEO: Obama Road Tests Message on Economic Competitiveness in Wisconsin (PBS NewsHour)
• Newt Gingrich Proposes Abolishing the EPA:
• Newt Gingrich Wants to Get Rid of the EPA (Salon) [emphasis added]:
  The former House Speaker says the agency is one big bureaucratic tangle and thinks it should be replaced by a body that works closely with businesses to create jobs, according to the AP.
  …
  Gingrich — who is (yet again) mulling over a 2012 run for the Republican party nomination, something he calls his proposed entity the “Environmental Solution Agency.” The organization would specifically pursue the development of clean coal and rewrite regulations governing the development of small nuclear plants, but its primary objective would be to streamline regulation and integrate the causes of the environment and business, he says.

‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (Stuff we didn’t have time for in today’s audio report)…

• Revised Data Show Feds Understate Climate Costs (Daily Climate & Climate Central):
  The cost of climate change impacts runs twice as high as previously estimated, according to revised data from a key economic model used by federal agencies.
• Australia PM Proposes National ‘Flood Tax’ To Pay Staggering Costs of Cleanup (Yahoo News UK)
• Rise in Childhood Cancers Parallels Toxic Chemical Proliferation (Environment News Service):
  Bipartisan legislation was introduced in Congress today to help communities determine whether there is a connection between clusters of cancer, birth defects and other diseases, and contaminants in the surrounding environment.
• The Oscar-Nominated Green Documentary Short You Have To Watch (Yale 360)
  Filmmakers Ruby Yang and Thomas Lennon are up for the best short documentary Oscar this year with The Warriors of Qiugang — which you can watch in its entirety on Yale Environment 360.
• Texas Defies EPA on Corpus Christi Power Plant Air Permit (Houston Chronicle):
  Texas officials granted an air permit for a proposed Corpus Christi power plant Wednesday despite calls from federal regulators to delay approval of the controversial request.
• West Coast Senators Push Pacific Shore Drilling Ban (LA Times):
  Democratic senators from the California, Oregon and Washington state launched a new drive Tuesday to ban drilling off the Pacific coast but face long odds of getting the bill past the House’s new Republican majority, especially at a time of high gasoline prices.
• Was Genghis Khan history’s greenest conqueror? (Mother Nature Network):
  The Mongol invasion scrubbed nearly 700 million tons of carbon from the atmosphere, according to surprising new research.
• 20 Dead in Colombia Coal Mine Explosion (Huffington Post Green)
• Pennsylvania Fracking Blowout Spews Drilling Fluid Onto State Forest Lands (Gannett News Service):
  Talisman Energy has resumed its Marcellus drilling operations in Pennsylvania, a week after one of the company’s gas wells experienced a blowout that caused an uncontrolled discharge of sand and fracking fluids onto state forest lands in Tioga County.”
• Skeptic-Gate! Revealing Climate Denialists For What They Are (Huffington Post Green):
  This by all reckoning is a real “climategate” – a genuinely scandalous story in which a scientist who testified before Congress hid the fact that he was funded largely by corporate interests. But will it get the same airplay that the now debunked “climategate” story enjoyed?