‘Green News Report’ – June 12, 2012

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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Raging wildfires turn deadly in the West; More frequent wildfires predicted in coming years… while Mitt Romney campaigns against hiring more firefighters; VA GOP banishes the words ‘sea level rise”; PLUS: 2012: Hottest spring on record for the US …. All that CRAZY and more in today’s Green News Report!

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Global investment in renewable energy at record high; Health care costs of coal; IEA Report: Natural Gas Is Not The Answer To Climate Problem; Florida: Blockade to Save Community from Fracking Industry; Honeybee decline linked to killer virus; Romney energy plan includes drilling in national parks; BP sues to obtain oil spill scientists’ emails; Simulating 3,000 years into the future … PLUS: Report: Humans near tipping point that could dramatically change Earth … and much, MUCH more! …

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

• CO: 1 Dead as Out-of-Control High Park Wildfire Is 0% Contained:
• Firefighters make progress on Colo., NM wildfires (AP)
• Colorado wildfire takes its first fatality (+videos): The Colorado fire has killed one woman, and destroyed at least 118 structures near Fort Collins. Colorado lawmakers are calling for more federal help to fight the uncontained wildfire. (CS Monitor)
• CO wildfire: Woman, 62, dies in High Park fire, which continues to grow (Boulder Daily Camera)
• Blazes gobble up territory in N.M., Colo. (USA Today)
• New Mexico Wildfire Now a Record-Setting ‘Megafire’, Budget Cuts In Congress May Undermine Federal Response (Climate Progress)
• Feds consider regional challenges in fire planning (AP)
• ‘Very large, unpredictable’ Colorado fire grows (CNN)
• New Mexico’s record-setting wildfires deepen trend of devastating ‘megafires’ (Guardian UK)
• SLIDESHOW: High Park wildfire ravages northern Colorado – in pictures (Guardian UK)
• Scientists: More Frequent Wildfires, SW Warming Faster Than Rest of US:
• New Study Projects More Frequent Fires for the Western U.S. (KQED’s Climate Watch):
  The study, published Tuesday in the journal Ecosphere, analyzed the results of 16 different global climate change models. The models included variables such as annual precipitation and mean temperature of the warmest month and projected an increase in the frequency of fires across the majority of North America and much of Europe within the next 30 years.
• The Heat is On: U.S. Temperature Trends (Climate Central) [emphasis added]:
  We found that no matter how much or how little a given state warmed over that 100-year period, the pace of warming in all regions accelerated dramatically starting in the 1970s, coinciding with the time when the effect of greenhouse gases began to overwhelm the other natural and human influences on climate at the global and continental scales.
  …
  The states that have warmed the most — whether you look at the past 100 years or just the past 40 — include northern-tier states from Minnesota to Maine and the Southwest, particularly Arizona and New Mexico.
• Congressional GOP Proposes to Cut Firefighting Budget:
• Wildfire budget cuts in Congress put communites in danger, experts warn (Guardian UK) [emphasis added]:
  Congressional budget cuts of over $500m could leave crews scrambling for resources in an already overactive fire season
  …
  A strategic review in 2009 warned the government to step up its fire fighting capabilities to deal with an escalating rise in wildfires… “The current budget environment for federal and partner fire management is at best uncertain and difficult,” the review said.
• Republican Ohio Governor Kaisch’s Budget Could Force Local Town To Privatize Fire And EMS Services (Think Progress)
• Romney Campaigns Against Hiring New Firefighters, Police, Teachers:
• Romney calls for fewer cops, firefighters, and teachers (The Rachel Maddow Show) [emphasis added]:
  If anyone’s looking for more meaningful quotes from presidential candidates, Mitt Romney’s line today on public-sector jobs is arguably one of the more important things the Republican has said in a very long time.
• VIDEO: Romney Economics: Fewer Teachers, Fewer Firefighters, Fewer Police Officers (The Political Carnival):
• Romney Says America Doesn’t Need ‘More Firemen, More Policemen, More Teachers’ (Think Progress) [emphasis added]:
  Romney said of Obama, “he wants another stimulus, he wants to hire more government workers. He says we need more firemen, more policemen, more teachers. Did he not get the message of Wisconsin? The American people did. It’s time for us to cut back on government and help the American people.”
• NOAA: Hottest Spring on Record, Hottest 12 Months on Record, 2012 On Track for Hottest Ever:
• Warmest U.S. spring on record: NOAA (Reuters)
• VIDEO: Is Record Heat the New Norm?: Including interview with climate scientist Michael Mann (The Weather Channel)
• Four Major Heat Records Fall in Stunning NOAA Report (Climate Central)
• Dr. Jeff Masters: “A stunning and unparalleled event in U.S. meteorological history” (Weather Underground) [emphasis added]:
  U.S. heat over the past 12 months: a one in half-a-million event
  The U.S. record for hottest 12-month period fell for the second straight month in May.
  …
  Some critics have claimed that recent record warm temperatures measured in the U.S. are due to poor siting of a number of measurement stations. Even if true (and the best science we have says that these stations were actually reporting temperatures that were too cool), there is no way that measurement errors can account for the huge margin by which U.S. temperature records have been crushed during the past 12-month, 5-month, and 3-month periods.
• Hot & Stormy (last 12 months of warm weather records: 1 in 44,000 year event) (Minneapolis Star-Tribune)
• Climate change rate could be faster than thought, study suggests: Data indicate China’s carbon emissions could be 20% higher, prompting fears Earth is warming at a much faster rate (Guardian UK)
• Confirmed: It Is Hot In Here (It’s Not Just You) (The Atlantic)
• Unprecedented May Heat In Greenland, Temperature Hits Stunning 76.6°F (Climate Progress)
• VA State GOP Bans Words “Sea Level Rise”:
• North Carolina Bill Would Require Coastal Communities To Ignore Global Warming Science (Climate Progress):
  Some North Carolina GOP legislators want to stop the use of science to plan for the future. They are circulating a bill that would force coastal counties to ignore actual observations and the best science-based projections in planning for future sea level rise.

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

• Global investment in renewable energy at record high (Guardian UK): Solar power gets more finance than wind as recession fails to dampen faith in low carbon technology
• Cost of Deaths From 18 Coal-Fired Power Plants’ Pollution Higher Than Value of Electricity Generated: report (Environmental Integrity Project):
  Between 2,700 and 5,700 deaths a year at a cost of $23 to $47 billion can be attributed to pollution from 51 of the dirtiest coal fired power plants in the United States. Even using the most conservative estimate, the estimated cost to society of the premature deaths caused by 18 of the power plants actually exceeded the retail value of the electricity generated by each facility in 2011.
• IEA Report: Natural Gas Is Not The Answer To Climate Problem, Existing Cleantech Is — And It Could Save $100 Trillion By 2050 (Climate Progress):
  The once staid International Energy Agency continues its string of blunt, must-read reports laying bare the reality of our climate and energy system.
• Florida: Neighbors Blockade to Save Community from Fracking Industry (EcoWatch):
  Riverdale, Pa. residents and supporters have blockaded access to a mobile home community that is facing imminent displacement at the hands of Aqua America, a major water withdrawal company that supplies natural gas drillers in the Marcellus Shale region.
• Honeybee decline linked to killer virus: Parasitic mites wiping out bee colonies by transmitting deadly virus directly into the bloodstream of the bees, research reveals (Guardian UK)
• Romney Energy Plan Includes Drilling ‘Virtually Every Part’ Of U.S., No Protections For National Parks (Climate Progress):
  [The] Washington Post sheds more light on Romney’s energy plan, including the fact that he would open up “virtually every part of U.S. lands and waters” to drilling regardless of whether they are national parks, national monuments, or protected in some other way.
• Is BP’s Attempted Climategate Strategy To Attack Scientists Ethical? (DeSmog Blog) [emphasis added]:
  So why then is BP trying to obtain every piece of email correspondence from scientists who researched the Gulf of Mexico oil geyser?

  That’s a question that numerous scientists have tried to figure out in recent weeks. The oil giant has subpoenaed emails from scientists who studied the oil and its impact on coastal and marine environments to use in the numerous civil and federal lawsuits against the company.

• 3000 Years Into the Future: Playing the same game of Civilization II for almost 10 years; This is the result.: Our potential future? Yeah, it ain’t pretty. (Reddit):
  The results are as follows.

  The world is a hellish nightmare of suffering and devastation.

  There are 3 remaining super nations in the year 3991 A.D, each competing for the scant resources left on the planet after dozens of nuclear wars have rendered vast swaths of the world uninhabitable wastelands.

• Report: Humans near tipping point that could dramatically change Earth (CS Monitor):
  Human activity is affecting Earth in many ways, but a new study suggests that continued population growth and its impact on climate and ecology could trigger a more profound chain reaction of effects within little more than a decade.

• Skeptical Science: Get the FULL DEBUNKING of ALL Climate Science Denier Arguments
• VIDEO: James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change (TED Talks):
  Top climate scientist James Hansen tells the story of his involvement in the science of and debate over global climate change. In doing so he outlines the overwhelming evidence that change is happening and why that makes him deeply worried about the future.
• VIDEO ANIMATION: Time history of atmospheric CO2 (NOAA Carbon Tracker YouTube channel):
• VIDEO: Animation Charts Modern Global Warming (NYT Green)
• Must-Read: Economist William Nordhaus Slams Global Warming Deniers, Explains Cost of Delay is $4 Trillion (Climate Progress):
  Nordhaus’s blunt piece – “Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong” – is worth reading because he is no climate hawk.
  …
  “The skeptics’ summary is based on poor analysis and on an incorrect reading of the results.”
• Part 1: The brutal logic of climate change (David Roberts, Grist) [emphasis added]:
  It’s simple: If there is to be any hope of avoiding civilization-threatening climate disruption, the U.S. and other nations must act immediately and aggressively on an unprecedented scale. That means moving to emergency footing. War footing. “Hitler is on the march and our survival is at stake” footing. That simply won’t be possible unless a critical mass of people are on board. It’s not the kind of thing you can sneak in incrementally.

  It is unpleasant to talk like this. People don’t want to hear it.

• Part 2: The brutal logic of climate change mitigation (David Roberts, Grist)
• How to Buy Time in the Fight against Climate Change: Mobilize to Stop Soot and Methane: A short list of relatively simple actions taken to reduce greenhouse gases other than CO2 could help put the brakes on global warming–if implemented globally (Scientific American)
• Climate Scientists Rebuke Rupert Murdoch: WSJ Denier Op-Ed Like ‘Dentists Practicing Cardiology’ (Think Progress Green)
• Saudi Oil Minister Calls Global Warming “Humanity’s Most Pressing Concern” (Climate Progress):
  “We know that pumping oil out of the ground does not create many jobs. It does not foster an entrepreneurial spirit, nor does it sharpen critical faculties.”
• VIDEO: Behold: The World’s First 24/7 Solar Plant is Up and Running (Treehugger)
• World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns: If fossil fuel infrastructure is not rapidly changed, the world will ‘lose for ever’ the chance to avoid dangerous climate change (Guardian UK) [emphasis added]:
  The world is likely to build so many fossil-fuelled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be “lost for ever”, according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.
  …
  “The door is closing,” Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, said. “I am very worried – if we don’t change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever.”
• Concise Overview: The IPCC report on extreme climate and weather events (Real Climate)
• READ the IPCC Report: Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)
• The Real Global Warming Signal (Tamino)
• No, global warming hasn’t stopped (New Scientist)
• Top UN Climate Official Blasts U.S. Climate Policy: Americans Must Realize “This Is Their Future They’re Compromising” (Think Progress Green)
• VIDEO: Climate Scientists Michael Mann on “A Look Into Our Climate: Past To Present To Future” (TEDx, YouTube)
• Earth’s Plant Growth Fell Because of Climate Change, Study Finds (NYT Green)
• Heads in the Sand: Warning: “Climate change is occurring … and poses significant risks to humans and the environment,” reports the National Academy of Sciences. As climate-change science moves in one direction, Republicans in Congress are moving in another. Why?
  (National Journal) [emphasis added]:
  Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, says there’s no question that the influence of his group and others like it has been instrumental in the rise of Republican candidates who question or deny climate science. “If you look at where the situation was three years ago and where it is today, there’s been a dramatic turnaround. Most of these candidates have figured out that the science has become political,” he said.
  …
  Groups like Americans for Prosperity have done it.“