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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Update on Turkish coal mine tragedy; California wilting and burning; Oil pipeline bursts in L.A.; PLUS: Military leaders warn climate change threatens national security — so Fox “News” attacks the military… All that and more in today’s Green News Report!
Green News Report
with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen
5/15/2014
‘Green News Report’ – May 15, 2014 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen... · · · · · ‘Green News Report’ – May 15, 2014 | With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Germany sets new solar energy record: 74% of electricity; CA drought may cause earthquakes, too; End fossil fuel burning, save $71 trillion – and preserve civilization; Funny: conservatives praise Antarctic Ice Sheet melt as beautiful expression of free market; Analysis: Should we cover our roads with solar panels?; Giant poster material literally absorbs pollution; Tropical cyclones shifting toward poles; Risks questioned at closed nuclear power plants … PLUS: VIDEO: Colbert Embraces Conservative Solution to Climate Change: ‘F*ck It’ … and much, MUCH more! …
STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY’S ‘GREEN NEWS REPORT’…
- VIDEO: Colbert Embraces Conservative Solution to Climate Change: ‘F*ck It’ (The Colbert Report)
- Update: Protests Erupt After 282+ Killed in Turkish Coal Mine Disaster:
- Death Toll Nears 285 In Turkish Coal Mine Explosion (NPR)
- Violent protest in Turkish town where miners died (Yahoo News)
- California Burning & Wilting:
- Record Heat, Drought and Santa Ana Winds Spark California Wildfires (mashable)
- Entering new wildfire era, California broadcasts an old message: prevention (CS Monitor)
- VIDEO: Raging Fires Create a State of Emergency in San Diego County – Residents Told To Run Ror Their Lives in Carlsbad (KTLA)
- VIDEO: Wildfires burn almost 10,000 acres in California’s San Diego County (CNN)
- The Massive US Drought: Maps shows record drought in the West isn’t going away anytime soon (Vox Media):
Fully half of the mainland United States is now facing drier-than-usual conditions, with 15 percent of the country experiencing “extreme” to “exceptional” drought.
- 100 Percent of California Now in Highest Stages of Drought (Climate Central)
- Firefighting capacity for wildfires curbed by funding cuts, officials say (Washington Post):
Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack said his agency, which is largely responsible for fighting monster fires along with the Interior Department, will try to manage burns with 500 fewer firefighters and 50 fewer engines and by shifting money earmarked for prevention to pay for fire suppression. “I hope we can get through this fire season without any fatalities,” Vilsack said.
- April 2014 the 2nd Warmest April on Record:
- Last Month Was The Second Warmest April Ever Recorded (Climate Progress):
Around the planet, April temperatures averaged 58.5°F, which is 1.3°F above average temperatures. This is only a tad lower than than the warmest April ever recorded, a milestone hit in 2010 when NASA calculated global temperatures of 1.44°F above average, according to the data sheet.
- Oil Pipeline Bursts In L.A.:
- 10,000 gallons of oil spill in Los Angeles after pipe bursts (AP)
- PHOTOS: Ten thousand gallons of crude oil covers half a mile of Los Angeles after pipe bursts amid fears of environmental disaster (UK Daily Mail)
- Oil Boom Means Oil Spills Spike in U.S.:
- Spills up 17 percent in U.S. in 2013 (EnergyWire)
- A whole lot of oil spilled in the U.S. in 2013 (Grist):
Many of the spills were small. But their combined volume totaled more than 26 million gallons … That’s the same volume as what gushed four years ago from BP PLC’s ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well in 11 days.
- Climate Change Is a Growing National Security Threat:
- Summary: National Security and the Threat of Climate Change (CNA Military Advisory Board)
- REPORT: National Security and the Accelerating Risks of Climate Change [PDF] (CNA Military Advisory Board)
- Climate Change Deemed Growing Security Threat By Military Researchers: (NY Times):
The CNA Corporation Military Advisory Board found that climate change-induced drought in the Middle East and Africa is leading to conflicts over food and water and escalating longstanding regional and ethnic tensions into violent clashes. The report also found that rising sea levels are putting people and food supplies in vulnerable coastal regions like eastern India, Bangladesh and the Mekong Delta in Vietnam at risk and could lead to a new wave of refugees.
- VIDEO: Military experts are worried about climate change, and you should be too (Grist)
- Climate change poses growing threat of conflict in the Arctic, report finds (Guardian UK)
- Fox News Attacks the Military:
- VIDEO: New Report Undermines Fox News’ Attacks On Military Use Of Alternative Fuels (Media Matters)
- Defense officials defend “Great Green Fleet” cost (Reuters)
- Drought helped cause Syria’s war. Will climate change bring more like it? (Washington Post, 9/10/2013)
In Africa, Asia, and the Middle East, we are already seeing how the impacts of extreme weather, such as prolonged drought and flooding – and resulting food shortages, desertification, population dislocation and mass migration, and sea level rise – are posing security challenges to these regions’ governments.
‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (Stuff we didn’t have time for in today’s audio report)…
- End fossil fuel burning, save $71 trillion – and preserve civilization as we know it (Grist):
It would cost the world $44 trillion to end our fossil fuel addiction by 2050 and switch to clean energy. Worse, this figure is $8 trillion higher than the IEA’s last estimate, published two years ago.
…
And now the good news: We can save $115 trillion in fuel costs by 2050 if we move away from dirty energy, making for net savings of $71 trillion. - Germany Sets New Record, Generating 74 Percent Of Power Needs From Renewable Energy (Climate Progress)
- China Cuts in Coal Use May Mean World Emissions Peak Before 2020 (Bloomberg):
“We’re seeing the end of China’s coal boom,” Li Shuo, a policy officer at Greenpeace, told reporters in Berlin.
- Funny: Conservatives Praise Antarctic Ice Sheet Melt as Beautiful Expression of Free Market (Andy Borowitz, The New Yorker)
- Should we cover all our roads with solar panels? (Vox Media)
- Giant Poster Absorbs Pollution – Literally (BBC):
The 10m by 20m poster is coated with microscopic, pollution-eating nanoparticles of titanium dioxide. It’s the same stuff they use for self-cleaning windows, apparently.
- The California Drought May Mean More Earthquakes (Mother Jones):
Long-term withdrawal of water in the San Joaquin Valley is leading to a decrease of stress on the San Andreas fault, and this promotes earthquakes.
- Panel Questions Experts on Closed Reactor Risks (NY Times):
A part of the problem with the spent fuel, which would remain dangerously radioactive for centuries, is the inability of the federal government to begin accepting the fuel for burial at a national repository, which was supposed to have happened in 1998. With the demise of the government’s plan to bury waste at Yucca Mountain, there is no process in place to find a new repository. Meanwhile, the costs keep rising for a declining industry.
- NOAA: Tropical Cyclone ‘Maximum Intensity’ Is Shifting Toward Poles (Climate Progress):
A NOAA-led study finds “the location where tropical cyclones reach maximum intensity has been shifting toward the poles” at roughly 35 miles per decade. This roughly one-half a degree of latitude shift per decade for tropical cyclones (hurricanes and typhoons) was seen in both the northern and southern hemispheres.
- El Nino’s threat to major food crop yields (BBC):
Writing in Nature Communications, the team said the data could be used by governments to manage food supplies. They wrote: “Results show that El Nino likely improves the global-mean soybean yield by 2.1-5.4% but appears to change the yields of maize, rice and wheat by -4.3% to 0.8%.
- A Power Backup Solution For The Achilles Heel Of Grid-Tie Solar (Clean Technica)
- Three Innovative Electric Grid Facilities You Should Know About (Dept. of Energy)
- EPA proposes stricter emission standards for oil refineries following lawsuit (Minneapolis Star-Tribune):
If adopted, the rule would mark the first change to the industry’s emission standards in nearly two decades….The changes would compel operators to monitor benzene emissions along their fence lines, upgrade storage tank emission controls, ensure waste gases are properly destroyed and adopt new emission standards for delayed coking units. Operators would also have to make the results of monitoring publicly available.
- Victims Of Citgo’s Criminal Pollution Not Entitled To Compensation, Judge Rules (Climate Progress)
- How to Solve Global Warming: It’s the Energy Supply (Scientific American):
Restraining global warming to no more than 2 degrees Celsius will require changing how the world produces and uses energy to power its cities and factories, heats and cools buildings, as well as moves people and goods in airplanes, trains, cars, ships and trucks, according to the IPCC. Changes are required not just in technology, but also in people’s behavior.
FOR MORE on Climate Science and Climate Change, go to our Green News Report: Essential Background Page
All tis news just goes to show that climate change deniers like Rand Paul and Marco Rubio, et. al., should one day be condemned for criminal actions in preventing — denying — legislation to help mitigate problems associated with climate change.
The Conservative “limited government” stance is pure bullshit and antithetical to America’s health and well being for it moves money away from the public sector — which would keep us all safe and healthy — and into the corporate sector, i.e. rich people, which is all inherited wealth and not worked for wealth, who go on to accumulate wealth while not trickling down wealth in the form of wage increases.
Conservatives look like are fools, but are actually criminals.
Thank You Brad Friedman!
Thank You Brad Friedman!
Thank You Brad Friedman!
Tom Bones @1,
Indeed.
And thanks to Des too!
Here is what some locations where those politicians live are going to look like.
Thanks, Tom! (And Dredd!)
B&D you really sound like you known what you are doing ….Congrats
Bamboo Harvester @4,
Brad and Des certainly be knowin’ bro.
How you been dear friend?
Thanks, BH! As you know, sounding like one knows what they are doing is pretty much half the battle. 🙂
Sometimes we forget some of the highly developed civilizations that existed before fossil fuel addiction (Civilizations Like Our Own Without Oil).
An article at Think Progress discusses how India could provide power to 400M citizens by going solar. That bodes well for the planet. If India could make the move to Solar it would be a great step toward world peace (without nukes).
Going solar reduces the effects of climate change which the defense department has reported for years how destabilizing and confrontational the future will be as countries fight for ever decreasing resources as seas rise, glaciers melt and the usual sources of water and food become more sporadic.
It also reduces the chance of a nuclear war. As countries become more reliant on solar power, they will be less likely to want to be involved in a war that would result in a nuclear winter. The aftermath of a nuclear war (besides the radiation) would be even more difficult to survive if enough particulate matter is elevated into the stratosphere that is blocks out the life/energy giving light of the sun.
Good points, Adam. We cover the pledge made by India’s new prime minister in our next GNR. Be sure to check out the links in the post, as there is some question as to whether it is more than just another pledge among many that won’t be met. Here’s hoping he makes it work.