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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: "The science has spoken": final UN climate change report - the bad news, the good news, and room for hope; PLUS: Flashback: 25th anniversary of Margaret Thatcher's historic climate change speech --- back to when conservatives accepted science ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Got comments, tips, love letters, hate mail? Drop us a line at GreenNews@BradBlog.com or right here at the comments link below. All GNRs are always archived at GreenNews.BradBlog.com.

IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Your next electric car may not even need a battery; Who’s really been running W.Va. all these years? [cough-COAL-cough]; California’s strawberry industry is hooked on dangerous pesticides; Rich countries subsidize oil, gas, coal by $88bn a year; Worker deaths hit all-time high in Alberta; Amazon.com doubles down on coal; Water treatment plant run by solar power; BP foiled again ... PLUS: Will China help Obama save the planet? ... and much, MUCH more! ...

STORIES DISCUSSED ON TODAY'S 'GREEN NEWS REPORT'...

• Final IPCC Climate Change Report: The Science Has Spoken:
• IPCC 5th Assessment: Climate Change 2014 Synthesis Report (United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)
• IPCC Scientists Emphasize Immorality Of Inaction By Focusing On ‘Irreversible Impacts’ (Climate Progress) [emphasis added]:
  
  What is the biggest change in the new climate report by the world’s top scientists and governments compared to the one they released back in 2007? It can be summed up in one word: “Irreversible.”
  ...
  Impacts will be even worse than described in this report after 2100 in every case but the one where we sharply cut CO2 emissions starting now (to stabilize at 2°C total warming). And as high as total warming ultimately gets, that’s roughly as high as temperatures will stay for hundreds of years after we bring total net human-caused carbon pollution emissions to zero.
• Fossil fuels should be phased out by 2100 says IPCC (BBC) [emphasis added]:
  
  The unrestricted use of fossil fuels should be phased out by 2100 if the world is to avoid dangerous climate change, a UN-backed expert panel says. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says in a stark report that most of the world's electricity can - and must - be produced from low-carbon sources by 2050. If not, the world faces "severe, pervasive and irreversible" damage. The UN said inaction would cost "much more" than taking the necessary action.
• 10 Terrifying Facts From the UN's New Climate Report (Mother Jones):
  
  It's getting hotter. We're causing it. And we have to act now.
• ‘Nobody Is Truly Ready’ For Rise of Seas (Climate Central)
• No quick fix for global warming: Limiting short-lived pollutants cannot buy time (Phys.Org):
  
  A debate has broken out between politicians and scientists as to whether atmospheric warming can be delayed by reducing short-lived climate forcing agents. An international research team has now confirmed that a reduction in carbon dioxide emissions is the only long-term remedy for global warming.
• Good News: There's Still Time to Save the World:
• How to stop global warming, in 7 steps (Vox.com) [emphasis added]:
  
  5) Cutting emissions will cost us — but so will global warming... Economic modeling suggests that this would shave 0.06 percentage points off global economic growth each year....The world would still get richer over time, but at a somewhat slower rate.
• We don’t, and can’t, know how much it will cost to tackle climate change (Grist)
• US eyes buffet option in global climate talks (Guardian UK):
  
  Deal would allow US to join other countries in cutting carbon dioxide emissions but avoid having to obtain Senate ratification
• Why two crucial pages were left out of the latest U.N. climate report (Washington Post) [emphasis added]:
  
  [I]t stated, the world can only emit about 1000 more gigatonnes of carbon dioxide (one gigatonne is equivalent to a billion tonnes) in the remainder of this century, adding that "at current rates, this remaining budget will be exhausted in the next 20 to 30 years."
• Flashback: British PM Margaret Thatcher on Global Environmental Issues - UN, General Assembly, Nov. 8, 1989:
  • VIDEO: Margaret Thatcher on Climate Change and Environment (Climate Crocks) [emphasis added]:
    
    My eyes get moist listening, not because I miss Ms. Thatcher, I had no special fondness for her, but because I miss what we once had in pre-Fox America – a dialogue with intelligent conservatives who took the time to actually think, feel, reason, and deduct. A common set of basic human values, and a respect for fact and science.

    Can you imagine a contemporary Republican making glowing mention of Darwin?

  
  
  
  • Heresy of the week: If concern about climate change is a religion, then Margaret Thatcher was its founder (Conservative Home)

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (Stuff we didn't have time for in today's audio report)...

• Will China help Obama save the planet? (Grist) [emphasis added]:
  
  “It is key we get the Chinese on board before Paris,” said Tim Boersma, an energy security analyst with the Brookings Institution. “And whomever comes up with the formula will have produced a brilliant policy move.”
• Your Next Electric Car May Not Even Need a Battery (Take Part):
  
  Scientists discover a way to make a car's doors, roof, and hood generate electricity.
• Who’s really been running W.Va. all these years? (Charleston Gazette's Coal Tattoo) [emphasis added]:
  
  Persons who have studied the impact of coal mining on different societies from Silesia to northern Japan have concluded that coal has been a curse upon the land that yielded it. ... In its repetitive cycle of boom and bust, its savage exploitation of men and nature, in its seemingly endless series of disasters, the coal industry has brought grief and hardship to all but a small portion of the people whose lives it touched...
• California’s strawberry industry is hooked on dangerous pesticides (Center for Investigative Reporting) [emphasis added]:
  
  With that simple memo in 2002, [the director of the California Department of Pesticide Regulation] dismantled the strict oversight designed seven years earlier to protect Californians from cancer, opening the door to 12 years of nearly unfettered 1,3-D access as its use spread to populated areas near schools, homes and businesses.
• Rich countries subsidising oil, gas and coal companies by $88bn a year (Guardian UK):
  
  US, UK, Australia giving tax breaks to explore new reserves despite climate advice that fossil fuels should be left buried.
• Amid tar sands boom, worker deaths hit all-time high in Alberta (Corporate Knights blog) [emphasis added]:
  
  What’s going on? One can only speculate, but experts agree that an influx of new workers, brought on by the oil sands boom, is a perfect recipe for workplace injuries and fatalities.
• U.S. Judge Rejects BP Bid To Oust Gulf Spill Claims Chief (Reuters):
  
  BP Plc has failed to persuade a federal judge to oust the administrator overseeing payouts to businesses and individuals claiming damages arising from the 2010 Gulf of Mexico oil spill.
• Unlike Other Tech Giants, Amazon Doubles Down on Coal (CleanTechnica):
  
  Unfortunately, Amazon, unlike Google, Apple, Facebook, Yahoo, or Microsoft, has made no effort to power with green energy. And it may be getting even dirtier soon.
• Build a solar power plant to help run a water treatment plant! (Science Blogs):
  
  Rochelle Municipal Utilities, in Rochelle, Illinois, has. started operation of a large Photovoltaic Solar Plant providing power to their water treatment facility. This is a great example of a project that should be done in more places.<.div>
• The biggest loser in this election is the climate (Vox.com) [emphasis added]:
  
  [C]ongressional indifference is a huge problem for future climate policy. The most recent report from the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change warned that global greenhouse-gas emissions need to fall 42 to 71 percent below 2010 levels by mid-century if we wanted to fend off the worst impacts of global warming and prevent average temperatures rising more than 2°C (or 3.6°F). That's an astoundingly difficult task. But it gets harder and more expensive the longer that countries delay.

FOR MORE on Climate Science and Climate Change, go to our Green News Report: Essential Background Page

• Video Proof That Global Warming is a 'Hoax'!: NASA Temperature Data 1888-2011 (The BRAD BLOG):



• NASA climate change video: This is the U.S. in 2100 (NASA).

                 

Article Categories: United Nations, Accountability, Environment, U.S. Senate, Republicans, State Department, Green News, Ronald Reagan, BP Oil Disaster, Wind energy, Solar energy, Climate change, Election 2014