Follow @GreenNewsReport...

(Or use "Click here to listen..." link below.)

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: A carbon tax is coming for Alberta's dirty tar sands; Obama says U.N. climate conference in Paris must go forward; Senate Republicans vow to monkeywrench international climate agreement; PLUS: FDA approves first-ever GMO salmon for human consumption... 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): Corporate Money Fueled PR Campaign for Climate Doubt Over Two Decades; Seven key issues to be addressed at the Paris climate summit; Top Republican Lawmaker Rebutted on Climate Study Accusation; US To Cancel Lease on Land Sacred To Blackfoot Indian Tribes; Report: 90 Percent of Disasters Are Weather-Related; Tensions, threats as California’s new groundwater law takes shape; 139 Countries Could Get All of their Power from Renewable Sources... PLUS: Runaway global warming becomes a concern as permafrost melts ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

• Alberta, Canada to Launch Carbon Tax, Emissions Cap, and Phase Out Coal:
• Alberta carbon plan a major pivot in environmental policy (Toronto Globe & Mail):
  
  The oil industry is in the second year of a crude-price collapse that has led to billions of dollars in spending cuts and at least 37,000 job losses. Previous Progressive Conservative governments in Alberta sought to shield the dominant industry from costly emission limits. Even so, the plans won plaudits from powerful oil executives along with environmental groups.
• VIDEO: Alberta's climate-change plan: Breaking down the numbers - Alberta's carbon tax could bring in $6 billion, but where will the money go? (CBC):
  
  Sunday afternoon offered up another surreal moment in Alberta's history, as oil executives stood side by side with environmentalists, First Nations, academics and NDP politicians, all seemingly thrilled to be announcing a carbon tax for the province.
• Bending the Curve: Alberta's Tectonic Shift in Climate Policy (Green Policy Prof) [emphasis added]:
  
  These changes fundamentally alter the politics of Canada. It will make it much easier for Canada to become a constructive player in global climate policy... If other provinces want to claim the mantle of climate leadership, they are going to have to step up their game, creating the potential for a “race to the top” in Canadian environmental policy. It will contribute, as Notley stated, to “a significant de-escalation worldwide of Alberta’s oil sands.”
• Both sides praise Alberta's carbon-tax plan (UPI):
  
  A carbon-tax plan unveiled by the government of Alberta, Canada, received rare praise from both the oil industry and environmentalists.
• In a major step on the road to Paris, rich countries agree to slash export subsidies for coal plants (Washington Post):
  
• World leaders must defy terrorism fear at Paris climate change talks: Obama (Xinhua News)
• Obama: IS big weapon is fear, tells Americans not to let terrorists alter lives, values (AP)
• Paris Climate Action: Climate Change Marches Planned Around the World:
• Paris attacks: Mass rally on eve of climate change talks called off by police amid terror fears (ABC Australia)
• French Climate March Ban Draws Criticism (NY Times):
  
  Climate activists have reacted with dismay to the French government's decision to ban two scheduled mass marches across Paris and other French cities during crucial global climate change talks later this month.
• Global Climate March: we're taking to the streets all around the world (350.org):
  
  On the eve of the biggest U.N. climate talks of the decade, we're taking to the streets all around the world. The French government is prohibiting the Global Climate March planned in Paris for 29 November - there has never been a greater need for Global Climate Marches throughout the rest of the world, which will continue as planned. Love will win out over fear, and our movement will win over injustice. Find a march near you!
• Senate Republicans Vow to Monkeywrench U.N. Climate Agreement:
• GOP Senators Vow To Block Climate Aid, Scrutinize Paris Deal (Reuters):
  
  U.S. Senate Republicans on Wednesday said Congress would not approve the Obama administration's $500 million request for its first payment into a United Nations climate fund, a move they said would undermine the upcoming climate change summit in Paris.
• The GOP’s Plan to Thwart the Paris Climate Conference (New Republic):
  
  The only remaining global outlier—the only major political party that denies climate science and opposes even the effort to reach a climate deal—is here in the U.S.: the Republican Party. And they’re doing everything they can to interfere with and undermine Obama’s efforts.
• Advice and Resent: President Obama has cut the Senate out of the Paris climate change agreement. Cue the tantrums. (On Earth)
• FDA Approves GMO Salmon for Human Consumption:
• Genetically Engineered Salmon Approved for Consumption (NY Times):
  
  The approval by the Food and Drug Administration caps a long struggle for AquaBounty Technologies, a small company that first approached the F.D.A. about approval in the 1990s. The agency made its initial determination that the fish would be safe to eat and for the environment more than five years ago. The approval of the salmon has been fiercely opposed by some consumer and environmental groups, which have argued that the safety studies were inadequate and that wild salmon populations might be affected if the engineered fish were to escape into the oceans and rivers.
• Salmon Is the First Transgenic Animal to Win U.S. Approval for Food (Scientific American):
  
  Long-awaited decision authorizes a genetically engineered animal to grace U.S. dinner tables for the first time.

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

• Corporate Money Fueled PR Campaign for Climate Doubt Over Two Decades (Washington Post):
  
  Climate change has long been a highly polarizing topic in the United States, with Americans lining up on opposite sides depending on their politics and worldview. Now a scientific study sheds new light on the role played by corporate money in creating that divide.
• Seven key issues to be addressed at the Paris climate summit (Simon Donner, Univ. of British Columbia):
  
  The good news is that the negotiators are not starting from scratch. In meetings over the past year, the parties to the UNFCCC have already worked out a 54-page official draft of the Paris deal. Those pre-meetings are often less actual negotiations between countries about text of the agreement than lobbying by countries or groups of countries for inclusion of text in the agreement. The optional passages and square bracketed text in the draft therefore provides a good guide to the most contentious issues. Based on the draft text, and my work on these issues, here are seven of the most contentious issues that need to be resolved in Paris...
• Top Republican Lawmaker Rebutted on Climate Study Accusation (Washington Post):
  
  The escalating struggle between an influential House Republican and government scientists over their pivotal study of global warming now turns on accusations that they rushed to publish their findings to advance President Obama’s agenda on climate change. But a spokeswoman for Science, the prestigious peer-reviewed journal that in June published the paper by climate scientists at the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, said in an interview that their research was subject to a longer, more intensive review than is customary.
• US To Cancel Lease on Land Sacred To Blackfoot Indian Tribes (AP):
  
  The Interior Department plans to cancel a long-suspended oil and gas drilling lease near Glacier National Park that's on land considered sacred to the Blackfoot tribes of the U.S. and Canada, according to court documents filed Monday.
• Report: 90 Percent of Disasters Are Weather-Related (AP):
  
  Ninety percent of disasters in the last 20 years have been caused by floods, storms, heatwaves and other weather-related events — and these weather-spawned disasters are becoming more frequent, according to a report released Monday.
• Runaway global warming becomes a concern as permafrost melts (E&E News):
  
  The rapid changes have been catalyzed by climate change, which has warmed these environs by 4 degrees Fahrenheit in the past half-century. Scientists worry that, as permafrost thaws, a portion of the carbon stored in the northernmost ecosystems will be released to the atmosphere and trigger runaway global warming. The biggest threat at present is posed not by the frozen tundras of the Arctic, but by the soils of the boreal...
• Tensions, threats as California’s new groundwater law takes shape (Sacramento Bee):
  
  For the first time in more than a century, California is trying to regulate groundwater pumping, but legal challenges are expected, starting with who gets to decide how much water can be pumped.
• The Wash. Post Doesn't Support Exxon Investigations --- Here's What It Had To Say About Tobacco Litigation (Media Matters):
  
  Washington Post Editorial Prematurely Concludes: "Exxon Deserves Criticism, But It Didn't Commit A Crime."
• Pro-Koch CBS Analyst Received $1.5 Million From The Kochs (Media Matters):
  
  A newly-released IRS filing reveals that a central group in Charles and David Koch's financial network paid CBS News analyst Frank Luntz's firm roughly $1.5 million in 2014 for messaging work. Luntz recently used his CBS platform to praise Koch donor conference attendees as symbolizing "the American dream," and defend the Kochs' spending --- without disclosing that he's benefited from their largesse.
• 139 Countries Could Get All of their Power from Renewable Sources
  (Scientific American):
  Energy from wind, water and sun would eliminate nuclear and fossil fuels.
• Donald Trump hated wind farms — until an Iowa voter asked (Washington Post):
  
  Fine. Trump supports subsidies for the wind industry. For anyone familiar with Trump's history, though, even that is a stunning bit of pandering. Trump, in fact, does know a lot about wind. A few years ago, Donald Trump wanted to build a golf course in Scotland. There was just one problem: The Scottish government had licensed an off-shore wind farm near the course, which Trump worried would ruin the views.
• Biodegradable plastics not breaking down in ocean, UN report says (CBC):
  
  ‘Essentially the ocean is being used as a waste basket,’ author says.
• VIDEO: UK's coal plants to be phased out within 10 years (BBC) [emphasis added]:
  
  The UK's remaining coal-fired power stations will be shut by 2025 with their use restricted by 2023, Energy Secretary Amber Rudd has proposed. Ms Rudd wants more gas-fired stations to be built since relying on "polluting" coal is "perverse"....If coal power plants are able to install carbon capture and storage (CCS) before 2025, they would not be closed....The government was criticised earlier this year for cutting renewable energy subsidies.
• Exxon, Keystone, and the Turn Against Fossil Fuels (Bill McKibben, The New Yorker] [emphasis added]:
  
  T]he fossil-fuel industry-which, for two centuries, underwrote our civilization and then became its greatest threat-has started to take serious hits.... There is, now, an elsewhere to head.... Inevitability was their shield, but no longer. If we wanted to transform our energy supply, we clearly could, though it would require an enormous global effort.The fossil-fuel industry will, of course, do everything it can to slow that effort down; even if the tide has begun to turn, that industry remains an enormously powerful force, armed with the almost infinite cash that has accumulated in its centuries of growth.

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, Environment, U.S. Senate, Barack Obama, France, Republicans, State Department, Green News, Fracking, Natural gas, Coal, Canada, Oil, Wind energy, Solar energy, Climate change, Keystone XL, GMOs, Oceans/Sea Level Rise, Water