IN TODAY'S AUDIO REPORT: Fires rage across California as Hurricane Jimena bears down on Baja; Lights out for incandescent lightbulbs; The Summer of Astroturf! ... PLUS: Paving the Long Road to Solar... 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' (links below): Clash in Alabama Over Tennessee Coal Ash; Is the United States Ready for a Higher Gas Tax?; Obama Administration sues Chicago-area coal-fired power plants; the Risks of climate geo-engineering; WHO Predicts That Within 2 Years, 1/3 Of World Will Have Caught Sickness... PLUS: Four crucial resources that may run out in your lifetime ...

Info/links on those stories and all the ones we talked about on today's episode follow below...

• Fire near Los Angeles grows in triple-digit heat (AP)
• Want to help in the fire effort? Here's how (LA Times)
• Scientists follow the fire (MSNBC)
• California wildfire more than doubles on sixth day (Reuters)
• Gold Canyon residents refused to evacuate during fire; now they are asking to be rescued (LA Times)
• Mexico evacuates thousands ahead of hurricane
• Europe’s Ban on Old-Style Bulbs Begins (NY Times)
• Concerns Remain as Europe Changes Bulbs (Green Inc.)
• Majority of ‘Energy Citizens’ rallies organized by oil-industry lobbyists (Grist)
• FACES of Coal are iStockPhotos?!
• The Rachel Maddow Show: Coal Industry Caught Faking Supporters (MSNBC) [story starts at about 1 minute in]:
  

• New "Grassroots" Pro-Coal Group backed by K-Street PR Firm (DeSmogBlog)
• Lobbyists for Big Oil Organizing Most “Grassroots” ‘Energy Citizens’ Rallies (DeSmogBlog)
• On Energy, Obama Finds Broad Support; Poll Shows Backing for Reform Efforts, But Cap-and-Trade Bill Is Harder Sell (Washington Post)
• New flu hit estimated 10 percent of New Yorkers (Reuters)
• Intensive care units likely to be main battlegrounds in the war against H1N1 (Canadian Press):
  
  Intensive care specialists who fought to save desperately sick swine flu patients this spring and summer have a warning for hospitals that haven't yet dealt with an influx of these difficult-to-treat patients.

  Prepare. Now.

• Bonner Paid Productivity Bonus To Employee Who Forged Letter (Talking Points Memo)
• Bonner Talking Points Instructed Employees to Lie to Generate Letters to Congress (Talking Points Memo)
• Perriello, area groups contradict lobbying firm (Charlottesville Daily Progress)
• Contra Bonner's Claim, Local Groups Say Lobby Firm Never Contacted Them (TPM Muckraker)
• Environmentalists Slow to Adjust in Climate Debate; Opponents Seize Initiative as Senate Bill Nears (Washington Post)

'GREEN NEWS EXTRA': More green news not covered in today's audio report... See below!

• Clash in Alabama Over Tennessee Coal Ash (NY Times)
  
  Almost every day, a train pulls into a rail yard in rural Alabama, hauling 8,500 tons of a disaster [coal ash from a massive spill at a power plant in east Tennessee last December] that occurred 350 miles away to a final resting place, the Arrowhead Landfill here in Perry County, which is very poor and almost 70 percent black.
  ...
  The ash has created more than 30 jobs for local residents in a county where the unemployment rate is 17 percent and a third of all households are below the poverty line.
  ...
  But some residents worry that their leaders are taking a short-term view, and that their community has been too easily persuaded to take on a wealthier, whiter community’s problem.
• Is the United States Ready for a Higher Gas Tax?
• Colombian president comes down with the swine flu (AP)
• Return Of Swine Flu: What's Ahead For Americans? WHO Predicts That Within 2 Years, 1/3 Of World Will Have Caught Sickness (AP)
• Science on the Risks of Climate Engineering: “Optimism about a geoengineered ‘easy way out’ should be tempered by examination of currently observed climate changes”
• Obama, Illinois File NSR Lawsuit Against Midwest Generation (NY Times):
  
  The Obama administration and the Illinois attorney general filed a lawsuit (pdf) today against a Midwestern energy company for alleged Clean Air Act violations at six coal-fired power plants, including five in the Chicago area.

  The 38-count complaint said Midwest Generation made major modifications at the facilities without also installing the proper pollution control equipment, efforts that have led to unsafe air quality in the region, including high levels of ground-level ozone and soot that are linked to asthma and other respiratory ailments.

• Four crucial resources that may run out in your lifetime: Can the Earth Sustain 9 Billion People? We'll Find Out in 50 Years(Gizmag)

                 

Article Categories: Green News