With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 9/30/2010, 1:29pm PT  


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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Koala Chlamydia; Coal protests around the world; New Rules for offshore drilling; PLUS: The Governator slams Big Oil and corporate campaign cash ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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IN 'GREEN NEWS EXTRA' (see links below): Avatar director James Cameron says oil sands will become "curse"; DOE: Small solar power systems could provide enough power for big utilities; Chuitna and the Curse of Coal; Nissan LEAF already sold out in U.S. --- before it's even for sale; The Vatican goes green; EPA hits Illinois over factory farm water pollution; McCain now a climate conspiracy theorist; Lawmakers move to stop genetically modified salmon; One-fifth of world's plants at risk of extinction; Biochar could help climate change fight; California raises Renewable Portfolio Standard to 33% ...PLUS: Meet Generation Hot ...

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

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

  • Avatar Director James Cameron Says Oil Sands Will Become "Curse" Without Science-Based Regulations: Hollywood mogul declares "lifelong" commitment to help Canadian First Nations fight mining pollution (SolveClimate)
  • DOE: Big Utilities Can Get Reliable Power from Small Solar PV Arrays: A Berkeley Lab study says when PV plant arrays are spread out over a range, output variability is largely eliminated (SolveClimate)
  • Obama in Command: The Rolling Stone Interview (Rolling Stone):
    One of my top priorities next year is to have an energy policy that begins to address all facets of our overreliance on fossil fuels. We may end up having to do it in chunks, as opposed to some sort of comprehensive omnibus legislation. But we're going to stay on this because it is good for our economy, it's good for our national security, and, ultimately, it's good for our environment.

    Understand, though, that even in the absence of legislation, we took steps over the past two years that have made a significant difference.
    ...
    We instituted the first increase in fuel-efficiency standards in this country in 30 years. It used to be that California would have some very rigorous rule, and then other states would have much weaker ones. Now we've got one rule.

  • Chuitna and the Curse of Coal (Mudflats) [emphasis added]:
    I can tell right away that like most Anchorage residents, he has not heard of the massive development project just across the body of water that he sees every day. I've also now broached the subject of mining, which means that the "jobs vs. tree huggers" meme has just been introduced into this early morning conversation. Alaskans love pristine wilderness, but many also have an paradoxical aversion to "greenies," which are loosely defined as anyone who thinks they know what's best for other people at the expense of "progress." It's a reckless move on my part, but I'm too sleepy to overthink it, so I lay my cards on the table.
    ...
    But ten minutes later when I was standing on the coffee line waiting to pay for the eggs and a 16 oz. cup of the black stuff, I heard his voice again over my shoulder. He spoke slowly and deliberately. "I just wanted to say good luck again." He looked me right in the face. That one I could read. He'd thought about it, and in the wee hours of the morning on a Saturday in the grocery store, he decided that fish were more important than coal. One down - thousands more to go.
  • Nissan Stops Taking Reservations for LEAF, Reaches 20k Target 3 Months Ahead of Schedule (Treehugger)
  • The Vatican Goes Green: The Holy See has embarked on a new mission: the fight against climate change. (Mother Jones)
  • Illinois takes a hit over factory farms
    : State fails to crack down on water pollution at sites, federal EPA says (Chicago Tribune):

    Illinois is failing to crack down on water pollution from large confined-animal farms, the Obama administration announced Wednesday in a stinging rebuke that gave the state a month to figure out how to fix its troubled permitting and enforcement programs
  • How low, how low McCain you go: McCain has become a climate conspiracy theorist (Grist)
  • Lawmakers Make Move To Stop Genetically Modified Salmon Approval: US Senator, Mark Begich, along with ten other senators are spearheading a fight to stop the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) from approving the human consumption of genetically modified salmon (GM salmon). (Medical News Today)
  • One-fifth of world's plants at risk of extinction: One-fifth of the world's plants - the foundation of life on Earth - are at risk of extinction, a study concludes. (BBC)
  • How biochar production could help climate change fight (Climate Progress)
  • Exposed: Global Warming Deniers : If the world's top climatologists are all convinced that the burning of fossil fuels is causing dangerous global warming, why do the media keep giving equal time to deniers? No matter how strong the scientific consensus becomes, the campaign to discount climate change --- financed by the fossil-fuel industries and conservative foundations --- continues. (Huffington Post Green)
  • California raises Renewable Portfolio Standard to 33%: California regulators raised the state's renewable portfolio standard to 33 percent by 2020 in a unanimous vote yesterday that extends the mandate to public power and opens the door to more clean power imported from other states. (Energy & Environment News)
  • If youth can't stand the heat: Meet Generation Hot (Grist):

    In fact, every child on earth born after June 23, 1988 belongs to what I call Generation Hot. This generation includes some two billion young people, all of whom have grown up under global warming and are fated to spend the rest of their lives confronting its mounting impacts.

    For Generation Hot, the brutal summer of 2010 is not an anomaly; it's the new normal.

    One wouldn't know it from most media coverage, but the world's leading climate scientists have concluded that last summer's rash of extreme weather -- including record heat across much of Europe (especially Russia) and the United States -- was driven in no small part by man-made global warming.

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