Follow and stream @GreenNewsReport!…



(Or use “Click here to listen…” link below.)

IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Government shutdown showdown, now starring FEMA in the role of ‘Hostage’!; GOP candidate Herman Cain bucks his party, says ‘fund FEMA now‘; More than 100 arrested in very polite Canadian pipeline protest; Celebrating the legacy of one woman in Africa; PLUS: Climate Science Rapid Response Team, ACTIVATE! … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

Green News Report with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen 9/27/2011

‘Green News Report’ – September 27, 2011  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...   · · · · ·   ‘Green News Report’ – September 27, 2011  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...

30s 30s

0:00 0:00

Download Episode Link to this page Embed on your site! Subscribe RSS/Podcast

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): Appalachian leaders turn tables at congressional mountaintop removal field hearing; BP oil spill affected Gulf fish cell function; Obama On Perry: ‘You’ve got a governor whose state is on fire, denying climate change’; Japanese rice radiation levels prompt more tests; ‘Unavoidable climate disruption’ locked in; Oil co’s flaring natural gas on the ND prairie; Labour Party threatens UK’s six biggest energy companies; DOE report: U.S. should focus on transportation fuels; Proof that fracking can make water flammable; New lithium ion battery charges faster, runs longer; BP will be messing up Australia next; China invests $313B on clean tech; U.S. military moving to clean energy; Moving Planet actions around the globe; Only 8 fish stocks out of 136 by 2022; Media fact-check on Solyndra bankruptcy; the American ‘allergy’ to global warming…PLUS: U.S. Engineers: We have all the tech we need to cut carbon …

STORIES DISCUSSED IN TODAY’S ‘GREEN NEWS REPORT’…

• It’s Earth Overshoot Day Today (Discovery News)
• Celebrating the Legacy of Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai:
• VIDEO: Wangari Maathai: Her activism saved forests, promoted peace (CS Monitor):
  Wangari Maathai, a 2004 Nobel peace prize winner, inspired a generation of Kenyan civic activists to challenge their leaders ““ both on the environment and on democratic reform.
• The Passing of Nobelist Wangari Maathai: “You Cannot Protect the Environment Unless You Empower People” (Climate Progress)
• VIDEO: Wangari Maathai on Democracy Now!
  Wangari Maathai: “I would like to say this: if the more than 4,000 scientists who have been working on this issue are wrong, this is one issue that we cannot experiment with. We cannot wait until the seas rise, the rivers dry up, and our people are dying and migrating and running away. We cannot wait to see more fires, such as we are seeing in California, erratic fires. We cannot wait to see the kind of floods that we see in Bangladesh, that we see in West Africa. We are already seeing islands that are literally drowning. So, let us not experiment with our lives and that of our children.”
• Climate Change Takes a Toll on Indigenous Cultures (NYT Green)
• Government Shutdown Showdown Redux: FEMA Funding Fight
• VIDEO: Herman Cain: Fund FEMA Now, Find Offsets LATER (Think Progress Green):
  The absurd idea that “Democrats picked a fight” on FEMA (Dave Weigel, Salon.com)
• Congress tries to avert a budget shutdown, again (Washington Post)
• Senate aide: FEMA has more money than thought (AP)
• CANADA: Arrests in Polite Keystone XL Pipeline Protest
• More than 100 arrested in Canada pipeline protest (AFP)
• VIDEO: Maude Barlow, Dave Coles, Fred Wilson, and others arrested, Sept. 26 Ottawa Tar Sands Action (Council of Canadian, YouTube)
• Oil pipeline opponents pin hopes on conservative Nebraska (CBS News)
• US state department floated two year delay of Keystone XL pipeline (Guardian UK) [emphasis added]:
  “The tar sands represent a path of broken treaties, eroded human rights, catastrophic climate change, poisoned air and water and the complete stripping of Canada’s morality in the international community,” said protester Clayton Thomas-Muller of the Indigenous Environmental Network.

  “Our communities should not be sacrificed on the altar of the US’s addiction to dirty fossil fuel.”

• Keystone pipeline hearing draws supporters, few critics (Reuters):
  Supporters outnumbered critics at a government-sponsored hearing on the proposed TransCanada Corp’s Keystone XL pipeline that would ship oil from Canada to the Texas Gulf Coast.
• Omaha, NE: Emotions high for pipeline hearing (Omaha World Herald):
  The head of the Canadian corporation that will build the Keystone XL pipeline on Tuesday blamed unreasonable fears, fomented by the news media, for the more intense opposition in Nebraska to the 1,700-mile-long project.
  …
  “The science is not with them,” [Jane Kleeb of Hastings, Neb., the head of BOLD Nebraska] said. “There is no scientific study that’s been done that shows how these chemicals will affect the Sand Hills. We don’t even know what chemicals they’re using.”
• Debate grows louder as Keystone XL decision draws nearer; Pipeline proposal a political football (Calgary Herald)
• Climate Scientist Rapid Response Team, ACTIVATE!:
• Scientists Want Publisher to Refreeze Greenland: Atlas Is Wrong on Greenland’s Glaciers (NYT Green):
  Climate scientists say a new edition of an influential atlas vastly overrepresents Greenland’s rate of glacial melt.
  …
  [The] best guess, after a foray into cartographic forensics, was that a mapmaker at the atlas had mistaken a center’s map of the ice’s thickness for one showing its extent.
  …
  On Thursday, [Sheena Barclay, the managing director of Collins Geo] said on a BBC radio news program that the Greenland map in the atlas would be reconfigured with the help of scientists, although she did not say the current one was wrong. She promised a new, “much more detailed map of Greenland that will represent more effectively the ice cover as it is.”

‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (Stuff we didn’t have time for in today’s audio report)…

• Appalachian Coalfield Leaders Turn Tables at Congressional Hearing on Mountaintop Removal (Jeff Biggers, Alternet):
  In gut-wrenching testimonies on the devastating economic costs and mounting humanitarian crisis related to reckless mountaintop removal operations, two courageous Appalachian coalfield leaders turned the tables on an EPA-bashing Republican-led Natural Resources House Committee hearing in Charleston, West Virginia today.
• Oil Spill Affected Gulf Fish’s Cell Function, Study Finds (NYT Green):
  Tests of the fish showed cellular changes like poorly regulated estrogen, potentially signaling an impact on reproduction. Other cellular changes could point to impaired biological performance and health, the study said.
• Obama On Perry: ‘You’ve Got A Governor Whose State Is On Fire, Denying Climate Change’ (Talking Points Memo)
• Japanese Rice’s Radiation Levels Prompt More Tests (NYT Green):
  Government officials ordered more tests after detecting elevated levels of radiation in rice crops near the crippled nuclear power plant at Fukushima.
• We’re Locked Into Unavoidable Climate Disruption — So, How Do We Begin to Adapt? (Grist)
• ND: Flames Light the Prairie and Warm the Planet (NYT Green) [emphasis added]:
  [T]he flaring of natural gas from pipes, pits and hundreds of oil wells in the Bakken shale field of North Dakota and Montana, …emits a couple of million tons of carbon dioxide annually. It’s a big waste and it contributes to global warming, as even oil executives concede.
  …
  Most oil and natural gas fields in the United States have fairly well developed gathering and processing facilities. But the Bakken is a new field that has exploded in development over the last five years, with 190 rigs now drilling 2,000 wells a year. Building out the infrastructure for gathering natural gas more quickly would substantially raise costs and slow development.
• UK: Labour warns big six energy companies their stranglehold will be broken (UK Guardian)
• U.S. Is Too Reliant on Oil for Transportation, Report Finds (NYT Green)
• Photo Proof: Fracking Can Make Water Flammable (Think Progress Green)
• U.S. Military Spearheads Drive for Clean Energy (Grist)
• A new lithium ion battery that charges faster, runs longer: Two national labs leading the charge (US Dept. of Energy)
• BP will be messing up Australia next: Building a new LNG facility off the coast of Oz (Grist)
• China to invest $313 billion to promote low-carbon technology in the next 5 years (Grist)
• ‘If nothing changes, only eight fish stocks out of 136 will be at sustainable levels by 2022’ (FIS News Service)
• SLIDESHOW: Moving Planet actions around the globe (Grist & 350.org):
  On Saturday, citizen activists in more than 175 countries called on world leaders to move beyond fossil fuels — and showed how much fun it can be to move without fossil fuels. Check out these photos from Moving Planet events, organized by 350.org.
• Solyndra Scandal Breakdown: Scandal-mongering is the REAL Scandal (Huffington Post Green):
  The Republican recipe is familiar: cherry-pick the facts and evidence; release just enough to the media without showing the whole picture; create a bubble of media coverage from conservative news outlets; use congressional hearings like the set of a TV show. It sure looks real, so it must be real, right? But the facts keep getting in the way.
• The American ‘allergy’ to global warming: Why? (AP) [emphasis added]:
  “The desire to disbelieve deepens as the scale of the threat grows,” concludes economist-ethicist Clive Hamilton.
  …
  The basic physics of anthropogenic – manmade – global warming has been clear for more than a century, since researchers proved that carbon dioxide traps heat. Others later showed CO2 was building up in the atmosphere from the burning of coal, oil and other fossil fuels. Weather stations then filled in the rest: Temperatures were rising.
  …
  “Eventually it’ll become damned clear that the Earth is warming…” [said retired Columbia University geoscientist Wally Broecker].”
• U.S. Engineers: We have all the tech we need to cut carbon (Grist):
  Apparently the world’s engineers are getting sick of being told that cutting emissions is an engineering problem. Eleven of the biggest engineering organizations have released a joint statement saying, in effect, “You want carbon cuts? We can give you carbon cuts. Just say the word, smart guy.”

  We already have all the tech necessary to cut emissions 85 percent by 2050, say the engineers. What we don’t have is support from governments — laws that prioritize carbon reduction, and funding to put the technology into action.