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IN TODAY’S RADIO REPORT: Another big win for Big Oil in the U.S. Senate; Another offshore drilling leak threatens to become another major offshore disaster; Another warning about accelerating climate change from the U.N.; Another study explains why the Right hates science; PLUS: Poo Power! Icky turns to awesome with new energy innovation … All that and more in today’s Green News Report!

Green News Report with Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen 3/29/2012

‘Green News Report’ – March 29, 2012  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...   · · · · ·   ‘Green News Report’ – March 29, 2012  |  With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...

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IN ‘GREEN NEWS EXTRA’ (see links below): Interior Dept. Approves Shell Arctic Spill Response Plan; 3-D Designs More Than Double the Solar Power Generated; Scientists Map Red Tide Algae; Churches Step Up Environmental Activism; Damaged Japan Reactor Has High Radiation, No Water; CA’s San Onofre nuke plant to remain shut down; New EPA regs deliver major benefits: study … PLUS: Daily Mail = FAIL: Scientist Sets Record Straight on Medieval Warming Research … and much, MUCH more! …

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

• Conservative Belief in Science Plummeting Since 1974: Study:
• Conservatives’ Trust in Science Has Declines Sharply: (LA Times):
  As the Republican presidential race has shown, the conservatives who dominate the primaries are deeply skeptical of science – making Newt Gingrich, for one, regret he ever settled onto a couch with Nancy Pelosi to chat about global warming. A study released Thursday in the American Sociological Review concludes that trust in science among conservatives and frequent churchgoers has declined precipitously since 1974, when a national survey first asked people how much confidence they had in the scientific community. At that time, conservatives had the highest level of trust in scientists.
• Another Big Win for Big Oil in the US Senate:
• Obama renews call to cut ‘big oil’ subsidies (CNN)
• Senate Republicans reject Obama call to end ‘big oil’ tax breaks (CNN)
• With 51-47 Vote, Senate Republicans Protect Big Oil Subsidies As Gasoline Profits Soar (Think Progress Green)
• VIDEO: Sen. Rand Paul: When Big Oil Screws Americans At The Gas Pump, ‘You Should Want To Encourage Them’ (Think Progress Green):
  “We as a society need to glorify those who make a profit,” Paul concluded.
• Senate GOP Try To Shift Blame From Big Oil For Rising Gas Prices With Blatant Falsehoods (Think Progress Green)
• Oil Industry Launches Ad Campaign Against Senate Bill Repealing Tax Breaks (The HIll’s E2 Wire)
• Exxon Mobil’s Tax Rate Drops To 13 Percent, After Making 35 Percent More Profits On Rising Gas Prices In 2011 (Think Progress Green)
• AP Fact Check: In 36 Years Of Data, Not A Shred Of Evidence That Drilling Reduces Gas Prices (Think Progress Green)
• Offshore Drilling Gas Leak Threatens to Become Another Offshore Disaster:
• Flare Still Burning on North Sea Gas Leak Platform: (Guardian UK):
  Total says wind is blowing gas away from flare on Elgin platform – but there is a high risk of explosion if two come into contact.
• Total: May Be Months To Stop North Sea Gas Cloud (Reuters)
• Exclusion Zone Around North Sea Platform After Gas Leak (AFP)
• UK Drilling Platforms Evacuated: Exclusion zone around North Sea platform after gas leak (AFP):
  Gas leaking from a North Sea platform forced the evacuation of a second rig on Tuesday, as coastguards banned ships and aircraft from travelling within miles of the accident.
  …
  A cloud of gas has reportedly surrounded the platform, while Total confirmed there was a six-mile-long sheen on the water nearby.
  …
  “It’s the biggest problem we’ve had for ten years in the North Sea,” a Total spokesman told AFP.
• Another Warning About Accelerating Climate Change: UN:
  
• Plan Now For Climate-Related Disasters: UN Report: (Reuters):
  A future on Earth of more extreme weather and rising seas will require better planning for natural disasters to save lives and limit deepening economic losses, the United Nations said on Wednesday in a major report on the effects of climate change. The U.N. climate panel said all nations will be vulnerable to the expected increase in heat waves, more intense rains and floods and a probable rise in the intensity of droughts.

• Climate Change Panel Warns of Severe Storms, Heatwaves And Floods (AP)
• ‘Strong’ Links of Manmade Heat, Rainfall Extremes: Study (Climate Central)
• Wires, Wash. Post, a Few More: New Reports Back, and Muscle-Up, Idea That Global Warming Also Means More Weather Whipsaw (Knight Science Journalism Tracker)
• Global warming close to becoming irreversible-scientists (Reuters) [emphasis added]:
  The world is close to reaching tipping points that will make it irreversibly hotter, making this decade critical in efforts to contain global warming, scientists warned on Monday.
  …
  As emissions grow, scientists say the world is close to reaching thresholds beyond which the effects on the global climate will be irreversible, such as the melting of polar ice sheets and loss of rainforests.
• ‘Compost bomb’ is latest climate change ‘tipping point’ (Telegraph UK)
• Not a Drop to Drink (OnEarthMag)
• VIDEO: How Las Vegas is drying up (Guardian UK)
• Water Works: Rebuilding Infrastructure, Creating Jobs, Greening the Environment: Want to create 1.9 million American jobs and add $265 billion to the economy? Upgrade our water infrastructure. (Green For All)
• POO POWER! Turning Icky Into Energy & Clean Water:
• New Microbial Fuel Cell Converts Raw Sewage into Electricity (Yale 360):
  U.S. scientists have developed a fuel cell capable of converting 13 percent of the energy found in sewage into electricity, a process that its developers say could also more efficiently treat municipal wastewater.

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

• Interior Dept. Approves Shell Arctic Spill Response Plan: (AP):
  Federal offshore drilling regulators on Wednesday approved Shell Oil’s spill response plan for exploratory drilling in the Beaufort Sea, drawing strong criticism from environmental groups that claim oil companies cannot clean up oil in ice-choked waters.
• Scientists Map Red Tide Algae to Prevent Shellfish Poisoning: (NPR):
  Public health officials have their hands full keeping your clam chowder and raw oysters safe. That’s due, in part, to red tides. Red tides happen nearly every year as coastal waters warm, killing fish and poisoning shellfish along U.S. coasts. They’re not actually tides; they’re huge blooms of naturally occurring toxic algae.
• Churches Step Up Environmental Activism: (Washington Times):
  With a Bible in one hand and a protest sign in the other, many religious activists are now moving in lockstep with the environmental movement in the fight against oil and gas drilling.
• Solar Energy: Innovative 3-D Designs More Than Double the Solar Power Generated Per Area (Science Daily):
  [A] team of MIT researchers has come up with a very different approach: building cubes or towers that extend the solar cells upward in three-dimensional configurations. Amazingly, the results from the structures they’ve tested show power output ranging from double to more than 20 times that of fixed flat panels with the same base area.

  The biggest boosts in power were seen in the situations where improvements are most needed: in locations far from the equator, in winter months and on cloudier days. The new findings, based on both computer modeling and outdoor testing of real modules, have been published in the journal Energy and Environmental Science.

• Damaged Japan Reactor Has High Radiation, No Water, Stability Doubts (Washington Post):
  One of Japan’s crippled nuclear reactors still has fatally high radiation levels and hardly any water to cool it, according to an internal examination Tuesday that renews doubts about the plant’s stability.
• San Onofre Nuclear Power Plant Prohibited From Restarting (LA Times):
  The Nuclear Regulatory Commission lays out steps that Southern California Edison must take before the troubled San Onofre plant will be allowed to come back on line.
• The top five things you need to know about EPA’s new carbon rule (David Roberts, Grist)
• Report to Congress confirms large benefits, modest costs of new EPA rules (Economic Policy Institute) [emphasis added]:
  The Office of Management and Budget just posted a draft of its annual report to Congress on the benefits and costs of federal regulations.
  …
  [For the “Obama EPA rules”) the results are strikingly positive:
  …
  The net benefits from these rules is $90 billion a year. The ratio between benefits and costs is 12-to-1.
• Congressman’s Complaint Puts Tim DeChristopher Into Isolated Confinement (Think Progress Green)
Imprisoned climate activist Tim DeChristopher has been placed into confined quarters, because “an unidentified congressman had called from Washington DC, complaining of an email that Tim had sent,” according to Peaceful Uprising.
• The Daily Mail = Major Fail ““ Scientist Sets Record Straight on Medieval Warming Research (Climate Crock of the Week)
• The $22 Trillion Carbon Bubble (Think Progress Green) [links, emphasis in original]:
  The global economy is riding on a financial bubble that dwarfs the subprime crisis – a $22 trillion carbon bubble. On our present pathway, humanity is expected to burn through proven fossil fuel reserves by 2050, making global warming greater than 5°C (9°F) likely and civilizationally catastrophic effects irreversible. To have an 80 percent chance of keeping warming below 2°C, 80 percent of proven reserves [pdf] need to stay unburned. The present estimated value of these civilization-threatening reserves is approximately $22 trillion. [click through for graphic].
• Damage to oceans could cost $2tr by 2100 (Business Green)
  Damage to natural services provided by oceans could cost the world $2tr a year by the end of the century if steps to curtail climate change are not taken, a study by the respected Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI) said today.
• Global Sea Level Likely to Rise as Much as 70 Feet for Future Generations (Science Daily):
  Even if humankind manages to limit global warming to 2 degrees C (3.6 degrees F), as the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recommends, future generations will have to deal with sea levels 12 to 22 meters (40 to 70 feet) higher than at present, according to research published in the journal Geology.
• O.E.C.D. Warns of Ever-Higher Greenhouse Gas Emissions (NY Times):
  Because of such dependence on fossil fuels, carbon dioxide emissions from energy use are expected to grow by 70 percent, the O.E.C.D. said, which will help drive up the global average temperature by 3 to 6 degrees Celsius by 2100 – exceeding the warming limit of within 2 degrees agreed to by international bodies.
• VIDEO: James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change (TED Talks):
  Top climate scientist James Hansen tells the story of his involvement in the science of and debate over global climate change. In doing so he outlines the overwhelming evidence that change is happening and why that makes him deeply worried about the future.

• Skeptical Science: Get the FULL DEBUNKING of ALL Climate Science Denier Arguments
• VIDEO ANIMATION: Time history of atmospheric CO2 (NOAA Carbon Tracker YouTube channel):
• VIDEO: Animation Charts Modern Global Warming (NYT Green)
• Must-Read: Economist William Nordhaus Slams Global Warming Deniers, Explains Cost of Delay is $4 Trillion (Climate Progress):
  Nordhaus’s blunt piece – “Why the Global Warming Skeptics Are Wrong” – is worth reading because he is no climate hawk.
  …
  “The skeptics’ summary is based on poor analysis and on an incorrect reading of the results.”
• Part 1: The brutal logic of climate change (David Roberts, Grist) [emphasis added]:
  It’s simple: If there is to be any hope of avoiding civilization-threatening climate disruption, the U.S. and other nations must act immediately and aggressively on an unprecedented scale. That means moving to emergency footing. War footing. “Hitler is on the march and our survival is at stake” footing. That simply won’t be possible unless a critical mass of people are on board. It’s not the kind of thing you can sneak in incrementally.

  It is unpleasant to talk like this. People don’t want to hear it.

• Part 2: The brutal logic of climate change mitigation (David Roberts, Grist)
• How to Buy Time in the Fight against Climate Change: Mobilize to Stop Soot and Methane: A short list of relatively simple actions taken to reduce greenhouse gases other than CO2 could help put the brakes on global warming–if implemented globally (Scientific American)
• Climate Scientists Rebuke Rupert Murdoch: WSJ Denier Op-Ed Like ‘Dentists Practicing Cardiology’ (Think Progress Green)
• Saudi Oil Minister Calls Global Warming “Humanity’s Most Pressing Concern” (Climate Progress):
  “We know that pumping oil out of the ground does not create many jobs. It does not foster an entrepreneurial spirit, nor does it sharpen critical faculties.”
• VIDEO: Behold: The World’s First 24/7 Solar Plant is Up and Running (Treehugger)
• World headed for irreversible climate change in five years, IEA warns: If fossil fuel infrastructure is not rapidly changed, the world will ‘lose for ever’ the chance to avoid dangerous climate change (Guardian UK) [emphasis added]:
  The world is likely to build so many fossil-fuelled power stations, energy-guzzling factories and inefficient buildings in the next five years that it will become impossible to hold global warming to safe levels, and the last chance of combating dangerous climate change will be “lost for ever”, according to the most thorough analysis yet of world energy infrastructure.
  …
  “The door is closing,” Fatih Birol, chief economist at the International Energy Agency, said. “I am very worried – if we don’t change direction now on how we use energy, we will end up beyond what scientists tell us is the minimum [for safety]. The door will be closed forever.”
• Concise Overview: The IPCC report on extreme climate and weather events (Real Climate)
• READ the IPCC Report: Managing the Risks of Extreme Events and Disasters to Advance Climate Change Adaptation (UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change)
• The Real Global Warming Signal (Tamino)
• No, global warming hasn’t stopped (New Scientist)
• Top UN Climate Official Blasts U.S. Climate Policy: Americans Must Realize “This Is Their Future They’re Compromising” (Think Progress Green)
• VIDEO: Climate Scientists Michael Mann on “A Look Into Our Climate: Past To Present To Future” (TEDx, YouTube)
• Earth’s Plant Growth Fell Because of Climate Change, Study Finds (NYT Green)
• Heads in the Sand: Warning: “Climate change is occurring … and poses significant risks to humans and the environment,” reports the National Academy of Sciences. As climate-change science moves in one direction, Republicans in Congress are moving in another. Why?
  (National Journal) [emphasis added]:
  Tim Phillips, president of Americans for Prosperity, says there’s no question that the influence of his group and others like it has been instrumental in the rise of Republican candidates who question or deny climate science. “If you look at where the situation was three years ago and where it is today, there’s been a dramatic turnaround. Most of these candidates have figured out that the science has become political,” he said.
  …
  Groups like Americans for Prosperity have done it.“