With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen...
By Desi Doyen on 6/26/2012, 1:47pm PT  


TWITTER: @GreenNewsReport
VIA SMART PHONE: Stitcher Radio!

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Summer of Fire in the US; Summer of Floods in the UK; Fracking FAIL: Gasland's Josh Fox exposes new info on the dangers of natural gas fracking --- again; PLUS: Good news --- and bad news --- on rising sea levels in the US... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Listen online here, or Download MP3 (6 mins)...

Link:
Embed:

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): BREAKING: U.S. Appeals Court upholds EPA greenhouse gas emission rules; NREL: US could be 80% renewable by 2050; Midwestern drought intensifies; Louisiana school voucher students taught creationism; Canada: Harper Admin seeks to "authorize" water pollution; SCOTUS: Can EPA regulate mud from logging roads?; Will US join Law of the Sea Treaty? ... PLUS: The Battle Over Climate Science --- death threats, hate mail, nuisance lawsuits, political attacks. How much worse can it get? ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

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

  • BREAKING: U.S. Appeals Court Upholds EPA Greenhouse Gas Emission Rules (Climate Progress):
    The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit today unanimously ruled in favor of the Environmental Protection Agency’s (EPA) legal authority to limit industrial carbon pollution under the Clean Air Act to protect Americans’ health.
  • NREL: Renewable Electricity Futures Study Shows US Could Achieve 80% Renewable by 2050 (National Renewable Energy Labs):
    Midwestern Drought Intensifies: ‘I Don’t Remember Anytime It Was This Dry, This Early’ (Climate Progress):
    A mild snow-less winter, an unusually dry spring, and debilitating heat in May and June have created serious drought conditions in parts of Kansas, Missouri, Illinois, and Indiana, among other states.
  • Louisiana Voucher Students Taught Creationism, Climate Change Denial, and Bigotry: Building a separate subculture of ignorant religious fanatics (Little Green Footballs):
    Louisiana is embarking on a great fundamentalist adventure with Gov. Bobby Jindal’s wide-ranging school voucher program, which diverts state education funds to primarily religious private schools — many of whom will be teaching a curriculum designed by the most extreme and fanatical Protestant religious groups in America...
    "Students will be taught that humans and dinosaurs walked on earth together, and this instruction will be paid for with public funds."
  • CANADA: Harper Administration seeks new tools to "authorize" water pollution (Canada.com):
    Changes to Canada's environmental protection laws in the federal budget implementation bill will offer new tools to "authorize" water pollution, while allowing the government to outsource services to protect the country's waterways, says Fisheries and Oceans Minister Keith Ashfield.
  • SCOTUS: Can EPA regulate mud from logging roads? (AP):
  • United States debates joining Law of the Sea (Public Radio International) [emphasis added]:
    It’s been 30 years since the U.N. Law of the Sea was first established, and the United States still hasn’t ratified the treaty. The Law of the Sea defines a nation’s rights and responsibilities in, on and under the world’s oceans and has global implications for national security, commerce and the environment.
    ...
    According to Living on Earth’s Jeff Young, the main point made in those hearings, was that without being a party to the treaty, the U.S. lacks authority in disputes over who gets access to the ocean’s resources.
  • The Battle Over Climate Science: Climate scientists routinely face death threats, hate mail, nuisance lawsuits and political attacks. How much worse can it get? (Popular Science) [emphasis added]:
    How had a small band of non-scientists managed to so quickly and thoroughly pursuade the nation’s leaders to reject an ever more coherent and definitive body of scientific evidence?
    ...
    Bast says Heartland does not reject all of mainstream climate science. “Virtually everybody agrees,” he tells me, that “there has been warming in the second half of the 20th century [and] that there is probably a human role in that warming, that carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, and that the increase in atmospheric concentrations can be attributed to human activity.” The organization, he says, argues primarily for “cost-effective solutions” to climate change. As our meeting is wrapping up, Bast says genuinely, “Don’t call us deniers. Skeptics is fine. Moderates, realists. But not deniers.”

    But a few weeks later, Heartland would launch a new advertising campaign. As drivers crawled along Chicago’s busy Eisenhower Expressway, they were confronted with a large billboard that compared believers in global warming with Ted Kaczynski, the Unabomber. The text on the billboard read, “I still believe in global warming. Do you?”

  • Senate Move to Reverse Mercury Rule Fails (NYT Green)
  • The Great German Energy Experiment (MIT Technology Review):
    Germany has decided to pursue ambitious greenhouse-gas reductions—while closing down its nuclear plants. Can a heavily industrialized country power its economy with wind turbines and solar panels? [Yes.]
  • Global warming's evil twin threatens West Coast fishing grounds (CS Monitor):
    Within the next few decades, ocean acidification – an effect of global warming – could leave sea creatures along the West Coast unable to maintain their protective shells, according to a new study.
  • Essential Climate Science Findings:
  • Share article...