'Green News Report' - February 17, 2022

'Green News Report' - February 17, 2022

With Brad Friedman & Desi Doyen... GNR's 13th ANNIVERSARY! By DESI DOYEN on 2/17/2022, 11:24am PT  

IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: U.S. sea levels to rise by at least a foot by 2050, causing profound flooding; Rio hit with deadly torrential rains, floods, and landslides; PLUS: Good news for breathers --- Biden to restore California's clean car standards... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

Click here to listen or download MP3 (6 mins)...

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): Corn-based ethanol may be worse for climate than gasoline; Nuclear fusion: why the race to harness the power of the Sun just sped up; Zinke broke ethics rules as Trump's Interior Secretary; Oil firms' climate claims are greenwashing, study concludes; Firefighters file multiple lawsuits over PFAS in gear, foam; Jordan tries to save rare red sea corals that can take climate change; CA will put solar panels over canals to fight two disasters at once... PLUS: Flourishing plants show warming Antarctica undergoing 'major change'... and much, MUCH more! ...

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

• Torrential rains trigger deadly, catastrophic flash floods and landslides:
  • VIDEO: At least 78 dead from mudslide in Rio de Janeiro (NBC News)
  • Mudslides, flooding kill at least 94 people in Brazil (The Week/MSN):

    At least 94 people have been killed in Petropolis, Brazil, after heavy rains caused mudslides that destroyed homes and washed away vehicles, local government officials said Wednesday.

• NOAA warns U.S. sea levels to rise by at least a foot by 2050:
  • 2022 Sea Level Rise Technical Report: Global and Regional Sea Level Rise
    Scenarios for the United States (NOAA)
  • Sea level to rise one foot along U.S. coastlines by 2050, government report finds (Washington Post):

    This amount of water battering the coasts “will create a profound increase in the frequency of coastal flooding, even in the absence of storms or heavy rainfall,” NOAA said. "We’re unfortunately headed for a flood regime shift," said William Sweet, an oceanographer at the NOAA National Ocean Service and the nation’s top scientist on sea level rise. "There will be water in the streets unless action is taken in more and more communities."

  • US Could See a Century's Worth of Sea Rise in Just 30 Years (AP)
  • U.S. sea levels to rise by a foot through 2050, causing "profound" flooding (Axios):

    The U.S. is poised to see as much of a rise in sea levels through the year 2050 as it has experienced in the past century, with additional increases through 2150, according to a comprehensive new federal report out Tuesday.

  • VIDEO: NOAA press conference --- U.S. coastline to see up to a foot of sea level rise by 2050 (NOAA)
  • VIDEO: Dr. Michael Mann on MSNBC Talking About New NOAA Sea Level Rise Report (YouTube)
  • VIDEO: Locked In: Sea Level Will Rise a Foot by 2050 (Climate Crocks)
• Biden White House unveils 'Buy Clean' initiative to decarbonize industrial sector:
  • The White House Is Going After One of Climate Change’s Thorniest Problems (The Atlantic):

    It requires building new factories. Lots of them...In order to bring new technologies to market, Washington is willing to act as an investor, matchmaker, and consumer for fledgling innovations. It will design markets to serve public needs, cut loans that banks won’t write, and ensure competition among linchpin firms. The government, in short, is ready to care about stuff again, the real-world economy of flesh and steel.

  • Biden Administration Promises to Buy ‘Clean’ Industrial Materials (NY Times):

    A new Buy Clean Task Force will be created to ensure federal agencies buy construction materials that are manufactured in a way that produces fewer emissions. The Energy Department will spend $9.5 billion to encourage the commercial-scale development of clean hydrogen, a zero-carbon alternative to natural gas that is currently expensive and complicated to produce. The White House on Tuesday will also issue new guidance on deploying technology that can capture pollution from sources like smokestacks or from the air and then permanently store it.

  • Biden and ‘Buy Clean’ task force will tap infrastructure funds to cut emissions from steel, aluminum and concrete (MarketWatch)
• Biden EPA restores CA authority to set more stringent tailpipe standards:

   

  • Biden will allow California to set climate limits on cars. The move could influence the rest of the country (Washington Post):

    "It’s worth recognizing that the only reason the feds are where they are on greenhouse gas emission standards for cars is because California went there first," said Cara Horowitz, co-executive director of the Emmett Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at the UCLA School of Law. "The importance of California’s authority shouldn’t be dismissed just because the feds have now caught up to California."

  • California Returns as Climate Leader, With Help From the White House (NY Times):

     

    The Biden administration is restoring the state’s power to set its own limits on tailpipe pollution and is largely adopting the state’s rules regarding heavy trucks.

  • Biden administration to reverse Trump-era California auto emissions rollback (Axios)
  • Biden administration is finalizing a waiver for California to set its own vehicle emissions standards (CNN):

    Environmental Protection Agency spokesperson Nick Conger confirmed the EPA's final decision on the waiver is expected soon. "We are working to finalize a decision on the California waiver and we expect to issue a decision in the near future," Conger told CNN.

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

For a comprehensive roundup of daily environmental news you can trust, see the Society of Environmental Journalists' Daily Headlines page

• Corn-Based Ethanol May Be Worse For the Climate Than Gasoline, a New Study Finds (Inside Climate News)
• Nuclear Fusion: Why the Race to Harness the Power of the Sun Just Sped Up (Inside Climate News)
• Zinke Broke Ethics Rules While Leading Trump’s Interior Dept.: Inspector General (Washington Post)
• Oil Firms' Climate Claims Are Greenwashing, Study Concludes (Guardian UK)
• Firefighters File Multiple Lawsuits Over PFAS in Gear, Foam (Bloomberg)
• World Spends $1.8T A Year On Subsidies That Harm Environment: Study (Guardian UK)
• Power Grid Upgrade Costs to Handle Extreme Weather Divide States (Bloomberg)
• Students From 5 Top Universities Sue To Compel Fossil-Fuel Divestment (Washington Post)
• Jordan Tries To Save Rare Red Sea Corals That Can Take Climate Change (Mongabay)
• CA Will Put Solar Panels Over Canals to Fight Two Disasters at Once (Earther)
• New Faces on FERC Could Help Speed a Clean Energy Transition (Inside Climate News)
• Flourishing Plants Show Warming Antarctica Undergoing 'Major Change' (Guardian UK)
• Never Believe a Bank’s Net-Zero Pledge (The New Republic)
• How Manchin used politics to protect his coal company (E&E News)
• Feeling Hopeless About the Climate? Try Our 30-Day Action Plan (The Revelator)
• Green Upheaval: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Foreign Affairs)
• VIDEO: 2050: what happens if we ignore the climate crisis (Guardian UK)
• Guilt, grief and anxiety as young people fear for climate's future (Reuters)
• 99.9 percent Of Scientists Agree Climate Emergency Caused By Humans (Guardian UK)
• An Empire of Dying Wells: Old oil and gas sites are a climate menace. Meet the company that owns more of America's decaying wells than any other. (Bloomberg)
• Climate Fund Choices for Investors Are Multiplying (Bloomberg/Yahoo)
• How climate change could undo 50 years of public health gains (Grist)
• Climate Change Will Force a New American Migration (Pro Publica)
• Exxon's Snake Oil: 100 years of deception (Columbia Journalism Review)
• What Does '12 Years to Act on Climate Change' (Now 9 Years) Really Mean? (Inside Climate News)
• VIDEO: A Message From the Future With Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (The Intercept)
• What genuine, no-bullshit ambition on climate change would look like: How to hit the most stringent targets, with no loopholes. (David Roberts, Vox)
• A Global Shift To Sustainability Would Save Us $26 Trillion (Vox)
• Project Drawdown: 100 Solutions to Reverse Global Warming (Drawdown.org)
• An Optimist's Guide to Solving Climate Change and Saving the World (Vice)
• The great nutrient collapse: The atmosphere is literally changing the food we eat, for the worse. And almost nobody is paying attention. (Politico)
• The world's bleak climate situation, in 3 charts: We've got a long way to go and a short time to get there. (Vox)
• The Climate Risks We Face (NY Times):

  To stabilize global temperature, net carbon dioxide emissions must be reduced to zero. The window of time is rapidly closing to reduce emissions and limit warming to no more than 3.6 degrees Fahrenheit or 2 degrees Celsius above preindustrial levels, the goal set in the Paris climate accord. The further we push the climate system beyond historical conditions, the greater the risks of potentially unforeseen and even catastrophic changes to the climate - so every reduction in emissions helps.

• The Uninhabitable Earth: When will climate change make earth too hot for humans? (New York Magazine):

  Famine, economic collapse, a sun that cooks us: What climate change could wreak - sooner than you think.

• A beginner's guide to the debate over 100% renewable energy (Vox):

  Clean-energy enthusiasts frequently claim that we can go bigger, that it's possible for the whole world to run on renewables - we merely lack the "political will." So, is it true? Do we know how get to an all-renewables system? Not yet. Not really.