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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Just a flesh wound? UK smacked by extreme weather whiplash; Sec. Chu talks sexy, sexy energy efficiency; 'Agent Orange Corn'? Dow Chemical says 'Yes, please!'; PLUS: Slow-jamming the news? How about slow-walking climate change? .... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): ExxonMobil profits: $109M a day on America's pocketbook; Wind Tax Credit Stalls in Congress despite bipartisan support; U.S. mad cow find: lucky break or triumph of science?; Cheap, stable, printable liquid solar cells developed; Warm Spring May Mean Drought, Wildfires in West; Warm Ocean Currents Eroding Antarctic Ice Shelves; Coal's Future Is Rocky at Best; On Chernobyl's anniversary, Ukraine warns against nuclear power... PLUS: Donald Trump on 'Monstrous Wind' ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: BP Oil Disaster in the Gulf, 2 years on: Bizarre mutations in the Gulf ecosystem; First criminal charges finally filed; BP's billion-dollar settlement on hold; PLUS: Never mind Earth Day --- Mitt Romney wants to double down on coal.... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): Blight discovered on citrus tree in CA; CO2 Not all That Good for Plants; Senate Panel Unveils 2012 Farm Bill Overhaul; Fees and Anger Rise in CA Water War; Ban on Some Seafood Has Fishermen Fuming; EPA Battles Examined Through 'Documerica' Photos; 'Garbage' Chemical Threatens CA Valley Water; Mexico Reins in Oil Monopoly; Insurance Comapnies Face Increased Risks from Warming... PLUS: Top Donor Is Confident Romney Secretly Supports 'Climate-Change Controls' ... and much, MUCH more! ...

Guest blogged by Betsy Rosenberg, The Green Front

"Earth Week" has culminated in today's Earth Day, that brief period once a year when you might actually see an in-depth green story, series, or panel discussion about an environmental topic on TV, or hear a few on the radio. Newspapers and magazines can be counted on to do an eco-themed article in late April, but that’s about it.

Sadly, that’s about all the consistent coverage we’ve gotten from mainstream commercial media over the past 15 years. That’s how long I’ve been focused on this odd programming void. While that reality remains unchanged, ecologically and meteorologically speaking, there’s been a groundswell of dramatic events.

This year I caught NBC’s Today Show --- as part of their “Green Is Universal” week (if it were truly “universal” shouldn’t we see coverage more than once a year?) – doing the obligatory eco-friendly products display, featuring bamboo plates, doormats woven from used lobster twine and purses made from aluminum can tabs and candy wrappers. Nice and feel-good, but is this the most useful and deepest offering on a once-a-year occasion? We’ve come a long way since recycling was our biggest environmental concern, no?

Earth Day Lite, as I call it, is almost a Hallmark holiday – expressed on recycled content cards of course. It’s as predictable as the climate has become UNpredictable. With glaciers melting, sea levels rising and freak storms taking lives and livelihoods at a record rate, why have we not progressed in our coverage of the environment, our life support system, and the tenor of these topics, for the most part, remains unchanged?

Is it because Americans have short attention spans, low tolerance for disturbing news, are just too busy to bother, and programmers fear such content will be a turn-off? I suspect it’s a little of all the above.

The environmental threats facing our country and planet have deepened, grown exponentially in number and complexity --- which is what usually happens when problems are ignored --- and yet, media coverage has, as anemic as it was, actually decreased.

According to Media Matters of America, the major networks --- ABC, CBS, NBC and Fox --- significantly decreased their coverage of climate change between 2009 and 2011 while spending twice as much time discussing Donald Trump as they did our worsening climate. If they compared how often Kim Kardashian “made news” vs. climate change, she would also likely come out on top. Perhaps if we called it "Kim Kardashian’s Climate Change" more Americans would tune in?...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Obama calls for crackdown on Wall St. oil speculators --- cue rightwing freakout in 3..2..1..; Taxpayers save lives in latest tornado outbreaks; New rules for frackers; PLUS: Good news for millions who depend on water from the Himalayas.... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): Surprise! Extra CO2 not good for plants after all; Solar energy breakthrough mimics photosynthesis to generate electricity; Los Angeles hailed as 'model of sustainaiblity'?; Grow your own biofuel from a cement kiln; No damage to bird populations from wind farms; Restoring Louisiana coast a national priority; Military conflict over Arctic resources?; Internal docs show dangers from new TX radioactive waste dump ... PLUS: Titanic director James Cameron: "We can see that iceberg ahead of us right now, but we can't turn" ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: 'Better living through chemistry'? Obama's EPA approves Agent Orange herbicide, his FDA refuses to ban antibiotics in animal feed; Debunking the GOP: Gas prices were higher under Bush; Total Oil totally can't stop massive off-shore leak; PLUS: Even Lloyd's of London warns against Arctic drilling... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): GOP’s worst nightmare: Green Muslims; Ocean acidification from CO2 causing oyster die-offs; Worst. Farm bill. Ever.; NYT magical thinking on natural gas boom; Bringing back the American Chestnut; Activists succeed in cancelling proposed GA coal plant; TN passes anti-science, anti-evolution, anti-climate education law ... PLUS: Actually, not that many fish in the sea ... and much, MUCH more! ...

You've heard the Republican meme of the moment. Mitt Romney, the GOP front-runner and presumptive Presidential nominee recently told supporters that the price of gas has "doubled under this president."

Newt Gingrich released an ad last month charging: "Since Barack Obama’s inauguration, gas prices have doubled."

Their reliable allies at the fossil-fuel industry-funded astroturf trade group American Energy Alliance have a similar ad, declaring: "Since Obama became president, gas prices have nearly doubled." And, of course, reliable wingnut stooges like Katie Pavlich at the rightwing "news" site Townhall are all too happy to help spread the propaganda on all of their behalves with articles like the one she filed yesterday headlined "Gas Prices Officially Doubled Under Obama."

Of course, it's not actually all that true. Surprised? More accurately, it's an outright lie, since the folks who are pushing it know damned well how intentionally misleading it is. Worse, we've yet to see anyone in the corporate media bothering to correct it.

FACTS: According to the American Automobile Association (AAA), the average price for a regular gallon of gas today across the U.S. is $3.92.

The week that Obama took office in January of 2009, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration it was $1.83/gallon. But that was just after the price of oil had come crashing down on the global market thanks to the crash of the global economy which led to the Great Recession --- all under the leadership of George W. Bush.

Just months before President Obama took office, and before the crash, in July of 2008, during the Administration of failed former oil man George W. Bush, gas prices had hit their all-time record average high in the U.S. at $4.11/gallon.

Here's what the average price of gas actually looks like in the U.S. from April of 2004 through today, according to GasBuddy.com's data and our own clarity placed over the top [click to enlarge]...

So, yes, strictly speaking the price of a gallon of gas has roughly doubled since Obama took office. That, of course, is barely even half of the story, as you can see above...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Biden slams GOP attacks on American-made clean energy; Trying to save the disappearing Maldives from global warming; Obama's FDA says OK to BPA; Pesticides implicated in disappearance of the bees; PLUS: Fox 'News' debunks itself! ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): Nuclear industry dreams dashed by current economic reality; CA moves to promote energy efficiency building retrofits; Not good: USDA proposed radical overhaul of poultry slaughterhouse inspections; Interactive: how would a rise in sea-level affect US cities?; Radioactive iodine from Fukushima found in CA kelp... PLUS: Cool calculator: How much does using coal really cost? ... and much, MUCH more! ...

In today's New York Times, Jim Arkedis and Lindsay Mark Lewis of the Progressive Policy Institute (Lewis also previously worked for the DNC), warn that Super-PACS aren't just perverting the electoral system through millions in deceptive ads for or against the candidates they are secretly funded to support, but they may also pose an even more direct, more insidious threat to our democracy.

After acknowledging that even President Obama is now embracing the same shadowy-funded PACs he once claimed to eschew, as he refuses to "unilaterally disarm", there is a different between inclinations of left and right, in that one side generally works to increase voter turnout, while the other hopes to suppress it. The lack of accountability and the supposed "firewall" of separation between Super PACs and candidates creates a situation rife for the worst kind of dirty tricks and voter suppression in an atmosphere which is even more difficult to regulate than in the past (when such dirty tricks were already pretty easy to pull off without paying a price --- or, at least, without a price that could be paid before it was far too late).

Their warning is both compelling and ominous, particularly as we don't need to look very far into the recent past --- even here at The BRAD BLOG --- in order to find evidence in support of it...

Out of scores of journalists who work for the Gannett Wisconsin Media-owned Green Bay Press-Gazette, just seven were willing to offer their personal, non-business related support for a recall of Wisconsin's controversial Gov. Scott Walker. They are now being disciplined.

The rest, the vast majority of Press-Gazette employees, all cast a vote for their support of the Republican Walker's fitness to complete his term as governor by refusing to sign the petition for his recall.

How can we now trust them to report without bias on the Walker story they are tasked with covering in a neutral fashion?!

Despite the clear and unethical conflict of interest demonstrated by their support for Walker --- for which the Governor is almost certainly grateful --- those journalist are somehow still expected to cover the Democratic Party and union-supported political challenges against him and his administration in an impartial manner.

Clearly, that is impossible. At least according to an editorial published last night by Kevin Corrado, the president and publisher of the Green Bay Press-Gazette...

Guest editorial by Ernest A. Canning

Citizens United rejected a congressional legislative ban on corporate campaign contributions. It says nothing about the ability to tax such contributions...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: War with China? Trade war, that is; March heatwave kills spring, brings early summer for US; Keystone XL pipeline more bad than good for the economy and the environment; PLUS: TV weatherman singlehandedly overturns the laws of physics ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): Planet-saving, Nobel-winning ozone scientist passes; US, UK set to agree to emergency oil stocks release; Gulf Coast to get 80% of BP fines; Refiners Push EPA to scrap gas rule wanted by automakers; US solar grows to new record; 'Dark days' for coal; GOP 'playing politics' with wind credits; Water pollution from farming worsening ... PLUS: Will your city see record flooding in 2020? There's a map for that ... and much, MUCH more! ...

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IN TODAY'S RADIO REPORT: Obama fires back at GOP over rising gas prices; Incredible rightwing hypocrisy on pain at the pump; Newt's hypocrisy on algae biofuels (Thanks, videotape from 2008!); PLUS: Abandoning Kiribati: the world's first climate change refugees ... All that and more in today's Green News Report!

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): James Hansen: Why I must speak out about climate change (video); Iceland to turn CO2 into rock; Euro Car of the Year: Chevy Volt; Iowa outlaws undercover journalism; US pollution also Made in China; Spiders invading flood-stricken Australia; Alien species invading Antarctica; Carbon emissions threaten world's oceans ... PLUS: What if the Fukushima nuclear fallout crisis had happened in the US? ... and much, MUCH more! ...