TV News LIES

Marijuana growing is not a green industry.

Done mostly indoors in, pot production often uses hospital-intensity lamps, air conditioning, dehumidifiers, fans and carbon-dioxide generators to stimulate plants and boost their potency.

The power-hungry crops rival data centers or server farms in intense use of electricity, according to a peer-reviewed study last year in the journal Energy Policy. One kilo, or 2.2 pounds, of pot grown indoors, the study says, leaves a carbon footprint equivalent to driving across the country seven times. Producing one joint is equivalent to leaving a light bulb on for 25 hours.

Today, Laura Legere of the Times Tribune has published the first in an important two-part series on water contamination from Marcellus Shale drilling in Pennsylvania.  The series is based on data the Times had to go to court to wrestle from the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, starting in 2011.

PA DEP repeatedly argued in court that it doesn’t doesn’t keep gas drilling-related water contamination records in an organized way, and should not be required to provide this vital information to the public. Due to DEP’s record-keeping problems, Legere points out, “there is no way to assess the completeness of the released documents.”

As rural deposits of fossil fuel grow fewer and farther between, extractive industries are increasingly siting their operations over the next best location: suburban neighborhoods.

According to the U.S. Energy Information Agency, the Marcellus shale formation beneath parts of the Midwest and Appalachia contains literally trillions of cubic feet of natural gas—the most accessible of which often lies beneath residential neighborhoods.

Conservative states, business groups, fossil fuel companies, and politicians who deny the science of climate change are petitioning the Supreme Court to reverse Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations on greenhouse gases and to weaken the Clean Air Act. This would involve the Court either limiting or reversing its own 2007 decision, Massachusetts v. EPA, which found that the EPA is required to regulate carbon pollution as pollution.

Reuters reported that the Court’s decision of whether or not to take up the petitioners’ case will have a significant impact on future efforts to reduce carbon emissions. The appeals to the Supreme Court follow the DC Circuit Court of Appeals’ refusal to reconsider the matter. The Court is expected to decide whether to hear the petitions in October.

The Obama administration on Thursday unveiled a new proposal for regulating hydraulic fracturing on federal lands, rolling back some measures from its original, abandoned draft as it sought to ease concerns the rules would be too burdensome for producers.

The U.S. Interior Department scrapped a proposal from 2012 after drawing heat from green groups and the drilling industry over rules aimed at updating decades-old fracking regulations.

At a public forum last night, leading voices in politics, public health, the environment and workers’ rights analyzed the threat to New York City residents from increased radon levels that would be found in natural gas from new regional sources being promoted by Mayor Bloomberg. Radon, a dangerous substance found in natural gas that most New Yorkers cook with, is the leading cause of lung cancer in non-smokers.

At the forum, Assemblymember Linda Rosenthal presented legislation sponsored by she and State Senator Diane Savino that would protect the public from the risks of radon in natural gas.