EPA Proposes First-Ever PFAS Limits: The rule would cover six types of per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), also known as “forever chemicals,” and is one of the biggest steps taken toward improving drinking water in 30 years. PFAS are a group of industrial chemicals used since the 1950s in a variety of industrial and consumer products because of their ability to resist liquids. Think non-stick pans, rain jackets, and even pizza boxes. EPA has found that the two most-studied chemicals in the class, PFOA and PFOS, lead to cancer and some form of PFAS are found in nearly every American’s blood. The agency estimates the final rule would save tens of thousands of lives and significantly reduce the rate of serious disease. Water utilities will have to invest heavily on ways to filter out the tiny chemicals from customers' potable water, and a number of the impacted utilities are suing major PFAS manufacturer 3M, in an effort to get 3M to pay for the cost of the water remediation. Advocates like Robert Bilott, who won a lawsuit against DuPont for poisoning communities in West Virginia, celebrated the proposed rule, telling Grist that “it has taken far too long to get to this point, but the scientific facts and truth about the health threat posed by these man-made poisons have finally prevailed over the decades of corporate cover-ups and misinformation campaigns designed to mislead the public and delay action.”(Grist, Axios, AP, Politico $, New York Times $, The Hill, Washington Examiner, Explainer: Politico Pro $)

Biden Sued Over Willow Approval: Biden’s approval of a huge oil development in northern Alaska caused an uproar among environmentalists, who filed a legal challenge against the decision in the U.S. District Court for the District of Alaska. “Interior attempted to put a shiny gloss over a structurally unsound decision that will, without question, result in a massive fossil fuel project that will reduce access to food and cultural practices for local communities,” Bridget Psarianos, lead attorney for Trustees for Alaska, said in a statement. “This new decision allows ConocoPhillips to pump out massive amounts of greenhouse gasses that drive continued climate devastation in the Arctic and world. The laws broken on the way to these permits demonstrate the government’s disregard for those who would be most directly harmed by industrial pollution and ignores Alaska’s and the world’s climate reality.” The Willow oil project is estimated to produce about 600 million barrels of oil over 30 years, generating the climate pollution equivalent of what roughly 66 new coal-fired power plants emit each year, and has galvanized an uprising of online activism against it, including more than one million letters written to the White House in protest. The International Energy Agency has warned that any new drilling investments must be stopped for the U.S. to achieve its 2050 goal of net-zero emissions. (Reuters, CNN, Axios, Politico $, E&E $, Vox, New Yorker, Online Activism: CNN)

SVB Default Could Hurt Renewables: The collapse of Silicon Valley Bank (SVB) is generating questions about the viability of the clean energy companies it financed, as the bank had long been a favorite of renewable startups because of its understanding of the clean tech marketplace and clean tech-focused financing tools. The bank had self-purportedly funded 62 percent of U.S. community-solar projects as of a year ago, and several major companies are still looking to find new lines of credit in wake of the bank's failure. Many companies have remained unscathed though, saying that they had either little exposure to SVB or were reassured by the federal government’s promises to make them whole. The Federal Reserve is funding other banks to avoid a series of bank failures, and President Biden sought to comfort investors saying in a statement that “small businesses across the country that deposit accounts in these banks can breathe easier knowing they can pay their workers and pay their bills. And their hard working employees can breathe easier as well.” However, CEO Kiran Bhatraju of Arcadia – the largest domestic producer of community solar – told Utility Dive the bank’s collapse will “have an impact on the broader industry.” (Politico $, CBS News, ABC News, Canary Media, Utility Dive, Washington Post $, Bloomberg $) 

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Chicago neighborhood groups sue US Army Corps of Engineers over expansion of a polluted dump (Grist), ComEd offers $120M for equity programs as part of Chicago electricity deal (Energy News Network), Wisconsin tribal leader calls for action on public health (AP), Where child cancer rose, some want polluted land left empty (AP)

9:37 🚂 TO THE PETROCHEMICAL DYSTOPIA: Conflicts of interest could undermine the cleanup efforts in East Palestine (TIME, David Michaels), Ohio sues Norfolk Southern over toxic East Palestine train derailment (Gizmodo), Ohio attorney general sues Norfolk Southern over train wreck (E&E $), Ohio sues Norfolk Southern over toxic train derailment (AP), What’s next in Ohio corruption probe after guilty verdicts? (AP), Ohio sues Norfolk Southern over East Palestine train derailment (Axios), Ohio sues Norfolk Southern over East Palestine derailment (Washington Examiner)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden says generation ‘damned’ if we don’t fix climate change, also approves Willow oil drilling project (Rolling Stone), White House: Conservative Freedom Caucus proposal would kill jobs, undo clean energy investments (The Hill)

HOUSE: Republicans introduce major energy package with party’s top priorities (The Hill)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Mafalda Duarte named as next chief of UN climate fund (Climate Home)

CITIES AND STATES: Judge tosses New York, New Jersey residents' challenge to offshore wind development (Reuters), Judge nixes New Jersey anti-offshore wind lawsuit (E&E $), Texas lawmakers have a new scheme to punish renewables and prop up fossil fuels (Gizmodo), Nevada utility seeks OK to spend $373M on ‘resilience’ plan (AP), Maryland governor unveils plan to phase out new gas-powered cars (The Hill), Abrams joining electrification nonprofit as senior counsel (The Hill), Nevada approves first new gas plant in a decade (E&E $), Three states with climate legislation to watch (Washington Post $)

FERC: FERC picks environmental attorney for top EJ role (E&E $)

IMPACTS: Marine heatwaves are sweeping the seafloor around North America (Reuters), Extreme floods and droughts worsening with climate change, study finds (CBS), Scientists say climate change goosed New Zealand storm fury (AP), Why rain on snow in the California mountains worries scientists – and is likely to get worse with climate change (The Conversation), February 2023 was Earth’s 4th-warmest February on record (Yale Climate Connections), Climate change is causing malaria to resurface in countries like Greece, summit hears (The National)

COASTAL STORMS: Soggy California drenched anew as Nor'easter buries New England, New York (Reuters), Coastal storm slamming Northeast as some areas surpass 30 inches of snow (Washington Post $), Northeast winter storm knocks out power, closes schools (AP), New atmospheric river brings rain, wind to soggy California (AP), Latest atmospheric river brings "catastrophic" flood risk to California (Axios), Snow, rain and flooding pummel US on both coasts (CNN)

FREDDY: Hundreds dead as Cyclone Freddy wrecks Malawi, Mozambique (AP), Malawi death toll from Cyclone Freddy rises to 190 (CNN)

AIR QUALITY: Only 13 countries and territories had ‘healthy’ air quality in 2022 (CNN)

(HUMAN) WASTE: Rising seas could cause septic system failures in Beaufort County, South Carolina (Yale Climate Connections) 

RENEWABLES: Congress braces for flare-up over Biden's solar panel move (Axios), Floating solar panels could completely power thousands of cities (The Verge)

OIL & GAS: Lawmakers fear spill on Keystone system in southern Kansas (AP), Wave of new LNG export plants threatens to knock gas prices (Reuters), Lower gas prices to drive 35%-45% ‘plunge’ in 2023 peak power prices across most of US: Moody’s (Utility Dive), Big oil gets its mojo back (New York Times $), Oil sinks to three-month low in end-of-day stampede to exits (Bloomberg $), BP economist warns against too much focus on decarbonization (Bloomberg $), LNG must stay cheap to keep its new fans (Bloomberg $)

COAL: Chinese coal boom a ‘direct threat’ to 1.5C goal, analysts warn (Climate Home), West Virginia Gov. Jim Justice puts family coal business up for sale (Wall Street Journal $) 

NUKES: The US is on the cusp of a new nuclear energy milestone — and debate (HuffPost)

UTILITIES: Confidential PJM meetings hinder state energy policy, oversight: West Virginia PSC, Maryland lawmaker (Utility Dive)

GRID: Winter power grid troubles put scrutiny on natural gas reliability (Politico Pro $)

EVs: Manchin, Republican bill target Ford battery deal (E&E $), DOT opens $700M grant program for EV chargers, alternative fuels (Politico Pro $)

ACTIVISM: 12 books and a report show that empowering women is climate action (Yale Climate Connections), How Indigenous people are restoring Brazil’s Atlantic forest (Yale Environment 360), Anti-ESG group launches mobile billboard campaign in DC ahead of expected Biden veto (The Hill), Meet the 24-year-old climate activist on Time’s list of Women of the Year (ABC News), Why people are quitting jobs to help tackle the climate crisis (Venture Beat)

AVIATION: Meet BETA Technologies' "eCTOL," the new thing in electric planes (Axios), The hidden danger of climate change on air travel: A more turbulent future (Phys.org)

DATA: How to use free satellite data to monitor natural disasters and environmental changes (The Conversation)

SHIPPING: Why the global shipping industry can’t clean up its act (Bloomberg $)

FINANCE: Credit Suisse sets more 2030 targets for emissions tied to loans (Reuters), BlackRock-managed fund buys stake in Kenyan wind farm (Reuters), Bank's implosion puts climate tech companies on edge (E&E $), SEC’s climate reporting draft rule draws huge public comment (AP), ING to cut financing of oil, gas trading in milestone move (Bloomberg $), BlackRock eyes deal to buy into biggest Africa wind power farm in Kenya (Bloomberg $)

WILDLIFE: Hungry moose thought to be possible factor in climate change (Washington Post $), Climate change threatens spring wildflowers by speeding up the time when trees leaf out above them (The Conversation)

INTERNATIONAL: EU power rejig may only solve tomorrow’s problem (Reuters), EU to revamp power market, aiming to blunt price spikes (Reuters), EU seeks to reduce energy costs in bid for competitiveness (Bloomberg $), Goldman sees China nearly tripling its target for wind and solar (Bloomberg $), Taiwan shuts down another nuclear plant, threatening blackouts and more emissions (HuffPost)

• The government is this close to reining in some of the worst air pollution (New York Times, Dona Upson $)
• Alaska’s Willow arctic drilling project is a climate turning-point. Biden must say no (The Guardian, Kim Heacox)
• Silicon Valley bank’s fall is a passing cloud over clean energy (Wall Street Journal, Jinjoo Lee $)
• Coal’s false comeback flashes a warning signal on climate (Bloomberg, Lara Williams $)
• Pragmatism leaves no room for fossil fuels (The Hill, William S. Becker)
• No one should be happy about these bank ‘bailouts’ (Washington Post, Editorial Board $)
• What happened in Pajaro isn’t just a ‘natural’ disaster (LA Times, Michael Mendéz And Manuel Pastor $)
• Biden just betrayed the planet – and his own campaign vows (The Guardian, Rebecca Solnit)
• How to meet the climate crisis? Redefine ‘abundance.’ (Washington Post, Rebecca Solnit)
• Democracy alone cannot fight climate change (Gulf News, Ashok Swain)

Daily Sceptic's CO2 Saturation Argument Is Just As False Now As It Was In 1900

There's an old saying that says you shouldn't be so open-minded that your brain falls out. Sure, be open to new things, but not without a healthy dose of skepticism. For some reason, though, people who define their identity as skeptics often show themselves to be gullible enough to fall for any old lie that reinforces their supposed skepticism (which is why this isn't the “Climate Skeptic Roundup”).

For example, Environment Editor Chris Morrison of the UK-based and oft-fact-checked COVID and climate disinfo site The Daily Sceptic resurrected the false CO2 saturation argument last week in an attempt to argue that “Net Zero is Completely Pointless.”

The bogus claim goes something like this: if we keep pumping out CO2, everything will be totally fine because the atmosphere will eventually reach a “saturation point,” after which additional CO2 will not have any warming effect. Unfortunately for the fossil fuel industry and The Daily Sceptic, this argument is false on multiple (atmospheric) levels, and has been for 123 years. It's based on a flawed study that Swedish physicist Knut Ångström conducted all the way back in 1900.

What’s really going on is that higher concentrations of greenhouse gasses (GHGs) impede the flow of infrared radiation into space. GHGs like CO2 absorb infrared radiation as heat. Normally, that heat rises into space at the top of the Earth’s atmosphere, where there are less GHGs and the air is thinner. However, as we burn fossil fuels and emit more climate pollution, these gasses spread to the upper levels of the atmosphere, and the flow of infrared radiation to space has to occur at a much higher altitude, where it is colder and heat doesn’t escape as effectively. As a result, more heat is recycled back down, raising temperatures in the lower atmosphere and on the Earth’s surface.

The CO2 saturation argument fails to differentiate between the lower and upper levels of the atmosphere. As DeSmog's debunking put it almost fifteen years ago, “Since the higher layers are the ones that determine whether or not… excess energy leaves the atmosphere (and, thus, how much extra warming occurs), whether or not the surface levels are saturated – and, just to be clear, they’re not – makes little difference.”

Chris Morrison himself admits that the CO2 saturation argument “has been ignored in the important science journals and its findings have not been reported in mainstream media,” and he asks, “Why is this?” Well, the argument is being ignored because it’s wrong. It’s really as simple as that!

And if Morrison were actually a skeptical journalist, he would have done the research and found that out for himself. After all, his sources are not exactly credible. The two academics he cites to back up his CO2 saturation claims are William Happer and William van Wijngaarden, who are both part of a well-known climate disinformation group called the CO2 Coalition that is backed by some of the top funders of climate denial. William Happer in particular has directly received fossil fuel funding, so he’s probably not the person you want to go to for unbiased information about fossil fuel pollution.

Just in case the CO2 saturation lies didn’t work, Morrison also added some thinly-veiled antisemitic conspiracy theories for good measure, calling net zero targets “a political project now embedded in many countries around the world and supported by an almost unlimited transfer of wealth to many controlling and financially-interested elites.”

Sowing doubt about climate science using biased, fossil-funded scientists and spreading hateful conspiracy theories is standard practice for dedicated disinformation sites like The Daily Sceptic, which was founded in response to COVID but is already so lacking in fresh material that it had to resort to century-old lies.

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