LITIGATION: Greens tell Dutch court to push Shell on climate (E&E $)
READ THE DENIER ROUNDUP FOR MORE: EPA joins conservative social network Parler (The Hill), Wheeler, EPA join Parler (E&E $)
OBVIOUSLY: Corporate boards with women are more innovative on climate (Axios)
LOCAL RESILIENCE: Planning for a climate crisis helped a small Indonesian island battle COVID-19 (InsideClimate News)
AGENCIES: EPA ditches Bush veto, approves WWII-era flood project (E&E $, Politico Pro $), Trump’s weakening of century-old bird preservation act worries South Texas environmentalists (KXAN)
TRANSITION: Biden’s environmental lawyers tasked with bulletproofing agenda (Bloomberg Law), on climate, Biden must do more than undo Trump’s damage (Scientific American), Biden inauguration committee won't take fossil fuel cash (E&E $), report outlines Biden, utility clash over 100% clean power (E&E $)
TRANSITION, PERSONNEL: Schumer: Enviro justice champion should run CEQ (E&E $)
CITIES AND STATES: A sustainable refocus helps a historic Chicago community rebuild (Energy News Network), NYC climate progress on ambitious emissions goals backslides as strategic plan sprawls (The City), long-sought changes to rooftop solar laws offer a new vision of Virginia’s electric grid (Virginia Mercury)
IMPACTS: Report: Climate change damaging more World Heritage sites (AP), Great Barrier Reef outlook 'critical' as climate change called number one threat to world heritage (The Guardian)
WILDFIRES: More forests die as warming cranks up fires, slows regrowth (E&E $)
CYCLONIC STORMS: The 2020 Atlantic hurricane season was a record-breaker, and it’s raising more concerns about climate change (The Conversation), record cyclone in Somalia reveals climate effects (E&E $)
WATER: Winter’s dry start prompts low California water allocation (AP)
RENEWABLES: First U.S. offshore wind farm put on hold (E&E $), biggest U.S. solar manufacturer wants to keep Trump’s tariffs (Bloomberg $), Ohio bill would ban new large solar and wind projects for up to three years (Energy News Network)
"RENEWABLES": California regulators to vote on state's first renewable natural gas tariff pilot for Sempra utilities (Utility Dive)
OIL & GAS: Petrobras CEO calls net zero a fad, echoing Exxon oil focus (Bloomberg $), Exxon continues unprecedented tumble (Earther), OPEC warns of ‘immense challenges’ as agreement on cuts remains elusive (CNBC), deepwater crude oil export project looks to build offshore Louisiana; feds seek public input (The Advocate)
WORDS MATTER: 'Methane' vs. 'natural gas': Which words sway the public? (E&E $)
PLASTICS: Coca-Cola again tops list of plastic polluters (E&E $)
PIPELINES: Doctors ask governor to halt Enbridge pipeline construction because of COVID-19 concerns (Star Tribune $), Eastern Shore gas pipeline project gets key environmental approval from Maryland’s Board of Public Works (Baltimore Sun, DCist), another [VIrginia] pipeline hits regulator roadblock (WVTF)
COAL: Next administration could mean new safety regulations for coal mines (NPR)
HYDROGEN: A ‘world first’ project to heat homes using renewable hydrogen gets the green light (CNBC)
(ALLEGED) UTILITY CORRUPTION: SEC secures $25M penalty over failed SCANA nuclear project (Politico Pro $), top regulator’s exit raises questions about utility and fossil fuel influence (Energy News Network)
(OFF-)GRID: Off-grid power sector rides out 2020, readies for its role in recovery plans (Greentech Media)
EVs: Biden’s charging plan could sell 25 million EVs (Bloomberg $), Aston Martin in row over 'sock puppet PR firm' pushing anti-electric vehicle study (The Guardian), Hyundai to develop own electric car platform and battery charging systems (FT $, Axios), Volvo chief suggests ban on petrol cars to drive the switch to electric (FT $)
AGRICULTURE: Let’s feed seaweed to cows & reduce their methane burping (Clean Technica, NPR)
BUILDINGS: Living algae facades cover buildings, sucking in CO2 and sun to produce renewable energy (Mashable)
BUSINESS: Expert: Large companies could boost recycling through circular economy (Axios), Uber, JetBlue join Amazon-backed Climate Pledge (Reuters)
INTERNATIONAL: Amid tensions in Myanmar, an indigenous park of peace is born (Yale Environment 360), Asia banks need to do more to address gaps in climate-related financial risks: WWF (CNBC), China state grid sees new coal plant restrictions after 2026 (Bloomberg $) |
Parler: The Hot New App For Conservative Propaganda, Hate Speech, And Outgoing EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler
As mainstream social media companies belatedly start rolling out efforts to limit the spread of disinformation on their platforms, alternatives are popping up, offering up social media spaces with supposedly unlimited freedom of speech.
Parler is one of the newest. A Twitter knock-off that’s exploded in popularity recently as a haven for Trumpworld election denial, open racism, Q-Anon-sense, and other conspiracy theories. It’s where once-popular altright figures like Milo Yiannopoulos fled to after Buzzfeed revealed his Nazi side, and where Laura Loomer went after Twitter kicked her off for her proud Islamaphobia.
As a result of its growing popularity, folks have begun taking a closer look at Parler, and it turns out its Terms of Service are just as restrictive as any other site. It’s hardly a bastion of free speech, even according to an opinion piece at the conservative Washington Examiner.
Perhaps more importantly, billionaire Rebekah Mercer is bankrolling the website, as a recent WSJ story reported. For some reason though, the story claims that unlike traditional social media, Parler “collects almost no data about its users,” which is weird because, as detailed in the Examiner, to unlock the sites’ full features users need to hand over their social security number. And to become a verified user and get the “real person” badge, you have to send them a photo ID, like a driver’s license. Seriously!
If that sounds like an extraordinarily unsafe and invasive collection of private data, you’re right! And if you’re worried about what Parler might do with that information, you’re smart! Again, the WSJ piece doesn’t mention this, but as a reminder, the Mercers were behind Cambridge Analytica, the Trump-backing operation that breached Facebook’s privacy rules to harvest the information of 50 million profiles for its voter database.
Knowing that one of the billionaire families bankrolling conservative propaganda is behind Parler, the complaints about the site being little more than an echo chamber of big, and wannabe big, right-wing names makes a lot more sense. For example, Arielle Pardes wrote about using the site for WIRED, finding the site’s set-up makes it easy enough to see Sean Hannity and other pseudo-celebrities posts, but apparently content from regular users was difficult to find, and received little to no actual engagement. On the other hand, certain accounts are hyper-visible, for example Team Trump is spamming basically every automatic introduction post, appearing to violate one of Parler’s only official rules on content: no spam.
Pardes, having received no response from Parler’s leadership as to why Team Trump’s 1.6 million identical comments urging users to sign up for their mailing list and texts, ventures to guess that “one theory as to why Team Trump spam gets a pass while other repeat offenders have not is that Parler prioritizes conservative speech rather than free speech. But the more likely explanation is that Parler is set up to amplify its influencers, rather than create a space for anyone to be heard.”
When one understands that the website is part of the Mercer’s propaganda network, and not a genuine attempt to grow a community where everyone’s voice can be heard, that set up makes perfect sense!
That also explains why, as Corbin Hair reported recently for E&E, experts are sounding the warning bells for its potential to spread climate denial. While it’s currently much more common to see posts about the election being stolen from Trump, climate deniers couldn’t possibly ask for more fertile territory to share their disinformation.
And sure enough, yesterday morning outgoing EPA administrator Andrew Wheeler Tweeted, “you can find me and @EPA on @Parler_app!”
|
|