FIRST LOOK:

2021 Climate, Weather Disasters Killed Hundreds, Cost US $145 Billion, World $280 Billion: Twenty extreme weather disasters killed 688 people in the U.S. last year and collectively inflicted at least $145 billion in damage, NOAA reported Monday. 2021 was the deadliest year for climate extremes in a decade (even with, as Earther notes, likely under-estimated death tolls from the Pacific Northwest heatwave and Texas freeze), and NOAA also determined 2021 was the fourth-hottest year on record in the U.S. By far the most expensive disaster, Hurricane Ida left a $74 billion trail of destruction from Louisiana to New York and four months later residents are finally moving from tent camps into trailers. "2021 was, in essence, watching the climate projections of the past come true," Rachel Licker, a senior climate scientist at UCS, told CNN. "The fingerprints of climate change were all over many of the billion-dollar events that hit the US this year." Just from disasters that caused at least $1 billion in damage, extreme weather has inflicted $750 billion of damage on the U.S. in the past five years alone. The reports came as Joe Manchin (D.-W.Va.) and Senate Republicans hold up the Build Back Better Act and its $555 billion in climate and clean energy provisions. The NOAA reports also came the same day a Rhodium Group report found U.S. climate pollution jumped more than 6% from 2020 to 2021, while Munich Re announced that globally, natural disasters cost the world $280 billion in 2021, of which only $120 billion was covered by insurers. (E&E News, AP, Earther, CNN, Washington Post $, Politico Pro $, Axios, The Hill, Reuters, Forbes; Ida trailers: Houma Today, AP; Munich Re: FT $, Bloomberg $, Reuters, AP; Joe Manchin: Rolling Stone)

Bronx Apartment Fire Shows Need For Better Building Efficiency: The apartment fire that killed 17 people in the Bronx on Sunday illustrates the urgent energy and environmental justice imperatives for improving building efficiency. Reports indicate the fire was started by a space heater, even though the building's heat was working. Internal stairwells choked with smoke and other factors prevented residents from escaping the smoke-filled building. Public housing residents are forced to use space heaters and even their gas stoves to heat their living spaces, raising fire risks, indoor air pollution, and increased climate pollution. “To hear from initial reports that a faulty space heater is the cause of such a large fire is horrifying and unacceptable,” Taylor Morton of WE ACT on Environmental Justice told Earther. “New Yorkers deserve adequate and efficient heat in the wintertime, and this event proves that outdated infrastructure can not only impact our quality of life, but can be deadly.” (Earther)

World's Oceans Hotter Than Ever Recorded, Absorbing 7 A-Bombs Of Heat Every Second: The world's oceans broke heat records, again, in 2021, according to new research from a team of 23 international scientists analyzing thousands of ocean temperature readings. The "ocean stores more than 90% of the Earth’s net heat gain due to greenhouse gases, thus ocean warming is a fundamental indicator of climate change,” Lijing Cheng, lead author and associate professor at the Chinese Academy of Sciences, told the Washington Post. “The record ocean warming in 2021 is strong evidence that global warming continues.” The study, published today in Advances in Atmospheric Sciences, found the Earth's oceans have heated up eight times faster since the 1980s than they did in previous decades – a rate only possible because of humans' extraction and combustion of fossil fuels – and a trend scientists expect to continue. To put the 14 zettajoules of heat energy absorbed by the oceans into context, study co-author John Abraham, a professor at the University of St. Thomas in Minnesota, wrote in a Guardian op-ed, “Oceans have absorbed heat equivalent to seven Hiroshima atomic bombs detonating each second, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.” (Washington Post $, The Guardian, Daily Beast, Courthouse News, RNZ; Commentary: The Guardian, John Abraham op-ed)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: More than 1,700 congressmen once enslaved Black people. This is who they were, and how they shaped the nation. (Washington Post $)

(CLIMATE) DIPLOMACY: Climate clubs: secret handshakes, CO2 prices and exclusivity (E&E News), US shifts focus to renewables, natural gas in Eastern Mediterranean (Bloomberg $)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Lawyers cite Covid-19 ruling to bolster Hawaii climate case (E&E $)

DENIAL: Report: Chamber members have paid $20B in environmental fines (E&E $), Chamber members have paid $154B in fines since 2000, watchdog group says in fight over FTC's powers (Politico)

COPERNICUS & RHODIUM REPORTS: EU scientists say 2021 was world's fifth-hottest year on record (Reuters, The Guardian, FT $, Axios), US emissions surged in 2021: here’s why in six charts (InsideClimate News, Grist, E&E $)

SOLUTIONS: Want to know how to save nature? Ask Indigenous scientists. (Vox)

SCOTUS: Challenge to EPA’s climate authority heads to Supreme Court (Bloomberg $), meet the lawyers teeing up the Supreme Court climate showdown (E&E News)

AGENCIES: Federal agency flags 8 new substances that could give you cancer (Grist)

DOE: Joe Biden is losing the war against inefficient appliances (Gizmodo)

DOI: Biden administration seeks reversal of Trump move opening up more Arctic drilling (The Hill), Biden Interior Department defends Trump-era coal-mining plans (The Hill), BLM begins steps to protect Chaco Canyon (Navajo Times)

BUILD BACK BETTER ACT: Climate legislation stalls while the dangers of the issue prevail (MSNBC), ‘Build Back Better’ stalled as House returns (E&E News)

HOUSE: Jan. 6 panel ramps up investigation into Trump's state-level pressure (Politico)

SENATE: Senate plans Nord Stream 2 sanctions vote this week (E&E News)

• JOE MANCHIN: Manchin's coal corruption is so much worse than you knew (Rolling Stone)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden environmental aide [David Kieve] leaving White House (The Hill)

POLITICS: Louisiana governor warns Biden of economic 'shocks' from oil rollback (E&E $)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Powell, Brainard hearings may shine light on inflation risks, broader Fed debates (Reuters, Bloomberg $, E&E $), Senate committee sets vote on EPA, Interior nominees (E&E $)

CITIES AND STATES: Budget surplus, pot, virus, climate, top issues in Maryland (AP), Connecticut targets building emissions, energy equity as it moves to update energy strategy (Utility Dive),

• NORTH CAROLINA: N.C. governor launches climate plan with ambitious EJ goals (E&E News), North Carolina sets goal to sell 50% zero-emission vehicles by 2030 (Utility Dive)
• CALIFORNIA: Newsom proposes $2B in clean energy spending, $465M for fossil fuel transition (Politico Pro $, E&E $, AP)
• PENNSYLVANIA: Wolf vetoes attempt to back out of RGGI (Pittsburgh Business Times $, Politico Pro $, NPR, Pennsylvania Capital-Star)

IMPACTS: Why are we seeing more and more extreme weather events? (CNN)

FLOODING: Floods kill 10, leave hundreds homeless in South African city (Reuters), flooding persists after Pacific Northwest storms (AP)

HEAT: Rising heat and hardships could hit San Joaquin Valley within three decades, study predicts (LA Times $)

WILDFIRES: A blazing air pollution crisis (Atmos), fires doubled Australia's emissions. It might never recover (E&E $)

HEALTH: Global heating could lead to an increase in kidney stone disease, study finds (The Guardian)

SKIING: On the slopes with a pro skier (New York Times $)

RENEWABLES: Can the Biden climate agenda help geothermal energy break through? (Politico Pro $), PosiGen raises $100M to bring solar and efficiency upgrades to lower-income Americans (Canary Media), US renewable giant beefs up with $3B Blackstone deal (E&E $)

STORAGE: Goldman Sachs just made a record-setting investment in long-duration energy storage (Canary Media), gravity could solve clean energy’s one major drawback (Wired), here’s how to solve the UK energy crisis for the long term – store more power (The Guardian)

OIL & GAS: Gas is the bad habit Europe can’t kick (Politico Pro $), the oil industry's decarbonization divide (Axios)

NUKES: Nuclear power gets a fresh look as nations chase climate goals (Bloomberg $)

PIPELINES: Prosecutors hit anti-pipeline protesters with felony charges to send a message, defense says (The Intercept)

COAL: Indonesia eases coal export ban after 10 days (Reuters)

UTILITIES: [Public Service Co. of New Mexico] prepares for spring launch of $9M transportation program, anticipates EVs to double in 2 years (Utility Dive)

GRID: GE snaps up Opus One and its operating system for a fast-changing grid (Canary Media)

EVs: Postal Service: Here’s the price tag for 100% EVs (E&E News), a neglected California city reinvents itself with electric cars — and plots a road map for the nation (LA Times $), proposed northern Minnesota nickel mine signs deal with Tesla (Minneapolis Star Tribune, Reuters)

AVIATION: European airlines operating highly polluting empty flights to keep airport landing privileges (Democracy Now)

AGRICULTURE: US aims to double cover crop planting to address climate change (Reuters, E&E $)

BUSINESS: About-face: GM agrees to Calif. tailpipe emissions rule (E&E News)

CARBON PRICING: Carbon debate threatens to leave prices sky high, or ‘worthless’ (Bloomberg $)

CARBON CAPTURE: CCS ‘red flag?’ World’s sole coal project hits snag (E&E News)

FINANCE: Bill Gates-backed fund aims to invest $15bn in clean tech (FT $, CNBC), Canada’s bank regulator hints at climate-resilience requirements (Bloomberg $), forget shareholder resolutions, fund manager says: hire better directors (Reuters), one of the world's biggest wealth funds targets sustainable finance (Bloomberg $)

WILDLIFE: Fewer ducks are wintering in the deep south (Yale Climate Connections), how the speed of climate change is unbalancing the insect world (The Guardian)

INTERNATIONAL: Calls for windfall tax as North Sea oil and gas profits soar (The Guardian), Japan, Indonesia to cooperate on hydrogen, ammonia and CCS (Reuters), Romania could use 16 bln euros in EU funds to upgrade energy sector (Reuters), Germany faces ‘gigantic’ task meeting energy, climate goals (AP), India’s deadly air pollution keeps getting worse not better (Bloomberg $)

• Our planet and democracy are under attack — if we don't save both, we won't have either (The Hill, Saad Amer op-ed)
• Fighting deforestation on the ground (Project Syndicate, Pedro Frizo op-ed)
• Designing for climate justice: a conversation with Dr. Dorceta E. Taylor (Nonprofit Quarterly, Cyndi Suarez and Dr. Dorceta Taylor interview)
• It's not an 'energy' crisis — it's a fossil fuel crisis (The Hill, Wenonah Hauter op-ed)
• After a historic 2021 in politics, Black women are gearing up for what promises to be a monumental 2022 (The Root, Glynda Carr op-ed)
• Harold Hamm: ‘Republican, Democrat . . . I’m an oilocrat’ (FT, interview $)
• Greenflation is very real and, sorry, it’s not transitory (Bloomberg, Javier Blas op-ed $)
• You can’t revive American democracy without reviving local journalism (The Real News, Marc Steiner podcast)
• Britain needs immigrants if it is to survive the climate storm (FT, Parag Khanna op-ed $)
• The Pope is wrong. Choosing to have few or no children is the opposite of selfish (CNN, Alistair Currie op-ed)
• Shrink to fit: the year Big Oil starts to become Small Oil (Reuters, Ron Bousso and Sabrina Valle analysis)

MAGA Crowd Now Drinking Urine, Examining KKK Guts and Neo-Nazi Butts, and Taking Testosterone Blockers for Trans Women (Also Violently Harassing People) 

FAIR WARNING: Today’s ClimateDenier Roundup is not really about climate, but instead features a few stories from climate-denier-adjacent communities, where things are just fantastically and amusingly weird, despite the underlying horror of it all. So you may be excused if you’re busy, but … you’ll be missing out on some fun! (And some entertaining examples of the sort of paranoid, conspiracy-driven thinking that runs rampant in climate deniers.) 

We’ll start with the GatewayPundit, the far-right conspiracy theory peddling “news” outlet that saw the white supremacist Patriot Front “crash” an anti-abortion rally this weekend in Chicago and said it had to be an FBI false flag, because the khaki-clad racists didn’t have fat enough asses. That’s not a joke, despite the many, many, funny tweets rightfully mocking it, GatewayPundit ran a whole story based on drawing yellow boxes around the ample “waste” size of KKK figures, compared to a decidely slimmer and trimmer rear profiles of this particular batch of younger Neo-Nazis.

Now sure, it could be that Thomas Rousseau, who led the Patriot Front parade and also led 2017’s deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, is secretly a Federal agent on a mission to make the right look like murderous, evil racists. (Just like how maybe communists have supposedly infiltrated the global scientific establishment to push the climate hoax to tank capitalism.) Or it could be that Rousseau’s demographic is decidedly younger than the sample of Klansman the GatewayPundit used as reference, and therefore haven’t yet had time to build such plump rubenesque figures. Or — and this is our most favorite but least plausible explanation — perhaps those brave young white men were actually on the cutting edge of MAGA-masculinity as well as anti-vaxx cure-alls, and are taking medicines more commonly used by trans women to block testosterone, and perhaps that’s what’s giving them such a trim figure! 

Because as adamant Fox News-watchers will know, one of the key anti-vaccine groups has been pushing for those infected with coronavirus, but for whom the horse-paste didn’t work (shock!), to instead treat Covid-19 with spironolactone and finasteride. What’re those? Oh just testosterone suppressants, because more men were dying of Covid than women. So instead of taking a free, safe, and effective vaccine, the same coal-rolling petro-masculinists who spent years hurling “soy boy” as an insult and denigrating left-wing men for being effeminate/believing women about rape/not promoting a violent misogynist patriarchy, are now eagerly consuming “medical” advice telling them to take the actual medications trans women use to supress testosterone. 

What could be worse than an illness that would force the mighty (insecure) MAGA man to self-feminize? The Covid vaccines, of course! 

That’s why one anti-vaxx influencer, “Vaccine Police” guy Chistopher Key, is insisting that his followers undergo “urine therapy.” Yes, apparently they have “tons and tons of research” showing the “antidote” to the vaccine (which Key called “the worst bioweapon I have ever seen”) is drinking your own pee. While it’s unclear how many bioweapons this trespassing, flamethrowing anti-masked crusader has seen, or how drinking your pee is supposed to protect you from the effects of other people taking the vaccine, his passion is undeniable. 

Unfortunately, that’s exactly the problem. Because just like how climate disinformation uses conservative propaganda to shape politics, these aren’t just random fringe social media accounts potentially trolling, they’re real people, with enough followers to do real damage in the real world.  

For example, the … er … crack … ahem … analysts at Gateway Pundit are part of the well-oiled, climate-disinfo-disseminating conservative pseudo-media machine that attacks Democrats and then repeatedly spread the sort of election conspiracy theories that motivated the January 6 insurrectionists who, as a recent HuffPost feature by Christopher Mathias explores, are also destroying innocent (Black and Brown, Democractic)  lives back at home. 

So there’s certainly plenty to ridicule, because a lot of people are ridiculous. And they get rewarded for it, by social media algorithms that prioritize engagement over quality and by conservative propaganda that poses as news, which together bestow the loudest wingnuts with countless followers, primed and ready to attack the sheeple who think vaccines are safe.

But hey, at least you’ll know when you’re talking to one, because they won’t be wearing a mask and you’ll be able to smell the pee on their breath! 

(Best not to get too close, though, for a number of reasons.)  

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