FIRST LOOK(S):

Join a virtual panel discussion on Biden Administration's climate, clean air, and equity priorities co-hosted by the American Lung Association and American University. Thursday, Feb. 4, at 3:00 p.m. EST, pre-registration is required.

Join Peril & Promise and Nexus Media on Thursday evening for the digital premiere of the film “The Power of Us,” followed by a live conversation on intergenerational climate action. Feb. 4, 6:00-7:30 p.m.

COVID Compounds Environmental Injustice In Chicago: Southwest Chicago's Little Village neighborhood is one of the city's most polluted neighborhoods and has also been ravaged by the novel coronavirus, Grist reports, yet another stark instance in which the pandemic has illuminated and exacerbated existing environmental injustices. The immigrant-rich neighborhood has been pummeled by COVID-19. At one point last November, one in nine Little Village residents had a confirmed case of COVID-19 and residents in two of its ZIP codes were 15 times more likely to die from it than those living in the overwhelmingly white Near Northside neighborhood just over half-a-dozen miles away. Thanks to the legacy of a coal plant (the demolition of which caused an air pollution crisis itself) and other polluting industries, Little Village also suffers from among the highest levels of cumulative pollution burden in the city, far higher than the overwhelmingly white downtown neighborhoods just a handful of miles away. COVID-19 has pummeled the community, in mid-November, one in nine Little Village residents had a confirmed case of COVID-19. “The question is always: why aren’t resources going towards the communities that need it?” said José Acosta-Córdova, an environmental planning and research organizer at the Little Village Environmental Justice Organization. “And in Chicago, environmental justice is where all of the struggles — economic justice, racial justice, immigration, labor issues — meet.” (Grist)

EPA 'Secret Science' Rule Scrapped: A federal judge vacated the so-called "secret science" rule that limited EPA's ability to use public health research to craft policy on Monday. The Biden administration had determined the justification proffered, unsuccessfully, by the Trump administration for its hasty publication of the rule was legally indefensible. The rule, originally conceived by the tobacco industry in the 1990s, would have restricted EPA's ability to use studies that cannot make their underlying data — like participants' medical histories — public. Such research includes bedrock epidemiological studies upon which EPA has relied for decades, and the implementation of the rule would have made it dramatically more difficult to enact public health and environmental protections. EPA spokeswoman Lindsay Hamilton said the Biden administration was "pleased" with the ruling, adding, “EPA is committed to making evidence-based decisions and developing policies and programs that are guided by the best science.” (Washington Post $, The Hill, E&E $, Politico Pro $)

Oil & Gas Industry Begins Pushback Amid Potential Royalty Increases: The American oil and gas industry is beginning to push back on Biden administration actions to fight climate change, Bloomberg reports. President Biden's pause of oil and gas leasing on federal land, cancelation of the Keystone XL pipeline, and directive to electrify the federal government's vehicle fleet all pose concerns to different parts of the U.S. oil and gas industry. In recent days, industry executives have claimed reducing American oil and gas extraction will increase global greenhouse gas levels because oil produced from fracking is less GHG-intense than other oil sources worldwide and reducing US extraction could lead to more extraction overseas. Methane pollution caused by fracking could undermine that argument, however. Fracking in the U.S. is a major driver of methane pollution, and Biden's executive order to review and establish the societal cost of methane (and other GHG) emissions, could have a substantial impact on the administration's review of royalty rates for drilling on public lands — rates that have gone unchanged for a century. Last week, President Biden directed the Interior Department to review those rates "to account for corresponding climate costs." (Industry pushback: Bloomberg $; Royalties: E&E $)

LITERARY & ARBOREAL HISTORY: How Dr. Seuss got 'mad' and spoke for the trees 50 years ago (E&E $)

DENIAL: How to spot the tricks Big Oil uses to subvert action on climate change (Vox)

ACTIVISM: Death threat against 11-year-old activist outrages Colombia (AP)

AGENCIES: Biden reverses Trump's request for deep cuts (E&E $), Biden asks courts for more time on WOTUS (E&E $), Biden puts Trump’s climate policies under a microscope — and career officials lend a hand (Washington Post $), EPA races to draft interim auto standards for CO2 (E&E $), FOIA backlog confronts Biden's new team (E&E $), audit finds mismanaged Tongass timber contracts (E&E $)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: Biden to free up billions in delayed Puerto Rico storm aid (New York Times $)

THE HILL: How Democrat Joe Manchin might sway the power of a split Senate (WBUR), Manchin, Barrasso to hold first climate hearing (E&E $), Republican senators seek to hold off reconciliation (E&E $)

POLITICS: Once united in support of Biden, environmentalists and unions clash over pipelines (Reuters), climate change rises as an issue in mayoral races (E&E $)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Biden’s climate envoy Kerry to work with UAE on decarbonization (Bloomberg $)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: A consensus builder for EPA when some want a fighter (New York Times $), Republicans to grill [EPA nominee Michael] Regan on regulatory agenda (E&E $), senators to vote on Granholm, other Biden picks (E&E $), Vilsack faces senators this week and a new political reality (E&E $), from Mayor Pete to Secretary Buttigieg: appearances hint at expansive role for next transportation chief (Washington Post $), Senate set to confirm Buttigieg for transportation secretary (AP), with hunger surging and farms in crisis, Biden’s controversial USDA nominee [Tom Vilsack] lays out his plans (Washington Post $)

TRANSITION, PERSONNEL: Air pollution expert gets key EPA science job (Politico Pro $), critic of Trump-era air standards joins research office (E&E $)

CITIES AND STATES: Groups fear California blackout prevention plan could increase gas use, threaten climate goals (Utility Dive)

FERC: FERC weighs tightening rule on pipeline eminent domain (E&E $)

EMISSIONS: Hitting net zero emissions by 2050 (Bloomberg $), the benchmarks countries must hit to reach net-zero emissions (Bloomberg $)

IMPACTS: As warming oceans bring tough times to California crab fishers, scientists say diversifying is key to survival (InsideClimate News), Cyclone Eloise shatters Mozambique’s progress to recover from 2019 storms (Climate Home), fleas and ticks become year-round nuisance for pets (Yale Climate Connections), how climate change affects a nor'easter (CBS), home sales need better disclosure of flood risk, experts say (E&E $), Tropical Cyclone Ana: Fiji suffers second deadly storm in a month (The Guardian)

WILDFIRES: The age of the 'megafire' (Reuters)

DECARBONIZATION: A new plan to solve climate change’s ‘double black diamond’ problem (Grist)

RENEWABLES: Biden wants solar jobs. People may not want them (E&E $), one year after Clean Economy Act’s passage, solar land use tensions linger (Virginia Mercury)

OIL & GAS: US oil and natgas pipelines delayed by legal and regulatory battles (Reuters), natural gas pipeline leak spurs landowners to assail Colorado’s 'subterranean toxic spaghetti' (Denver Post), the intense glare on Exxon (Axios), UK North Sea oil rigs release as much CO2 as coal-fired power station – study (The Guardian)

PIPELINES: US oil and gas fears end of the line for big pipe projects (FT $)

COAL: Coal to exit from U.S. power system by 2033, Morgan Stanley says (Bloomberg $), coal’s big breakdown (High Country News), world needs to kick its coal habit to start green recovery, says IEA head (The Guardian)

HYDROGEN: Shell targets power trading and hydrogen in climate drive (Reuters)

UTILITIES: Massachusetts asks utilities for ways to avoid bill spikes from EV fast-charging (Energy News Network), utilities hit the Hill for help — and hope Dems respond (E&E $)

WATER: 9th Circuit revives battle to save Nevada lake (E&E $)

NUKES: Nuclear has another friend in Biden, but changes at the NRC could mean more scrutiny ahead (Utility Dive)

EVs: Push to go electric could wipe out Japan’s cheap microcars (Bloomberg $), Tesla: Batteries better for long-haul EVs, hydrogen is 'just crazy' (Utility Dive)

CARBON CAPTURE: Exxon’s new carbon capture plan looks a lot like its old one (Bloomberg $), Exxon Mobil to invest $3 billion in carbon capture and other projects to lower emissions. (New York Times $), Louisiana: CCS and 'green' hydrogen capital? (E&E $), power plant tied to major CCS project to close indefinitely (E&E $)

FINANCE: ESG risks top the list of near-term concerns for bank executives (Bloomberg $)

INTERNATIONAL: From gene sequencing to chocolate, Brazil's Amazon looks for a new development model (Thomson Reuters Foundation), the hidden gauge of UK’s zero-carbon drive is sitting in your cellar (Bloomberg $), UK government under fire from own advisor for new coal mine plans (Forbes), UK's Johnson to chair UN meeting on climate security (Reuters)

• Biden can, and should, do more to protect the planet (Washington Post, Dan Becker and James Gerstenzang op-ed $)
• Inevitable planetary doom has been exaggerated (The Atlantic, Emma Marris)
• What to call a merged Exxon-Chevron? Probably not Exron. (Bloomberg, Liam Denning column $)
• Don’t treat climate change as a national security risk (New Republic, Matt Ford op-ed)
• Want environmental justice? Look to energy efficiency. (Politico, Paula Glover op-ed)
• The Biden administration needs a climate migration coordinator (The Hill, Victoria Herrmann op-ed)
• Time to clean up climate reporting standards (FT, Editorial Board $)
• GM’s bold move on the climate (New York Times, Jody Freeman op-ed $)

Denier Shortlist for Papers To Overthrow Consensus Includes One Published In Predatory Scam Journal

One of our favorite rituals this time of year is to marvel at the collection of papers Kenneth Richard posts on NoTricksZone, claiming they represent a mortal blow to the consensus that burning fossil fuels causes climate change. This year, it’s “over 400” studies that supposedly “support a skeptical position on climate alarm,” and like every year, that’s a stretch, and even if it weren’t, it’d still be insufficient to call the basics into question. 

But if you're unfamiliar with NoTricksZone, and are wondering if perhaps this list of studies is being published by a scientific organization as some sort of literature review, here’s a quick refresher. Past posts from the blog include scobby-doo-esque anti-renewable and alien planet conspiracy theories. It's the sort of place where losing a bet about warming only increases your conviction. It’s the sort of place that claims the COVID-19 pandemic lockdown didn’t reduce pollution levels in Europe based on a map of pollution levels... in 2015. It’s also the sort of place where, if you’re Dr. Willie Soon, you can accuse scientists talking about 2014 being the hottest year (at the time) of “prostituting science.” Ironic, because just two months later the New York Times reported Soon took a million dollars from the fossil fuel industry in exchange for his talents.

This is just the latest in a series of annual posts collecting supposed consensus-killers. For example, 2016’s list (published in early 2017) was a more robust 500 papers long, and even then was clearly using the same classic tactics of prior years: misrepresenting findings, overplaying potential conclusions, focusing on minutiae and cherry-picking quotes. All the usual cheap tricks. Even if they were all accurate though, as we pointed out then, the 500 papers carefully curated over the course of the year are just a drop in the bucket of the full body of science - just two days into 2017, there were already 3,550 “climate change” studies.

Later that same year, he assembled a new and suspect list of 58 papers, which were quickly reposted by James Delingpole. When contacted by Snopes to fact check the post and the list that clearly misrepresented the studies, Delingpole vowed to apologize if spreading Kenneth Richard’s list of papers claiming to debunk the consensus meant that he “lazily helped promulgate a lie.” Of course that is exactly what he did, as ClimateFeedback and Snopes showed, with even some study authors themselves saying they were misrepresented. (We never saw an apology from James, though.) 

So yes, you could take a close look at the list of 400 papers from 2020 that supposedly cast doubt on some part of the carbon-climate connection. But just glancing at the five papers previewed — the best examples that Richard’s could find of the high-quality science rebutting alarmism — there's one (also highlighted by Steve Milloy) bearing the imprint of MDPI, a predatory, “scam journal” publisher.

Imagine spending all year scrounging around for studies, assembling 400 papers that you can spin as countering the other 80,000 or so published last year, and one of your top-five is from a scammy publishing house so lacking in integrity that one of its journals’ editors resigned en masse after being pressured to publish sub–standard papers..

We would say that maybe Paul’s counting on his audience not knowing that MDPI’s logo (like a tweet from Milloy) is more a mark of shame than pride, but at this point it’s clear that even if he knew, he wouldn’t care. 

Year after year this is just an attempt to get someone a little more credible than James Delingpole to uncritically repost this and join in having “lazily helped promulgate a lie.”

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