FIRST LOOK:

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Big Business Coalition Calls For At Least 50% GHG Cuts: More than 300 corporations, including major tech, retail, and food brands are calling on the Biden administration to commit to cutting U.S. greenhouse gas pollution to at least half of 2005 levels by 2030. In an open letter released by the We Mean Business coalition, 310 businesses and investors with a footprint in the United States called for what they describe as "ambitious and attainable" reductions targets that are roughly congruent with what most environmental groups are also calling for and would nearly double the cuts targeted by the Obama administration. Hardly a consortium of liberal stalwarts, signatories include tobacco company and longtime GOP ally Philip Morris, Facebook, which has come under fire for allowing its platform to be used to spread climate denial, and dozens of other companies based in Republican-held districts. “I think this signals a major shift in the corporate community’s understanding of the urgency of climate change as a systemic financial risk,” said Anne Kelly, of the sustainability nonprofit Ceres, which organized the letter, told the New York Times. (New York Times $, AP, inside Climate News, Fast Company; Facebook: Bloomberg $)

Climate Forces Impossible Decisions On Native Communities: Native communities across North America face heart-wrenching choices over whether to relocate in the face of mounting climate-driven risks, or remain in locations to which their families have been tied for hundreds of years, Indian Country Today reports. The Quileute Tribe have harvested food from the sea off the coast of what is now northwest Washington for centuries, but now severe winter storms flood their school with heavy debris multiple times a year, punctuated by "all the other 100-year storms that are happening at a pace that’s never been experienced," Susan Devine, project manager of the Quileute Tribe’s Move to Higher Ground/Tribal School Project, said. Forty miles south, the Quinault Nation has already begun relocating homes and critical facilities under threat from landslides and coastal erosion. “Permafrost is melting, villages are sinking in the tundra. A couple of years ago, because of the extreme heat, there were dead salmon floating down on the river. That was sad to see on the Kuskokwim River," said Mike Williams Sr, Yup’ik, chief of the Akiak Native Community. "The wildlife – everything – is being impacted [by climate change]. We’re at ground zero.” (Indian Country Today)

Beer Could Help Scientists Understand How Crops Adapt To Climate Change, Scientists Insist: Researchers at UC-Riverside are investigating how barley, a key ingredient in beer, survives in such a wide variety of climates with hopes of learning what exactly makes it so resilient across climates. Barley was first grown domestically in Southwest Asia about 10,000 year ago and is grown around the world, from Egypt to Minnesota. Barley's prime growing regions have shifted northward in recent decades as global temperatures have risen due to climate change caused by human extraction and combustion of fossil fuels. Chuck Skypeck, technical brewing projects manager for the Brewers Association located (obviously) in Boulder, Colorado, told E&E climate change's effects are impacting the brewing industry. "Certainly dynamic growing conditions, water scarcity, extreme weather events, growers' planting decisions can all affect both pricing and availability of brewers' supply of malted barley," he told E&E News. (E&E $)

DAUNTE WRIGHT: ‘Holy s**t, I shot him’: Minnesota cop who killed 20-year-old Daunte Wright allegedly meant to use taser, not handgun (Blavity, The Root, NewsOne, The Grio, BBC), protests erupt in Minnesota after police fatally shoot 20-year-old Black man over alleged air freshener violation (NewsOne, The Grio, The Root, CNN, NBC), what to know about the police shooting of Daunte Wright (New York Times $)

TRASH: Baltimore is burning trash, so we're starving the fire – video (The Guardian and Nexus Media News)

DENIAL: Leaked calls show ALEC’s secret plan to fight Biden on climate (Grist), Murdoch’s News Corp accused of undermining democracy (FT $)

IMPACTS' IMPACTS: Native communities confront painful choice: move away, or succumb to rising waters? (The Guardian)

ACTIVISM: Family of slain Mexican environmentalist refuses to flee (AP), the moms who are battling climate change (The New Yorker $)

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Replace your gas stove with induction to save energy and impress guests (Bloomberg $)

PUBLIC OPINION: Voters support regulating Wall Street's fossil fuel investments (Heated)

HOPE?: The search for environmental hope (Washington Post Magazine $)

AGENCIES: With quick fixes, Biden's agencies reverse Trump's Wall Street-friendly rules (Reuters), Biden’s EPA set to take up issue of dangerous "forever" poisons (Salon), Interior reverses Trump-era offshore wind legal opinion (E&E $), potential NOAA chief puts diversity failings in spotlight (E&E $)

THE HILL: Committees launch hearings on Biden fiscal blueprint (E&E $), Democrats prepare to tackle Biden’s sweeping spending package (Bloomberg $), divided Democrats look to make progress on $2T plan (E&E $), House panel to debate $8B orphan well cleanup bill (E&E $), multiple hearings set on environmental justice, climate (E&E $)

WHITE HOUSE: ‘I’m hopeful’: Jerome Foster, the 18-year-old helping to craft US climate policy (The Guardian), White House adviser [Maria Lopez-Nuñez] led grassroots N.J. clean energy fights (E&E $), White House issues infrastructure report cards for all 50 states (The Hill)

BUDGET: 6 questions, answers about Biden's spending plan (E&E $), Biden $1.5 trillion budget proposal includes 27% increase in overall clean energy spending (Utility Dive), Biden aims to create climate, equity office at HHS (E&E $), Biden boosts DOJ's environmental justice spending (E&E $), Biden budget would triple spending to clean abandoned wells (E&E $), Budget would boost rail, transit programs (E&E $)

AMERICAN JOBS PLAN: Biden set to meet with Democrats, Republicans in an effort to shore up infrastructure support (Washington Post $)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: Army Corps suspends Minn. mining permit in win for tribes (E&E $), White House plan would cut Army Corps spending (E&E $)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Committee sets vote on FEMA, OMB picks (E&E $), panel to question Biden's DOJ environment pick (E&E $), votes set on Transportation, environment picks (E&E $), White House names picks for DOE, Transportation, Labor (E&E $)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Aggressive U.S. climate plan puts pressure on China, India (Bloomberg $), European lawmakers, executives urge US to halve emissions (AP)

CITIES AND COUNTIES AND STATES: How the mayor of Salida got caught in the battle over electric car chargers (Colorado Public Radio), New York pension fund divests $7 million from Canadian oil sands firms (Reuters), after setting ambitious climate goals, a liberal Md. suburb struggles to take action (Washington Post $), 'breakthrough': [Washington] state poised to slash vehicle emissions (E&E $), Washington state proposal targets Boeing plant’s pollution (AP)

CALIFORNIA: 7 million Californians live near oil and gas wells. This bill could change that. (Grist)

PUBLIC LANDS: Return the national parks to the tribes (The Atlantic)

IMPACTS: Alaskan glacier is 'surging' down Denali (E&E $, Earther), another threat to sea ice: Arctic cyclones (E&E $), migrant workers are among the most vulnerable to Himalayan disasters (EcoWatch), New Mexico is experiencing climate change in the form of drought (New Mexico Political Report), Pakistan slum dwellers map flood risks to stop evictions (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

WILDFIRES: Forest fires spread across Indian Himalayan state (FT $, BBC), how dangerous is wildfire smoke? (New York Times $)

SOLUTIONS: To fight climate change: grow a floating forest, then sink it (Scientific American)

TRANSIT: To save the New York subway, send in the crowds (Bloomberg $)

RENEWABLES: Hong Kong looks to sea for clean energy in land-starved city (Bloomberg $), what Biden's infrastructure plan means for renewable energy (WBUR), secrecy and abuse claims haunt China’s solar factories in Xinjiang (Bloomberg $)

"RENEWABLES": Burning pig poop fumes doesn’t solve anything (New Republic)

EFFICIENCY: New York City group retrofits apartments without displacing residents (Yale Climate Connections)

PIPELINES: Enbridge taps new approach for pipelines (Indian Country Today), driven by industry, more states are passing tough laws aimed at pipeline protesters (InsideClimate News), TC Energy requests info on renewable energy proposals for its U.S. pipelines (Reuters)

COAL: Coal miners in alabama are striking for their fair share (The Real News), for Mexico’s president, the future isn’t renewable energy — it’s coal (LA Times $)

WATER: Tensions rise in water battle along Oregon-California line (AP)

METHANE: Could tiny sensors keep methane out of our atmosphere—and homes? (PBS NewsHour)

ACT LOCALLY: Immigrant-led carbon farming initiative takes root in Mount Clinton (Harrisonburg Citizen)

BITCOIN: NFTs are selling for millions. Are they warming the planet, too? (New York Times $)

BUSINESS: We’ve had corporate personhood for a decade…what about ecosystem personhood? (Drilled)

CARBON PRICING: How Europe’s carbon price is struggling to decarbonise industry (Energy Monitor), why carbon pricing is unlikely to play a big role in climate talks (Axios)

FINANCE: Goldman sees Congress passing $3.3 trillion: stimulus update (Bloomberg $), IMF leader sees countries aligning on climate disclosure (Politico Pro $)

INTERNATIONAL: EU chief adviser says credibility of green finance rules at risk (Reuters), Japan to release Fukushima nuclear plant water into ocean after treatment (Washington Post $, New York Times $), most European city-dwellers support 2030 ban on combustion car sales, survey finds (Reuters), New Zealand introduces climate change law for financial firms in world first (Reuters, Xinhua), Uganda, Tanzania seal $3.5-bln oil pipeline deal (OilPrice)

• Let free enterprise solve climate change (with the accountability that only government can provide) (The Hill, Bob Inglis op-ed)
• How to manage migration intensified by climate change (The Hill, Cecilia Muñoz op-ed)
• Oil and gas companies have thousands of ways to clean up (Houston Chronicle, Chris Tomlinson column)
• The Sustainability Imperative: Climate Diagnosis (The Hill, Dr. Dana Fisher interview)
• Finally, attention on long-neglected water needs (Duluth News Tribune, Editorial Board)
• Trump abandoned the climate. This is Biden’s moment. (New York Times, Editorial Board $)
• California wildfires. Hurricanes on the coast. Is anywhere safe from the climate crisis? (CNN, John D. Sutter op-ed)
• Biden fights a new cold war with solar panels (Bloomberg, Liam Denning column $)
• A carbon registry leaves polluters with nowhere left to hide (FT, Mark Campanale $)
• Norway’s sovereign hedge fund prepares to flex its muscles (Bloomberg, Mark Gilbert op-ed $)
• We need an infrastructure package for nature (New York Times, Paul Greenberg and Carl Safina op-ed $)
• It's time to declare a national climate emergency (The Hill, Rep. Earl Blumenauer op-ed)
• Unleashing an American-led clean energy economy to reach net-zero emissions (The Hill, Rep. Kathy Castor op-ed)
• A true infrastructure plan needs to be implemented on a massive scale (Washington Post, Sen. Ed Markey LTE $)
• How can I justify bringing new life into this terrible world? (New York Times, Tom Whyman op-ed $)

Denier Media Confused And Irritated By President Biden’s Environmental Justice Experts Actually Being Experts

Having tried, and largely failed, to turn public opinion against President Biden’s infrastructure plan by claiming it’s all about climate change (something the vast majority of people want action on) the right is still struggling to find an attack that’s actually relevant and will stick. 

For example, Benji Backer of the American Conservation Coalition, a group that appears to be using climate concern as a way to rehabilitate the GOP’s image with The Kids These Days (by lying about democratic socialism) was recently on a podcast of the Heritage Foundation’s Daily Signal to discuss how conservatives can “reclaim the narrative on environment.” 

Backer went on the dirty-energy-funded, climate-denial-peddling outlet to deliver the usual platitudes about how the right needs “an all-of-the-above strategy that really leads with American innovation and capitalism in showing how the market can lead.” A truly dramatic break from the GOP’s usual rhetoric on climate! 

Seriously though, while the far left focuses on systematic change instead of individual action, Benji has real solutions, like asking himself “how can I make tea at home instead of having to go out and buy tea every time that I need a caffeine break?”

Ah yes, having to ask oneself “how can I make tea at home,” the pinnacle of conservative climate solutions! Whatever would we do without this brilliant free market environmental wisdom? 

(Oh and just in case anyone at ACC sees this — while it might be fun to re-up Backer’s embrace of leaders of predatory delay from last Earth Day, you might want to consider dropping your Earth Day 2020 praise of Rep. Matt Gaetz, as a “conservative environmental leader,” given that Gaetz is an alleged underage sex trafficker who Venmo records suggest funds “tuition” and “school” for girls in $300 increments.)  

Somehow, though, that wasn’t even the dumbest climate content on the Daily Signal lately, as appearing right next to Backer’s interview is a hard-hitting investigative piece showing that Biden’s “Environmental Justice” appointees actually understand environmental justice. 

After four years of corrupt and unqualified Trump appointees (many of whom Heritage has since hired, because what is the organized climate denial machine but a jobs guarantee for lying racist Republicans?) it’s apparently quite a shock to the Daily Signal’s system to see people actually know what they’re talking about. 

Because what the Daily Signal, and whoever sent the exact same pitch resulting in a nearly identical story in the also-dirty-energy-funded Daily Wire, are mad about is the fact that some of these appointees have accurately talked about the connections between fossil fuels and racism.  

For example, in an interview with a student newspaper of St. Edward’s University in Austin in 2019, Susana Almanza had a Che Guerva poster! And, (prepare to gasp here) Almanza said that her organization’s work holding fossil fuel giants accountable is “fighting big monsters; they’re not little ones.” 

The horror!! In another instance, Tom Cormons wrote in C-Ville, Charlottesville, VA’s local news website, that “fossil fuels… are one of the greatest threats to our children’s future.” 

Most offensive, apparently, though was Beverly Wright of the Deep South Center for Environmental Justice, who “linked the legacy of slavery and the Jim Crow era with energy development.” Her top billing in the story was followed closely Jade Begay of the Indigenous Environmental Network who, according to the Daily Signal’s Fred Lucas, “co-wrote a 2018 op-ed in EcoWatch contending that climate change is ‘colonialism’ and ‘cultural genocide.’”

Lucas didn’t link to the op-ed, but fortunately the Daily Wire’s version of the hit piece did, so give it a read and decide for yourself if this is the kind of person you want advising the President on environmental justice. 

Because we certainly do! 

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