FIRST LOOK:

Tomorrow is the National Day of Awareness for missing and murdered Indigenous women and girls (MMIWG), capping a week of action on the crisis. The Alaska Native Women’s Resource Center will host a webinar TODAY at 11:00 a.m. AKDT (3:00 p.m. EDT) and a full schedule and more information can be found here.

Extreme Heat, Power Failures Put City Residents At Risk: Increasingly frequent power failures combined with heatwaves fueled by climate change pose severe, compounding threats to major American cities, new research suggests. The study, published in Environmental Science & Technology, looked at Atlanta, Detroit, and Phoenix and found at least two-thirds of residents in those cities would be vulnerable to heat exhaustion or heat stroke in the event of an overlapping heatwave and blackout. “A widespread blackout during an intense heat wave may be the deadliest climate-related event we can imagine,” Brian Stone Jr., the lead author of the study, told the New York Times. Extreme heat, made worse by climate change caused by extracting and burning fossil fuels, is already the deadliest type of severe-weather event, killing as many as 12,000 people in the U.S. every year. The human health harms caused by extreme heat heighten societal inequities — extreme heat danger is often worst in historically redlined neighborhoods. The legacy of racist redlining policies, including the dearth of greenspace that worsens heat islands, exacerbates extreme heat in neighborhoods predominantly populated by people of color. Heatwaves also put greater demand on the electrical grid as air conditioners are forced to work harder. The number of blackouts in the U.S. doubled between 2015 and 2020, and Stone said “the probability of a concurrent heat wave and blackout event is very likely rising as well.” (New York Times $)

Biden Administration Lets DAPL Oil Keep Flowing Without Permit: The Biden administration told a federal judge on Monday that the Dakota Access pipeline should be allowed to continue pumping oil despite lacking a key federal permit. The Army Corps of Engineers, which is conducting another extensive environmental review, said it could change its mind. Early last month, the Army Corps surprised Judge James Boasberg, and outraged lawyers representing the Standing Rock Sioux, when it said it wasn't sure if the oil pipeline should be shut down. "It’s baffling," Earthjustice attorney Jan Hasselman said in a statement. "When it comes to the Dakota Access Pipeline, Biden’s Army Corps is standing in the way of justice for Standing Rock by opposing a court order to shut down this infrastructure while environmental and safety consequences are fully evaluated.” (AP)

EPA To Cut HFC Production, Use: The EPA on Monday proposed a rule to slash U.S. production and use of HFCs by 85% over the next 15 years, beginning in 2022. Hydrofluorocarbons are widely used in refrigeration and air conditioning and are thousands of times more potent at trapping heat in the atmosphere than carbon dioxide. The proposed rule would be the first executive action under the Biden administration to mandate climate pollution reductions and the EPA estimates the rule would yield $284 billion in benefits through 2050 while saving industry money. Republicans have supported HFC pollution reductions, which do not require fossil cuts, in the past, including in bipartisan spending legislation last December. HFCs were introduced in the 1980s to replace ozone-depleting chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs). (Washington Post $, New York Times $, AP, NPR, Reuters, Axios, The Guardian, Politico Pro $, The Hill, Bloomberg $)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Memphis pipeline faces environmental justice reckoning (E&E $), why they’re not saying Ma’Khia Bryant’s name (Vox)

PIPELINES NOT ONLY THING THAT'S LEAKY: Gas industry secretly fights electrification (E&E News)

THREE MICHELIN STARS: Daniel Humm’s new Eleven Madison Park menu will be meat-free (Wall Street Journal $, Axios, New York Times $)

YOU'RE GOING TO WANT TO BOOKMARK THIS: Your complete guide to Biden on climate (Atmos)

JUST LIKE THE FOUNDERS WOULD HAVE WANTED: Montana, Kansas, and Arkansas enter the arms race to criminalize protest (Grist)

AWKWARD: Why Exxon hates the Rockefellers, its founding family (E&E $)

AGENCIES: DOE lab unpacks link between rooftop solar, income (E&E $)

LAWSUITS: Red states ask court to block updated social cost of carbon (Politico Pro $)

THE HILL: Talks pick up on 'building blocks' of infrastructure package (E&E $)

HOUSE: Financial Services to discuss flood insurance, disaster bills (E&E $), high-speed rail hearing to explore challenges, opportunities (E&E $), Jennifer Granholm, Gina Raimondo to defend spending hikes (E&E $), House bill would embed climate in U.S. diplomacy (E&E $), Energy and Commerce hearing spotlights EV agenda (E&E $), panels holding more hearings on DOE, NSF research concerns (E&E $), Oversight Dems spotlight Oklahoma landowner fight with Cheniere (E&E $)

SENATE: California senator seeks expansion of land, water protection (AP), Carper asks EPA to require half of new cars to be zero-emissions by 2030 (The Hill), from a new perch, Booker pushes climate-friendly farm bills (E&E $), McConnell: no Senate Republicans will back Biden on $4T (The Hill)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden takes a run at America's glaring environmental problems. Can he succeed? (Environmental Health News)

POLITICS: ‘Decades ahead of his time’: history catches up with visionary Jimmy Carter (The Guardian)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Britain hosts first G7 foreign ministers meeting since start of pandemic (Reuters)

CITIES AND STATES: Move to disband Minneapolis Police one step closer to November ballot (Axios)

TEXAS: The GOP won it all in Texas. Then it turned on itself. (New York Times $), Texas House advances plan to subsidize power plant weatherization (Texas Tribune)

FERC: FERC urged to protect grid from EV boom (E&E $)

WATER: Amid severe drought, and 'in violation of federal law,' Oregon farming region diverts water from the Klamath River (The Counter), California tribes call out degradation of Clear Lake (Circle of Blue)

RENEWABLES: Biden administration approves massive solar energy project in California (Axios, Reuters), clean megaprojects divide surprise group: environmentalists (AP), Biden’s road to clean energy runs through West Virginia coal country (Bloomberg $)

OIL & GAS:  4 key questions about Big Oil's comeback (E&E $), loopholes undermine fracking setback rules — study (E&E $)

ORPHANED WELLS: Abandoned wells a drag on Arkansas (Northwest Arkansas Democrat-Gazette)

PIPELINES: 2 arrested after Giles County pipeline protest (The Roanoke Times), environmental groups sue Army Corps of Engineers over pipeline permitting (The Hill, Politico Pro $)

AGRICULTURE: Corn crop feeds prosperity in Bangladesh's flood-prone north (Thomson Reuters Foundation), regenerative agriculture needs a reckoning (The Counter)

BUSINESS: What business thinks of Biden’s plans on infrastructure, taxes (Wall Street Journal $)

CARBON CAPTURE: Biden administration looking to capture carbon from gas and manufacturing (Washington Examiner)

FINANCE: Bank CEOs signal they'll keep lending to oil companies (E&E $)

OCEANS: Scientists are breeding sea stars in a lab to rehabilitate warming oceans (Bloomberg $)

RICH WHITE MEN: Warren Buffett sinks climate measure, says world will adapt (E&E $)

THE BEST HE COULD GET, APPARENTLY: Trump EPA Administrator Andrew Wheeler joining Heritage Foundation (Washington Examiner)

WILDLIFE: Sharp drop in leatherback sea turtles off West Coast called a troubling sign (Washington Post $)

INTERNATIONAL: Countries are getting serious about climate change. And then there’s Australia. (Grist), Poland's plan to extend coal mine's life could cost it EU climate funds (Reuters)

• Solutions exist outside of fear mongering (Charleston Gazette-Mail, Eric Engle op-ed)
• Going big and bold is smart policy and smart politics for Democrats (Las Vegas Sun, Harry Reid op-ed)
• There is no climate justice without racial justice (TIME, David Lammy and Manish Bapna op-ed)
• One major contributor to the Texas blackouts: inefficient homes (Dallas Morning News, Doug Lewin op-ed)
• [State Corporation Commission] should require renewable energy investments in coal country (The Roanoke Times, Editorial Board)
• Greenhouse gas emissions spike in Permian Basin, as climate change pressure mounts (Houston Chronicle, Chris Tomlinson column)
• Newark teaches America a lesson on lead pipes – and hiring local (Star-Ledger, Editorial Board)
• It's time to hold climate polluters accountable (CNN, Carroll Muffett and Kert Davies op-ed)

Deniers Very Mad At Bill Nye For Saying They Aren’t Immortal

There’s an old phrase, credited to foundational physicist Max Planck and published in Thomas Kuhn’s Structure of Scientific Revolutions that “a new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” Since then, others distilled the idea that minds don’t change so much as the times do to a much more pithy, albeit grim, science progresses one funeral at a time. 

Well it seems esteemed science communicator Bill Nye made reference to the saying when asked about climate deniers in an Earth Day story about climate scientist Michael Mann. Because deniers are so “dug in,” there’s no way of convincing them of the need for climate action, so “there’s an old saying,” Nye recounts, that “science proceeds one funeral at a time. But it’s not happening fast enough” to stabilize the climate, because that older generation still holds power in key places where it can stop policy. 

According to deniers, this invocation of a half-century-old scientific axiom by Bill Nye is essentially a violent call for death squads to hunt down and kill deniers. What’s more, his sponsorships should immediately be cancelled, according to Steve “bedwetting obsessed” Milloy. Once a lawyer for Big Tobacco and still a merchant of death, but now for fossil fuels instead, Milloy tweeted at Canada Goose and Bombay Gin to try and get Nye’s position as a sustainability and climate advisor with the companies cancelled. 

Marc Morano, who would probably argue with you if you said second hand smoke causes cancer, and who would definitely argue with you if you asked him to put on a mask, and who in fact applauded the seditious January 6th attack on the US Capitol Building where insurrectionists literally chanted "Hang Mike Pence!" and killed multiple law enforcement officers, and called for more in every state capitol, was also quite upset about this violent rhetoric. He was apparently so mad it seemed like he might actually have been having a stroke, tweeting Nye’s quote and: “You don’t believe we face a climate. Emergency?! Then die!” (After all, everyone knows only liberal snowflakes proofread.) 

Speaking of Marc’s questionable literacy/autocorrect/speech-to-text-tweeting, Joe Bastardi was also quite triggered, screenshotting the WUWT story excerpting just the quote, and comparing Nye’s observation that climate deniers are alive to claims of “how Trump incited people to violence with his rhetoric. How is this not the same thing?” 

How indeed, wonders Bastardi, who interpreted Nye’s off-hand recital of a saying about scientific change as though the Science Guy was saying “if the funerals are too slow, the way to correct that is with more funerals, quicker” yet he himself described Morano’s recent “Green Fraud” anti-GND-screed as “a book you can’t refuse.” 

Well Joe, were you threatening us with that? Is Marc going to put a horse head in our bed, or worse, if we don’t buy the book? 

Of course not. We know that. Bastardi knows that. Everyone knows that. 

But rightwing media feeds on outrage, and deniers are going to try to throw anyone talking about climate action into its hate machine.

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