FIRST & FOREMOST:

As the climate community pushes for policies that will reduce emissions and speed up the world’s transition to clean energy, it is vital to remember and honor the Indigenous people who are first to feel the harm of extractive industries before the oil is even burned. 

Violent crime spikes near pipeline construction zones and extraction sites, driven by the influx of hundreds of men brought to the area and housed in temporary so-called “man camps” provided by the fossil fuel company. Pipelines often snake near or through tribal territories, precisely because those communities have been systematically dispossessed of the ability to stop them. This means violence by these temporary workers often targets Indigenous women and girls, who go missing and are murdered in staggering numbers near fossil-fuel industry man camps. 

Dr. Sarah Deer (Muscogee (Creek) Nation) has spent her career studying and dismantling the “jurisdictional loopholes” from centuries of genocidal policy that make it nearly impossible for tribal courts to hold non-Native people accountable for crimes committed against Native people on Native land. In a recent interview with Dr. Deer, Red Lake Nation News explains that, “tribal courts have not had jurisdiction over non-Native perpetrators who commit criminal offenses against Native people since the 1978 Supreme Court decision in Oliphant v. Suquamish. This is especially devastating in cases of sexual violence.”

Indigenous women and organizations like the Giniw Collective, Mazaska Talks, Honor the Earth, Seeding Sovereignty, the Brave Heart Society among others, are at the forefront of resisting the harm inflicted by the settler colonial petrostate.   

Please join Climate Nexus in signing this petition to urge the Senate and House to adopt resolutions declaring May 5th the National Day of Awareness for Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Girls.

Vaccine Inequities Mirror Climate Injustice: The global distribution of COVID-19 vaccines is a test run for wealthy nations' ability to act in mutual self-interest to limit climate change, and they're failing, the New York Times reports. “In both cases, it’s about a willingness to redistribute resources,” Yale University economist Rohini Pande told the Times. The U.S. is sitting on millions of surplus vaccine doses with nearly half the population at least partially vaccinated, while India is ravaged by the virus and people die as medical oxygen runs out. The crisis augurs directly and ominously for global efforts to cut global greenhouse gas pollution. American pharmaceutical companies and their backers in the White House oppose sharing intellectual property that could accelerate vaccine distribution. Suffocating debt burdens owed to international financial institutions created and controlled by rich nations prevent developing countries from adapting to climate change and building out clean energy, while rich nations like the U.S. have yet to make good on their promise to fund climate projects in developing nations. The vaccine distribution failure will also have immediate impacts on international climate efforts, as vaccine shortages could prevent representatives of developing nations from attending COP26 in Glasgow in November, further marginalizing the voice of the Global South in critical policy negotiations. “Equity is not on the agenda,” Gregg Gonsalves, a Yale epidemiology professor and veteran activist for global access to AIDS drugs, told the Times. “If we can’t do it for the worst pandemic in a century, how are we going to do it for climate change?” (New York Times $)

Recent Pledges Very Slightly Improve Climate Outlook: Recently updated national pledges to cut climate pollution bring aggregated global climate targets closer to the goals laid out in the Paris Agreement, but remain insufficient to prevent the worst climate impacts unless further actions to reach net-zero by 2050 are taken, scientists say. A new report from Climate Action Tracker shows global temperatures will rise 4.32°F (2.4°C) above preindustrial levels, based on current pledges. While a small improvement that brings the planet 11-14% closer to climate stability, study co-author Niklas Hoehne, of the New Climate Institute said, “that’s still catastrophic climate change, a situation that is basically not controllable and which we have to avoid by all means.” (AP, BBC)

New NOAA 'Normals' Are Hotter, Also Not Normal: Describing hotter temperatures and altered weather as the "new normal" under climate change has become cliché, and updated NOAA data makes it official. The U.S. is now hotter than it was just a decade ago, wetter in the central and eastern parts of the country, and drier in the West, according to NOAA data released Tuesday. “Almost every place in the U.S. has warmed from the 1981 to 2010 normal to the 1991 to 2020 normal,” said Michael Palecki, NOAA’s normals project manager. Extracting and burning fossil fuels is driving up temperatures globally, and in the U.S. by 1.7°F (0.9°C) since the first "normals" were calculated for 1901-1930. Updating "normal" temperatures every 10 years worries some scientists, however, because it minimizes the drastic changes apparent in the long-term record. “It seems odd to still call them normals,” North Carolina state climatologist Kathie Dello told the AP, “because 1991-2020 was anything but normal climate-wise." (AP, Washington Post $, The Hill, Earther, USA Today)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Deluge of debt is tied to carbon emissions and diversity (Wall Street Journal $)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: [UK] Students sue over human rights impact of climate change (E&E $)

DEBUNKING KOONIN: A new book feeds climate doubters, but scientists say the conclusions are misleading and out of date (InsideClimate News), dissecting ‘Unsettled,’ a skeptical physicist’s book about climate science (InsideClimate News)

AGENCIES: EPA hits troubled Virgin Islands oil refinery with a violation notice (Washington Post $), Granholm's first visit outside the office? Howard University (E&E $)

THE HILL: Granholm sees path for compromise on innovation bill (E&E $), Biden clean energy talk fuels mining reform bills (E&E $)

HOUSE: Neguse eyes GOP support for conservation corps (E&E $), Oversight Republicans probe removal of climate scientist [Betsy Weatherhead] (E&E $)

SENATE: Biden’s road to clean energy runs through West Virginia coal country (Bloomberg $), Senate Dems push major public lands, wilderness package (E&E $), Thune, Sinema team up against farm pollution rules (E&E $)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden's 'end cancer' pledge begs for environmental oversight (E&E $), Joe Biden’s push to unionise US clean energy workers (Energy Monitor), Biden pushes for diversity in transition to clean energy (Washington Post $), Biden vows to prioritise issue of murdered or missing Native American women and girls (The Independent)

POLITICS: Biden’s business allies are helping the White House coax the private sector into backing climate change push (CNBC)

ELECTIONS: Crist makes climate change a focus in run for Florida governor (E&E $)

CITIES AND STATES: Michigan’s energy activists start to see a decade of work pay off in Highland Park (Energy News Network), why California is planning to ban fracking (New York Times $), [Penn. Gov. Tom] Wolf takes next step to start carbon emissions caps in 2022 (AP)

HAMBURGLERS: New culture war: the meat you eat (Axios)

IMPACTS: Affordable housing could be hit hard as sea levels rise (Yale Climate Connections), Hawaii aims to move parts of Maui road inland as seas rise (AP), brutal winter drains Texas of precious summer heat relief (E&E $), Siberia is on fire—and it’s only May (Earther)

REAL ESTATE: Texas landlords don’t have to disclose flood risk to renters. a new bill would change that (Houston Public Media), homebuyers lacking risk disclosures overpay in flood zones (E&E $)

WILDFIRES: As California’s fire season approaches, domestic workers fight for basic protections (Prism Reports)

RENEWABLES: Solar industry launches supply chain transparency tool amid pressure to ensure ethical component sourcing (Utility Dive), Google to power Virginia data centers with 24/7 clean energy using AES batteries (Utility Dive, Axios, Bloomberg $), in Colombia, Indigenous lands are ground zero for a wind energy boom (Yale Environment 360), Mammoth Solar project inks energy deal with AEP (E&E $), report offers Biden framework for a clean energy standard (E&E $)

"RENEWABLES": Streamlined NC biomass operation permits advance in Senate (AP)

BATTERIES: Auto giants play the long game on solid-state batteries (Axios)

EFFICIENCY: LEED-certified federal buildings aren't using less energy, Carnegie Mellon study finds (Utility Dive)

PIPELINES: Biden admin holds firm on Trump-era Dakota Access defense (E&E $), Groups sue over US program allowing pipelines on wetlands (AP)

COAL: Coal is getting even closer to the end of its line (Bloomberg $), one of the country’s 10 largest coal plants just got a retirement date. What about the rest? (InsideClimate News)

HYDROGEN: Chile wants to fuel a green hydrogen boom with $300 million fund (Bloomberg $)

UTILITIES: US judge weighs if PG&E violated probation with 2019 fire (AP)

WATER: The Corpus Christi water wars (Rolling Stone), Jackson lifts boil-water order after treatment plant fire (AP)

GRID: The future grid is full of data. That worries cyber experts (E&E $), the weird, unholy alliance of Tucker Carlson and environmentalists (Earther)

EVs: SPAC crackdown threatens gauzy forecasts that power EV startups (Bloomberg $), Uber's new plan for ride-hailing electric vehicles (Axios)

AGRICULTURE: Food of the future? EU nations put mealworms on the menu (AP)

BUSINESS: Pandora ditching mined diamonds for lab-grown ones (Washington Post $)

CARBON PRICING: Cost of polluting in EU soars as carbon price hits record €50 (FT $)

FINANCE: BlackRock backed climate proposals, but key votes are yet to come (Bloomberg $)

GRETA: Thunberg: ‘We will not accept’ giving up on limiting warming (AP)

INTERNATIONAL: Africa’s solar street lights offer glimmer of potential (Bloomberg $), China’s push to cut carbon emissions boosts risks for part of the country (CNBC), Chinese banks accused of funding deforestation around world (FT $)

• First 100 days: has Biden kept his promises to Black America? (NewsOne, Dr. Amara Enyia and Maurice Mitchell op-ed)
• Family trees (Atmos, Dr. Suzanne Simard interview)
• A grand bargain for decarbonizing the US electricity sector (Utility Dive, Fredrich Kahrl and Jim Williams op-ed)
• Commentary: Biden’s TVA appointments offer crucial chance for climate justice (Energy News Network, Gaby Sarri-Tobar op-ed)
• America’s bridges need greater investment to survive (Bloomberg, Peter Orszag op-ed $)
• Not all blue-collar workers will find green-collar jobs (FT, Sarah O'Connor op-ed $)
• ‘Climate change is not a subjective thing.’ How does the U.S. approach to the environment look from abroad? (New York Times, Chai Dingari, Adam Westbrook and Brendan Miller, opinion video $)

Psychology Can Help Fight Fake News, But Ultimately Denial Is A Political Problem No Messaging Can Solve

Yesterday we talked about Bill Nye’s admittedly casual answer to the question of what can be done about climate deniers, but today we’re actually going to get into some of the science the Science Guy didn’t! 

First up is a new review article published last month that asks (and answers) “how can psychological science help counter the spread of fake news?” It goes over what we know about debunking and fact checking, like that the backfire-effects are minimal when debunking, but repeating disinformation does still provide some “illusory truth effect” to make it seem more truth-y. Better than chasing after myths is inoculating the public against them beforehand, with some fun little games showing how you can make fighting things like COVID denial exciting!

It then gets into some of the more cutting-edge areas of research, where (for example) researchers are still learning how long the effects of a debunking lasts, and discerning between things shared because people just aren’t paying attention to the truth, versus fake news intentionally shared for political reasons. 

That’s really where, as a general principle, psychological science inherently falls short as a tool for fighting disinformation. Because no matter how well researchers design and implement a program for correcting disinformation, that approach is always playing catch-up with the lies. And no matter how effective a debunking is, if the people who saw (and chose to believe) the disinformation don’t see it, or don’t believe it just to own the libs, then the disinformation is winning. 

That political element is the focus of another study from a usually psychological-science-centric debunking expert, Stephan Lewandowsky: Liberty and the pursuit of science denial. Noting that tobacco denial, climate denial, COVID denial and other objections to public health protections are justified by a libertarian political ideology, Lewandowsky questions whether that worldview can be reconciled with one where profits aren’t always prioritized over people. 

After going through the history of the synergy between denial and libertarianism, the damage done by disinformation and the potential solutions available to communicators, it all comes down to a fundamental reality synthesized  by Dr. Robert Brulle, who has written that because what’s preventing climate action is economics and politics, “introducing new messages or information into an otherwise unchanged socioeconomic system will accomplish little.” 

There’s no perfectly crafted narrative that’s going to change the fact that the fossil fuel industry spends hundreds of millions of dollars on political campaign contributions and lobbying to shape policy (or the lack thereof) directly, and a whole network of pseudo-media outlets, university centers, think tanks and other organizations that indirectly shape the culture in ways favorable to the industry. 

The Koch fortune’s bought a whole lot of libertarianism, and injected it into the right. As a result, the “libertarian” organizations that exist almost all uniformly reject each and every actual market-based climate policy that would otherwise be entirely consistent with the libertarian ideals of protecting private property. If it were just the politics, they’d embrace climate lawsuits to hold polluters accountable, for example, and a price on carbon as a starting point for policy. But they don’t, because the ideology is simply being exploited by organized and funded agents of the fossil fuel industry’s climate denial network. 

So as Lewandowsky writes, Brulle’s “recognition is crucial because it clarifies that overcoming climate denial and facilitating climate mitigation is not simply a matter of improving communication but of political change.” 

To answer, then, the question posed to Bill Nye about what to do about deniers, the answer is not particularly complicated (even if it is difficult to execute): commonsense campaign finance reform to get dark, corporate money out of politics and politicians of both parties out of company’s pockets; IRS enforcement of the non-political status of "charities" being used as covert anti-regulatory lobbying bodies; and social media moderation to deplatform paid, professional disinformation agents who use those private platforms to peddle libertarian political ideology as a front for pro-polluter absolutism. 

If those things aren’t done, then the psychological science telling us how to debunk disinformation is always going to have to follow behind denial, playing whack-a-mole and perpetually cleaning up messes instead of preventing them. 

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