FIRST LOOK

Be sure to check out the Denier Roundup below for a recap of reporting from Floodlight/The Guardian and the LA Times into the bait-and-switch pulled by a gas company to deceive and co-opt local environmental activists in Southern California.

Feds Announce Unprecedented Colorado River Usage Cuts: Federal officials, for the first time ever, declared a water shortage from the Colorado River on Monday — yet another bleak indicator of the magnitude of the drought across the West made worse by climate change. “It’s a historic moment where drought and climate change are at our door,” Chuck Cullom of the Central Arizona Project told the AP. The "Tier 1" cuts were triggered by projections that Lake Mead — the largest reservoir on the Colorado River, created by the Hoover Dam — will be nearly 10 feet below the Tier 1 cutoff point on January 1, 2022. It was just three feet above that level, about 35% of its total capacity, on Monday. “It’s as if a switch got flipped in 2000, and we now have a completely different river than we had in the 20th century,” Brad Udall, a senior water and research scientist at Colorado State University, told the Washington Post. Under the complex system established 99 years ago, Tier 1 cuts, which take effect next year, will hit Arizona hardest, losing about 8% of its total water use. Nevada and the country of Mexico will also see cuts, but California, because of its water rights seniority, will not see immediate cuts. (Washington Post $, AP, explainer, Colorado Public Radio, Salt Lake Tribune, New York Times $, Politico, Wall Street Journal $, Axios, CNN, NBC, Bloomberg $, E&E News, ABC; Climate Signals background: Drought)

Grace And Fred Hit Haiti And Florida: Tropical Depression Grace poured rain on Haiti and the Dominican Republic yesterday, as Tropical Storm Fred hit the Florida panhandle. Coming just days after a 7.2 earthquake killed at least 1,419 people, Grace, the second named storm to hit the island of Hispaniola in under a week, dumped "heavy rains" on Haiti according to the New York Times, but precise amounts were unknown Tuesday morning. The storm restrengthened into a tropical storm early Tuesday morning. Tropical Storm Fred made landfall on the Florida Panhandle Monday afternoon. Warm, moist tropical air fueled the storm back to near-hurricane strength after it hit Haiti and other Caribbean nations last week. As of Monday evening, the storm had already dropped as much as 6 inches of rain with several more inches possible. As many as 40,000 utility customers were without power Monday evening. (Haiti: New York Times $, The Guardian, AP, Washington Post $, Reuters; Florida: Washington Post $, Weather.com; Both: Yale Climate Connections, AP, Earther; Climate Signals background: Hurricanes)

Insurance Industry Struggles To Price In Climate, Extreme Weather Risks: If the drumbeat of weather-related disasters pounding the globe feels hard to comprehend, you're not alone. Professional risk-assessors in the insurance industry are struggling to come to grips with extreme weather supercharged by climate change, Bloomberg reports. Reinsurance giant Swiss Re AG recently announced mid-year insured losses were more than 20% higher than average over the last 10 years. While the industry is generally good at understanding large events like hurricanes, it's struggling to fully account for the costs of "secondary perils" like wildfires, snowstorms, and other extreme weather events that are becoming increasingly costly as continued extraction and combustion of fossil fuels heat the Earth's climate. (Bloomberg $)

ENVIRONMENTAL (IN)JUSTICE: Timeline: early landmark events in the environmental justice movement (InsideClimate News)

BAIT-AND-SWITCH: They fought for clean air. They didn’t know they were part of a gas industry campaign (LA Times $ and The Guardian/Floodlight)

CARBON CAPTURE: Thin air (Atmos)

DENIAL: Climate denialists look to new generation for recruits (E&E $)

TESLA: US will investigate Tesla’s autopilot system over crashes with emergency vehicles (New York Times $, Reuters, Axios, NBC)

CAFFEINE: If your coffee's going downhill, blame climate change (Reuters)

BIG GREEN: 'It's just wrong': internal fight over Sierra Club founder's racial legacy roils organization (Politico)

REDWOODS OLDER THAN JESUS CHRIST: When the toughest trees met the hottest fire (E&E News)

AGENCIES: 10 ways FEMA could improve its disaster programs (E&E $)

DOI: Interior advances major offshore wind project (E&E $)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: Janet Yellen gets a chance to shape the Fed, this time from outside (New York Times $)

LAWSUITS: Oil industry sues Biden administration over drilling auction pause (Reuters)

HOUSE: Wildfire legislation aims for better prediction and detection (E&E $)

SENATE: Senate budget sets up EV tax credit fight (E&E $)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden wants a national efficiency standard. Would it work? (E&E $)

INFRASTRUCTURE BILL(S): Pelosi takes step to quell moderates’ budget rebellion (AP, MSNBC, E&E $), Western water projects in infrastructure deal (AP explainer)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: US Treasury to oppose development bank financing for most fossil fuel projects (Reuters)

SCOTUS: Court rejects CWA challenge, tees up Supreme Court showdown (E&E $)

CALIFORNIA: California greenlights first-of-its-kind energy code to encourage electrified buildings (Utility Dive)

FERC: FERC's shifting views on climate, environmental justice may test legal boundaries (Politico Pro $)

IMPACTS: Floods are washing away Black history in [Annapolis,] Maryland (E&E $), heavy rains trigger deadly mudslides and flooding in Japan (Axios, BBC, AP)

TURKISH FLOODING: Flooding death toll in Turkey climbs to 77; dozens missing (AP, Washington Post $, Reuters, Axios)

HEAT: Spain soared to record high of 117 degrees Saturday amid historic heat wave (Washington Post $)

DROUGHT: Is Western US experiencing a ‘megadrought’? (Yale Climate Connections)

WILDFIRES: More evacuations are ordered for thousands in the path of wildfires across the West. (New York Times $), mega-blazes put spotlight on Europe's firefighting tactics (Thomson Reuters Foundation), wildfire in northeastern Minnesota grows to 1,500 acres (AP)

• BOOTLEG FIRE: Bootleg Fire, once the largest in the nation, is now fully contained (The Oregonian, Willamette Week, Oregon Public Broadcasting)
• CALIFORNIA: [Dixie Fire] threatens homes as blazes burn across West (AP), California adapts to wildfire by urging people to flee (E&E $), winds drive nation’s largest wildfire toward [Susanville,] California (AP)
• GREECE: Satellite images reveal Greece’s hell on earth (Earther), blaze northwest of Athens still raging (AP)

METHANE: Large methane cloud in Iraq coincided with gas pipeline leak (Bloomberg $)

RENEWABLES: An ideal marriage? The battle to match US clean energy demand with excess Canadian hydropower (Utility Dive), New England solar developer’s legal wrangling draws praise, criticism (Energy News Network)

OIL & GAS: Report: Appalachian natural gas boom was 'economic bust' (E&E $), OPEC+ sees no need to meet US call for more supply, sources say (Reuters), new technology could curb oil-driven earthquakes (E&E $)

PIPELINES: Cancellation rumors fly as PennEast rethinks eminent domain (E&E $)

HYDROGEN: Is 'blue' hydrogen clean energy? Studies stir climate debate (E&E $)

UTILITIES: Arizona 2050 clean energy mandate could increase utility bills nearly $60/month (Utility Dive)

(ALLEGED) UTILITY CORRUPTION: Illinois regulators launch probe of ComEd in wake of bribery scandal (Utility Dive)

EVs: Detroit sticks with trucks, SUVs despite lofty 2030 goals for EVs (Reuters)

HOME FLORA: Are your houseplants actually good for the planet? (Vox)

AGRICULTURE: Oatly’s frothy growth leaves sour aftertaste (Reuters)

BUSINESS: Climate change becomes key theme in Q2 corporate earnings calls (Axios)

EDUCATION: Amid climate crisis, HBCUs are investing in pathways to environmental sustainability (Prism Reports)

FINANCE: New York's pension fund to review oil holdings, axes more coal investments (Reuters), investing green is harder than you’d think (CNN), US investors lean on blank-check firms in search for energy transition targets (Reuters)

SHIPPING: What’s the green fuel of the future for shipping? (Bloomberg $)

INTERNATIONAL: China green energy stocks clean up after Beijing crackdown (FT $), Sri Lanka rules out new coal power, promotes rooftop solar (Climate Home), UK government to review green retail electricity tariffs (Reuters)

TAKE ALL OF OUR MONEY: What if you could become invisible to mosquitoes? (New York Times $)

• Extreme weather is the new normal. We know why. (New York Times, Katharine Hayhoe and Friederike Otto $)
• Fed chair Powell's policies fuel fossil borrowing binge (BailoutWatch, analysis)
• Turning to foreign leaders to fix our energy crisis is a shameful solution (The Hill, Charlotte Whelan op-ed)
• Coal's runaway rally makes crude oil-linked LNG competitive (Reuters, Clyde Russell column)
• A sustainable transportation advocate explains why bikes and buses, not cars, should be the norm (InsideClimate News, Courtney Cobbs interview)
• Everyone will breathe this polluted air one day (New York Times, Margaret Renkle op-ed $)
• Big Oil should help pay for the climate mess it created (Washington Post, Sen. Chris Van Hollen op-ed $)
• Is the US doing enough about climate change? (CNN, Fareed Zakaria GPS)
• To save Earth’s climate, map the oceans (Bloomberg, Dawn Wright op-ed $)
• The bad economics of fossil fuel defenders (New York Times, Paul Krugman column $)

LA Times Points Floodlight At Shady Fossil Fuel Front Group To Reveal Where The Climate Change Deniers Have Gone

A cursory glance at some headlines on either coast might have one wondering if there are any deniers left to round up. 

“Where have all the climate change deniers gone?” asked Los Angeles Times letters editor Paul Thornton via headline Saturday, with a short letter of his own. Back in 2013, he “unintentionally touched off a journalistic controversy” by citing climate denial as an example of the “kind of factual inaccuracies [he tries] to keep off” the letters to the editor page. But now, the latest IPCC report response was quite muted by comparison. “Letters denying the science still trickle in,” he writes as a preface to some great climate letters from readers, “but this isn’t anything like 2013.” 

There’s a similar vibe to a New York Times story published Friday by Lisa Friedman and Coral Davenport— or at least, the headline: amid extreme weather, a shift among Republicans on climate change. Go beyond the headline to even just the subhed and you find that, thankfully, Friedman and Davenport do recognize that it’s not 2013, and they repeatedly punctuate the GOP’s new language with reminders of Republicans' sustained opposition to reducing fossil fuel emissions. These reminders, that the GOP’s shift is merely one of words and rhetoric, is perhaps most amusingly presented by their contrasting Senator James Inhofe’s recent denial that he ever called climate change a “hoax,” with a parenthetical that Inhofe literally wrote a book about climate change called The Greatest Hoax. 

Similarly, while over at the LA Times, Thornton is hopefully correct about the volume of blatant climate denial content dropping over the years (perhaps thanks to efforts made to call it out, debunk and deplatform it) (you’re welcome), he wouldn’t need to go far to find out what sort of tricks the industry is up to now. In fact, he’d just need to look at the LA Times! 

A collaborative investigation between Emily Holden’s Floodlight at The Guardian and Sammy Roth and Miranda Green at the Los Angeles Times discovered a scheme in which people who believed they were “standing up for sustainability” were actually being paid to lobby for natural gas-powered trucks over electric vehicles. Successfully. 

While they couldn’t definitively prove the natural gas fueling station company, Clean Energy Fuels Corp., paid Method PR company to hire people and arm them with talking points and coach them to lobby for natural gas-powered trucks, the reporters did find that Method definitely did those things and had a contract with the company. And that tidbit is only public knowledge because the founder of Method, Brian VanRiper, is married to L.A. City Planning Commission member Samantha Millman, who had to file a financial disclosure showing at least a $10,000+ payment from Clean Energy Fuels to Method in 2017. 

Clean Energy Fuels’ VP for sustainability, Greg Roche, did admit that they hired Method for “community outreach,” but apparently claimed to not know anything about them hiring people in the community to do outreach on the company’s behalf. 

And they were paid a decent amount: $20 an hour, for what they believed were “environmental fellowships,” according to Method's online job posting. 

Well, some of them were paid decently. Perhaps in response to some of the stats the investigation mentions about Latino and low-income neighborhoods having “some of the highest ‘pollution burdens’ in California,” the company also got Danielle Marquez, a Latina single mother of four, to play up the personal angle on how a port using natural gas trucks instead of electric would be good for her, as a concerned mom with children in tow at events. 

But instead of a $20/hr fellowship others found online, they just “gave her $20 Visa gift cards when she attended events and spoke at public meetings. She called the gift cards a ‘perk’ that she put toward gasoline money.” 

Which sure makes it sound like it didn’t even cover her full expenses, much less her time, which she apparently mostly volunteered because she “didn’t know until she was contacted for this article that she had worked on behalf of the natural gas industry.” 

Not that she was surprised, though, saying aptly that companies “are running rampant and exploiting people [and] our communities and polluting the environment.” 

Another unwitting employee was then-college student Ana Leon, and she also only learned about it when contacted years later. She didn’t “feel angry necessarily.” But did “feel disappointed.” (We would be angry and disappointed, for the record.) 

“At the same time, in hindsight…” she continued with more honesty than the gas company and PR that paid her, “I know this sounds bad, but it’s like, at least I got paid.” 

Which just goes to show: the industry’s ability to cut paychecks rather than emissions is why, 2013 or not, there’s still plenty of climate denial to be found. 

Sometimes you just have to look a little harder for it.

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