FIRST LOOK:

Devi Lockwood spent five years traveling 20 countries on six continents to document 1,001 stories on the personal impacts of the climate crisis. Her book 1,001 Voices on Climate Change is out now!

Still-Growing Caldor Fire 'Knocking On The Door' Of Tahoe Basin: As Paradise, California works to buy up properties devastated by the 2018 Camp Fire to create a more fire-resilient barrier for the still-rebuilding town, Northern California is under a siege of wildfire and smoke. Nearly 43,000 Californians are under evacuation orders as more than 13,500 firefighters battle a dozen large wildfires across the state. The most urgent, officials said Monday, was the Caldor Fire which blew through the 100,000-acre mark over the weekend, burning more than 30,000 acres in two days — a rate of just under eight football fields every minute — and was "knocking on the door of the Lake Tahoe basin," Cal Fire Director Thom Porter told reporters Monday. The fire has already incinerated more than 500 buildings of the nearly 2,000 buildings destroyed statewide this year. Just 9% contained, the Caldor fire threatened more than 17,000 structures as of Monday evening and smoke from its flames made Lake Tahoe's air quality the worst in the nation. The megadrought across the American West, made worse by human-caused climate change, is not only supercharging wildfires in California, but hampering efforts to contain them as well. ​​“The entire western United States is having fire problems right now,” Diana Swart, a spokesperson for the Amador El Dorado unit of Cal Fire, told the Guardian. “When we can we will get resources from out of state, but they are also working their fires as well.” (Paradise: NPR; Statewide: AP; Caldor Fire: The Guardian, KCRA Sacramento , New York Times $, CNN, New York Times $, Mercury News, Tahoe Daily Tribune; Air quality: LA TImes $; Climate Signals background: Wildfires, Drought, 2021 Western wildfire season)

Environmental Injustice Amplifies, Amplified By Other Inequities: People with disabilities, about 25% of the U.S. population, have largely been ignored in the growing environmental justice conversation, Environmental Health News reports. The overall dearth of research, in part due to the fact many surveys never ask about disability, illustrates the point, but a recent study suggests disability often amplifies other inequalities including race, national origin, and poverty. "Disabled people—especially disabled people of color—are much more likely to be impoverished," and are subsequently funneled into low-income housing that is more likely to be built near polluted sites, Arrianna Planey of UNC-Chapel Hill told EHN. Of course, the disabled community has been acutely aware of the intersection of disability and environmental justice "forever," disabled youth organizer Daphne Frias said. Researchers' "focus has generally been more on how environmental injustices cause disability," Catherine Jampel, fellow of the American Council Learned Societies, told EHN, "but much less on the specific vulnerabilities of disabled people to environmental injustices." (Environmental Health News)

Climate Change Made Deady European Floods Up To 9 Times More Likely: Climate change contributed to the devastating flooding in Germany and Belgium last month, making the rare event as much as 9 times more likely. The analysis, released Monday by World Weather Attribution, "reinforce[s] the conclusions” of the U.N. report released earlier this month, Frank Kreienkamp, a climate scientist with the German Meteorological Service, said. At least 220 people died in those countries when two months' worth of rain in two days turned rivers into violent torrents that actually limited the analysis because they destroyed so many measurement instruments. For every 1.8°F (1°C) the earth is heated, air can hold (and dump) 7% more moisture, causing more extreme rainfall. “These floods have shown us that even developed countries are not safe from severe impacts of extreme weather that we have seen,” Friederike Otto, associate director of the Environmental Change Institute at Oxford University, told the AP. “This is an urgent global challenge and we need to step up to it. The science is clear and has been for years.” (AP, New York Times $, Axios, CNN, Deutsche Welle, Bloomberg $, The Guardian, France24, Politico Pro $; Climate Signals background: Extreme precipitation increase)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: A new scorecard ranked companies on environmental racism. Guess who came in last? (Grist), Black Centreville [Illinois] residents advocate for environmental justice in their backyards (NewsOne), a Texas sheriff’s grim task: finding bodies as migrant deaths surge (New York Times $)

CLIMATE JUSTICE: Women of color lead fight to bring climate justice to low-income Las Vegans (Las Vegas Sun, AP)

TEXAS: A Texas solution to global warming: use more air-conditioning (Bloomberg $), why is Texas allocating funds for reducing air emissions to widening highways? (InsideClimate News)

THE HILL: Congress running out of time for fiscal 2022 spending bills (E&E $)

HOUSE: Pelosi barrels toward budget showdown with Dem centrists (Politico), House lawmakers form California coastal issues caucus (E&E $), uncertainty on reconciliation as House returns (E&E News)

SENATE: 4 senators to watch as Dems craft reconciliation package (E&E $), Manchin warns House Democrats: 'terrible message' to delay bipartisan infrastructure bill (The Hill), Sinema: I simply won't back a $3.5T spending bill (Politico Pro $)

INFRASTRUCTURE BILL(S): Will Waxman-Markey’s lessons guide greens in climate fight? (E&E News), budget reconciliation plan sets up EV tax credit fight (E&E $), Democrats scrounge for votes to pass $3.5 trillion budget plan (New York Times $)

POLITICS: Scientists say the world urgently needs to cut methane emissions. The politics aren't as simple. (Politico Pro $), AFL-CIO presses for quick House passage of budget resolution (The Hill), Science Moms launches $4 million ad campaign (Axios)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: US, Singapore launch climate partnership (Politico Pro $)

CITIES AND STATES: Arizona study renews debate over 100% clean electricity (E&E $), Newsom loss would test Calif. climate policies (E&E News)

IMPACTS: How climate change amplifies extreme weather like Tennessee's deadly floods and NYC's record rainfall (CNN, The Guardian), what will climate change do to Hampton Roads? 10 takeaways from new state report (The Virginian-Pilot)

TENNESSEE FLOODING: Tennessee floods show a pressing climate danger across America: ‘Walls of water’ (Washington Post $, New York Times $), ‘our people need help’: devastation in Tennessee, as experts warn of flooding risks (New York Times $), survivors recount ‘living nightmare’ as Tennessee’s deadly floodwaters swept them up in moments (Washington Post $), deadly floods in Tennessee continue our summer of extreme rain (Gizmodo), crews search for dozens missing after Tennessee flash floods kill at least 21 (Washington Post $), Tennessee flooding leaves at least 22 dead (CBS, ABC, NBC, NPR), how did Tennessee flooding downpour fall so fast? (AP explainer)

HEAT: Heat kills. This underfunded program could help (E&E News)

GREECE: Greeks fret as crises mount: Will this time be different? (Politico EU), Greek scientists want to name heat waves like hurricanes (Gizmodo, The Verge), firefighters get upper hand on 2 blazes (AP)

DROUGHT: As the West bakes, Utah forges ahead with water pipeline (E&E News)

WILDFIRES: Wildfires are ravaging forests set aside to soak up greenhouse gases. (New York Times $), wildfire smoke is transforming clouds, making rainfall less likely (National Geographic), survivors of Dixie Fire speak out on devastating losses as it becomes first blaze to cross the Sierra Nevada (The Independent), some fires are out [in Colorado], but costs keep mounting (E&E $), Washoe County [Nevada] schools close Monday due to wildfire smoke (AP), when hotter and drier means more – but eventually less – wildfire (The Conversation), [Oregon] firefighter dies Monday while working on Gales Fire (Register-Guard, AP)

HURRICANES: Henri exiting after delivering extreme rain and damaging wind, more activity to brew by early September (Washington Post $, Reuters), how warming affects rare northern storms like Henri (E&E News)

SEA LEVEL RISE: To build, or not to build? that is the question facing local governments (NPR, Short Wave)

PERSONAL IMPACTS: Climate change turned this Italian car mechanic into a firefighter (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

OH NO, WHAT A TRAGEDY:Trump's border wall torn apart by Arizona monsoon rains (Gizmodo)

RENEWABLES: Chemical breakthrough could unlock clean energy from waste heat (E&E $), Vineyard Wind’s labor deal exposes tensions overs unions, worker diversity (Energy News Network), wind-turbine makers struggle to profit from renewable-energy boom (Wall Street Journal $)

OIL & GAS: Biden and natural gas: it's complicated (Axios), oil refinery CO2 emissions to surge this decade — study (E&E $), oil's backward summer march (Axios)

PIPELINES: Severe oil leaks worsened Keystone pipeline’s spill record, GAO finds (Politico), Democrats argue new report on Keystone pipelines bolsters Biden cancellation (The Hill)

COAL: How fairy tales ended up in the West Virginia coal mines (Grist)

UTILITIES: Can burying power lines prevent California’s next big wildfire? (Grist)

GRID: Wanted: ‘superhuman’ AI to master a greener grid (E&E News)

EVs: Electrifying 97% of the federal fleet by 2030 could save billions: report (Utility Dive), chip shortage could slow EV transition, experts warn (E&E $), Climate change is an infrastructure problem – map of electric vehicle chargers shows one reason why (The Conversation), the EV revolution will hit speed bumps (Axios)

ACTIVISM: Climate change activists target City of London's Guildhall (Reuters), police end Extinction Rebellion occupation of Norway's oil ministry (Reuters)

SHIPPING: Pacific islands call for zero carbon shipping by 2050, citing IPCC report (Climate Home)

CAFFEINE: Researchers rediscover coffee plant that could thrive in a warmer world (Yale Climate Connections)

FINANCE: Banks’ hidden ESG risks exposed in Norway wealth fund review (E&E $)

INTERNATIONAL: China is planning to build 43 new coal-fired power plants. Can it still keep its promises to cut emissions? (TIME), Germany flirts with power crunch in nuclear and coal exit (Bloomberg $), Oman signs land deal for green hydrogen project with India's ACME, report says (Reuters), slaves to deforestation: sabor abuses fuel Brazil's Amazon destruction (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

• How can Britain commit to net zero and still drill for millions more barrels of oil? (The Guardian, Greg Muttitt op-ed)
• Big oil coined ‘carbon footprints’ to blame us for their greed. Keep them on the hook (The Guardian, Rebecca Solnit op-ed)
• The sunny side of Earth's hottest month (The Hill, Sean Sublette op-ed)
• Benchmark of Big Oil on methane emissions shows ‘significant gap’ between reality and reporting (Reuters, Terry Slavin analysis)
• The Miskito people are still struggling to rebuild nearly a year after Hurricanes Eta and Iota (Atmos, Yessenia Funes field notes)
• What burgers and bananas can teach us about fighting climate change (Canary Media, Ben Wolkon op-ed)
• The Colorado River is sending a message (Writers on the Range, Gary Wockner commentary)

Texas Oil Regulator Suggests Dumbest Possible Climate Change Adaptation Plan

On Friday, CBS ran a story by Cara Korte that explored “how climate change helped strengthen the Taliban.” It’s a nuanced story on an obviously charged topic, and Korte talked to multiple experts to explain how droughts and floods have caused economic and food stress, which the Taliban have exploited to bolster their recruitment.  

Deniers, predictably, went wild with the idea that now the media is blaming climate change for terrorism. From Twitchy’s aggregation of lazy dunk-attempts from conservatives on Twitter, to lazy dunk-attempts on blogs and all the way to lazy dunk-attempters Tucker Carlson and Fox and Friends and a combo of all that from Fox’s “media reporter” Joseph Wulfsohn.  

But at the same time deniers were trying to make the idea that terrorists exploit hardship and stress sound stupid, one of their own was delivering what may be the stupidest example of climate denial. Ever.

It comes courtesy of one Wayne Christian, who you may know as one of the Texas Railroad Commissioners who got talking points from an industry propagandist and then rushed to blame renewables for the blackout in February to deflect blame from the gassy culprits.

Christian, who’s got a history of claims that are half-true, at best, told an energy conference on Friday that there’s a better solution to climate change than “$78 trillion in spending, shutting down the industries around the world, keeping third-world countries from having coal-generated electric power and all kinds of things.” 

What could this miracle solution be? “Turn the damn air conditioner up. It’s that simple.” 

Of course! Putting aside the obvious fact that not everyone on the planet can afford to crank the air conditioning, does Christian not realize the outside… exists? Apparently farmworker Florencio Gueta-Vargas should have just turned up the A/C when his tractor got stuck in the mud during the recent Pacific Northwest heatwave, leading to his untimely death from the heat, like hundreds of thousands of others every year. 

Nevermind that the tractor didn’t even have a roof to shade him, much less A/C. And of course, forget about the fact that air conditioning is energy intensive and worsens climate change.  

Building a house in the summer? Apparently before you can even start on a foundation, Wayne Christian thinks you should get the A/C up and running. Plan on playing a sport, or even practicing? Better hope that your (high school) football field is inside where there’s air! 

Apparently Wayne Christian thinks that the outdoors can be air conditioned. That, or he just doesn’t care about the thousands of workers, disproportionately people of color, whose jobs require them to be outside in un-air-conditioned heat. 

It’s that simple.

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