(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: In-depth look at disproportionate impact of climate change in minority communities (NBC)
- SERIOUSLY?: Harrowing photos of border patrol with whips on horseback hunting haitian migrants evoke images of slavery (NewsOne, Miami Herald, People, Black Wall Street Times, Politico, Reuters, The Guardian), Haiti wants ‘humanitarian moratorium’ as US begins sending 14,000 migrants in Texas back to decimated nation (NewsOne, New York Times $, Al Jazeera, NBC, AP, The Grio),
- REMINDER: 710 Indigenous people, mostly girls, were reported missing over the past decade in Wyoming, the same state where Gabby Petito reportedly disappeared (Insider), the way Gabby Petito’s fiancé Brian Laundrie has evaded arrest epitomizes white privilege (NewsOne)
CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: ‘We need to stop’: Inside the world’s first diplomatic alliance to keep oil and gas in the ground (CNBC), initiative aims to create a fossil fuel non-proliferation treaty (Yale Climate Connections)
- UNGA: All eyes on US as Boris Johnson urges nations on $100bn climate aid pledge (FT $), Britain and other small island states call out big polluters (Politico EU), Climate crisis: history will judge failure to act, Johnson says at UN (The Guardian), UN chief, UK PM increase pressure on leaders for climate change funds (Reuters, The Hill), UN chief sees progress on climate support for developing countries (Reuters), UN chief warns China, US to avoid Cold War (AP, interview), from food insecurity to the UN’s future: what we’re watching at the UNGA (The New Humanitarian)
COP26: UN climate talks: faint progress on money, none on pollution (AP, Axios), sifting for clues within a climate whirlwind (Axios), oil companies to be sidelined at UN's climate conference (Wall Street Journal $), Boris Johnson says it will be ‘tough’ to meet climate finance targets ahead of COP26 (CNBC)
COP27: Egypt's Sisi declares interest in hosting COP27 next year (Reuters)
GLOBAL METHANE PLEDGE: Global methane pledge offers hope on climate in lead up to glasgow (InsideClimate News), a global methane pledge: how climate change is reshaping oil and gas diplomacy (Energy Monitor), seven countries join US and EU in methane reduction pledge (Climate Home), obstacles abound in global effort to cut methane (E&E News), US-EU methane pledge wins oil industry backing (E&E $)
WORDS, MEANING, ETC.: Carbon footprint' and 'net zero' don't mean what you think (Vice), more companies pledge ‘net-zero’ emissions to fight climate change, but what does that really mean? (The Conversation), [UK] competition watchdog gives firms deadline on ending ‘greenwashing’ (The Guardian)
URGENCY: Climate scientist [Katharine Hayhoe]: 'we need to cut our carbon emissions as much as possible as soon as possible' (MSNBC)
AGENCIES: FEMA resists pressure to delay flood insurance revamp (Politico Pro $), what to expect from Interior and EPA this fall (E&E News), methane fee collides with EPA rules. 'It's very unusual' (E&E $), Granholm urges more local voices in setting building codes (Politico Pro $), 3 big questions surround BLM headquarters move back to D.C. (E&E News)
EXECUTIVE BRANCH: GAO urges FERC, DOE to tackle climate, cyber risks to electric grid (Politico Pro $)
THE HILL: Pelosi on center stage with Biden’s $4 trillion agenda at risk (Bloomberg $), Congress moves to fund disaster loan program (E&E $), Democratic support for carbon dioxide pipelines spurs backlash (Politico Pro $)
- HOUSE: 'This is the time.’ Stansbury seeks funding for Pueblo irrigation infrastructure (New Mexico Political Report), flurry of environment amendments pending for defense bill (E&E $)
- SENATE: 4 more Democratic plays where the Senate's rules referee can blow the whistle (Politico)
WHITE HOUSE: 'This is a code red situation': Gina McCarthy on climate change (MSNBC)
INFRASTRUCTURE BILL(S): Democrats confront 'Rubik's cube on steroids' (The Hill), 5 issues to watch as reconciliation talks intensify (E&E News), Democrats eye linking stopgap spending to debt ceiling (E&E News, Politico Pro $)
POLITICS: Progressives worry their priorities will be left behind, despite Biden’s bold words (New York Times $), new lobby group will press an urban agenda in DC (Axios)
NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Committee to question Biden Interior energy nominee (E&E $), committee votes set on EPA, chemical and judicial nominees (E&E $)
CITIES AND STATES: New York plans two major power lines to help meet climate goals (Bloomberg $, Politico Pro $), New York officials call on governor to revisit rate hike tied to controversial Brooklyn pipeline (Energy News Network), how America’s hottest city is trying to cool down (Vox), in North Carolina, falling costs of clean energy make strange bedfellows (Energy News Network), New Mexico hearing begins for next round of oil, gas rules (AP)
IMPACTS: Twin threats: climate migrants said to face greater risk of modern slavery (Thomson Reuters Foundation), Louisianans’ way of life on the coast is threatened by the very plans meant to save their wetlands and barrier islands from rising seas (The Conversation)
WILDFIRES: ‘Climate crisis on our shores’: Mediterranean countries sign deal after summer of fires (The Guardian), rain brings fire relief in Pacific Northwest, but winds fan flames in California (Washington Post $), California halts insurance cancellations in major wildfire areas across 22 counties (Sacramento Bee $, AP), Santa Ana winds and critical fire weather are headed for Los Angeles (LA Times $), PG&E starts public safety power shutoffs in Northern California as wildfire risks continue (Sacramento Bee $)
- KNP COMPLEX FIRE: Fire creeps closer to ancient sequoias, reaching Trail of 100 Giants (LA Times $), 4 famous giant trees unharmed by Sequoia National Park fire (AP, The Hill, Reuters), satellite image shows how shockingly close the KNP Complex Fire is to Earth's biggest tree (Gizmodo)
- CALDOR FIRE: Grizzly Flats family lost everything in the Caldor Fire. Will they rebuild in the woods? (San Francisco Chronicle), state agency begins to assess damage in Grizzly Flats left by Caldor Fire (CBS Sacramento)
- DIXIE FIRE: Dixie Fire 90% contained after burning over 1,504 square miles [FOX40], one family’s fight against the Dixie Fire (New York Times, The Daily $)
- GREECE: Greek firefighters battle wildfire at resort near Athens (AP)
HURRICANES: Tropical Storms Peter and Rose likely to be joined by Sam this week (Yale Climate Connections, Washington Post $)
- IDA: Lawsuit: Ida outages due to ‘gum and super glue’ at utility (AP), as most of New Orleans moves on, Lafitte still battling to dig out from Ida's fury (NOLA.com), photos: caskets in historic African American town still scattered 3 weeks after Hurricane Ida (NOLA.com)
RENEWABLES: China appeals WTO ruling over Trump era’s solar-panel tariffs (Bloomberg $), how the clean-energy revolution is sweeping through markets (Bloomberg $), new design for offshore wind farm has lots of fans (Axios)
LNG: LNG developers urge court to rethink social cost of carbon ruling (E&E $)
OIL & GAS: Dem clean energy plan can work with natural gas, studies say (E&E $), BP gambles big on fast transition from oil to renewables (Reuters)
INSURANCE: Coal, oil sands companies feel growing insurance squeeze (E&E News)
PIPELINES: Line 3 pipeline 'rights of nature' lawsuit put on hold (E&E $)
COAL: China is key to saving the planet from climate change. But it can’t quit coal. (Washington Post $), Poland refuses to halt disputed coal mine despite EU court penalty (Reuters)
HYDROGEN: Plug Power will make hydrogen from water in California drought (Bloomberg $)
UTILITIES: Energy, utility sectors feel 'most exposed' to cybersecurity threats, survey finds (Utility Dive), long waits to connect to Xcel’s grid are stalling Minnesota solar projects (Energy News Network)
GRID: Location matters: The new science of siting clean energy to push more carbon from the grid (Canary Media), advancing the energy transition requires an honest discussion of costs, outages and land, analysts say (Utility Dive)
EVs: GM says production starts on replacement batteries for Bolts (AP), Rivian is coming. Here’s why it matters (E&E News)
ACTIVISM: Protesters target London’s major ring road for 4th time (AP), anger as climate protesters block London's M25 motorway again (Reuters)
BUSINESS: The breadth and limits of corporate carbon moves (Axios), Amazon grows climate coalition ahead of UN General Assembly (Bloomberg $, The Hill, AP), Jeff Bezos pledges $1 bln to biodiversity, conservation efforts (Reuters, New York Times $), American Airlines, Microsoft join Gates-backed program to boost clean energy (Reuters, CNBC, Bloomberg $), real estate firms invest $140 million in climate tech (Axios)
FINANCE: Banks consider climate risk for home loans, a process called ‘underwaterwriting’ or ‘blue-lining’ (CNBC), BlackRock losing 'patience' on pace of corporate ESG disclosure (Utility Dive), central bank group BIS warns of green asset bubble risk (Reuters), EU not leading by example on green investing, auditors say (Reuters)
INTERNATIONAL: Methane plumes in Pakistan put landfills in the spotlight (Bloomberg $), poll: Scots not confident U.K. can hit net-zero climate target (Politico Pro $), South Africa adopts tougher emission goal before COP26 (Bloomberg $)
- CANADIAN ELECTION: Trudeau’s Liberals win Canada election, but miss majority (AP), everything you need to know about the Canadian election (Politico, Reuters Factbox), climate change was supposed to be a big issue this election. it wasn’t. (New York Times $)
- EUROPEAN GAS: British energy firms fear collapse as Europe’s gas crisis sees prices surge 250% (CNBC), Spain wants EU "menu" of measures to combat power price surges (Reuters)
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Pielke Jr. Thinks He’s Invented The Coal-Focused Climate Strategy Sierra Club’s Pursued For A Decade
Though it may not seem like it, we really try not to talk about UC-Boulder professor Roger Pielke Jr.’s “so bad even Nate Silver had to apologize” takes, unless he’s being used by professional deniers, which is, admittedly, pretty often. And ever since his tin-foil, denier-beloved January 2020 Forbes post about how billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael Bloomberg “corrupted climate science” by funding research into what a coal-powered future would mean for the climate, he’s been popping up more and more in conspiratorial climate denial land.
But his latest substack post yesterday is worth taking a look at, not because it’s in any way representative of actual climate denial, but because it reveals exactly how useless Pielke’s punditry is, even without organized denial spinning it further than he’s willing.
“Imagine,” his tweet thread from Friday that became the substack post started, “how climate policy might look” if it focused on things like coal plants instead of temperature targets, because coal is such a core driver of climate change. In his substack post, he elaborates on how most emissions come from a small set of coal plants, and expounds on how great a “coal exit treaty” would be, because it makes temperature targets more realistic and easily manageable.
And he’s right! Coal is a dirty fossil fuel and the largest single contributor to global warming, and shutting down coal plants is a critical component of the clean energy transition. There’s no way to keep burning coal and protect the climate, so shutting down coal plants is an obvious metric for climate progress.
The problem is that Pielke’s point is woefully out of date, as shutting down coal plants has been on the Sierra Club’s agenda for, like, two decades now, and literally just imagining “that, but globally” isn’t exactly groundbreaking brain work.
And it’s not like the Beyond Coal campaign was a secret. For example, Politico’s Michael Grunwald covered the “war on coal” back in 2015, detailling the history of Sierra Club’s data-driven fight to clean up the local air and the global atmosphere by opposing new coal plants and replacing them with renewables. At the time, the group was celebrating it’s 190th plant retirement, representing about a quarter of American coal-fired capacity at the time, saving about 5,500 estimated lives a year. It’s interesting stuff, and a testament to the grinding, un-glamourous-ly hard work and dedication of the (women) activists whose success Pielke erases to position himself as smart and wise by portraying this approach as somehow new or counterintuitive..
Per Grunwald’s 2015 story, it turns out that a real turning point for the Beyond Coal campaign was in 2011, when the group received a huge $50 million donation covering their fundraising costs to expand into every state, which was then expanded by another $100 million with help from other philanthropists. The Sierra Club originally set a goal then of retiring 30 percent of the 530 US coal plants by 2020, a goal that turned out to be quite conservative, as a press release from 2020 bragged about how they’d successfully retired and replaced 60% of the fleet, totaling 318 coal plants shut down and replaced with wind and solar.
And the benefactors whose philanthropy enabled the life-saving and coal-killing campaign, the one indirectly and unintentionally praised by Roger “Tom-Steyer-and-Mike-Bloomberg-corrupted-climate-science” Pielke Jr., as he clumsily Christopher Colombus’ed the Beyond Coal approach?
None other than Michael Bloomberg, whose support then attracted... wait for it… drum roll please… Yes, you guessed it, Tom Steyer!
Which just goes to show you that when Pielke Jr. has an original thought, it’s often something bonkers, like that Bloomberg and Steyer are corrupting climate science by funding research and reports on climate risk. And when Pielke Jr. has a correct thought, it’s often something that’s so obvious, unoriginal and well-known that it’s been funded for the last decade by billionaires like Bloomberg and Steyer, and executed brilliantly by one of the biggest legacy environmental groups on the planet, part of the “Big Green” blob that Pielke makes his brand by disparaging.
Seriously, he criticized the Sierra Club’s strategy back in 2010, so it’s pretty clear how reliable his judgement is that he’s now, 11 years later, suddenly discovering its value.
Anyway, we can’t wait to see the (additional) cognitive dissonance when Roger finds out that Bloomberg Philanthropies has taken Beyond Coal global, having closed half of Europe’s coal plants since 2016, including six of its dirtiest. Now, Australia, South Korea and Japan are also taking up the Beyond Coal mantle, too!
Is it bad and corrupted because Bloomberg funds it, or is it good because Pielke can pretend like it was his idea all along?
We can’t wait to find out! |
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