FIRST LOOK:

Lies, Damn Lies, And Emissions Reporting Data: Countries around the world massively undercount their greenhouse gas emissions when reporting to the UN, a Washington Post investigation reveals. The gulf between countries' reported and actual emissions — which is somewhere between an amount greater than the United States' annual (reported) emissions and nearly a quarter of all global greenhouse gasses — pose grave concerns for the international process of halting climate change. “If we don’t know the state of emissions today, we don’t know whether we’re cutting emissions meaningfully and substantially,” Stanford professor and chair of the Global Carbon Project Rob Jackson told the Post. “The atmosphere ultimately is the truth." The reporting shortfall is caused by nations' differing capacity to accurately assess their emissions, apparently intentional underreporting, and the fact that the UN process does not even require the reporting of some classes of potent greenhouse gasses. In many cases, the difference between a country's reported emissions and its actual emissions based on scientific modeling are the result of dramatic overestimation of how much carbon the reporting nation's vegetation is absorbing — Malaysia claims its forests are about five times as effective at pulling carbon out of the atmosphere as neighboring Indonesia, for example. President Biden told delegates in Glasgow last week, “One of the most important things we can do in this decisive decade — to keep 1.5° in reach — is reduce our methane emissions as quickly as possible.” Research not covered in the Post investigation, however, shows, the U.S. estimates for methane pollution in the oil and gas supply chain alone were 60% higher than official EPA estimates. (Washington Post $)

Youth Who Will Live To See Full Impacts Of Climate Change Demand Action Commensurate With Crisis: As old men negotiated the future of the planet and its inhabitants inside the COP26 conference hall, young women, many of them from Indigienous communities, led the masses of protesters who braved the drookit and filled the Glaswegian streets demanding bolder action to confront the climate crisis that will dominate their lives long after the negotiators have died. While negotiators say they are sensitive to the pleas of the generation that will inherit the crisis the negotiators' generation failed to address, "​​they’re lying to themselves,” 24-year-old Philippine activist Mitzi Jonelle Tan told the New York Times. If they were listening, “they would be prioritizing people over profit.” Women and girls, particularly in the Global South, are especially vulnerable to the impacts of climate change, which will prevent 4 million girls from attending school this year, according to a UNICEF report. As “floods are ravaging” her native Uganda, “we are in a disaster that is happening every day,” Vanessa Nakate, 24, told protesters. African nations are responsible for just 3% of historic greenhouse gas pollution, yet those countries are “on the front lines of the crisis, but not on the front pages of the newspapers,” she said. “How will we have climate justice if people from the most affected areas are not being listened to?” The protesters were joined by local trade unionists including Glasgow sanitation workers who joined because the youth had turned out to support them. “Climate justice and social justice go hand in hand,” Chris Mitchell, the branch convenor for Scotland’s GMB union refuse workers, said. Ewen Corke, 8, of Fife, brought a message closer to home: “Sorry I can’t tidy my bedroom, I am too busy saving the planet," his t-shirt read. (New York Times $, Washington Post $, Bloomberg $, AP; UNICEF education report: E&E $; Union solidarity: Gizmodo, Messy room: Washington Post $)

House Passes Infrastructure Bill: The House of Representatives passed a $1.2 infrastructure bill with $550 billion in new spending on Friday, and President Biden is expected to sign the Senate-approved legislation shortly. The bill includes few measures to cut the greenhouse gas emissions causing climate change, but includes substantial funding for adapting and building resilience to its impacts. The legislation includes $15 billion for flood control, mitigation and assistance and $100 million to help Indigenous communities relocate as their homes are inundated by sea-level rise. It also includes $65 billion for grid upgrades, $39 billion for public transit, $5 billion for EV chargers, and $2.5 billion for electric school busses — as well as $110 billion for roads, bridges, and other projects, and $18 billion in loan guarantees for for a methane gas export terminal in Alaska, as well as $4.7 billion to clean up abandoned oil and gas wells which spew heat-trapping methane into the atmosphere. The House did not pass the $1.75 Build Back Better Act, which includes more climate and social spending measures, but Democratic Senators were touting the House passage in Glasgow on Saturday as evidence that progress on that legislation would come soon. (AP, Grist, New York Times $, Wall Street Journal $, Black Wall Street Times, Politico, NPR, Bloomberg $; Senators in Glasgow: Gizmodo)

OVERVIEWS & RECAPS: 5 takeaways from Day 5 of COP26: kids in the streets, carbon capture cost, caution on net-zero pledges (CNN), COP26 first week done, looks pretty good so far — on paper (Axios, The Guardian), COP26 has begun, and so have difficult conversations (Yale Climate Connections), COP26 is bringing many calls for action. Some are already taking action. (Washington Post $), countless metaphors capture the mood of COP26 in Glasgow (Yale Climate Connections), the next collisions in Glasgow as COP26 reaches halfway mark (Axios), what to know about COP26 in Glasgow (Axios, Axios)

LOOKING AHEAD: Negotiations at COP26 are about to get a lot tougher (Axios), the UN climate summit will take on ‘​​adaptation, loss and damage’ Monday. Here's what you need to know. (Washington Post $)

PROTESTS: Generation now. The story of how young climate activists tired of waiting for change took action (TIME, TIME, New York Times $, Washington Post $, NPR), Thunberg sets slogan for COP26 in Scotland's city of protest (Bloomberg $, The Hill), UN, UK vow to push youth climate demands at COP26 summit (Thomson Reuters Foundation), how three young climate activists are trying to change the world (The Guardian, Full Story podcast), what climate activists from six countries want to see at COP26 (Washington Post $)

• IN GLASGOW: Demonstrators march in Glasgow to demand action on climate change (NPR, AP, Reuters, The Hill, CBS), COP26 protests: inflatable cows, megaphones and a rainbow (Bloomberg $, NPR, Thomson Reuters Foundation, Washington Post $), COP26 protesters back an array of causes, connected by climate change (New York Times $, New York Times $, Politico Pro $, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal $, The Guardian, Washington Post $), Extinction Rebellion protesters block a bridge (Washington Post $)
• INTERNATIONAL: In photos: thousands protest COP26 worldwide (Axios), millions around the world march to demand action on the climate crisis – video report (The Guardian), thousands protest in Glasgow and around the world for action against climate change (NPR)
• GRETA: Greta Thunberg leads massive climate protest outside COP26 climate summit in Glasgow (NBC), ‘COP26 is a failure’: Greta Thunberg says climate summit has turned into a PR event (CNBC, Axios, Washington Examiner, Wall Street Journal $, CNN), Greta Thunberg assails world leaders for ‘profiting from this destructive system.’ (New York Times $), Greta Thunberg: COP26 main goal is to ‘maintain the status quo’ (FT $), at COP26, Rwandan minister hits back at Greta Thunberg (Politico EU)

PARIS AMBITIONS AND PROGRESS: More hot air than progress at COP26 (FT, Editorial Board $), COP26 negotiators turn to Plan B as climate pledges fall short (Wall Street Journal $), COP26 strikes ‘eye candy’ side deals to keep climate talks from resulting in ‘zilch’ (Politico EU), four voices from COP26 on Paris climate agreement 1.5 degrees c target (Yale Climate Connections), so what has COP26 achieved so far? (The Guardian, Vox), latest climate pledges could limit global temperature rise, a new report says (NPR), new climate pledges move world closer to 2 C goal (E&E $), optimism from climate talks: Warming projections down a bit (AP), Paris COP president warns projected 1.8C heating limit is only hypothesis (The Guardian)

US: Even at COP26, Democrats struggle to overcome Manchin’s stalling on climate (Washington Post, Christine Emba column $), bipartisan delegation of US lawmakers discuss bridging the political divide at COP26 (Axios), Kerry calls for 'follow through' after COP26 (The Hill, New York Times $, AP), US set to wrap up COP26 with little to show on climate (FT $), US, China power struggle on display at climate summit (The Hill), we talked to congressional Republicans at UN climate talks about their ‘rational approach’ (Gizmodo) 

UK: ‘Like a clown’: what other countries thought of Boris Johnson at COP26 (The Guardian), what happened when the royal ecowarriors descended on COP26 (CNN)

INDIA: COP26: India’s Glasgow offering, Elon Musk, and what rich countries choose to ignore (Bloomberg Quint, Rathin Roy op-ed),

VOICES FROM THE GLOBAL SOUTH: “Please open your hearts”: Kenyan activist Elizabeth Wathuti urges leaders to act on climate crisis (Democracy Now), “too little, too late”: global south activists decry 2050 “net zero” goal by wealthy nations (Democracy Now), activist Vanessa Nakate gives an optimistic view in climate speech (New York Times $, New York Times $), Barbados Prime Minister Mia Mottley: 2 degrees of global warming is “death sentence” for millions (Democracy Now)

MITIGATION & ADAPTATION: How vital is adapting to a changed climate? Just ask a poor country (The Guardian), taking on the takes (Business Green, James Murray commentary) 

FINANCE: Business is the game-changer at COP26 in Glasgow (Wall Street Journal $)

DEFORESTATION: Indonesia says COP26 zero-deforestation pledge it signed ‘unfair’ (The Guardian), nature and climate protection pledges pile up at COP26, amid ghosts of past failures (Thomson Reuters Foundation, Washington Post $), 100 nations pledge to end deforestation by 2030. Environmentalists are skeptical (NPR)

FOSSILS: Charted: why coal is such a big deal at COP26 (Axios), former COP26 president brings Shell, BP, Equinor reps into climate conference (DeSmog), world’s biggest polluters remain on sidelines as over 40 nations pledge to phase out coal (Democracy Now), Venice artisans pushed to the brink by gas crisis (Wall Street Journal $), technology fetishism reigns at COP26. It’ll keep burning fossil fuels. (Truthout)

CARBON MARKETS: COP26 should not forget about carbon pricing (FT, Jumana Saleheen and Paul Butterworth op-ed $), COP26 and carbon trading: can this time be different? (Bloomberg $), COP26 carbon-market talks struggle as US lines up behind EU, China’s deafening silence speaks loudest at global climate talks (Bloomberg $), the toughest of tasks at UN climate talks: article 6 on CO2 markets (Reuters explainer),  Glasgow climate negotiators seek to resolve 4 key challenges (AP)

DISINFORMATION: Costa Rica president: fossil fuel-free future not impossible but disinformation a threat (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

TRANSPARENCY: Transparency over emissions remains a sticking point at COP26 (The Guardian, The Secret Negotiator), real progress at the COP26 or ‘blah, blah, blah’? (Washington Post $), reality check: here's what the COP26 deals actually mean for our future climate (CNN), with COP26 credibility at stake, some urge ratcheting up schedule (Reuters), 

(INEQUITABLE) ACCESS: Queues, Covid and confused messaging plague COP26 (FT, Pilita Clark op-ed $), COP26 sharply criticized as the ‘most exclusionary’ climate summit ever (CNBC), vulnerable countries haven’t had equal access to COP26. Can they still shape the talks? (TIME), Madagascar paying price for cheap European flights, says climate minister (The Guardian) 

CLIMATE & HEALTH: Stronger climate action urged at COP26 to avoid 'unimaginable' health risks (Thomson Reuters Foundation) 

ART INSPIRED BY COP26: A strange poem for strange times: a response to COP26 (The Guardian, Simon Armitage), 

OUTSIDE THE CENTER: Hungry in Glasgow? The COP26 menu comes carbon counted. (Washington Post $)

GLOBAL DAY OF ACTION FOR CLIMATE JUSTICE: ‘The fight for climate justice and the fight for social justice must go hand in hand’ (Washington Post $), ‘the time for change is now’: demonstrators around the world demand action on climate crisis (The Guardian), global day of action to demand climate justice (CNN), ‘the whole place feels wrong’: voices from across America on what the climate crisis stole (The Guardian), the many groups shouting for climate justice (Washington Post $), ‘they’re killing our children’: mothers from around the world demand action on fossil fuels (The Guardian), these 6 charts explain the concept of climate justice (Fast Company)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Another Black Michigan city has lead in its water, the state is trying to figure out why (NewsOne), active-duty police in major US cities appear on purported Oath Keepers rosters (NPR)

DOLLARS AND SENSE: Not tackling the climate crisis is going to be expensive AF (Buzzfeed)

PIPELINES: Pipeline pile-on: Biden faces heat from Canada, Republicans, Michigan’s governor and the price of propane (Politico), ‘no power to stop it’: optimism turns to frustration over east Africa pipeline (The Guardian)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Climate shuffles superpowers (Axios)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Indigenous women in Peru seek to turn the tables on big oil, asserting ‘rights of nature’ to fight epic spills (InsideClimate News)

DENIAL: Climate denial groups plot efforts to attract young converts (E&E $), GOP push to shake label of climate crisis denier runs into Trump (CNN), the next front in Facebook's misinformation battle: climate change (CNN)

FOSSIL VOLATILITY: Cold snap in China adds to fears over power and food supplies as leaders meet (Washington Post $), soaring fuel prices already being felt by Americans (ABC)

THE KIDS ARE NOT ALRIGHT: ‘I get scared’: the young activists sounding the alarm from climate tipping points (The Guardian), ‘justice for my daughter’: parents issue a plea on air pollution. (New York Times $), “we want to live!”: climate activists confront Sen. Joe Manchin over climate emergency (Democracy Now), Joe Manchin's Maserati surrounded by protesters who want a liveable planet after Joe Manchin and his Maserati are dead (Gizmodo), climate activists carry out hunger strike in D.C. (NPR), how do kids define climate change? We asked them. (Washington Post $)

STEVEN DONZIGER: An environmental hero or outlaw? Can it be both? (New York Times $)

CAR CULTURE: The hidden climate costs of America’s free parking spaces (The Guardian)

AND JUST WHEN YOU THOUGHT IT COULDN'T GET WORSE: Koalas are dying from chlamydia, and climate change is making it worse (CNN)

AGENCIES: Farms must adjust to climate change, Vilsack warns at COP 26 (E&E News), Americans can eat meat while cutting global heating, says Agriculture secretary (The Guardian)

EPA: EPA to begin testing water at 300 Benton Harbor homes (AP)

DOE: Biden may tap strategic reserve amid rising fuel prices, Granholm says (Politico), Energy crisis shows why the world needs to wean itself off fossil fuels, US’s Granholm says (CNBC), Energy Secretary Granholm laughs off notion of boosting US oil production: 'that is hilarious' (Washington Examiner), US 'very bullish' on new nuclear technology, granholm says (Yahoo), Energy Department aims to slash cost of removing carbon from the air (New York Times $, Washington Examiner, Houston Chronicle, The Verge)

THE HILL: GOP targets Biden's social cost of greenhouse gases (E&E $)

HOUSE: US House votes to advance Biden social-policy bill (Reuters)

SENATE: Manchin backs West Virginia nuke law change, reactors at coal sites (E&E $), Senate Dems go after fossil fuel financing (E&E $), why John Hickenlooper didn’t join ‘Manchinema’ (E&E News)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden: families of separated children deserve compensation (AP), Full W.H. Chief of Staff: 'It's been a rough and tough year' (NBC)

INFRASTRUCTURE BILL(S): What's in Biden's $1.75 trillion 'Build Back Better' package? (Reuters Factbox), White House-backed carbon tax in sight for Biden’s climate bill (Bloomberg $)

MANCHIN ECLIPSES SUNRISE: When the unstoppable activists met their match (Politico)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Senate approves DOE nominee, moves to USDA pick (E&E $)

CITIES AND STATES: Majority of New Jersey voters support offshore wind development: poll (Asbury Park Press), Maryland counties confront climate change, costly projects (Washington Post $), Omaha to develop action plan to combat climate change (AP), virtual net metering alliance unlocks savings for Rhode Island public housing (Energy News Network), California increases gas storage capacity at Aliso Canyon amid concerns over winter reliability (Utility Dive, E&E $)

SCOTUS: Supreme Court to weigh EPA authority to regulate greenhouse pollutants (Yale Climate Connections, Grist)

IMPACTS: Migrant workers who clean up climate disasters for work often pay a price (NPR), documenting the change in California salt ponds over the years (NPR), how warming affects Arctic sea ice, polar bears (AP, explainer), ice on the edge of survival: warming is changing the Arctic (AP), in Iraq's famed marshlands, climate change is upending a way of life (NPR), NYC rats: they’re in the park, on your block and even at your table (New York Times $), national parks face tough calls battling climate change (E&E News), restoring Mexico's mangroves can shield shores, store carbon (AP), Siemens Gamesa sees profitability in 2022 after narrowing annual loss (Reuters), the urgency of awe: 10 striking photos of nature as the world faces climate crises (Washington Post $), A turtle, a pool and the fight to save Puerto Rico’s beaches (New York Times $)

• EAST COAST: Charleston, Savannah see abnormally high tides during storm (AP), how the coastal Mid-Atlantic is haunted by sea-level rise (Yale Climate Connections), rising sea levels threaten the lives and livelihood of those on a fragile US coast (NPR)
• 1.5: The magic 1.5: What’s behind climate talks’ key elusive goal (AP), what's the difference between 1.5°C and 2°C of global warming? (Reuters explainer),  here's what happens if the world warms more than 1.5 degrees Celsius (NPR)
• DISPLACEMENT: Managed retreat: unpopular, expensive and not going away (E&E News), how the climate crisis is forcing Americans to relocate – video (The Guardian), the Dutch fought water for centuries. With climate change, they're giving back the land (CNN, CNN)

DROUGHT: 'If they die, we all die’: drought kills in Kenya (AP PHOTOS), drought is forcing farmers in Colorado to make tough choices (NPR)

WILDFIRES: They moved to rural California for affordable homes. Then the Caldor fire destroyed the town. (Wall Street Journal $)

FLOODING: Floods in Indonesia kill at least 6, mud hampers relief work (AP), floods generate 4 decades’ worth of junk in German valley (AP)

HURRICANES: 2020 hurricane season costs insurers $10B-plus in Louisiana (AP)

OCEANS: ‘Dangerous blindspot’: why overlooking blue carbon could sink us (The Guardian), blue carbon: the hidden CO2 sink that pioneers say could save the planet (The Guardian), how insurance is protecting a coral reef from climate impacts in Mexico (WBUR), scientists want to find out how much carbon the oceans can absorb (Bloomberg $)

FIRST WORLD PROBLEM: ‘Luxury carbon consumption’ of top 1% threatens 1.5C° global heating limit (The Guardian)

FORESTS: Forests can’t handle all the net-zero emissions plans – companies and countries expect nature to offset too much carbon (The Conversation), policing the Amazon: on the front lines of deforestation (FT $), the world's addiction to palm oil is only getting worse (Bloomberg $)

SOLUTIONS: Taking on the world's greatest climate challenges (ABC)

WATER: It's time to drain Lake Powell (Gizmodo)

RENEWABLES: Chart: almost all new power plants being built in the US are renewable (Canary Media), strict [Maine] state law tests miners’ plans (E&E News), supply crisis prompts cancellation of large solar-storage project (E&E $), Toronto is home to the world's largest lake-powered cooling system. Here's how it works. (Washington Post $), world’s top wind turbine makers expect another difficult year the energy crisis that helped revive coal is easing, for now (Bloomberg $, Wall Street Journal $)

BATTERIES: Plans to dig the biggest lithium mine in the US face mounting opposition (InsideClimate News), powering the future: the drive for lithium (CBS)

BUILDINGS: To fight climate change, Ithaca votes to decarbonize its buildings by 2030 (NPR, Washington Examiner, Ithaca Voice), New England electricity use will grow more than 1% annually amid electrification push, says ISO (Utility Dive), Oklahoma proposes letting gas utility charge a $1,400 ‘exit fee’ to go electric (HuffPost)

LNG: As LNG prices surge, North American project development languishes (Reuters)

OIL & GAS: Oil tanker explodes in Sierra Leone, killing at least 98 (AP, Washington Examiner, The Hill), Energy Transfer CEO on net-zero targets: ‘It is insanity’ (E&E News), Energy Transfer's Texas expansion driving company's record exports (Houston Chronicle)

NUKES: Georgia Power's Vogtle doubles original cost amid further delay (Utility Dive)

ARTS: A ‘just’ climate change adaptation needs arts and culture (Yale Climate Connections), oil spills, plastic, rising seas: artists invoke climate breakdown in San Francisco exhibition – in pictures (The Guardian)

TRANSITION: Politicians tout renewable energy jobs for ex-fossil fuel workers, but it's not so simple (Utility Dive)

COAL: Blast from the past: coal sends global emissions to pre-pandemic highs (Grist)

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON?: 7 months into strike, Alabama coal miners keep the fire burning (The Real News)

HYDROGEN: What you need to know about hydrogen – cure-all, or just another wild wish? (Yale Climate Connections)

UTILITIES: CenterPoint profits surge as rates, energy consumption increase (Houston Chronicle), FirstEnergy to sell stake in transmission business to Brookfield (Bloomberg $), nation’s 3rd-largest utility [Southern Co.] to shut down half of coal fleet (E&E News)

GRID: Officials urge flexibility, transmission upgrades to accommodate storage and DER buildout (Utility Dive)

EVs: Solar-powered electric vehicles are almost ready to hit the road (Wall Street Journal $), how Ford won the race for Rivian (Wall Street Journal $)

AGRICULTURE: Georgia farmers experiment with new crops as the climate changes (Yale Climate Connections)

BOOKS: Novelists illustrate the climate futures that could await us (WBUR)

BUSINESS: With climate clock ticking, companies scramble to set green targets (Reuters Factbox)

COOKING FUELS: Fuel price spikes, pandemic recovery may push clean cooking goals out of reach: Study (Environmental Health News)

CARBON REMOVAL: The obstacles to building our way out of climate change (Axios)

FINANCE: Does sustainable investing really help the environment? (Wall Street Journal $), when bad news about the climate is good for green stocks (New York Times $)

GRETA: ‘After Greta’: young activists harness social media to fire up global campaigns (FT $)

INDIVIDUAL ACTION: ‘Carbon is my thing’: the climate geek trying to erase his footprint (The Guardian), few willing to change lifestyle to save the planet, climate survey finds (The Guardian)

TALKING: Why don't people talk about climate change? (Bloomberg $)

INTERNATIONAL: Rallies in Sydney, Melbourne protest against Australia's climate policy (Reuters), Australia’s emissions from land clearing likely far higher than claimed, analysis indicates (The Guardian), Brazilian farmers who protect the Amazon rainforest would like to be paid (Wall Street Journal $), China has "long way to go" to meet ecological goals - State Council (Reuters), China's State Grid warns of tight supply in winter, despite easing power crunch (Reuters), Guyana is a poor country that was a green champion. Then Exxon discovered oil (NPR),

• Fossil fuels made our families rich. Now we want this industry to end (The Guardian, Aileen Getty and Rebecca Rockefeller Lambert op-ed)
• Don’t be so quick to doubt China’s climate change dedication (New York Times, Angel Hsu op-ed $)
• Climate change imperils critical infrastructure (The Hill, David Coursen op-ed)
• Infrastructure bill begins Joe Biden’s fightback (FT, Editorial Board $)
• The Guardian view on climate progress: now for the detail (The Guardian, Editorial Board)
• This is what Africa needs right now (New York Times, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf op-ed $)
• Any path to confront climate change must include fossil fuels and messy global and local politics (CNBC, Frederick Kempe op-ed)
• Never mind aid, never mind loans: what poor nations are owed is reparations (The Guardian, George Monbiot)
• It’s time to shift from the ‘war on terror’ to a war on climate change (The Guardian, Heidi Peltier op-ed)
• As the world warms, geopolitics are heating up too (Bloomberg, James Stavridis op-ed $)
• Reaching net zero by 2070 is possible – but it’s what India does right now that matters (The Guardian, Joydeep Gupta op-ed)
• CNN speaks with the President of Sierra Leone (CNN, Julius Bio interview)
• 3 charts that give US hope for the planet’s future (Bloomberg, Lara Williams op-ed $)
• Will Brazil seize the climate opportunities in the carbon-storing Amazon? (The Guardian, Luís Fernando Guedes Pinto op-ed)
• The Gordian knot of Europe’s gas dependence (FT, Martin Sandbu op-ed $)
• A clean energy economy is crucial for frontline communities (The Hill, Mustafa Santiago Ali op-ed)
• Renewable energy makes Arizona stronger (Arizona Capitol Times, Natalie Currie op-ed)
• Lay off Al Gore, would ya? (Environmental Health News, Peter Dykstra column)
• I traveled the world to witness the end of winter (TIME, Porter Fox essay)
• CNN speaks with Nigeria's Minister of State for Environment (CNN, Sharon Ikeazor)
• Earth to Glasgow: Biodiversity is fundamental to a healthy climate (Canary Media, Siddarth Shrikanth and Gretchen C. Daily op-ed)
• Biden's infrastructure win gives him some momentum. Here's why he needs that (NPR, Tamara Keith analysis)

Making A Murderer Into A Hero: Climate Disinfo Outlets Defend Killer Who Shot BLM Protesters

On August 23, 2020, police in Kenosha, Wisconsin shot 29-year-old Jacob Blake, a black man, in the back multiple times, leaving him paralyzed. Protests erupted in response to the latest case of white supremacy expressing itself through police brutality. 

With conservative websites hyping the rare and limited examples of violence and mayhem at Black Lives Matter protests (including those actually perpetrated by white supremacists) one 17 year-old white boy took it upon himself to protect other people’s property from vandals with a semi-automatic rifle. After altercations with protestors, Rittenhouse shot and killed Joseph Rosenbaum and Anthony Huber, and wounded Gaige Grosskreutz. He later cried as he told police, "I shot two white kids."

Now 18, Kyle Rittenhouse is standing trial, and the same rightwing “news” outlets that spent the summer hyping the (fake) violence at BLM protests that likely drove Rittenhouse to drive across state lines to Kenosha, are serving as his de facto public relations team, if not more. 

The Facebook-exploiting, disinformation superspreading Daily Wire dedicated two different podcasts to the case, with Ben Shapiro’s daily show titled “Kyle Rittenhouse shouldn’t even be on trial,” while Michael Knowles referred to it as “the new ‘the trial of the century.’” 

Mosque-mass-shooter inspiration Ben Shapiro’s billionaire fracker-backed website also ran lots of flattering coverage unhesitantly supporting the gunman’s “self-defense” defense. In a post about a juror being removed for making a racist joke about Jacob Blake, the Wire’s coverage acknowledges that the then-17 year old traveled 15 miles to the protests to “with the intention of protecting businesses from looting and vandalism” and took with him an illegally purchased “AR-15 style semi-automatic rifle.” (Which sounds to us like self defense in the same way it’s self defense to shoot three people who bump into you in a mosh pit after driving 15 miles with a t-shirt that says "I'm going to go crazy in the mosh pit," but we’re not a totally objective and non-brain-worm-infested judge taking this very seriously.)  

But what has the likes of RedState and Legal Insurrection both calling the prosecution’s handling of the case a “TRAIN WRECK” is the performance on the stand by witness Richard McGinnis, who despite being called by the prosecution, appears to bolster the defense by insisting that the victim “lunged” at Rittenhouse, as opposed to falling, like the Prosecution said. 

McGinnis is a video producer for the Daily Caller, the Tucker Carlson-founded, once-Koch-dependent pseudo-media website with a history of hiring racists and anti-semites, that sent people out to film protests. Ostensibly they were there to record historic protests, but in reality it quickly became clear that their job was generating the misleading and out of context clips of looters that rightwing propagandists used to portray BLM protests as violent. 

McGinnis was a key member of what an Intercept story dubbed the “riot squad” of “right-wing video journalists [who] help spear BLM.” Robert Mackey and Travis Mannon’s investigation into the eight violence-chasers, published May of 2021, describes how McGinniss was “just a few feet behind” one of Rittenhouse’s victims at the time of the shooting. But he didn’t ever release any footage, which “led some observers to wonder if he, or the Daily Caller, might have decided to suppress or delete footage that could be used to convict the young right-wing vigilante.” 

It then describes how McGinniss tried to stop the victim’s bleeding (good to know he’s got some decency left) and in doing so, photos show that his phone was in record mode at the time. This evidence that he was recording, coupled with the serendipitous lack of publication of any such footage, “fueled speculation that McGinnis might have withheld incriminating visual evidence to shield Rittenhouse, who quickly became a hero to many of the Daily Caller’s far-right readers and was defended by the site’s founder, Tucker Carlson.” 

Apparently that’s not the case though, McGinnis is just incompetent, telling the Intercept that “while he thought he had recorded video of the shooting, he discovered later that he had accidentally hit the wrong button on his iPhone and it did not start recording until after the shots were fired.” 

Whoops! Not like he’s a professional journalist or anything. And to be fair, recording a shooting is much more stressful than some of McGinnis’s subsequent work, like filming a January 6 insurrectionist who “lit up a doobie under the Capitol Dome”. 

Anyway, with that context in mind, it’s hard to be surprised that McGinnis’s testimony would make for, in the words of Gateway Pundit, a “tough day for Prosecutors of Kyle Rittenhouse.” 

Which made it a great day for the defenders of Kyle Rittenhouse, both in the media and on the stand, apparently. 

The same conservative, fossil-fuel-backed media that encouraged people to drive their cars through protestors before someone did exactly that, then spent all last summer fearmongering about Black Lives Matter violence until Rittenhouse shot three people, is now doing everything it can to rehab his image. 

Don’t think for a second that when a coal millionaire in a Maserati is inconvenienced by some climate protestors they wouldn't do the same for him, too. 

Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up to receive Hot News every morning!

Send updates or feedback to nkauffman@climatenexus.org
Submit events and other items for consideration for a First Look using this form
Some articles require logins or subscriptions ($)