FIRST LOOK:

Following the passage of the $1 trillion infrastructure investment package, which included historic funding for clean drinking water and sanitation for Tribes, the Water & Tribes Initiative is releasing a roadmap to help federal agencies and Tribes rapidly deploy these newly allocated resources to the places they are needed most.

Deadly Wildfires Burn In Eastern Rockies: Wind-whipped fires are burning in Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado. In November. Montana, communities in and around Absarokee were evacuated as hurricane-force winds fueled a blaze that burned as much as 5,000 acres and was completely uncontained as of Tuesday afternoon. A grass fire in Clark, Wyoming, also burned 300 acres, including multiple structures, and killed at least one person. The Kruger Rock Fire is forcing evacuations in Estes Park, Colorado near Rocky Mountain National Park. As of Tuesday evening, the fire had incinerated 133 acres and was just 15% contained as strong winds created dangerous conditions and a firefighting plane crashed Tuesday night, killing the pilot. Climate change, caused by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels, is lengthening the fire season. “Maybe 20 years ago we would have definitely been covered in snow by now, and now the snow is coming later and melting sooner,” Adam Mahood, a postdoctoral researcher at Earth Lab at the University of Colorado Boulder, told the Daily Camera. Colorado is increasing its program to use incarcerated people to perform fire prevention and mitigation projects. (Fires: AP; Montana: Billings Gazette: Wyoming: Cody Enterprise, KTVQ; Colorado: Boulder Daily Camera, Earther, CNN, KDVR, CBS, Weather Channel, ABC; Pilot: 9News, KKTV, Coloradoan; Photos: KDVR; Incarcerated labor: KRDO; Climate Signals background: 2021 Western wildfire season)

Phillips Confirmed To FERC: The Senate confirmed Willie Phillips Jr. to fill the open FERC seat on Wednesday. Phillips previously served as chair of the D.C. Public Service Commission and his confirmation gives Democrats a majority on the previously deadlocked, previously obscure body with wide-ranging jurisdiction. During his confirmation hearings, Phillips said "I believe that we have a moral and ethical obligation to address [climate change]" and promised to weigh climate and environmental justice issues when evaluating proposed fossil fuel projects. (The Hill, Politico Pro $, Law360 $, RTO Insider)

Gulf Lease Sales To Proceed Under Court Order: The U.S. government will auction off oil and gas leases across an expanse of the Gulf of Mexico about twice the size of Florida today. President Biden paused new permits for oil and gas drilling on public lands and waters early in his presidency, as part of the administration's efforts to combat climate change. A federal judge appointed by the previous president, however, ruled that too much money was at stake and ordered the lease sales to continue. "We're required to comply with the injunction; it's a legal case and legal process," Press Sec. Jen Psaki told reporters Monday. "But it's important for advocates and other people out there to understand that it's not aligned with our view, the President's policies or the executive order that he signed." (CNN, AP, The Guardian)

Trees And Armadillos Are On The Move: Driven by increasing temperatures and wildfires supercharged by climate change, armadillos and trees are moving north and up to cooler and wetter climates. Armadillos, historically found in Texas and the Deep South, are migrating northward as the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels heats global temperatures and allows the official small mammal of Texas to now reach as far north as Iowa. (In case you're wondering, armadillos can cross rivers by holding their breath for up to six minutes and either walking on the river bottom or by inflating their intestines and floating across.) Out West, the changing climate is forcing tree populations toward cooler and wetter areas, a study published in Nature Communications found. Researchers found the shifts toward higher, cooler altitudes were accelerated in Douglas fir and canyon live oak in areas burned by wildfires. (Armadillos: The Guardian, Yale Environment 360; Trees: The Hill, Yahoo, ScienceAlert, Science Times; Climate Signals background: Habitat shift or decline, Drought, Wildfires)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: After lead crisis, Flint might be home to a new asphalt plant further impacting the community (NewsOne)

FIRST AND WORST: Northwest glaciers are melting. What that means to Indigenous ‘salmon people’ (Oregon Public Broadcasting), Ecuador Indigenous community welcomes judges to jungle, demands role in mining decisions (Reuters), Mexican environmental campaigner missing after attack on villagers (The Guardian), where are young people most optimistic? In poorer nations. (New York Times $)

COP26: ‘A death sentence’: Indigenous climate activists denounce COP26 deal (The Guardian), why India defended coal at the close of COP (Scientific American and E&E), Al Gore ‘disappointed’ Scott Morrison didn’t cut Australia’s 2030 emissions target (The Guardian), COP26 is a ‘wake-up call’ and energy industry needs to face reality, says OPEC’s Barkindo (CNBC), for Kenya’s pastoralists, COP26 promises come too little, too late (The New Humanitarian), what was fashion doing at COP26? (New York Times $)

COP27: Egypt will host COP27. Expect criticism over fossil fuels, human rights. (Washington Post $)

(CLIMATE) DIPLOMACY: Xi-Biden talks raise hope for better ties but strains remain (AP)

DENIAL & DISINFORMATION: Disinformation is stifling conversation about climate change, new research says — these 4 tips can help (CNBC), Texas education board considers how middle schools teach climate change and sexuality as officials fight over library books (Texas Tribune)

FACT CHECK: 2019 study on increases in maternal heat exposure and climate change is unrelated to COVID-19 vaccines (Reuters, Reuters Fact Check)

LIFE DECISIONS: More young people don’t want children because of climate change. Has the UN failed to protect them? (InsideClimate News)

PR: PR giant [Edelman] vows climate focus and defends work with oil giants (Axios)

THINGS THAT PROBABLY SHOULDN'T EXIST: The tragic cycle of bottled water (Truthout)

NERDY AND IMPORTANT: Trump decision to end solar-trade loophole is overturned by US court (Bloomberg $, Reuters), bifacial solar modules again exempt from Section 201 tariffs (Politico Pro $)

HOPE THE SHAREHOLDER PROFITS WERE WORTH IT: Global heating is destroying rock art tens of thousands of years old, experts warn (The Guardian)

AGENCIES: NPS accused of shelving employee report on ‘toxic culture' (E&E $)

EPA: States press EPA for environmental justice guidance (E&E News), Biden administration signals it will keep Trump-era aircraft emissions rule (The Hill, E&E News, Politico Pro $)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: Powell and Brainard both have votes to be Fed chair, Sherrod Brown says (Bloomberg $)

THE HILL: Republicans pin rising gas prices on renewable energy transition (Politico Pro $)

HOUSE: 'Total water nerd' girds to tackle Western drought crisis (E&E News), GOP Rep. Curtis: 'Extremist' voices setting the tone for party on climate (Politico), House will vote to censure [and strip committee assignments from] Gosar over anime video that depicted killing of AOC (Politico, New York Daily News, Washington Post $, AP, CNN, NPR, ABC, New York Post, Arizona Republic, Axios, New York Post, Fox News, The Hill)

SENATE: Senators knock energy exports as fuel prices surge (Politico Pro $), Biden submits treaty fighting climate super-pollutants for Senate approval (Washington Post $)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden aims to speed up climate policy push after COP26 (FT $), On a New Hampshire bridge, Biden bets infrastructure beats political headwinds (Reuters, NBC), Biden's road-warrior campaign (Axios)

TRIBAL NATIONS SUMMIT: Day 1 takeaways from tribal nations summit (Indian Country Today), Biden signs executive order to address the ‘crisis of missing or murdered Indigenous people’ (The 19th* News, E&E $), Biden team gives Indigenous knowledge a boost (E&E $)

INFRASTRUCTURE BILL(S): Biden signs $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill; Build Back Better Act remains stalled in Senate (Democracy Now)

• BUILD BACK BETTER ACT: Biden says 'Build Back Better' bill will be passed within a week (Reuters, The Hill), How the Build Back Better bill could boost clean energy for low-income homeowners (Utility Dive), Biden’s electric vehicle tax credit is good for unions. So, naturally, Manchin opposes it (The Real News), as US Congress advances Democrats' tax plans, America's wealthy eye loopholes (Reuters), Congress poised to dramatically alter clean energy subsidies (E&E News), Deputy Energy secretary: Reconciliation package 'incredibly important' to climate goals (Politico Pro $)
• INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT AND JOBS ACT: Tribes hope infrastructure law means they'll finally get clean drinking water (NPR), from electric bikes to ‘tree equity,’ Biden’s social policy bill funds niche items (New York Times $), climate actions in new law are merely a down payment (Bloomberg $), Biden signs $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill with funding for EVs, transmission, hydrogen (Utility Dive), Biden’s infrastructure bill includes $50 billion to fight climate change disasters (CNBC), how Biden's infrastructure funding will help the US prepare for future climate disasters (CNN), the infrastructure law aims to clean up pollution in your community (Vox), Biden sells infrastructure improvements as a way to counter China (New York Times $)

DEMOCRACY: Redistricting supercharges Republicans’ bid to control US congress (Bloomberg $)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Senate confirms climate finance hawk Steele to Treasury post (Politico Pro $), Senate energy committee delays Interior nominee hearing for second time (Politico Pro $)

CITIES AND STATES: New York sends 'unequivocal' climate signal to insurers (E&E News)

FERC: AEP, Sunflower execs urge FERC to require grid planners identify renewable energy zones (Utility Dive), FERC warned renewables planning can strand grid assets (E&E News)

IMPACTS: ‘A tipping point’: how poor forestry fuels floods and fires in western Canada (The Guardian), 2021 likely among the 10 warmest years on record (Axios), after battering pacific northwest, storm blasts north-central US with high winds (Washington Post $), America’s infrastructure struggles with new weather forecast (Wall Street Journal $), extreme weather outruns the world (Axios)

PNW RAIN: Record-setting rains flood the Pacific Northwest (NBC), floods cut rail access to Canada's Vancouver port, fatalities reported (Reuters), at least one dead in British Columbia mudslide (Weather Channel), 

DROUGHT: Gloomier forecasts for Colorado River still 'too rosy,' expert says (Tucson.com)

RENEWABLES: A 28-year-old aims to build southeast Asia’s top solar farm (Bloomberg $), clean energy backers fear tax plan could hurt growth (E&E News), Mary Powell on her new gig at Sunrun, and the importance of 'radical collaboration' (Utility Dive)

"RENEWABLES": Ethanol: Brazil’s sugar-based biofuel built on labor abuse (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

BUILDINGS: Energy-efficient isn’t enough, so homes go ‘net zero’ (New York Times $)

METHANE: Cutting 30% methane emissions equivalent to switching all vehicles to net zero technologies: IEA (Weather Channel)

OIL & GAS: Birthplace of US oil boom a decade ago shows signs of decline (FT $), oil and gas giants hit back at climate critics, say they’re leaders in energy transition (CNBC), oil companies to bid on newly released federal Gulf leases (NBC), oil price relief could be "on the horizon" (Axios), US shale has a message for the Biden administration: ask us to increase oil production, not OPEC (CNBC), US wants natgas/power coordination to prevent another Feb freeze (Reuters)

PIPELINES: Natural-gas prices jump as Germany pauses certification of Russian pipeline (Wall Street Journal $, Bloomberg $)

COAL: Net-zero pledges, improved metrics to put pressure on coal power, say investors (Reuters), The long road to phasing down coal (Axios)

HYDROGEN: Green hydrogen could compete with gray in a decade, Engie says (Bloomberg $)

GRID: The challenges facing the green grids initiative (Energy Monitor)

UTILITIES: Southwest Gas faces pressure from climate groups, investors as it charts future (Nevada Independent), what 11 power company execs say about coal, Biden, renewables (E&E News)

EVs: Auto dealers, unions could weigh down high-flying Rivian (E&E $), EVs hit 1M sold, are now California's top export as energy transition drives economy: CEC chair (Utility Dive), GM official: 'Urgent need' for more mining to make EVs (E&E $), Lucid Group’s customer reservations top 17,000 since end of third quarter (Tech Crunch), the electric vehicle invasion is already here (Bloomberg $), Rivian electric vehicle plant may be coming to georgia (Atlanta Journal-Constitution)

CARS: How leather seats in luxury suvs fuel Amazon deforestation (New York Times $), as world’s automakers scramble to go electric, Toyota bets on hydrogen (CNBC, Reuters)

DIRECT ACTION: Protesters disrupt the world’s largest coal port: ‘this is US responding to the climate crisis’ (Washington Post $)

AGRICULTURE: ‘Farmers are digging their own graves’: true cost of growing food in Spain’s arid south (The Guardian)

BUSINESS: Travel industry takes crucial first step toward combating climate change (New York Times $)

CARBON PRICING: As climate change policy takes shape, will the US ever put a price on carbon? (CNBC), EU carbon prices hit record high after COP26 (FT $)

SHIPPING: Cargo ships and tankers could cut carbon pollution by harnessing the wind (Yale Climate Connections)

FINANCE: Banks must put climate risk at core under proposed global rules (Reuters), how the clean-energy revolution is sweeping through markets (Bloomberg $), regulators propose first global blueprint for banks and climate change (Reuters)

INTERNATIONAL: Bahrain's [Oil & Gas Holding Company] aims to broaden energy interests beyond oil and gas (Reuters), China to continue to increase coal, natural gas supply (Reuters), Coastal defences need $30bn boost to prevent Australian homes becoming uninhabitable (The Guardian), French transport minister challenges EU plans for emissions trading for road transport (Politico Pro $), shutting factories in Delhi, nearby Indian cities could curb pollution (Reuters)

• Forgive humans, not oil companies (The Nation, Mary Annaïse Heglar column)
• The judge’s behavior in the Rittenhouse trial reminds us why we need prison industrial complex abolition (Prism Reports, Reina Sultan op-ed)
• The COP26 message? We are trusting big business, not states, to fix the climate crisis (The Guardian, Adam Tooze)
• Reminder from COP26: We are the climate heroes we've been waiting for (The Hill, Andreas Karelas op-ed)
• Maybe luscious green grass doesn’t belong in a drought-stricken arizona (Washington Post, Fernanda Santos op-ed $)
• After COP26, the real race to save the planet is on (The Hill, Jonathan Overpeck op-ed)
• Technology will not solve the problem of climate change (FT, Julian Allwood op-ed $)
• What happens when a Congressman threatens a colleague with violence? (The Guardian, Robert Reich op-ed)
• Biden administration should fix international climate aid before throwing more money at it (The Hill, Skye Christensen op-ed)
• US forests hold climate keys (The Hill, Stuart Pimm, Eric Dinerstein, and Dominick DellaSala op-ed)
• The cow-shaped hole in Biden’s methane plan (Politico, Viveca Morris op-ed)

Coal Holdings Exposed, Matt “Sub-Prime” Ridley Now Pushing Covid Conspiracies Instead of Climate

About six years ago, British landed gentry Matt Ridley was a recurring voice in climate denial-land, penning long opinion pieces about the never-not-debunked pause in warming, criticizing the now-repeatedly-reproven hockey stick graph and otherwise leeching credibility from legitimate science institutions. But DeSmog’s revelation that his pro-coal and anti-climate lobbying might stem from the millions in annual fees from coal mines on his family estate seemed to put a damper on his eagerness to publish climate denial.  

And that made sense, as no one should ever take Matt Ridley’s advice about anything, as he has proven either too greedy or too stupid to make big decisions on behalf of others. Few people are given the opportunity to fail as spectacularly as Ridley, whose short tenure as the non-executive Chairman of Britain's once-storied Northern Rock bank came to an ignoble end after his investment strategy led to the first run on a British bank since 1878. Matt’s father was a former chairman of the bank, but apparently the skills to run it weren’t hereditary!

Of course, Ridley was certainly not the only financial genius to place big bets on an obviously risky product known as sub-prime mortgages. But the fact that he staked the pensions and life savings of the bank’s customers on a literally “sub-prime” bet, and then quickly lost that bet, should be enough to disqualify him from anything but apologizing. The only thing that kept all those pensions from evaporating was the UK government stepping in to clean up Ridley’s mess, nationalizing the bank and protecting people’s life savings. (Which means it might actually be a good thing if the fossil fuel industry would heed Ridley’s infinite wisdom, as his track record suggests they too would get nationalized and shut down!) 

Someone with such a self-described “catastrophic black mark” on their own record would probably do best to quietly enjoy their privilege. But Ridley has instead decided to take his “sub-prime” thinking to the Covid pandemic, where he’s been helping gin up the grossly anti-Chinese sentiment. He popped back up on our radar last year when he was feeding conspiracies about the World Health Organization being to blame for planning for climate change instead of a pandemic.  

He’s got a new book on it out, called Viral, that’s essentially ‘just asking questions’ about the possibility that Covid came from a Chinese laboratory. (And of course not actually answering them, because there’s no actual evidence of that being the case.) 

Mark Honigsbaum at the Guardian wrote that Ridley and co-author Alina Chan “fail to provide a shred of evidence that Covid-19 was engineered and leaked from a lab” and calls what they do present “highly misleading.”  

A review from Harvard’s William Hanage in the Washington Post was even more critical, as even though Chinese authorities have been “about as transparent as a lead window” the authors “make up for this by stretching some of the facts that we do have beyond what they should bear.” 

Stats are misrepresented, for example comparisons of a prior SARS outbreak and Covid-19 having a genome that’s 96 percent the same, which “to the casual observer, this seems highly suggestive.” But “they’re about as closely related as you are to a chimpanzee,” and Hanage notes that “the book does not mention this inconvenient fact, among many others.” 

Ridley has a history of science and genetics writing, so he undoubtedly knew that, which is just more evidence for Hanage’s line that “nobody should mistake this book for an evenhanded scientific document.”  

Viral’s narrative, Hanage writes, relies on “investigations by indefatigable online researchers, invariably referred to as ‘sleuths’” who are “taking quotations out of context” and “tracking inconsistencies in database entries,” something the anti-hockey-stick auditor Ridley was conned by is still routinely demonstrating his ignorance of.

Sound familiar? Just like he did with climate, Ridley is placing his trust in randos online taking comments out of context and “discovering” flaws in data that are really just flaws in their competency, and using that to spin up a misleading narrative about an issue of global importance. 

Sounds like Ridley ran this supposed investigation the same way he ran Northern Rock: straight into the ground. 

But this time, there was no government to step in and save him from himself. Not like a book can get nationalized, after all!

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