FIRST LOOK:

Harvard's Chan School of Public Health, along with the Weather Channel and Pattrn, will host Beyond COP26: Next steps in the fight against climate change TODAY at 12:00 ET.

Climate Crisis Threatens Holiday Pies: Climate change, caused by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels, is coming for your pie. The Washington Post reports droughts, extreme rainfall, and other climate impacts are constricting supply and driving up prices for numerous key pie ingredients, including the honey necessary for graham cracker crumbs, dairy products like sweetened condensed milk, spring red wheat, and vanilla from Madagascar, which is on the brink of a climate-induced famine and has much more to worry about than pie shortages. “Every consumer package goods company is feeling it — no matter what their business is,” Janis Abbingsole, VP of operations for King Arthur, one of the country's biggest flour companies. “The pressure on the hard red spring wheat is a result of weather and drought conditions. Mother Nature bats last.” (Washington Post $; Climate Signals background: Drought, Extreme precipitation increase) 

Green Movement Still Very White: An annual report by Green 2.0 found major environmental groups are becoming more representative of the racial makeup of the U.S. population, but massive disparities remain in NGO leadership and funding. Of the groups that responded to the request for data, 30% of full time staff are People of Color — an increase over previous years but still less than the U.S. population. Seventy-three percent of the NGOs' directors are white, however, and those white-led groups pull in more than their share of funding. Operating budgets for groups led by POC are just 3% of white-led groups'. "Put another way," the report said, "White-led organizations received 97% more funding for general operating budgets than POC-led organizations." (E&E News)

Number Of Hot Summer Days That Fuel Wildfire Spread Will Rise: The number of hot days that carry greatly increased risk of wildfire spread and ignition in California's Sierra Nevada mountains will increase because of climate change, new research shows. The study, published in Science Advances, found the number of fires could increase by 20% by the 2040s with an even greater increase in acreage burned. “What makes this novel is that we were trying to identify the role of individual temperature extremes on individual dates,” Jim Randerson, UC-Irvine earth systems professor and senior author of the paper, told the New York times. (New York Times $; Climate Signals background: Extreme heat and heatwaves, Wildfires)

Tribes Get Funding For EV Charging Network: Two tribal organizations in the upper midwest will receive more than $646 million to create an EV charging network, Grist reports. The funding from the Dept. of Energy was awarded to the Native Sun Community Power Development, an Indigenous-owned nonprofit based in Minneapolis, Minnesota, and the Standing Rock Renewable Energy Power Authority, a public power corporation created by the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe along the border of North and South Dakota. The funding will go to purchasing vehicles, charging stations, and public outreach. DOE hopes the charging network will benefit as many as 23 tribes in the region. (Grist)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Climate change forces First Nations people to move village (CBS)

COP26: Why it feels so hard to understand what really happened at COP26 (TIME), how COP26 pushed 'just transition' up the global climate agenda (Thomson Reuters Foundation explainer), after COP26, the hard work begins on making climate promises real: 5 things to watch in 2022 (The Conversation), after COP26, Washington Post investigation finds flawed climate data (WBUR)

CRIMINAL INJUSTICE: Two men convicted in the assassination of Malcolm X to be exonerated (The Root, NPR, Washington Post $, AP, Blavity, The Guardian, New York Times $), the men who didn’t kill Malcolm X (NY Mag), who are Muhammad Aziz and Khalil Islam, the exonerated men? (New York Times $)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Against all odds, the Paris agreement is — kinda, sorta — working (Grist), how the West tried to shift China on climate (Politico Pro $)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Young activists pick a legal option to try to get European nations to cut emissions (NPR)

DENIAL: The truth behind the new climate change denial (BBC), 'miseducation': journalist Katie Worth on climate education and corporate influences (WBUR)

FOSSIL VOLATILITY: Big winners from natural-gas crunch: coal power plants in Europe (Wall Street Journal $)

NOT COOL: NHL touts ‘greener rinks’ while promoting powerful pollutants, advocates say (Washington Post $, New York Times $, InsideClimate News)

MAYBE THE REAL CANCEL CULTURE IS THE FRIENDS WE MADE ALONG THE WAY: Top gas exporters say they're victims of 'cancel culture' (Gizmodo)

COAL / CRYPTO / JOE MANCHIN: A coal plant fights to stay open. It could enrich Manchin (E&E News)

NEW DELHI: More kids in hospital, schools shut as smog smothers Delhi (Reuters), New Delhi’s air still ‘very poor’ despite emergency measures (AP, New York Times $)

EPA: Biden blocks Mississippi [Yazoo Pumps] flood project, citing Trump-era errors (E&E News, Politico Pro $, AP), EPA sets timeline to weigh next steps related to Pebble Mine (AP)

DOE: Biden administration launches series on Arctic energy (AP)

DOI: Biden administration celebrates COP26 by offering largest fossil fuel sale in US history (Gizmodo), companies bid $192 million in 1st Gulf oil sale under Biden (AP, Houston Chronicle, The Hill, HuffPost), Gulf of Mexico oil lease sale reaches 7-year high amid active Exxon bidding (Politico Pro $), Exxon lays groundwork for carbon storage project at offshore auction (Reuters), feds ink green transportation agreement for national parks (E&E News)

DOT: Regulators seek to suspend Trump rule on railway natural gas (AP)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: Treasury turns attention to insurance climate impacts (E&E $)

THE HILL: Democrats weigh pre-Christmas shutdown cliff to prod dug-in Republicans (Politico Pro $), lawmakers advance bill to reduce wildfire impacts as climate change fuels more intense blazes (Washington Post $)

HOUSE: New Freedom Caucus chair has long record of climate denial (E&E News), Natural Resources Committee approves bills, eschews drama (E&E News), Gosar to lose seats on Natural Resources, Oversight panels (E&E News), House censures GOP’s Gosar over cartoon showing him stab AOC (LA Times $, The Guardian, Washington Post $, Axios, CNBC, Fox News, AP, CBS, CNN, Yahoo, NBC, Wall Street Journal $, The Hill, USA Today, Politico, New York Times $, New York Post, Reuters), with Paul Gosar censure vote, Democrats draw the line at murder fantasies (Vanity Fair), Paul Gosar is why censure exists (Mother Jones), the censure of Paul Gosar Matters (Slate), Stephen Colbert mocks Paul Gosar with anime video of him being censured (Newsweek), women lawmakers highlight threats to their safety as Congress votes to censure Rep. Gosar (The 19th* News)

SENATE: Biden submits [Kigali Amendment] treaty fighting climate super-pollutants for Senate approval (Washington Post $, E&E News), Markey calls for SPR releases as 'weapon against oil company price gouging' (Politico Pro $), Schumer eyes pre-Christmas vote on reconciliation bill (E&E $), Schumer: emissions reductions 'not sufficient' without meeting White House environmental justice standard (The Hill), Sen. Warren on oil prices: This isn't about inflation. This is about price gouging. (MSNBC)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden highlights electric vehicles while asking for inquiry into high gas prices (New York Times $, Axios, Politico, Washington Examiner), Biden lauds electric cars in Michigan as climate agenda hits road bumps in Washington (Washington Post $), Biden says fed chair pick could be unveiled this week (Wall Street Journal $)

TRIBAL NATIONS SUMMIT: Day 2 takeaways from tribal nations summit (Indian Country Today), how the White House Tribal Nations Summit started (Indian Country Today)

INFRASTRUCTURE BILL(S): Dems get good news with CBO score for climate provisions (E&E $), US House to have enough votes to pass 'Build Back Better' after CBO estimate - Rep. Kildee (Reuters), Colorado River Basin to receive much of Western water infrastructure money (WBUR), Democrats launch a nationwide sales pitch for Biden's agenda (NPR), ‘greenflation’: could climate action overheat the economy? (E&E News), one surprising winner in Biden’s infrastructure bill: biodiversity (Grist), pro-union electric vehicle purchase credits could be dropped from reconciliation bill (Utility Dive), Tesla, Toyota accuse Biden’s EV tax credit of putting unions over the environment (Wall Street Journal $), tribes welcome infusion of money in infrastructure bill (AP), Black leaders in Washington tout benefits of Biden’s infrastructure law for Black America (The Grio)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Biden’s OCC pick declares her support for capitalism and community banks. (New York Times $), Senate confirms FERC nominee, other top Biden picks (E&E $)

CITIES AND STATES: California, Arizona and Nevada in talks on new plan to save Colorado River water (LA Times $), New Mexico governor thanks oil and gas, cheers hydrogen plan (AP), North Carolina energy bill pits clean energy advocates against Duke Energy’s plans for new gas plants (Canary Media), California readies $1.4B push to help reach electric vehicle charging, hydrogen refueling goals (Utility Dive)

NEW YORK CITY: New buildings may have to go electric as gas ban gains momentum (TheRealDeal), De Blasio administration commits to getting gas ban legislation done this year (Politico Pro $)

FERC: Gas failures during blackout primarily due to cold, not power outages, FERC reports (Houston Chronicle), FERC report outlines grid fixes in wake of deadly Texas disaster (E&E $), Democrats gain FERC majority with Phillips Senate confirmation (Utility Dive)

DROUGHT: As climate change parches the Southwest, here’s a better way to share water from the shrinking Colorado River (The Conversation)

WILDFIRES: A dangerous wildfire is burning in Colorado amid drought and unusually warm weather (Washington Post $), pilot death is 2nd amid late season wildfires in Rockies (AP)

HURRICANES: Entergy Louisiana: [Hurricane Ida] restoration will cost up to $4.1B (AP), Entergy owes up to $4.4 billion for storm repairs. Here’s what it means for customers. (The Advocate)

DEFORESTATION: EU seeks to block import of commodities that drive deforestation (Washington Post $, The Guardian, AP, Reuters)

RENEWABLES: Court kills solar tariffs backed by Trump, Biden (E&E News), clean energy faces its own supply chain crisis (The Verge)

HYDROGEN: It’s hailed as the clean energy of the future. But hydrogen produces ‘substantial’ emissions, study shows. (Washington Post $), green hydrogen beats blue on emissions and financial cost, Australian study finds (The Guardian)

BUILDINGS: Texas nonprofit encourages developers to construct disaster-resilient buildings (Yale Climate Connections)

EFFICIENCY: Energy efficiency gains are too slow for a sustainable climate path (Axios)

LNG: LNG at risk of price spike this winter, Vitol executive says (Reuters)

METHANE: Stemming methane leaks from oil fields, pipelines and landfills could help us slow global warming quickly (The Conversation)

OIL & GAS: CO2-free natural gas? CCS project powers grid for first time (E&E News)

PIPELINES: Line 3 resistance to take to the air with thermal imaging of pipeline (Yahoo), judge deals blow to Michigan's effort to shut down Line 5 pipeline (Washington Examiner), Houston company hopes to turn pipelines' waste into electricity (Houston Chronicle), Wyoming company to pay $2M in Yellowstone oil pipeline spill (AP)

NUKES: Bill Gates’ vision for next-generation nuclear power in Wyoming coal country (InsideClimate News and Seattle Times, Reuters, Gizmodo), Merkel defends nuclear power exit despite climate challenges (Reuters)

GRID: New transmission tech can easily double clean energy capacity. Will utilities buy it? (Canary Media)

EVs: Poll: Majority of Massachusetts drivers expect to own electric vehicle soon (Energy News Network), Poll: Florida voters support electric car transition by 203 (The Capitolist), ending gas cars: an environmentalists' dream that went mainstream (WBUR), investors shower love on Rivian and Lucid (Axios), Tesla climbs as other EV makers hit brakes after rally (Reuters), Toyota joins the battery-powered EV craze (Axios)

ACTIVISM: Casey Harrell: the climate activist taking on Wall Street – and the muscle-wasting disease that’s killing him (The Guardian), Blockade Australia: anti-coal activists vow more disruption despite warnings of 25-year jail sentences (The Guardian, Democracy Now), hundreds arrested outside White House during second day of voting rights protests (The Grio), UK jails nine climate activists for blocking roads (Reuters), Who are Insulate Britain and what climate action do they want? (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

AGRICULTURE: Ireland looks to seaweed in quest to curb methane from cows (Reuters), surf and turf: how seaweed helps cows become better climate citizens (TIME)

BUSINESS: Scientists question Mastercard promo to cover ice with tarps (E&E News), sustainable business groups merge (Politico Pro $)

FINANCE: Environment and climate-focused funds dominate ESG investing (Wall Street Journal $), Wall Street sees first Fed climate change review in 2023 (Reuters)

WHICH SIDE ARE YOU ON: Kellogg’s strikers hold the line and prepare for winter (The Real News)

MOVIES: 'Don't Look Up' is a climate change movie in disguise (Gizmodo)

RELIGION: Religious institutions say infrastructure funds will help model sustainability (The Hill)

• You can’t beat climate change without tackling disinformation (The Nation, Amy Westervelt op-ed)
• Daniel Carrión on the 'heat stroke or go broke' dilemma (Environmental Health News, interview)
• ‘Building Back Better with tribal sovereignty as the foundation’ (Indian Country Today, Stephen Roe Lewis op-ed)
• America's clean energy future cannot stop at state lines (The Hill, Steve Sisolak op-ed)
• We need to talk about the values of the white community (The Root, Michael Harriot op-ed)
• The seven lawmakers who will decide the climate’s fate (The Atlantic, Robinson Meyer analysis)
• Australia deserves to pay climate risk premium (Reuters, Antony Currie op-ed)
• COP26 has failed our children — political compromise cannot be the answer (The Hill, Chip Fletcher op-ed)
• Anxiety about wokeness is intellectual weakness (New York Times, Michael Roth op-ed $)
• Glasgow climate summit mostly failed, except for one big idea (Houston Chronicle, Chris Tomlinson column)
• Biden’s gas-price diversion (Wall Street Journal, Editorial Board $)
• Tweedledum and tweedledee at the fed (Wall Street Journal, Editorial Board $)
• Will the GOP go along with the COP26 pact? (Politico, Garret Graves interview)
• Implement new climate commitments — then go beyond to constrain warming (The Hill, Joel Smith and Gary Yohe op-ed)
• Let's plan for human ingenuity in our fight against climate change (The Hill, Erin Baker op-ed)
• Republicans' defense of US Rep. Paul Gosar in censure vote is sickening (Arizona Republic, Laurie Roberts column)

Do Androids Dream Of Electric Sheeple? A.I. Maps 20 Years of Climate Conspiracies

It seems like every day there’s a dumb new climate denial conspiracy, but they all boil down to a handful of key messages: it’s not real, it’s not us, it’s not bad, solutions are worse, or regardless of all that, you just can’t trust climate scientists and activists. Which excuse they use depends on the flavor of disinformation necessary to respond to the news cycle. While you, dear readers, may not realize it — because we are so fantastically good at keeping things fresh after all these years — it’s all sort of the same thing over and over. 

One of the people most attuned to this fact is John Cook, who founded Skeptical Science back in 2007 as a resource for debunking denial. Over the years, he and the team of volunteers assembled a list of “most popular” myths about climate change, topping out just short of 200  permutations of climate disinformation that serve as an Encyclopedia Debunkica for basically everything deniers say. By 2013, Cook was the lead author of the pivotal “97% consensus paper” that put the “scientists disagree” argument to rest, and from there he pursued a Ph.D. and has been leading the field of climate disinformation research. 

Now Cook and a team of co-authors (Travis Coan, Constantine Boussalis, and Mirjam Nanko) have a new study out, in which they fed over 250,000 pieces of climate disinformation from 50 conservative think tanks and climate denial blogs into a computer, and the artificial intelligence learned how to distinguish between the different types of denial. 

What they found was that over the last 20 years, rightwing think tanks have turned up the volume on attacks over solutions (even as renewables have steadily become cheaper and more widespread) while the blogs have been steadily beating the “science is unreliable” drum, and only in the past few years has solutions denial been more frequently featured. On most issues, the two camps are aligned, but the organizations have always been much more focused on attacking solutions, whereas blogs have been more ostensibly science-focused, which makes sense given that the organizations are funded to oppose policy, and most of the blogs were more amatuer efforts to play armchair scientist. Both the organizations and bloggers were united, however, on their second-most-common-claim: smearing the climate movement. 

The algorithm they created was also able to classify some “sub-claims,” distinguishing, for example, between attacks on climate policies broadly (which ramp up during key legislative fights) and those on clean energy specifically, which have steadily grown as the technologies become more of a threat to fossil fuels. Similarly, comparing the proportion of attacks on the climate movement versus climate science, shows that since 2004, climate contrarian think tanks have focused more on attacking the movement than the science. 

Going a step further, by looking at who’s funding those think tanks, the study shows that groups that get a high proportion of their money from a “key donor” set of dark money funders also tend to have similar messages. While more multi-purpose rightwing groups like Heritage and the Manhattan Institute have a lot of funders and tend to focus on attacking climate solutions, groups like CFACT and Heartland that rely on a small set of funders are united in peddling the outright science denial, and attacking climate scientists and activists. 

As helpful as it is for Cook’s team to have taught a computer to recognize how climate disinformation has evolved over the past twenty years, future applications hold even greater promise. 

“Misinformation spreads so quickly across social networks,” Cook told Cosmos, “we need to be able to identify misinformation claims instantly in order to respond quickly. Our research provides a tool to achieve this.” 

And what a helpful tool it is! Because every time a report documents the extent of climate disinformation, Facebook’s response is that there’s not actually that much problematic content on its platform. But since the “research is for public good,” Cook tweeted, “the link to our code is in the paper” and they “would be happy to work with any platforms interested in using our research to reduce the damage caused by climate misinformation.” 

Now Facebook has a chance to let the A.I. loose and prove just how much climate denial’s out there! Surely, if they’re honest and have an accurate understanding of the content on their platform, Cook’s code won’t find much there at all. And if it does, well then they’d know exactly who to deplatform, so that Facebook could be telling the truth next time they claim it’s no big deal! 

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