FIRST LOOK(s)

Every Demo Of Americans Cares More About Environmental Issues Than People Think, Except For White People: Americans substantially misperceive who is most concerned about protecting the environment and human health, and those misperceptions are consistent with white Americans' lack of understanding of the gross inequities of environmental racism, FiveThirtyEight reports. Americans perceive young people, white people, and women as the most concerned about environmental issues, when in reality, Latino, Asian, Black, and low-income Americans are the most concerned. In fact, white people are the only group that cares less about environmental issues than the public estimates. Contrary to media coverage that over-weights the concerns of white people, low-income Americans and People of Color are far more likely to live in areas with polluted air and water, less greenspace, and more vulnerability to the impacts of climate change, including extreme heat. (FiveThirtyEight)

Thousands Stranded By British Columbia Floods: Emergency crews are trying desperately to reach the 18,000 people stranded by landslides and flooding in western Canada following torrential rainstorms that have caused catastrophic damage across British Columbia. One person has been confirmed dead, but officials are nearly certain that number will rise in the coming days. Landslides have also blocked access to the Port of Vancouver, Canada's largest port, causing worries of shortages and price spikes in both Canada and the U.S. Abbotsford, BC smashed its single-day rainfall record on Sunday with nearly four inches in 24 hours, 140 days after it set its all-time high temperature record. Farmers there ignored evacuation orders and used jet skis to save their livestock, but thousands of cattle still drowned. Climate change, caused by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels is fueling heatwaves and extreme precipitation events, increasing the potential for "weather whiplash." The flooding is exacerbated by wildfires — like those that incernated the whole town of Lytton, BC, about 125 miles north-northeast of Abbotsford, in June — that, along with clearcutting, undermine soil stability, increasing erosion and leading to overflowing creeks and streams. Camp Hope has served as a temporary home for Lytton residents and members of Lytton First Nation, and this week welcomed an additional 300 people displaced by the impacts of climate change. (The Guardian, Reuters, The Guardian, AP, Axios, Al Jazeera, AP; Whiplash: (Washington Post $, CNN; Camp Hope: Toronto Star; Supply chain: Washington Post $, CBC; Climate signals background: Flooding, Extreme precipitation increase, Wildfires)

HQ Move Made BLM Whiter, Less Effective: The relocation of Bureau of Land Management headquarters from Washington DC to Grand Junction, Colorado, would have not only caused significant brain drain but would have had such a disproportionate impact on the already-overwhelmingly-white Bureau that its employees of color likely could have sued, an Inspector General report found. The previous administration moved BLM headquarters without a "strategic workforce plan;" a move the Biden administration reversed in September. The IG report found evidence the move caused a, "loss of institutional knowledge about laws and regulations meant that BLM was not able to provide knowledgeable input on proposed rules and legislation.” Less than 3.5% of the BLM workforce is Black and the number of Black employees in BLM headquarters fell from 126 to 55 during the Trump administration. The percentage of BLM staff with at least 25 years of DOI experience also dropped from 24% to 17%. The headquarters move would have had such racially disparate impacts that House Natural Resources chair Rep. Raúl Grijalva warned at the time that BLM employees could have sued the government for civil rights violations, creating a “significant legal liability that could rival the cost of the entire relocation.” (Washington Post $, E&E News, The Hill, New York Times $, Bloomberg Law, UPI)

INTERNATIONAL FINANCE: Mia Mottley: the ‘fearless’ leader pushing a global settlement for the climate frontlines (Climate Home), pandemic debt adds to challenge of funding world's climate goals (Reuters)

INCENTIVE$: Bosses of HSBC, Tata, Macquarie urge governments to do more for green transition (Reuters)

GREEN GREEN: Citi finds surprising path to consider polluting metals as green investors bet climate adaptation will soon be profitable (Bloomberg $), world's no. 1 oil exporter lures ESG investors with green bonds (Bloomberg $), investors bet climate adaptation will soon be profitable (Bloomberg $), sovereign wealth funds dramatically step up their focus on ESG (Bloomberg $), the new frontier of corporate clean energy buys (Axios)

FED: Regional fed leaders flag limits to central bank’s climate change role (Wall Street Journal $)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz wants to give Kyle Rittenhouse a job (The Root), four years after ‘unite the right,’ Charlottesville still struggles to move on (New York Times $)

BURNOUT: Firefighter trauma rises in American West (Reuters)

PIPELINES: Canada sides with a pipeline, violating Wet’suwet’en laws — and its own (Grist), ‘rights of nature’ tribal case may upend pipeline law (E&E News), Europe's gas firms prime pipelines for hydrogen highway (Reuters), Gulf Coast tribe vows to resist Enbridge’s new pipeline expansion plans (Truthout)

DENIAL: During COP26, Facebook served ads with climate falsehoods, skepticism (Reuters), the forgotten oil ads that told us climate change was nothing (The Guardian), climate change deniers are over attacking the science. Now they attack the solutions. (Grist)

FOSSIL VOLATILITY: Energy crisis gives Canada oil sands windfall for green projects (Bloomberg $)

WHY LEARN LESSONS WHEN YOU CAN DO IT AGAIN?: Texas, Midwest at risk of blackouts if winter brings deep freeze (Bloomberg $)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Climate-vulnerable countries call for help forcing high emitters to act (The Guardian)

• COP26: 'It’s going to get bumpy!' – Papua New Guinea sparked final day panic at COP26 (Climate Home), coal power stand at COP26 climate talks lends India time to transition (Thomson Reuters Foundation), Indigenous reflections of COP26 (Indian Country Today), Indigenous leaders left COP26 disappointed, but celebrating ‘small wins’ (Grist), you need to care about this (Gizmodo)

NEW DELHI: We have to feed our children': Delhi's rickshaw pullers battle on through city's toxic smog (Reuters), New Delhi to consider curbing private vehicles to fight dangerous smog (Reuters)

YOUR OLD ROAD IS RAPIDLY AGING: Young people more optimistic about the world than older generations – UNICEF (The Guardian)

AGENCIES: Half the US would qualify for flood program aimed at poor (E&E News)

EPA: Biden administration acts to restore clean-water safeguards (AP, The Hill, Politico Pro $), EPA proposes extending RFS compliance deadlines, reshaping future deadlines (Politico Pro $)

DOE: White House weighs revamp of DOE showerhead, 'body spray' rule (E&E $)

DOI: Unusual Gulf drilling lease sale nets $192 million (Axios), watchdog: Trump official boosted former employer in Interior committee membership (The Hill), Biden officials to propose road ban on much of Alaska’s Tongass National Forest (Washington Post $)

THE HILL: Lawmakers sidestep climate impacts of crypto market (E&E $), Democrats stress need to beef up clean energy supply chains as Republicans knock rising gas prices (Utility Dive)

HOUSE: Divided House debates Dems’ expansive social, climate bill (AP), GOP seeks oversight hearing with Kerry on climate diplomacy (The Hill)

SENATE: Dems hope for Kigali ratification 'sooner rather than later' (E&E $), top Republican warns Biden against picking Brainard for Fed chair (The Hill)

WHITE HOUSE: Federal EV funds challenge Biden environmental justice plan (E&E News), White House looks to rescue plan funding to ease burden of high heating costs (The Hill)

NORTH AMERICA: Autos, energy and migration on US, Canada, Mexico joint agenda (Reuters, Factbox), Biden’s made-in-America push raises trade tensions at meeting with Canada, Mexico (Politico, E&E News)

INFRASTRUCTURE BILL(S): House readies FrIday vote on spending package after GOP’s McCarthy delays process late into the night (Washington Post $, New York Times $), House moves toward OK of Dems’ sweeping social, climate bill (AP), as Democrats await CBO score, experts argue it may not account for climate change (Washington Post $), Biden tax threatens climate goals, clean-power companies say (Bloomberg $)

POLITIC$: The Canadian energy company [Enbridge] in the way of [Michigan Gov.] Whitmer’s campaign (Politico), Dems allege [US] Chamber [of Commerce] violated law on reconciliation lobbying (E&E $)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Committee deadlocks on another Biden Interior nominee (E&E News)

TRIBES: Tribes welcome infusion of money in infrastructure bill (AP)

CITIES AND STATES: Oklahoma governor grants clemency, spares Julius Jones’ life (AP), Texas ranch scion takes on climate in statewide race (E&E $), Whitmer proposes $300M in water funding for communities (AP)

NEW YORK CITY: NYC could ban gas in new buildings this year (New York Focus)

RIP TCI: [Mass. Gov.] Baker pulls support for regional pact that would address climate change (Boston Globe $), governors abandon pact to reduce transportation pollution (AP, Boston Herald, Boston.com, WCVB) 

FERC: Questions linger for FERC on ultimate fate of Missouri pipeline (Politico Pro $), Glick accuses Missouri pipeline owner of 'fear mongering' over potential fuel outages (Politico Pro $)

IMPACTS: Construction, climate change to blame for Nigeria's erosion crisis (CNN)

WILDFIRES: ‘We are struggling’: US mountain states battle wildfires despite impending winter (The Guardian), Colorado wildfire kills one, signaling fire season is far from over (New York Times $), area burned by wildfires could increase by as much as 92% by 2040s in Sierra Nevada, study finds (CNN)

SAVE THE FORESTS, FOR PEAT'S SAKE: Revealed: the places humanity must not destroy to avoid climate chaos (The Guardian), Brazil’s Amazon deforestation surges to worst in 15 years (AP)

OCEANS: Faroe Islands farmers use seaweed as an underwater solution to combat climate change (ABC)

BEYOND IMPOSSIBLE: Yes, plant-based meat is better for the planet (Vox)

RENEWABLES: In need of jobs, northeastern North Carolina sees promise in offshore wind (Energy News Network), a simple idea to address fluctuations in solar energy production (Yale Climate Connections), SSE rejects Elliott’s call to break up (FT $), high power prices give jolt to rooftop solar in Spain (Reuters), TotalEnergies: will not do big deals in renewables sector, plays down Engie bid talk (Reuters)

• VINEYARD WIND: America's first major offshore wind project starts construction (E&E $, Cape Cod Times, Martha’s Vineyard Times)

BUILDINGS: This is what architects should do to help fight climate change (Architectural Digest)

EFFICIENCY: Advocates vow to fight 'outrageous' decision rejecting New Hampshire efficiency program (Utility Dive)

OIL & GAS: [Basra, Iraq] Residents say longstanding oil industry practice is killing them (CNN), Norway oil firms raise 2022 investment forecasts (Reuters)

PLASTICS: US to back global treaty aimed at curbing plastic pollution (E&E News, Reuters, The Hill)

HYDROGEN: Hydrogen's many colours (Reuters, Factbox)

UTILITIES: Direct Energy launches fresh attack against Dominion's 100% renewable energy tariff in Virginia (Utility Dive)

WATER: Water (On the Media, The Takeaway)

EVs: Biden wants Detroit to beat China on EV manufacturing (E&E $)

ACTIVISM: Ten ways to confront the climate crisis without losing hope (The Guardian)

AVIATION: Days after COP26, US pledge to cut aviation emissions gets rerouted (Grist)

MOVIES: A-list actors made the climate movie we deserve (Axios)

BUSINESS: World’s top steelmaker outlines six-point plan to cut emissions (Bloomberg $)

CARBON PRICING: Feds: Carbon tax could cut energy emissions 19% (E&E $), no proof so far of abuse in EU carbon market, says watchdog (Reuters)

BOOZE: Australian beer makers fight climate change by feeding carbon to algae (Reuters)

WILDLIFE: Gabon is last bastion of endangered African forest elephants (AP)

INTERNATIONAL: EU says it is unlikely to approve state aid for fossil fuels (Reuters), no country has met welfare goals in past 30 years ‘without putting planet at risk’ (The Guardian),  Sturgeon urged to commit to end oil and gas production in Scotland (The Guardian)

• The failure at Glasgow and what needs to happen next (LA Times, Peter Kalmus op-ed $)
• The moral case for destroying fossil fuel infrastructure (The Guardian, Andreas Malm op-ed)
• Let’s not get distracted, redistricting is important (NewsOne, Corey Wiggins op-ed)
• Shell’s Dutch exit leaves investors with a dilemma (FT, Editorial Board $)
• Biden says his infrastructure law is a ‘big deal.’ How big? (New York Times, Spencer Bokat-Lindell op-ed $)
• Investors unprepared for carbon crunch (Reuters, Edward Chancellor op-ed)
• Companies that quickly embrace green tech will clean up (FT, John Kerry op-ed $)
• When the dust has settled at COP26, it is the ratchet mechanism that will keep 1.5°C alive (Energy Monitor, Nick Ferris op-ed)
• Can America prevent a global warming cold war? (The Hill, Paul Bledsoe op-ed)
• Who will ensure compliance with the Glasgow climate commitments? (The Hill, Scott Brown and Dan Reicher op-ed)
• COP26 was a cop-out — here's why it gets a failing grade (The Hill, Stuart P.M. Mackintosh op-ed)

Big Oil Spent 20 Years Advertising Climate Disinfo, And They’re Not Stopping Now

Yesterday we talked about how climate denial boils down to just a handful of messages trying to convince people you can’t trust climate scientists or activists, because the crisis isn’t real, or all that bad, or worth making the effort to stop. But increasingly, the fossil fuel industry is looking to spice it up with something new, tacitly recognizing they’ve lost on all five of those denial points, and pivoting to greenwashing that suggests they’re actually part of the solution. 

That’s a big takeaway from yesterday’s feature in the Guardian by Geoffrey Supran and Naomi Oreskes. They lay out four decades of Big Oil’s advertisements, showing how the companies causing climate change, and their coalitions and front groups, tried to convince everyone climate change wasn’t happening by casting doubt on the science. When that didn’t quite work and climate action became a possibility, they scaremongered about the potential solutions and shifted blame onto consumers. But now that the momentum for climate action is as much economic and cultural as it is legislative, they pivoted to greenwashing themselves as the answer (to the problem they’re causing). 

While Supran and Oreskes cover the industry’s various national-level ad campaigns trading on the credibility of outlets like the New York Times, which is an ongoing issue undercutting the paper’s excellent climate reporting. It’s also happening at the local level. 

For example, yesterday Politico’s ExxonMobil-sponsored Morning Energy pointed us to a great story by Zi-Ann Lum and Ben Lefebvre about how Canadian energy company Enbridge is “trying to scuttle Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s reelection bid.”

Why is a foreign company meddling in Michigan state politics? Because Whitmer wants to protect the largest freshwater lake system in the world from the environmental cataclysm that  would result from an extremely-conceivable pipeline leak in the Straits of Mackinac … and that's pretty inconvenient for the Canadian pipeline company Enbridge, whose Line 5 pipeline runs (very precariously) along the bottom of that exact waterway.

“With six-figure ad buys and free fish giveaways,” Lum and Lefebvre write, “the firm is going all out to sway Michigan voters with safety pledges and warnings about propane shortages.” 

Not only are they greenwashing, but they’re also wokewashing, with an ad featuring an Enbridge employee in a kayak who introduces himself as “growing up Anishinaabe and belonging to a tribal community,” before delivering the standard pipeline propaganda about how it’s “safer with less emissions” than other forms of shipping, and that “we need the energy”. 

But the employee hardly speaks for the Anishinaabe peoples, as hard as the script may suggest it. The Anishinabek Nation leadership opposes the pipeline, their opposition has forced the acknowledgement of long-denied treaty rights, and Indigenous peoples are leading the call to get President Biden to intervene. 

Enbridge knows all this, of course, which is likely why, back in 2019, it persuaded Desmond Berry to leave his position as the director at the Natural Resources Department of the Grand Traverse Band of Ottawa and Chippewa Indians, from which he was an opponent of the pipeline, and start a consultancy with Enbridge as his first client. 

Bryan Newland, chair of the Bay Mills Indian Community, told Kaye LaFond of Michigan Public Radio that Enbridge hiring Berry is “the oldest trick in the book, get the Indians fighting amongst themselves, and then they’re too busy doing that to fight us.” (The piece ends with an editor’s note that “Enbridge Energy is one of Michigan Radio's many corporate sponsors.”)

Old tricks aside, the industry is no old dog, and knows some newer tricks. As Elizabeth Culliford reported for Reuters, researchers at InfluenceMap found that fossil fuel companies and their lobby groups spent at least a half million dollars on Facebook ads, just during the two weeks of COP26. This buy netted them at least 22 million impressions — “including content that promoted their environmental efforts in what InfluenceMap described as ‘greenwashing.’” 

When pressed on it at an event recently, Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer said “obviously, there’s been concern about people sharing misinformation about climate on Facebook.”

Obviously! 

He continued by saying that he’s “not going to say we have it right at any moment in time,” which is an understatement if there ever were one, before giving the PR spiel about “free expression” and “intervening when there are harms happening that we can prevent.” When asked about banning climate misinformation ads, he claimed they “didn't want people to profit over misinformation.” 

But the continued prevalence of oil industry ads on Facebook shows that they’re just as responsible for profiting from disinformation as Big Oil is in spreading it.

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