FIRST LOOK:

The Environmental and Energy Study Institute (EESI) will hold a briefing on opportunities for cutting greenhouse gas pollution from building materials on Wednesday, December 8, at 1:00 pm EST. 

VA Air Board Denies Key Permit To Pipeline Over EJ Concerns: The beleaguered Mountain Valley Pipeline suffered yet another setback Friday when the Virginia Air Pollution Control Board denied a key permit for a proposed compression station it ruled failed to meet environmental justice requirements. The board rejected the state DEQ's recommendation after more than 13 hours of public comments with all but one public commenter opposed to the project. The proposed compressor station would facilitate the extension of the 303-mile fracked gas pipeline another 75 miles into North Carolina. The station would be located three miles from downtown Chatham, Virginia and less than five miles from four environmental justice communities. The Mountain Valley Pipeline is already well over budget and behind schedule. “Why don’t they put this compressor station in their area?” said Brenda Poole, a member of the Pittsylvania County NAACP's Environmental Justice Committee. “They don’t live here. They have don’t have family here. They don’t work here. They don’t even drink the water here. They don’t eat the food here. They don’t even breathe the air that we are breathing here. They are getting rich off of our community while [we] are getting sick and dying.” A federal appeals court threw out a permit for a compressor station for the now defunct Atlantic Coast Pipeline because the same oversight board failed to account for the harm it would cause to local, historically Black communities. (Virginia Public Media, Danville Register & Bee, Chatham Star-Tribune $, WDBJ, The Hill, WVTF, Pittsburgh Business Times, WRIC, WVTF)

Taxpayers Pay Failed Insurers' Ida Costs, Thousands Still Displaced: Louisiana taxpayers will pick up the tab for two Louisiana insurance companies, with 28,000 homeowners between them, that failed under the deluge of claims from Hurricane Ida. Other insurance companies will front the $100 million Access Home Insurance Co. and State National Fire Insurance Co. still owe their customers, but will recoup that money through tax credits. Meanwhile, thousands in rural Louisiana remain displaced by the storm and FEMA manufactured housing units have still not arrived. The costs to taxpayers to cover the cost of failed insurers, as well as the acute costs incurred by residents like Tammy Manuel who is (still) living in a hotel two hours from her home, are the present costs of climate change, which is supercharging hurricanes like Ida. (Insurers: The Advocate, AP; Housing: New York Times $; Climate Signals background: 2021 Atlantic hurricane season)

Weird, Wild Weather Across US: As parts of Hawaii brace for a foot of snow, and whole islands were under flash flood warnings due to heavy rain, Denver has yet to see snow this season as high temperatures and drought fuel late-season wildfires. Snow at high elevations in Hawaii is not itself uncommon though rare, but the contrast to Denver's very unusual lack of snow is striking. Sixty-five weather stations across the U.S. from Roanoke, Va., to Billings, Mont., recorded record high temperatures last Thursday, the day after the West Wind Fire nearly destroyed the town of Denton, Mont and other fires rage across the West. The unusual weather is due in part to a La Niña cycle in the Pacific, but climate change, caused by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels is making extreme weather more frequent and severe. The weird weather weekend also comes as well over a month of torrential rain has submerged large swaths of British Columbia and new research shows mountain states in the West could be sbowless for years at a time in as little as 35 years, auguring "potentially … catastrophic" impacts for the Western U.S. water system, as well as skiing. (Weird Weather: NPR, Democracy Now; Denver: HuffPost; Hawaii: Washington Post $, AP, The Hill, New York Times $, CNN); Heat: AP, The Guardian; Fires: NPR, AP, Great Falls Tribune, Helena Independent Record, Montana Standard; Snowless mountains: Washington Post $; Skiing: New York Times $; Climate Signals background: Drought, 2021 Western wildfire season, Flooding, Extreme precipitation increase, Extreme heat and heatwaves)

CLIMATE (IN)JUSTICE: Billions for climate protection fuel new debate: who deserves it most (New York Times $), California port pollution plaguing local neighborhoods (ABC)

CLIMATE FINANCE: Barbados' Mottley says IMF must help finance the fight against climate change (Reuters), Wall Street holds fast to fossil fuels as climate pressure grows (Bloomberg $)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Environmental activists challenge ‘unlawful’ UK fossil fuel plan in high court (The Guardian)

DENIAL & DISINFORMATION: 4 new myths about climate change—and how to debunk them (Popular Science), why some of your favorite podcasts are filled with oil company ads (The Guardian)

WAR ON CHRISTMAS: Christmas tree prices rise due to drought (CBS), Christmas tree selection may be more limited this year because of drought a decade ago (Yale Climate Connections)

WINTER IS COMING: Thousands of Americans will still be without power and heat this winter despite call for utility companies to prevent shutoffs (CNN)

AGENCIES: FEMA wants to track race of disaster victims for first time (E&E News)

EPA: EPA advisers favor stronger soot standards (E&E News)

DOE: 'Energy 2.0': Secretary Granholm on the future of clean infrastructure and green jobs (MSNBC)

DOI: NPS plan to swap steam for natural gas fuels fight in Philly (E&E News)

DOD: Honolulu Shuts Off Major Water Source After Navy Confirms Contamination (Honolulu Civil Beat, AP, Axios, The Hill), 'catastrophe': Hawaii Dem slams Navy over possible fuel leak (E&E $)

THE HILL: Congress racing to finish legislation to-do list by year end (Wall Street Journal $), Republicans alarmed after Biden official floats ban on crude oil exports (Fox Business)

HOUSE: Lawmakers demand [Permian Basin] oil and gas firms divulge methane leak data (Washington Post $, Bloomberg $, Politico Pro $, Seeking Alpha, The Hill), fireworks at first oil and gas hearing after Interior report (E&E $)

SENATE: ‘We aren’t going to just roll over’: GOP eyes climate cuts (E&E News), Elizabeth Warren grills New York Bitcoin miner on climate (Bloomberg $)

BUILD BACK BETTER ACT: Dems’ spending bill taps small banks for climate justice (E&E News), [LCV and Climate Power] announce $50M campaign to push senators on Biden bill (E&E $), citing ‘unsustainable’ financial inequity, HBCU leaders urge Senate passage of the Build Back Better Act (NewsOne)

POLITICS: What rising oil prices can teach us about climate politics in the US (TIME), Biden embraces his one-time foe: Walmart (Politico), Republicans blame Biden’s modest climate agenda for gas prices. They’re wrong. (Truthout), why Biden won’t talk about Tesla (E&E News)

VERY LEGAL AND VERY COOL: Koch Industries buys solar power company from GOP Senate candidate (The Hill)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Biden taps lawyer, Manchin alum to run mine safety agency (E&E News), Fed's Powell met with more lawmakers as renomination hung in the balance (Reuters)

CITIES AND STATES: ‘Technical’ changes to North Carolina climate law still hang in the balance (Energy News Network), extreme weather, project delays may challenge NY power grid in 2021-2030- operator (Reuters), Florida lawmakers prepare for upcoming fight over rooftop solar (Politico Pro $)

CALIFORNIA: How California energy players are lobbying regulators on rooftop solar (Politico Pro $)

TEXAS: Texas slaps down $9,000 power prices after blackout chaos (E&E News)

FERC: Phillips sworn in as fifth FERC commissioner (Politico Pro $), despite authority to require RTOs, Glick says FERC will encourage bottom-up approach to creating power markets (Utility Dive), FERC allows embattled Missouri pipeline to continue operating (Politico Pro $)

IMPACTS: Rising seas swamp Black, Spanish and Indigenous history in St. Johns County (News4JAX, ADAPT Florida, and Climate Central), Extreme weather and pandemic help drive global food prices to 46-year high (Yale Climate Connections), hedging against extreme weather events (Axios), how climate change could destroy a crucial US water source in the next 25 years (NBC), world’s strongest ocean current is speeding up — and humans are to blame (Washington Post $)

RESEARCH: Climate change data deluge has scientists scrambling for solutions (Wall Street Journal $)

FLOODING: Floods cut off communities in South Sudan's Unity state (Reuters), flood insurance rates are skyrocketing in inland locations (NPR)

HEAT: California will name and categorise heatwaves – should Australia follow suit? (The Guardian)

WILDFIRES: Judge halts logging on wildfire-scarred forest in Oregon (AP), Officials say fire at Pilot Mountain finally contained (AP)

BOOZE: Smoke-tainted California grapes find new life as vodka (Reuters)

HURRICANES: North Atlantic hurricanes have become more frequent amid warming - study (Reuters)

DEFORESTATION: Indigenous groups unveil plan to protect 80% of the Amazon in Peru and Ecuador (Mongabay)

RENEWABLES: The top 10 solar states include some unexpected contenders (Canary Media)

BUILDINGS: As warehouses take off, they need to kick natural gas (The Verge), 'LED of motors': how an inventor slashed energy in buildings (E&E $)

EFFICIENCY: Education is top predictor of efficiency program enrollment, LBNL finds, pointing to equity issues (Utility Dive)

LNG: French trading company signs secretive deal for US LNG (Politico Pro $)

METHANE: Saving the world from orbit (Denver Business Journal)

OIL & GAS: Alaska agency commits to more spending on Arctic oil plans (Reuters), UK North Sea's oil and gas future darkens after Shell's Cambo exit (Reuters), banning US oil exports would be a 'gift to OPEC and Putin,' Big Oil CEO says (CNN), OPEC in the age of Omicron (Axios), while Shell resists breakup, rivals see opportunity from spinoffs (Wall Street Journal $)

DEEPWATER HORIZON: BP oil spill fund: $103M to projects in 3 Gulf states (AP)

PIPELINES: Missouri pipeline appeals certificate decision to Supreme Court (Politico Pro $)

COAL: Job gains and losses from coal shutdowns land in different places (Wall Street Journal $)

UTILITIES: Arizona regulator warns that APS, Tucson Electric renewable overbuild could cost customers (Utility Dive), Colorado utilities could cut costs 5% by joining an RTO, PUC finds, as Western market momentum builds (Utility Dive)

CARS: US lags in electric vehicle sales despite Biden administration’s push (The Guardian), electric car prices could go up before they come down (Axios), growth of electric vehicles endangering rain forests (NBC), Toyota gets ready to sell only zero-emission cars in Europe (E&E $)

OCEANS: A rush to mine the deep ocean has environmentalists worried (Climate Home)

AGRICULTURE: Your burger is heating Earth (Axios)

BOOKS: ‘You are here’: mapping climate change, make believe and murder (New York Times $)

CARBON PRICING: 'Hell of a struggle': a global carbon market takes shape (E&E $)

FASHION & BEAUTY: Fashion must stick to climate pledges to prevent waste crisis, says UK economist (The Guardian), green beauty product testing finds more than 60% have PFAS indicators (Environmental Health News)

MOVIES: 'Don't Look Up': Meryl Streep, Leonardo DiCaprio in a light-hearted look at the end of the world (CBS)

BITCOIN: A Bitcoin boom fueled by cheap power, empty plants and few rules (New York Times $), Bitcoin miners say they’re helping to fix the broken Texas electric grid — and Ted Cruz agrees (CNBC)

SHIPPING: Emissions at sea: are new fuels the key? (Energy Monitor)

GREEN THUMBING THEIR NOSES AT THE MAN: Why climate-change gardening means breaking all the rules (The Guardian)

WILDLIFE: ‘No easy fix’: polar bear capital of the world turns to electric buggies to save the bears (The Guardian), as Arctic sea ice melts, killer whales are moving in (E&E News), California’s western monarch butterflies are making a comeback (New York Times $), These whales are so decimated that a single birth was cheered by scientists (Washington Post $)

INTERNATIONAL: China releases five-year green development plan for industrial sectors (Reuters), Germany's Free Democrats back coalition agreement (Reuters), in Russia’s ‘death valley,’ Putin’s pledge to become carbon neutral rings hollow (Wall Street Journal $)

• New retirement planning rule gets it right: Sustainable investing is here to stay (The Hill, Georges Dyer op-ed)
• Climate activists Xiye Bastida, Isra Hirsi, and Leah Thomas on looking to the past to shape a sustainable future (Teen Vogue, interview)
• A life’s work bearing witness to humanity’s impact on the planet (InsideClimate News, James Balog essay)
• Don't bank on an end to oil and gas handouts (The Hill, Veronique de Rugy and Kate DeAngelis op-ed)

Phantom Authors: Koch-Hoax Paper Shows Peer Review Is Easily Exploited By Bad Faith Actors, Yet Deniers Still Struggle To Publish!

Since Friday’s ghost story proved even more popular than Wednesday’s Alien wobble, we’re keeping this crazy train rolling with another pseudo-supernatural scheme! This time it’s not about candidates that don’t seem to exist, but instead, phantom study authors. 

First, the spooky setting, as exposed by CMD’s David Armiak: in 2020, Charles Koch doled out just shy of $150 million to universities, lobby groups, and other supposed charities that carry out his political vision. Nearly $90 million went to universities and academic centers, like George Mason University’s $21.5 million donation. Notre Dame, Columbia, Georgetown, Purdue, Clemson and New York University are just a sample of the schools that got over a million dollars  each from the Charles Koch Foundation. 

And does that money influence the researchers at the schools? While groups like UnKochMyCampus have shown the overt and subtle influence of Koch funding on the specific centers Koch funds, the fact that great climate work comes out of, for example, George Mason’s non-Koch’d parts of campus suggests that the funding influence only goes so far on campus. 

But then a new study seemed to suggest otherwise, that all academics on a campus that receives Koch funding feel some pressure to conform to the Koch’s rightwing preferences. One of the study’s authors sent emails to activists like UnKoch, asking them to promote the paper. 

As UnKoch detailed in a tweet thread though, there were some red flags. First off, neither of the study authors, Sage Owens and Kal Avers-Lynde III of the UCLA department of economics, appeared to, well, exist. There’s no record of the authors having produced any other studies, or in fact, anything at all on the internet. So then UnKoch called UCLA, which confirmed the pair weren’t professors there. They got in touch with the journal, who shrugged because the author’s name was the only information they have. 

What a mystery! To study authors claiming an affiliation the university has no record of, who otherwise have zero online presence, messaging liberal groups in hopes of promoting a study. Who are these phantom authors? Academics at a Koch-funded institution scared of repercussions, perhaps? 

So UnKoch reached out to the authors themselves, who demurred and refused to talk on the phone because they’re too busy. Yet another flag! 

Particularly Sage Owens did apparently have time to respond to Jason Stanley, a Yale professor who’s defined propaganda (and fascism), and his tweet about how the Atlantic published 118 Koch-funded “speech wars” articles “designed to whip up panic about a supposed free speech crisis on campuses.” 

The freshly-minted Twitter account (since suspended) presenting as @SageOwensEcon told Stanley that he “might like our forthcoming article proving that Koch funding has a strong and statistically significant effect on the perception of undue pressure in hiring, research, and teaching.” 

Stanley’s response? A “gentle suggestion” that “next time you do a hoax you might consider not having your author initials spell SOKAL.”

Yes, it appears the phantom authors are nothing more than hoaxsters, hoping to repeat the Sokal affair, the 1996 hoax by physicist Alan Sokal in which he submitted a paper designed to show that social sciences would publish basically anything.

Now, since, y’know, the authors don’t exist and apparently “data in the article has been identified as fabricated”, it’s been retracted. While the true authors have yet to reveal themselves, the fact that the liberal groups they targeted were skeptical instead of accepting of the fake paper suggests these would-be Sokal phantoms aren’t likely to come forward as having cleverly proven their targets care more about attacking Koch money than accuracy. 

But what this does highlight is a few important lessons. First, a reminder, if needed at all, that peer review is hardly infallible, and mistakes do get published. And when that happens, those mistakes are corrected (or retracted, in this case) so that others are not misinformed by it. 

It also shows, though, that peer review isn’t built for bad faith actors, as the process assumes that authors, reviewers and editors are all acting nobly in pursuit of the truth. But something being published in a peer-reviewed journal is in no way a guarantee of its accuracy, which is why, for example, deniers were keen on the recent retraction of 44 geoscience studies. 

Here’s the thing though. If it’s so easy for obvious garbage to slip through peer review, why is it deniers can’t get published? For example, TallBloke recently revived a (pseduo-)science dense theory that how “Fibonacci sequence links between solar system orbits and planetary synodic periods” can explain away climate change, relying heavily on work published in a 2013 special issue of the Copernicus journal Pattern Recognition in Physics. 

Why isn’t the work building on those studies also published in that journal? 

Because that special edition was so rife with errors, and the peer review process that led to its publication so faulty, that Copernicus decided to shut down the journal altogether.

TallBloke’s post makes no mention of that pesky fact. And why would it? It’s pretty embarrassing that the science that deniers try to pass off as credible is even easier to spot as a hoax than a paper that’s a literal hoax and written by phantom authors!

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