FIRST LOOK:

The Global Warming Mitigation Project is now accepting applications for the 2022 Keeling Curve Prize. Projects with a proven track record of reducing, avoiding, or eliminating greenhouse gases could win $25,000. Learn more here.

NYC Lawmakers Vote To Electrify New Buildings: New York City is poised to electrify nearly all new buildings in the coming years after city legislators voted Wednesday for the measure designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions and other air pollution. The Big Apple is the latest in a growing drumbeat of dozens of municipalities across the country moving to cut their climate pollution by electrifying new buildings. The legislation, which Mayor Bill de Blasio is expected to sign, requires electricity-powered heat and hot water in — with a few exceptions — all new buildings under seven stories by 2024 and all other buildings in 2027. As the country's largest city electrifies its buildings, which account for almost 70% of its climate pollution, increased electricity demand will boost momentum for decarbonizing the state's electricity sector. The bill will save ratepayers money that would otherwise be spent on new gas hookups, a common utility tactic to subsidize expanding gas infrastructure, as well as reduce air pollution in general, and especially indoor air pollution caused by gas stoves. "We’re really setting the pace here," New York City sustainability chief Ben Furnas told E&E news. "If it can be done in New York City, it can really be done anywhere." (E&E News, Earther, New York Times $, NY1, The City, Gothamist, AP, NPR, The Verge, Grist, Washington Examiner, FOX5, CBS2, CNBC, The Hill, Reuters; Gas hookup subsidization: Earther)

Indonesian Women Use Mangroves For Masks, Hand Sanitzer: Indonesian women are tackling two of the world's biggest crises at once, Thomson Reuters reports. On Bengkalis island, the Bengkalis Women Weaving Community make hand sanitizer from mangrove oil and dye masks with mangrove sap. Mangroves hold a full third of the planet's coastal carbon stock and sequester five times more carbon per acre as Indonesia's upland forests and protect coastal areas from cyclones intensified by climate change. Using the mangrove-derived products, which supplant expensive synthetic dyes also helps the women keep more of their income and supports the economic viability of mangrove forests which are often ripped out for charcoal production and shrimp farms. As for the masks themselves, the Bengkalis women's group won a public vote for the best collection of handwoven clothes at the TENUN Fashion Week out of 45 entrants from across Southeast Asia. (Thomson Reuters Foundation; Climate Signals background: Cyclonic storms)

Extreme Weather Fueled By Climate Change Threatens Fossils Fuels That Cause Climate Change: About 40% of the world's recoverable oil and gas reserves could be vulnerable to wild weather fueled by climate change, UK consultancy Verisk Maplecroft warned Thursday. Major reserves in Saudi Arabia (​​extreme heat, water shortages and dust), Iraq and Nigeria (droughts and flooding) among the most vulnerable, but refining capacity along the U.S. Gulf Coast is also at risk of being knocked offline by storms like Hurricane Ida. "These types of events are going to become more frequent and more extreme, creating even greater shocks within the industry," Rory Clisby, environmental analyst at Verisk Maplecroft, told Reuters. (Reuters; Climate Signals background: Extreme heat and heatwaves, Drought, Flooding, Hurricanes)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Air pollution still disproportionately harms communities of color, study says (Washington Post $, Health Day News), study: fossil fuel burning linked to over 1M deaths per year (E&E News), how much air pollution do you live with? It may depend on your skin color (The Guardian)

IN MEMORIAM: ‘The world is a lesser place today without her.’ Acclaimed author bell hooks dies at 69. (Lexington Herald-Leader, The Grio, The Root, Ebony, Washington Post $, NPR, PBS NewsHour, USA Today, NBC, Daily Beast, CNN, Blavity, New York Times $)

EXTREME WEATHER: Historic wind storm slams central US, unleashes rare December tornadoes (Washington Post $, Axios), storm knocked out power to thousands on Navajo, Hopi land (AP), extreme winds hit 100 mph in Colorado Springs; 25,000-plus without power; trees, trucks toppled (The Gazette), storms, extreme winds from Colorado to Michigan leave more than 450,000 without power (Washington Post $), heavy rain hits drought-stricken California, triggering evacuations, rescues (The Hill), storm slams Southern California as Central US faces winds, fire threat (Axios), the windstorm whipping the US looks terrifying (Earther), massive storm pushing across the US with rain, snow and powerful winds (NBC), powerful storm threatens millions with high winds (CBS)

LAST WEEKEND'S TORNADOS: Deadly tornadoes bring heartbreak and questions on resiliency and climate change (NPR), how Amazon warehouse policies put workers at risk (The Verge), along the monster tornado’s 230-mile path: ‘she saw the fear in my eyes’ (Wall Street Journal $), anguish and gratitude as tornado slashed through Amazon warehouse (Washington Post $), Kentucky’s whirlwind of community (Atmos), the midwest tornadoes, climate change, and the future of extreme weather (NPR)

• BIDEN: 'God-awful mess': Biden visits tornado-ravaged Kentucky (Axios), 'don't hesitate to ask for anything,' Biden tells tornado-hit Kentucky (Reuters, ABC, NBC), 
• CLIMATE: Tornado Alley may be moving east, placing billions in business and supply chains at risk (CBS), the jet stream took a sharp turn, and the US got unprecedented tornado weather in December – here’s what happened (The Conversation)

VOTER SUPPRESSION: King family calls for MLK Day of demonstrations to pressure Biden, Democrats on voting rights (The Grio)

COAL: What burns beneath: the deadly threat of underground coal fires to children in Zimbabwe (The Guardian), Ameren to shutter Rush Island coal plant 15 years earlier than planned (St. Louis Post-Dispatch, E&E News, St. Louis Public Radio, Missouri Independent, AP, KMOV4, FOX2)

(CLIMATE) DIPLOMACY: Developing markets see climate finance drop (Axios), US, Palestinian officials hold first economic dialogue in five years -State Department (Reuters)

DENIAL & DISINFORMATION: How a Kennedy built an anti-vaccine juggernaut amid COVID-19 (AP)

FOSSIL VOLATILITY: ‘When's our luck going to run out?' New England grapples with precarious winter fuel supplies (Politico Pro $), Kosovo, Serbia face power outages amid winter chill, surging energy prices (Reuters)

YOU HEARD IT HERE FIRST: 9 environmental crimes that would make great movies (Earther)

BUT THEY MADE THAT BIG GREEN ANNOUNCEMENT AT COP!: Wall Street enables more emissions than most countries (E&E $, Energy Live News, MarketWatch)

BE KIND TO YOURSELF: ‘Worry burnout’ is real (New York Times $), smoke, heat and stress: a snapshot from Southern California of life in an altered climate (The Conversation)

OK BOOMERS: Forbes announces its first-ever 50 over 50 impact list, showcasing women over 50 leaving a lasting impact on the world (Forbes)

AGENCIES: Biden admin backs oil rail through roadless forest area (E&E News)

EPA: Emissions study finds EPA's proposed methane rule might not go far enough (S&P Global), is there something amiss with the way the EPA tracks methane emissions from landfills? (InsideClimate News), Biden administration details push to finally rid the nation of millions of lead pipes (Washington Post $), environmental groups call on EPA to take stronger action on reports of falsified chemical safety assessments (The Hill), EPA flush with cash as Covid pesticide registrations pile up (E&E News)

DOE: Granholm to oil industry: 'Get your rig count up' (E&E $), Trump’s quest for more powerful shower heads is over (Washington Post $)

DOT: DOT to dole out $52B in highway funds (E&E $)

DOD: Thousands displaced from Oahu military base due to contamination in Navy water system (NPR)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: Corps cancels Mississippi flood project that EPA rejected (AP)

BUILD BACK BETTER ACT: Democrats’ $2 trillion spending plan in political peril as talks between Biden, Manchin appear to hit snag (Washington Post $, Reuters, CNBC, New York Times $, NBC), Schumer and Latino leaders tout spending plan's environmental credentials (The Hill), greens offer warnings, pressure on reconciliation inaction (E&E News), Senate Dems huddle on climate as reconciliation deadline nears (E&E News), Biden’s Build Back Better plan 'dead forever': Lindsey Graham (Fox News), Senate reconciliation bill draft axes offshore drilling ban (E&E News), Democrats divided over how hard to push Manchin (The Hill)

THE HILL: Congress approves defense bill with energy, enviro mandates (E&E $)

HOUSE: Democrats request probe of White House EJ actions (E&E News), House votes to ban imports from China’s Xinjiang on forced-labor concern (Wall Street Journal $, E&E $, Reuters)

SENATE: Manchin-led committee proposing hike to federal drilling fees (The Hill, Politico Pro $), Democrats push forward with EV tax credits (Roll Call), Sen. King: In choice between democracy and filibuster, ‘I have to choose democracy’ (MSNBC)

WHITE HOUSE: White House launches $45B clearinghouse for coal country aid (E&E $)

INFRASTRUCTURE INVESTMENT AND JOBS ACT: A flood of climate aid is coming from Washington. Will those who need it miss out? (Politico Pro $)

POLITICS: Biden's climate approval stays underwater (E&E $), Democrats try to flip the script on energy prices (Axios), climate worry meets gas-price anxiety. Can US really ditch fossil fuels? (Christian Science Monitor)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Enviro attorney takes the helm of EPA air enforcement (E&E $)

CITIES AND STATES: [Pennsylvania] lawmakers lack votes to halt [Gov.] Wolf’s carbon-pricing plan (AP, Politico Pro $), amid drought, California advances big new reservoir project (AP), California must double emissions cuts to meet 2030 climate goal (E&E $), how a debate over carbon capture derailed California’s landmark climate bill (Grist)

FERC: Will Tri-State's exit fee dispute at FERC shake up the cooperative utility model? (Utility Dive)

IMPACTS: Global weather disasters cost $101B in 2021 — report (E&E News), 100 degrees in the arctic? Climate change is destabilizing the north and south poles. (Grist), warming temperatures threaten Greece's prized olive oil (Reuters), Arctic warming twice as fast as rest of the world (ABC)

INFERTILITY: Fall in fertility rates may be linked to fossil fuel pollution, finds study (The Guardian), fossil fuels may be linked to fall in sperm counts, fertility (The Hill)

WATER: California, Arizona and Nevada agree to take less water from ailing Colorado River (LA Times $, E&E $, AP), judge dismisses Fernley [Nevada]’s lawsuit over leaking canal repairs (AP), in rural west Texas, the demand for well water is growing (Marketplace)

SOUTH AMERICA: Green-energy race draws an American underdog to Bolivia’s lithium (New York Times $), Peru's poor Andean hamlets, backed by state, unleash anger at mines (Reuters)

RENEWABLES: Wind power becomes Spain’s leading energy source for 2021 (El País), India seeks its own solar industry to counter China (Wall Street Journal $)

EFFICIENCY: A Cape Cod efficiency compact wants to bundle solar, storage, and heat pumps — but state regulators rejected the plan (Energy News Network), guaranteed savings contract helps Minnesota college finance efficiency (Energy News Network)

OIL & GAS: Feds charge Amplify Energy over Southern California offshore oil spill (Politico Pro $)

PIPELINES: State panel approves stream-crossing permit for Mountain Valley pipeline (The Roanoke Times, E&E $, AP)

NUKES: NuScale Power plans to be the first advanced nuclear reactor company to go public (Utility Dive), victims of the US uranium boom pay substantial costs despite what they’re owed by the US government (Prism Reports)

HYDROGEN: Caterpillar, BNSF Railway, Chevron pursue hydrogen-powered locomotive (Axios)

GRID: As Biden expands EV charging, worries about the grid grow (E&E News)

EVs: Britain expands discount scheme for electric vehicles (Reuters), cities: a barrier for EVs? (E&E $)

MINERALS: Countries and corporations are getting cold feet about mining the seabed for minerals essential to the green energy transformation (TIME)

INDIVIDUAL GIVING: A new estimate of the ‘most effective’ way to fight climate change (The Atlantic)

AVIATION: How do we clean up air travel? Fuel from fast-food grease is just the start (Canary Media)

BOOKS: In praise of ‘climate Change: A Very Short Introduction’ (Yale Climate Connections)

BUSINESS: Company climate disclosures jump in 2021 as board pressure builds (Reuters)

CARBON CAPTURE: Carbon capture firm nabs $30M in VC funds (Axios)

...BUT MAKE IT FASHION: Turning air into perfume (New York Times $)

FINANCE: Contributions to sustainable investment funds rose to $50 billion in 2020 (Yale Climate Connections), how companies can lower the bar in sustainability bond binge (Reuters), Leonardo DiCaprio-backed fintech Aspiration raises $315 mln ahead of closing SPAC deal (Reuters)

INTERNATIONAL: Part two of EU climate plan to tackle buildings, methane and natural gas (Reuters), EU to allow joint gas buying, plots low-carbon gas shift (Reuters), EU climate package risks locking in gas use, campaigners warn (Climate Home), EU to clamp down on domestic methane emissions from oil and gas (Reuters), EU to set up scheme to encourage CO2 removal from atmosphere (Reuters), Europe's buildings in line for energy-saving overhaul (Reuters)

• Joe Biden's climate handcuffs (The Hill, Andreas Karelas op-ed)
• The EU must not classify gas as a green fuel (Thomson Reuters Foundation, Caio Koch-Weser op-ed)
• Overseers of Texas electricity moving fast and loose with grid changes (Houston Chronicle, Chris Tomlinson column)
• Climate provisions in Build Back Better Act will be critical to decarbonize US economy (The Hill, Dan Lashof and Devashree Saha op-ed)
• Biden raises the ethanol gas tax (Wall Street Journal, Editorial Board $)
• How border walls are triggering ecological disaster (The Guardian, George Monbiot column)
• Planting trees, growing communities: Why we support tree equity (The Hill, Rep. Donald McEachin and Jad Daley op-ed)
• If the Senate wants to address inflation, it should pass Build Back Better (The Hill, Rose Khattar op-ed)
• Despite his promises, Biden is still serving fossil fuel interests (Truthout, William Rivers Pitt op-ed)
• John Kerry’s financial crusade against oil and gas (Wall Street Journal, Andy Puzder op-ed $)
• Toyota keeps its EV options open — maybe too open (Wall Street Journal, Stephen Wilmot analysis $)
• Here’s how to accelerate discoveries to help the planet (Fast Company, Robert Downey Jr. and David Lang op-ed)

Libertarian Calls Cops On Crying Kid, Because Deniers Are The Real Big Babies

Yesterday’s attempted fact check, with 3 lies in a 10 word headline, was as hypocritical as we thought it could get. But then we saw something even worse, in part because it was true. 

You may remember Joakim Book (but probably not because he’s not really that important) as the guy who essentially claimed that because he never personally received a check from Mr. Koch, his employer’s funding by the climate denial billionaire can’t be biasing his climate denial. Also, as we noted, he hates kids and their parents, because when he goes out in public to work in a cafe, someone inevitably brings their child and he feels like, “the world is punishing me when a couple enters my reading cafe not with one, but two of these monsters.” 

You might also remember his groundbreakingly stupid suggestion that the right way to do environmentalism would be to just marry a rich person and buy all the land or species you want to conserve, then sue anyone who gets in your way or kills one of your whales. 

With takes as impressively stupid as that, we’ve kept an eye on his twitter for more of his accidental examples of the emptiness of libertarian economics, and on Sunday he posted another absolute banger. No one dared like, comment or retweet it, perhaps because it’s not just stupid, but also cruel and likely actively harmful. (Just like his free-market economics!) 

Joakim Book admits that he called child protective services on his neighbors because he didn’t get a good night’s sleep due to the baby crying. 

He tosses in something about “externality people” at the end (you know, "the ones who think climate change is a socially unjust prospect"), but that’s the thin economic-sounding pretense for his misanthropic, self-centered rant, that happens to expose how his and others' free-market punditry is merely plain-old cruelty wrapped in an economic-sounding pretense for prioritizing private polluter profits over public health and the environment (with, as Nancy MacLean documents in Democracy in Chains, a deeper utility in opposing the Civil Rights Act and subsequent racial justice policies).  

“At 3 am,” the overwrought piece published on Medium because no editor would touch it begins, “the cries woke me from my sleep, like it had so many times before.” After a whole “half an hour of agonizing twisting and turning,” Book went on his balcony and apparently stared up at the window “for a full twenty minutes” when he “listened and looked for any kind of movement” from the parents to soothe the child. 

Book then addresses the obvious, that maybe something’s wrong with the child, but apparently that “Does. Not. Matter” (emphasis his) because you just aren’t allowed to be loud at night. He wouldn’t be allowed to blast music, so what right does a child have to exist loudly near him?

The parents are on the hook to “do something. Take the child outside, sit with it, console it, feed it or go for a walk. I’ve never seen my neighbours do that.” Of course, as any actual parent (or compassionate human being) knows (or might guess) none of these things are in any way guaranteed to calm a crying baby and walking around the neighborhood with it could just spread the noise over a larger area.

Ah yes, of course, because he’s never seen it happen, it must not! Not seeing, from your balcony below, parents take a child outside for a walk at 3:30 in the morning to get it to stop crying totally constitutes “child abuse,” so he “reported them to child services this morning.” 

(While Book doesn't mention his neighbors' race or ethnicity, but it's also important to note the pervasive racism in the (American) child welfare system is well-documented, and horrifically damaging to families and children — which would give any decent person pause before reporting a situation about which they know essentially nothing.)

And if you thought that’s as bad as it could get, the cherry on top? “That's not really my main point,” he wrote, “because even the parents who don’t abuse their kids like my neighbours do, let them inflict noise damage on innocent others.” 

Yes! The real victim here isn’t the child he believes to be abused to the point of requiring government intervention. It’s him. He’s the one who’s suffering! 

This self-styled champion of libertarian economics, the philosophy of getting government off your back and taking individual responsibility for yourself, did not simply go knock on his neighbor’s door to see if everything’s alright,  if they could close the window, or if there is anything he could do to help before he called the authorities. He didn’t even leave them a passive aggressive note expressing his inconvenience with their child’s crying, or offer to buy some cheap pacifiers, toys, or — probably more his style — invoice them for inherently-sound-absorbing throw pillows or blankets for the baby’s room. 

Because he didn’t see the parents acting in the manner he believed appropriate and convenient for himself, this big baby was so triggered by a child crying that he literally had to call the police. 

Can’t wait for his next post on climate change, where we’re guessing Joakim Book will suggest climate activists stop calling for legislation and instead simply pool their allowances and buy Exxon to force it to go green, before calling for a tactical nuclear strike on the new LED street lamp outside his window because it’s too bright and keeping him up at night. 

Seriously though, maybe Joakim wouldn’t have such a hard time sleeping if he had a real job, something where a crying child isn’t a shrill reminder of the people you’re selling out for a billionaire’s benefit.

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