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Induction Cooking Better Than Gas, Home And Professional Chefs Say: Induction stoves are gaining popularity and recognition for their superior performance and reduced health and climate impacts compared to gas stoves, the Washington Post reports. Evidence of the dangers posed by gas stoves to human health and the climate by leaking methane even when turned off continues to mount, more chefs (professional and otherwise) are enjoying the benefits (culinary and otherwise) of cooking with induction. For nearly a century, the gas industry has spent millions of dollars on coordinated lobbying and public relations campaigns to ensconce "cooking with gas" as the standard for anyone serious about cooking and block local efforts to electrify buildings to meet their climate goals. [See below — Ed.] “You can do so much more on induction than gas," Evan Hennessey, co-owner of Stages in Dover, NH, told the Post. "The precision cooking allows us to do way more, without compromising the air quality in the kitchen for our guests or our staff.” Interior designers like Leslie Murchie Cascino, founder of Bonnie Wu Design in Ann Arbor, Mich, love the clean visuals and easy-to-clean surface afforded by induction cooktops — some of which can even be installed to invisibly cook through porcelain or granite countertops — and the fact that a child (or adult) is less likely to get burned or set something on fire with an induction cooktop that is cool to the touch when no pan is present. The most immediate benefits of induction over gas, may be even more visceral than that. “I would get a headache whenever the gas was running,” Tanuj Deora, who cooks dinner from scratch most nights with his wife Amy in their Washington, DC home, told the Post. “This cooktop isn’t just adequate for cooking — it’s better than the gas stove was,” he added. (Washington Post $)

FERC Will Consider Climate, EJ Impacts Of New Gas Infrastructure: The once-obscure Federal Energy Regulatory Commission will now consider proposed gas infrastructure's impacts on climate change and affected communities of color and low-income communities. Adopted by a 3-2 vote on party lines, the changes are FERC's first changes to how it assesses new gas infrastructure since the Clinton administration. Fossil fuel interests, Republicans, and Joe Manchin all criticized considering the environmental and human health impacts of new gas infrastructure. "There's nothing remarkable, and certainly not radical, in taking environmental considerations into account while determining the public interest," Democratic Commissioner Allison Clements, retorted. On Wednesday, FERC, along with NARUC, also said developing more high-voltage transmission lines may require expanding how those projects' benefits are considered. (Politico Pro $, Reuters, Washington Post $, Politico Pro $; Transmission lines: E&E $, Utility Dive)

GOP, Gas Industry Working To Preempt Municipal Climate Action: Republican lawmakers in dozens of states, supported by their backers in the gas industry, are passing laws to prohibit cities from taking climate action by electrifying their buildings, CNN reports. Transitioning space and water heating from gas to electric is one of the most effective measures localities can take to reduce their climate pollution and electrification ordinances "are kind of low-hanging fruit," Sheila Foster, an environmental law expert at Georgetown Law, told CNN. More than 65 municipalities in seven states, including New York City in December, have adopted legislation to electrify their buildings, but the American Gas Association is working with its members to preempt that drumbeat from continuing and banning cities from passing electrification measures, including in states where there aren't even cities looking to enact them. “We’re afraid that’s going to have a chilling effect on cities that want to take action,” said Alejandra Mejia Cunningham, a building decarbonization advocate at the Natural Resources Defense Fund. “Many cities and towns have small staffs, they don’t want to be taken to court, being seen as going outside state law.” (CNN)

BANKS KEEP COAL: Banks haven’t quit coal. Study says commercial lenders have channeled $1.5 trillion to the industry since 2019 (CNBC) 

THAT DEESCALATED QUICKLY: Climate ETF on brink of failure months after UN summit launch (FT $)

BLACKROCK BACKS DOWN: Facing Texas pushback, BlackRock says it backs fossil fuels (Reuters)

ENVIRONMENTAL RACISM: Missing from White House EJ screening tool: Race (E&E News, AP, Washington Post $)

PETRÓPOLIS MUDSLIDES: Historic rain and mudslides in Brazilian city kill at least 105; more residents evacuated (Washington Post $, NBC, Gizmodo)

AIRPORT FIRE: Massive wildfire forces evacuations in California (ABC, Mercury News, AP)

SURFSIDE COLLAPSE: Surfside collapse exposes an overlooked threat: Saltwater rising from underground (NBC)

HOMELAND SECURITY: Indigenous peoples in Guatemala demand sovereignty over oil and mining resources (Climate Home)

COP27: Does Egypt have what it takes to ramp up global climate action? (Energy Monitor)

ENERGY GEOPOLITICAL PROFITEERING: Europe’s energy crisis pays off for US natural-gas sellers, global traders (Wall Street Journal $)

DENIAL & DISINFORMATION: Facebook whistleblower alleges executives misled investors about climate, COVID hoaxes in new SEC complaints (Washington Post $), Are oil majors greenwashing? What 12 years of data show (E&E News), Study: oil giants' green rhetoric outweighs action (Axios)

AGAIN: Southern delays startup of new Georgia nuclear reactors, boosts costs (Reuters)

SCOTUS: How the supreme court could decide Biden’s climate future (Bloomberg $)

EPA: Court denies bid to halt EPA review of soot rule (E&E $), EPA touts $1 billion in infrastructure funds for Great Lakes cleanups (Politico Pro $), The Biden administration is updating truck pollution standards (Grist), Will EPA get an environmental justice boss? (E&E News)

DOE: Granholm announces $3M for net-zero carbon research at HBCUs (AP)

DOI: Judge: Coal mine permit didn’t analyze environmental harm (AP)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: US Army has new strategy to tackle climate change (NBC), To take climate change seriously, the US military needs to shrink (TIME)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden touts $1 billion in funding for great lakes restoration, during trip to Ohio (Washington Post $, The Hill, Detroit News), Francis Collins, a former NIH director, will fill in as a science adviser to Biden. (New York Times $), The White House is going after one of climate change’s thorniest problems (The Atlantic)

• COMING SOON: Biden will allow California to set climate limits on cars. The move could influence the rest of the country. (Washington Post $), EPA waiver promise propels Calif. goal to ban gas cars (E&E $)

THE HILL: Dems look to reframe ‘Build Back Better’ on pocketbook issues (E&E News)

SENATE: Mark Kelly tackles gas prices, drought to blunt midterm threat (E&E News), Republicans propose border carbon tax (E&E News), Senators press Biden on 'unacceptable' firefighter health claims (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

ELECTIONS: Green groups press for progressive upset in Texas House race (The Hill)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Toomey doubles down on opposition to Fed pick Bloom Raskin (E&E $), Why Republicans stalled Raskin’s bid for top Fed post: climate views, business ties (Wall Street Journal $)

CITIES AND STATES: Virginia community solar program a first for state’s municipal utility customers (Energy News Network), Big coal states eye small nuclear reactors for grid, economy (E&E News), 3 states with shuttered nuclear plants see emissions rise (E&E News), NJ to notify 186K properties to replace lead water pipes (AP)

• CALIFORNIA: California has begun managing groundwater under a new law. Experts aren’t sure it’s working (Inside Climate News), California will stick solar panels over canals to fight two disasters at once (Gizmodo)

IMPACTS: Climate change is seen as most worrying threat to world security (Bloomberg $), Weather disasters affected 1 in 10 homes in the country last year, report finds (Washington Post $), UN report highlights emerging threats from warming (E&E $), Rising seas expose weakness in federal coastal strategy (E&E News)

DROUGHT: Expecting the Western drought to end soon? Not likely, forecasters say. (New York Times $), Western states face worst megadrought in more than 1,000 years (NBC)

WILDFIRES: Southern California to see steep hike in fire danger due to warming, study finds (Washington Post $), The West's more flammable nights (Axios)

DEFORESTATION: Brazil scientists warn of possible election-year spike in deforestation (Reuters)

NATURE BATS LAST: Satellite images show just how ridiculously high the Tonga volcanic plume rose (The Verge)

RENEWABLES: Trump's solar tariffs violated trade pact — panel (E&E $), Offshore wind on track to hit, possibly exceed Biden's 30 GW target by 2030 (Utility Dive), Enel inks solar tracker deal with Comal as part of plant reconversion plans (Reuters), Texas is the country’s clean energy leader, almost in spite of itself (Inside Climate News), Solar project delays create hurdles for New Mexico utility (AP)

BATTERIES: China’s clean energy dominance may face challenge in batteries (Bloomberg $)

BUILDINGS: What are the hurdles to electrifying a home? Contractors and experts weigh in (Canary Media)

EFFICIENCY: Integrating efficiency into demand-side management portfolios may introduce equity risks: analysts (Utility Dive)

METHANE: The mystery of methane gone missing (Vox)

GLOBAL MARKETS: The US is now energy independent (Axios)

OIL & GAS: In Chaco Canyon, a moratorium on oil and gas leases might be too little too late (Grist), Shale giant marathon chooses cash returns over oil ramp-up (Bloomberg $)

ORPHANED WELLS: Infrastructure money makes it a good time to be in the well plugging business (NPR)

HYDROGEN: How clean is clean hydrogen? DOE lab, groups to map emissions (E&E $), India plans to produce 5 million tonnes of green hydrogen by 2030 (Reuters), US utility unveils plan to supply Los Angeles with green hydrogen (Reuters)

UTILITIES: Illinois muni and co-op members want in on state’s solar boom (Energy News Network), Utility cybersecurity insurance premiums are on the rise, more than doubling for some independent power producers (Utility Dive), Report says new nuclear reactor is risky; utilities disagree (AP)

EVs: Safety regulator opens third Tesla probe in 6 months (Axios)

BITCOIN: Bitcoin mining as a grid resource? 'It's complicated.' (Utility Dive), Intel's CEO says Bitcoin is a 'climate crisis' the company can help address (Protocol)

ART/ACTIVISM: The Yes Men: revenge of the pranksters (New York Times $)

AGRICULTURE: Bayer rolls out short corn variety tolerant of weather extremes (Reuters)

BUSINESS: Google focuses on idle Cloud projects to reduce carbon emissions (Axios), Inside IBM's new climate initiative (Axios)

INTERNATIONAL: UK green economy has failed to grow since 2014, according to official data (The Guardian)

• World Bank and IMF are courting big oil in debt-laden Suriname (Climate Home, Heike Mainhardt op-ed)
• Lake Charles explosion a warning about reliance on LNG exports (The Advocate, Lt. Gen. Russel Honoré op-ed)
• Africa’s fossil-fuel trap (Foreign Affairs, Nnimmo Bassey and Anabela Lemos op-ed)
• Prisons pollute and incarcerated or not, everyone deserves Just Transition (Prism Reports, Tamisha Walker and Sagaree Jain op-ed)
• For a clean-energy future, we need deregulation (Wall Street Journal, Ted Nordhaus op-ed $)
• Greenland’s melting ice is no cause for climate-change panic (Wall Street Journal, Steven Koonin op-ed $)
• America’s new war on wolves and why it must be stopped (Yale Environment 360, Ted Williams op-ed)

Matt Ridley, Covid and Climate Conspiracy Theorist, Invokes Fellow Conspiracy Theorist To Defend Against Fact That Conspiracy Theories Are Harmful

This week, coal baron Matt Ridley took to the Koch-funded UK contrarian site Sp!ked to offer up one of the oldest versions of climate denial, presenting the disinformation-based argument that really “global warming is good for us.” It’s a bit of a snooze-fest, to be honest. By the end, though, he also offers some newer varieties of climate conspiracies, citing Roger Pielke Jr.’s RCP8.5 conspiracy about how billionaires have corrupted climate science. 

Hardly surprising for Ridley to lean on conspiracy theories to advance his interests in keeping the money coming from the coal mine on his family’s property, but more entertaining is his response to being called out for being a kook. 

It’s always interesting to watch conspiracy theorists respond to being called conspiracy theorists, because their response is almost never to pause, reflect on the situation, and reconsider why their behavior is leading people to having such negative impressions. Instead, they reactively and perhaps instinctively turn to the very conspiratorial thinking they’ve denied.

For example, the latest Scientific American is a big issue on Covid-19, featuring an opinion piece by three interdisciplinary researchers talking about how conspiracy theories make it harder for any real search for truth to operate. Conspiratorial thinking has a “self-sealing” component, they write: “as more evidence against the conspiracy emerges, adherents keep the theory alive by dismissing contrary evidence as further proof of the conspiracy, creating an ever more elaborate and complicated theory.” 

When confronted with the reality that disinformation distorts, deniers just pile on more disinformation to make it make sense. 

“Lessons from climate science,” they write, “show that failure to demarcate conspiratorial reasoning from scientific investigation results in public confusion, insufficient action from leadership, and the harassment of scientists.” 

What’s more, “it even has the potential to impact research itself, as scientists are diverted into knocking back incorrect claims and, in the process, potentially ceding them more legitimacy than warranted.” That’s true whether it’s regarding climate conspiracies getting in the way of climate science or conspiracies about Covid leaking from a Chinese lab, for example, as bank-crasher Matt Ridley has co-written a book about. 

Ridley’s co-authored work questioning the official story on Covid-19’s origins came out in November, and at the time we wrote that Ridley’s challenge to the expert medical covid consensus “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.” 

Accidentally proving us right this week, Ridley responded to the Scientific American piece by quoting some old criticism of Steve McIntyre, one of the co-authors. It's a great example of one of Ridley’s incompentent online “sleuths” being little more than exactly the sort of garden variety conspiracy theorist wasting real scientists time that the SciAm piece describes. 

As long-time climate denial-watchers know, McIntyre made his name attacking the infamous hockey-stick graph of global temperatures, but in more recent years got into defending Russia against chemical weapon use allegations in Syria and other political conspiracies.

Ironic, then, that Ridley retweeted McIntyre’s attack, because it engages in exactly the sort of conspiracy thinking the piece calls out, accusing one of the co-authors of the Scientific American piece (about the dangers of conspiracies), of engaging in a conspiracy to fake data for a study in order to further embarrass climate skeptic blogs. 

Ridley was called out for relying on conspiracy theorists to challenge real science, and in response, he retweeted a conspiracy theorist’s challenge to real science. Ridley reacted to criticism that his conspiracy thinking is self-sealing by invoking a conspiracy theory from a fellow conspiracy theorist.  

We reached out to one of the co-authors, Peter Jacobs, for a reaction to the reactions. He told us that “from anti-GMO conspiracy theorists inventing non-existent ties to Monsanto, to climate contrarians citing other climate contrarians, there sure are a lot of people telling on themselves. For Ridley it very much seems like a case of "if the (clown) shoe fits…”

In the Scientific American piece, the co-authors concluded, more formally, that “we are not doomed to keep repeating the mistakes of past intersections of science and conspiracy should we choose to learn from them instead.” 

Ridley, as someone whose past mistakes include crashing a bank because he bought into a self-sealing conspiracy of profit, doesn’t seem to be particularly keen to learn from his mistakes.

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