⌛⌛⌛ NOT A JOKE ⌛⌛⌛

The deadline for embargoed materials & interviews with scientists of the next IPCC report, Mitigation of Climate Change Now, is TODAY at 5:59 pm EDT. This deadline will not be extended. Contact Climate Nexus with any questions.

Life On The Razor's Edge Of A Heated Planet: Centuries of fossil fuel extraction and combustion and the failure to transition to clean energy have locked in a certain amount of climate change and resulting destruction, the IPCC report issued in February made clear. The question now, according to a deeply-reported survey of vulnerable locations worldwide in GQ, is: “How much irreversible planetary damage are we willing to accept in order to continue extracting and burning fossil fuels?” The difference between 1.5°C (2.7°F) and 2°C (3.6°F) of global temperature increase above preindustrial levels is existential for communities dying of heatstroke in of Jacobabad, Pakistan; coral reefs devastated by bleaching near the Line Islands in very middle of the Pacific, vineyards poisoned by wildfires and drought in Napa Valley, California; vanishing seals and coastal erosion caused by sea ice loss around Qikiqtarjuaq, Nunavut, Canada; barren ski slopes in the Italian Alps; melting permafrost holding in methane and pathogens like smallpox in Yakutia, Russia; ecosystems vulnerable to complete collapse in the Miombo Woodlands of Southern Africa; and communities rocked by hurricanes in Antigua and Barbuda. “People don’t realize," Julia Baum, a marine biologist at the University of Victoria, in British Columbia, told GQ, "that every tenth of a degree matters.” (GQ)

Biden Pumps Unprecedented SPR Oil Into Market To Drive Down Prices: President Biden announced the U.S. will release 1 million barrels of oil from the Strategic Petroleum Reserve every day for the next six months. The massive scale of the release — 3.6 times greater than any drawdown in the SPR's 45-year history, according to ClearView Energy Partners — is part of the administration's effort to push down gasoline prices which rose in the wake of Russia's invasion of Ukraine and have remained high with oil companies responding to shareholder pressure. Biden criticized U.S. oil companies for not increasing extraction over the last month and called for "use it or lose it" penalties for firms that hold drilling permits from which they are not extracting oil, and congressional Democrats are open to the idea. The SPR announcement was joined by the administration's announcement it would use the Defense Production Act to boost domestic extraction of certain raw materials needed for battery production. Biden is in the challenging position of trying to alleviate economic pain caused by the economy's vulnerability to fossil fuel shocks ahead of the midterm elections, while attempting to push forward with a climate agenda despite comprehensive opposition from Republicans in Congress who have ignored climate science and refuse to consider steps to lessen dependence on fossil fuels. (Washington Post $, Axios, E&E News, E&E News, New York Times $, The Hill, Reuters, Black Wall Street Times, Politico, Washington Examiner; SPR explainer: Washington Post $; Hill on drilling reforms: E&E News; Biden climate agenda: New York Times $, Bloomberg $, E&E News)

Seabed Mining: Very Important, Very Far Under The … Sonar: The International Seabed Authority, an obscure arm of the UN, is establishing regulations for deep-sea mining, with potentially enormous implications for climate change, the transition to clean energy, and ocean ecosystems, Protocol reports. While the potential benefits of deep-sea mining are substantial – estimates suggest millions of tons of minerals including manganese, cobalt, nickel, and copper could be simply resting on the seafloor waiting to be vacuumed up, the unknowns are also massive. One study last year found sediment kicked up by seafloor mining operations disturbed tuna fisheries near the surface, for example, and the Deep Sea Conservation Coalition, made up of 90 international NGOs, has warned of eight "crucial shortcomings" with the current process, including lack of transparency. (Protocol)

GREENWASHING: Banks signed a 'net zero' pledge, then shoveled cash at fossil fuels (Gizmodo), UN chief names panel to probe companies’ climate efforts (AP, Reuters, Wall Street Journal $)

TOUGH TIMES FOR CF-BRO-S: CFOs find it harder to land board seats as companies seek change (Wall Street Journal $), Calif pension leader pushes for more women on boards, climate data (Reuters)

SHAREHOLDERS: Credit Suisse faces investor call for more climate transparency (Reuters)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: ‘Slow violence that drives death’: a California port city’s struggle with pollution and shootings (The Guardian and Grist), Deaths have spiked in this polluted port community. COVID is only part of the story. (Grist and KCET)

FOSSIL FUELED WAR: Impacts of Russia war in Ukraine reverberate (Yale Climate Connections), Europe told to turn down the heating in Russia gas standoff (Reuters), EU will do 'whatever it takes' to rebuild solar energy manufacturing in Europe (Reuters)

• LNG: Quitting Russia LNG proves tough as nation’s exports stay strong (Bloomberg $),  How long will Biden’s new alliance with LNG last? (Houston Chronicle), Europe's appetite for U.S. gas fast-tracks two new LNG projects (Reuters)
• GLOBAL KNOCK-ONS: Europe’s scramble for LNG leaves Asia starving for energy (E&E News), Global energy crunch stirs hope of oil reboot in Peru's Amazon (Reuters), Dutch coal-fired power plant to remain operational longer than planned (Reuters), India's March electricity shortage worst since coal crisis in Oct (Reuters)
• GERMANY: Germany's LNG import project plans (Reuters, factbox), Germany rejects Putin's roubles for gas demand (Reuters, The Guardian)
• US IMPLICATIONS: Biden’s energy Marshall Plan for Europe is no quick fix (Bloomberg $), The US can’t seem to quit Russian uranium (The Verge)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Del. lawmakers urge Biden to jump into climate court case (E&E $)

OUTSIDE IS FOR EVERYONE: Black birders week looks to attract more Black nature lovers (Black Wall Street Times)

GRETA: Greta Thunberg to publish a ‘go-to source’ book on the climate crisis (The Guardian, AP, The Hill)

SCOTUS: What supporters learned from Ketanji Brown Jackson’s Supreme Court confirmation hearing (Prism Reports)

EPA: Auto makers back EPA’s tougher tailpipe standards (Wall Street Journal $), EPA faces added legal pressure on 'good neighbor' ozone plans (E&E $), EPA resurrects plan to drop air pollution liability shield (E&E News), EPA upholds Trump-era decision not to regulate [drinking water] contaminant (AP)

DOE: DOE takes stock of offshore wind supply chain, calls for 2,100 turbines to meet 30 GW goal (Utility Dive), Energy Secretary: Biden plan should stabilize gas prices, move us to clean energy (MSNBC)

DOI: US taps $420M to boost water supplies hit by climate change (AP)

DOT: Biden admin to roll out new fuel efficiency rule today (E&E News)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: How is the US military preparing for rising climate security risks? (Thomson Reuters Foundation, explainer)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden calls for 'use it or lose it' provision for drillers on federal land (Washington Examiner)

• DEFENSE PRODUCTION ACT: Biden’s boost for mineral mining splits Hill climate hawks (E&E News, The Verge, The Hill)

THE HILL: Clean energy manufacturers urge Dems on reconciliation (E&E $)

HOUSE: House panel to grill USPS on plan to buy gas-guzzling trucks (Washington Post $, Reuters), Pelosi reiterates opposition to a gas tax holiday (Politico Pro $)

SENATE: Biden and Manchin speak different languages on hydrogen (E&E News), Dems press case for windfall profit tax on energy companies (E&E News)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Schumer cites energy prices when pushing FTC nominee (E&E $)

CITIES AND STATES: Illinois environmental justice bill would help residents prevent pollution (Energy News Network), Maryland general assembly passes sweeping climate change legislation, sending to Gov. Hogan under threat of veto (Baltimore Sun, Washington Post $, AP), States' solar fights pinpoint tensions between environmentalists and utility companies (Washington Post $), To reduce cafeteria waste, Baltimore schools teach kids where their food comes from (Yale Climate Connections), Is this the last generation to live on New York City’s wild fringes? (New York Times $)

FERC: FERC details climate, environmental justice strategy (E&E $)

IMPACTS: Meet 5 women documenting the effects of climate change around the world (NPR), What causes spring floods? (Yale Climate Connections), Will skiing survive? resorts struggle through a winter of climate and housing woes (NPR), The oldest mummies in the world are rotting and sprouting mold (Gizmodo, The Guardian)

RIPPLE EFFECTS: Fights over illegal fishing lead to armed conflict, deaths (AP)

WILDFIRES: California braces for another cataclysmic wildfire season (E&E $)

WATER: A new threat emerges for US lakes and rivers. Your lawn or toilet may be partly to blame. (USA Today)

HEALTH: One year after our “Fractured” investigation on fracking: Lots of talk, no action (Environmental Health News)

RENEWABLES: Central US grid reaches 90% renewables for first time (E&E $), Offshore wind groups push for Atlantic moratorium repeal (E&E $), PetroChina plans to boost renewables output, posts biggest profit in 7 years (Reuters), Will renewables bring light to a particularly dark situation in Lebanon? (Energy Monitor)

BATTERIES: US battery storage soared in 2021, including these three monster projects (Inside Climate News)

BUILDINGS: Can 24/7 carbon-free energy become a global standard? (Canary Media)

LNG: New Fortress Energy proposes to build first US offshore LNG export facility (Reuters)

OIL & GAS & CRYPTO: Delays in federal oil leasing cast uncertainty over Gulf of Mexico drilling (Houston Chronicle), Texas Bitcoin miners sketch a future of cozying up to gas wells (Bloomberg $)

PLASTICS: Microplastics have been found in human blood. Now what? (E&E News)

PIPELINES: Are CO2 pipelines safe? (E&E News), Judge tosses landowner challenge to Va. [Mountain Valley] pipeline (E&E $), Pipeline ban may not cut CO2 much, feds say (E&E $)

HYDROGEN: Hydrogen’s civil war reveals its winner (Reuters)

EVs: As Minnesota regulators reject Xcel's $150M EV rebate plan, focus moves to legislation (Utility Dive), Maersk doubles down on fleet electrification with Volvo EV order (Utility Dive)

ART: Camille Turner receives Toronto Biennial’s artist prize, three winners for Frankenthaler Climate Art Awards, and more (ARTnews)

AVIATION: Ghost flights from UK running at 500 a month, data reveals (The Guardian)

INTERNATIONAL: After decades of missed targets, Canada finally has a climate roadmap (Grist), Britain hands billions to projects linked to labour abuse and climate damage (The Guardian), Egypt, Norway to work together on clean energy projects (AP), Europe has designs on making the 'fast fashion' industry more sustainable (NPR), Third of all compost sold in UK is climate-damaging peat (The Guardian)

• Why is Biden boasting about drilling for oil? Our planet demands we stop now (The Guardian, Peter Kalmus op-ed)
• Climate change that happened gradually is accelerating suddenly (The Hill, Stuart Mackintosh op-ed)
• Wild sounds: the loss of sonic diversity and why it matters (Yale Environment 360, David George Haskell essay)
• Democrats need to get out of their own way (The Hill, Jessica Tarlov and Carly Cooperman op-ed)
• Don’t end the mask mandate for US airlines (The Hill, Arnold Barnett op-ed)
• A strategic political petroleum release (Wall Street Journal, Editorial Board $)

Climate Denier Alex Epstein Isn’t Racist, Just Because He Attacked MLK, Called A Black Journalist Vile, And Serves A Racist Industry

Alex Epstein’s racist writings in college don’t mean he’s racist, his career serving a racist industry doesn’t mean he's racist, and calling a Black journalist “vile” is definitely not racist. (At least not today. The other 364 days of the year are a different story.) 

If you don’t already recognize the name, Alex Epstien is someone who since 2014 we have made fun of dozens of times, like when he thought a guy who literally hates kids was his next new pro-humanist “climate thinker.” Or, in 2019, when he went to a convention thrown by a conservative youth group known for wearing diapers and hiring racists, and even the Kool Konservative Kids there weren’t buying his schtick. 

All pales in comparison to Epstein’s epic week though, as he launched an online crusade to get the Washington Post’s Maxine Joselow fired for doing her job, including, among her other generally excellent work, daring to report on content Alex worked on while editing a college paper at Duke. Apparently fearing he would be canceled (and sensing an opportunity to sell his upcoming book) he rallied the alt-right troops to bombard Joselow with hate mail, and flood the Post’s editor in chief with demands Joselow be fired. Just because online abuse against female journalists is a thing alt-right trolls have done for years doesn’t mean Epstein’s one of them.

According to the questions Joselow provided to give him an opportunity to respond for her story, as is good journalistic practice, Epstein was critical of Martin Luther King Jr. in the Duke student paper he edited. He felt MLK was unjustly given a federal holiday and argued a trio of white men were more deserving: Christopher Columbus (brutal and evil even by his own time’s standards), Abraham Lincoln (who already has Presidents’ Day?) and Thomas Jefferson (being so un-racist, Epstein was easily able to overlook Jefferson’s ownership of slaves). 

Epstein also wrote about “Western civilization” in a way that just so happens to track with the racist and alt-right, in its denigration of other cultures only worthy of study, Alex wrote, as “models of inferiority” and “anti-reason cultures.” Though he didn’t say “Black people” explicitly, he did write “just compare New York to Chad.” Definitely not in a racist way or anything! Just, y’know, a (false) narrative that racists also happen to endorse. It’s not like he called it a “shithole” or anything, so definitely doesn’t count as doing a racism!  

In a creative, if desperate, pre-sponse to the story that seems to have at least delayed it, as of Friday morning, Epstein went on an epic and entirely un-sweaty and totally normal hour-long rant on YouTube, with a Substack post and accompanying Twitter threads. The totally normal multi-day Twitter tirade definitely proved the things he wrote at 18 and 19 definitely aren’t actually that bad anyway and his ideology of individualism is totally not racist at all, despite basically being standard issue Great Replacement Theory rhetoric, used by racists. 

Just because Alex criticized MLK for “affiliating with Communism” and “supporting policies that [Epstein claims] proved destructive” doesn’t mean he was attacking MLK! Quoting what he wrote and having professors of African American history and chair at an MLK Jr. center analyze it, then share with him ahead of time to confirm or correct any errors, like Joselow did, is solid and ethical reporting. That’s why Alex was probably right when he said on Wednesday after assuming he’d gotten the story squashed, that it “could, had [he] not preempted it, have destroyed [his] professional life and significantly harmed [his] family.” 

Because there is truly no worse fate in the world than to be an innocent and noble white man labeled as racist! 

That’s why Epstein was totally in the right to whip up a bunch of rightwing hate to try and get Maxine Joselow fired, because as everyone knows, once you have a Black friend write a letter to the Post’s Editor-in-chief, you can’t be racist! (And that friend is definitely real, but just coincidentally isn’t one of the many white bitcoin obsessed guys who publicly voice support for you, like TX GOP Rep. Chip Roy who’s proudly-pro-lynching, or the guy who attacks the “woke religion” supposedly clearing you of racism on the podcast hosted by n-word sayer Joe Rogan.) 

Alex should also keep reminding people that this was 20 years ago and he was only a kid then, because it definitely doesn’t imply that the writings were something he wouldn’t say today, and everyone gets a free pass to do a little light racism at age 18, right? Who knew racism was bad all the way back in the year 2000?! Certainly not innocent lil’ Alex!

He should also keep going on outlets like BlazeTV like he did last night to defend himself from accusations of racism, because that’s an outlet familiar with the subject, given that Blaze Media had to sever its relationship with Proud Boys founder Gavin McInnes in 2018, 2 years before the group would be involved in the Jan 6. violence. A look through Media Matters’ coverage of the video content hub features recent hits like Steven Crowder saying “slavery was never racially-motivated”, and “Tucker Carlson praises Glenn Beck for calling Barack Obama a ‘racist’”. 

If anyone knows racism, it’s BlazeTV! Great choice!  

And Epstein was totally very smart to respond to Joselow’s managing editor Krissah Thompson’s expression of the newsroom’s support for Maxine by calling Thompson “vile,”  because insulting a Black woman is a surefire way to prove you’re not racist. 

Great job, Alex! You definitely didn’t turn this into a highly-anticipated story or anything!

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