FIRST LOOK(s): 

Climate Nexus will host an on-the-record briefing on exporting more US methane gas in the context of the IPCC’s report on the mitigation of climate change on TOMORROW, April 13 at 11:00 am ET. Panelists include: Rachel Cleetus (UCS), Roishetta Sibley Ozane (Healthy Gulf), Clark Williams-Derry (IEEFA), and Robert Rozansky (Global Energy Monitor). 

Life And Struggle After Eta And Iota: Hurricanes Eta and Iota devastated the Indigenous Miskito people's homeland, in what is now the Caribbean coast of Nicaragua, within the span of two weeks in November 2020. The destruction wrought by the storms, on top of centuries of colonialism, continues to pull families apart nearly a year and a half later, Atmos reports. The deeply-reported piece follows multiple Miskito survivors of the storms as they attempt to rebuild their lives, homes, communities, and selves. For some, this means remaining. “We’ve been here hundreds of years,” Norman Molina Chaw, 60, said, “and we’ll be here when Jesus comes. We’re never leaving our land.” For others, it means splitting families apart. “I don’t feel great, but what can I do?” a 33-year-old single mother said via WhatsApp while attempting to emigrate to the U.S. “My family can’t keep living this way. It’s not fair to my kids." (Atmos; Climate Signals background: Hurricanes, 2020 Atlantic hurricane season)

Allianz Is Latest Reinsurer To Refuse EACOP Coverage: Another major reinsurer has refused to underwrite the East African Crude Oil Pipeline. Allianz informed activists working to stop the proposed 900-mile pipeline Monday it "is not providing direct insurance to the East African Crude Oil Pipeline project, as it neither meets our climate ambition nor falls within our ESG risk profile." The proposed 900-mile heated crude oil pipeline from Hoima, Uganda, to the Port of Tanga in Tanzania would cut through agricultural land and threaten wetlands in the Lake Victoria Basin. The project is a partnership of Total and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation. "It is now official, 7 out of the 15 (re)insurers we have approached have concluded that EACOP is a huge risk for them to underwrite. What are Lloyd's of London and the others waiting for?" ​​Omar Elmawi, Coordinator of the #StopEACOP campaign, said in a statement. "Insurers must not be accomplices to climate-wrecking fossil fuel projects like EACOP which is mired in human rights violations, unprecedented climate consequences and social and environmental harms." (Reinsurance News, Global Construction Review, The Insurer $)

Southeast African Tropical Cyclones Made Worse By Climate Change: Climate change is making extreme rainfall across southeast Africa heavier and more likely during cyclones, a new analysis finds. The report from World Weather Attribution has special significance for communities in Madagascar, Mozambique and Malawi, where a record three tropical cyclones hit within just six weeks of each other earlier this year, killing a combined 230 people and displacing hundreds of thousands. The WWA analysis found climate change, caused mainly by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels, made the storms worse. It also highlighted the lack of data available in the region. "Strengthening scientific resources in Africa and other parts of the global south is key to help us better understand extreme weather events fueled by climate change, to prepare vulnerable people and infrastructure to better cope with them,” Dr. Izidine Pinto, a climate system analyst at the University of Cape Town, told the AP. (AP)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Tesla’s Austin Gigafactory could be an environmental disaster waiting to happen (Protocol)

FOSSIL FUELED WAR: OPEC tells EU it's not possible to replace potential Russian oil supply loss (Reuters), Russian oil embargo could be part of next EU sanctions package, ministers say (Reuters), Putin’s war will drive a faster shift to clean energy (Canary Media), Russia's invasion supercharges push to make a new green fuel (E&E $), Why gasoline prices remain high even as crude oil prices fall (Washington Post $), Japan tops up LNG reserves as possible Russian gas cutoff looms -source (Reuters), Portugal to help gas-hungry companies to pay their bills, minister says (Reuters)

• RESEARCH: Ukraine conflict hurts Russian science, as West pulls funding (Reuters), How sanctions against Russia could set back climate change work in the Arctic (NPR)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Teen climate activist subjected to sexist and racist abuse amid federal court climate case (The Guardian), Climate litigation boosted by IPCC report (E&E $)

PUBLIC OPINION: Majorities in US back climate change proposals: Gallup (The Hill)

EPA: 'Cancer Alley' residents accuse Louisiana of racial discrimination in EPA pollution complaints (Gizmodo)

LAWSUITS: Red states ask court to torpedo special California authority over vehicle emissions (Politico Pro $)

WHITE HOUSE: White House launches $1b program to boost conservation goal (HuffPost), White House launches rural infrastructure tour (The Hill)

• ETHANOL: In an exception to the Clean Air Act, Biden will allow E15 gas to be sold this summer (NPR, The Verge, CBS, Wall Street Journal $, NBC, Barron's, CNN)

SENATE: Manchin heads to Canada amid Keystone XL debate (E&E $), Protesters blockade West Virginia coal plant that profits Sen. Joe Manchin (Democracy Now)

POLITICS: Biden’s climate shift (New York Times, The Daily $)

ELECTIONS: Georgia Dems not deterred by bill giving election police powers to state law enforcement (The Grio), GOP’s energy promises face limits in Pa. governor’s race (AP), Will infrastructure vote save a GOP incumbent — or sink him? (E&E News)

CITIES AND STATES: Environmentalists see wins in [NY State] budget's bond act, electric school bus mandate (Politico Pro $), Houston seeks future as hub for carbon storage, hydrogen fuel (E&E $), Minneapolis jobs program aims to grow and diversify clean energy workforce (Energy News Network), Texas Railroad Commission: A barrier to Biden’s energy plan? (E&E News), Wisconsin greenlights state's largest renewable project (E&E $)

• CALIFORNIA: California injects $40M into heat pump water heater effort amid broader push to decarbonize buildings (Utility Dive), California moves closer toward phasing out gas cars (E&E $), Los Angeles to electrify city’s entire 10,000-Vehicle Fleet (LA Times $)

FERC: FERC approves change to Mountain Valley pipeline plan (E&E News), Reliability concerns drive need for energy market design reforms, but regions diverge in FERC proceeding (Utility Dive)

IMPACTS: Backed-up pipes, stinky yards: climate change is wrecking septic tanks (Washington Post $), Pregnancy becomes a more vulnerable time with climate change (Washington Post $), California's driest start to the year sparks water, wildfire concerns (Axios), Metro Vancouver’s last remaining glacier ‘dying in front of our very eyes’ (Vancouver Sun), Central US facing multi-day threat of severe storms and wildfires (Yale Climate Connections)

HEAT: India’s northwest reels under unusual early heat wave (AP), Mumbai heatwave leaves fewer fish in the sea for women sellers (Thomson Reuters Foundation), Iraq's farmers pushed off land as drought and heat cripple crops (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

DROUGHT: Chile announces unprecedented water rationing plan as drought enters 13th year (Reuters)

SCIENCE: Donors pledge $41 million to monitor thawing Arctic permafrost (New York Times $)

WILDFIRES: California, Utah and other Western states face scary wildfire season (Deseret News), Strong winds fuel New Mexico wildfires, prompt evacuations (AP)

CYCLONIC STORMS: Tropical storm Megi hits Philippines, leaving at least 25 dead (Reuters)

RENEWABLES: As utility-scale renewables expand, some Midwest farmers are pushing back (Grist), German economy minister says will help push wind power expansion (Reuters), German firm builds floating solar plant on quarry lake (Reuters), Pumped hydro resurfaces as a net-zero stalwart (Energy Monitor)

"RENEWABLES": Food fight heats up for ethanol (Wall Street Journal $)

BUILDINGS: Home water heaters: A new ally in making grids cleaner (Canary Media)

OIL & GAS: Ineos wants to drill UK fracking test site in attempt to show it is safe (The Guardian)

PLASTICS: Brightmark, Georgia county cancel $680 mln plastic-to-fuel project (Reuters)

HYDROGEN: Rapid development could push cost of hydrogen below $2/kg in the next 10-20 years, analysts say (Utility Dive)

UTILITIES: PG&E reaches $55 million deal to end criminal investigations in six fire-torn counties (San Francisco Chronicle, AP, CNN, Wall Street Journal $, ABC-10, New York Times $, Politico Pro $)

EVs: Here come the EVs (Axios)

ACTIVISM: A Nebraska climate activist takes a trip down the Missouri River (Yale Climate Connections), Scientists risk arrest to demand climate action (E&E News)

• UK: No 10 condemns ‘guerrilla tactics’ as Just Stop Oil activists block fuel depots (The Guardian)

AGRICULTURE: ‘Forever chemicals’ upended a Maine farm — and point to larger problem (Washington Post $)

BUSINESS: Amazon's latest feel-good climate campaign enlists Alexa to plant trees (Protocol, The Verge), Mercedes-Benz to halve CO2 emissions by 2030 (Reuters)

CARBON PRICING: Polish utility seeks EU allies in push to cap carbon prices (Reuters)

DIVESTMENT: New York pension leaders back calls for less fossil fuel financing (Reuters)

INTERNATIONAL: Argentine energy company Genneia says it will invest $200 million in renewable energy parks (Reuters)

• The enduring myth of America’s 'molecules of freedom' (Slate, Amy Westervelt and Colin Jerolmack op-ed)
• For the Building Performance Standards Coalition to be effective, the White House must think bigger (Utility Dive, Mahesh Ramanujam op-ed)
• The BA.2 subvariant is now dominant, and weary as we are, we can’t dismiss it (Truthout, William Rivers Pitt op-ed)
• Give communities control of carbon removal (New Republic, Andrew Bergman, Holly Buck, Olúfẹ́mi O. Táíwò, and Toly Rinberg op-ed)
• Time for Congress to bolster energy security (The Hill, Ben Cahill, John Larsen, and Joseph Majkut op-ed)
• The opportunity of transportation electrification (The Hill, David Foster op-ed)
• Outrage and fear about homelessness never seem to lead to the obvious choice (CNN, Deborah Padgett op-ed)
• What it will mean as Europe frees itself from Russian energy (New York Times, James Henderson op-ed $)
• Russian oil is as morally tainted as Confederate cotton during the Civil War (LA Times, Roger Lowenstein op-ed $)
• Yes, we need a law protecting Black people against hair discrimination (Washington Post, Toella Pliakas op-ed $)

Making Russian Disinfo Great Again: Delingpole, McIntyre, and Gateway Pundit Up To Their Old Tricks

Since Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, we’ve kept an eye out to see how climate disinformation channels have responded. By and large, it’s by blaming Biden, and organized denial and disinformation outlets like RealClear, Fox and Breitbart haven’t quite embraced Russian disinformation as whole-heartedly as they have other strains of deceptive content. 

While Koch has been noticeably soft on Russia, its minions are largely staying on message, and away from off topic conspiracy theories. There are exceptions though, and they seem to have something in common: a history of receiving and rebroadcasting disinformation either exclusively or potentially of Russian state origin. 

Gateway Pundit (an outlet that accuses school shooting survivors of being crisis actors) was founded by Jim Hoft (who’s banned from Twitter and demonitized by YouTube for election and Covid disinformation), was the first outlet we noticed that was running content questioning the “mainstream narrative” (reality) of what’s happening in Ukraine, with a noticeably pro-Putin bent. 

In 2018, Gateway Pundit was one of the examples special counsel Robert Mueller’s office used to demonstrate American political media propagating Russian disinformation. In 2022, it’s carrying Russian state disinfo on biolabs, putting the right’s censorship conspiracies right in line with Russia’s interests against the “demons at Meta-Facebook,” and attacking Hillary Clinton and George Soros as “two of the most high-profile voices advocating a fight with Russia” as part of “a massive propaganda campaign” in Ukraine’s favor. 

Gateway Pundit is running with the disinformation accusing environmentalists of being secretly funded by Putin (thoroughly debunked as a four-pinocchio whopper). It’s a bit behind the curve since it’s part of the disorganized disinfo ecosystem and not part of the fossil fuel industry’s organized denial apparatus. 

The same goes for the rest of our examples. Mining executive Stephen McIntyre has a white whale-sized obsession with Michael Mann’s iconic hockey-stick graphs, and in the 00’s launched information requests into climate scientists’s emails about it. Then, a tranche of emails he was also after was posted, via an anonymous comment, to McIntyre’s climate audit blog. It was the first public leak of the emails that would be used to manufacture the Climategate controversy. The next place they were published was a comment on WattsUpWithThat, where they were hosted on a Russian server, and bounced around the denial blogosphere as they scrambled to cook up the conspiracy. The server connection is likely mere coincidence, but the similarities between climategate and Russia’s requested hacking and release of emails during the 2016 election have been well-documented.

These days, McIntyre is busy bringing his own special brand of auditing to Russian war crimes in Ukraine, which like Russian war crimes in Syria, he has Russia-friendly, consensus-conflicting opinions about, namely that the victims of Russian violence are actually the perpetrators. 

It was James Delingpole who launched Climategate from niche narrative to mainstream though, with a Telegraph blog that was picked up on by BBC, Fox, and Drudge, cementing its place in the conservative pantheon of obviously false and long-debunked talking points, next to “Trickle-down economics,” “small government,” and “drill baby, drill.”  

Thirteen years later, Delingpole is no longer afforded too many mainstream media posts. Instead, he’s occasionally blogging at Breitbart, but even that’s too good for his Russia takes: those are on his new-for-’22 substack.

Delingpole is also skeptical of the critics of his erstwhile Russian friends, asking exactly the questions Russian disinformation is designed to produce: “what if our [mainstream media] and politicians are exaggerating the threat? What if they are flat out lying to us, for ulterior motives, in much the same way they lied to us about vaccine safety and infection rates and the efficacy of masks and lockdowns?” 

Before accusing Ukrainians of carrying out the civilian executions by Russian forces, just like McIntyre and Russian propaganda, Delingpole quotes extensively from a Putin-apologist’s take about how much restraint Putin has shown, and how “remarkably successful” Russia’s military has performed in this “limited war, designed to avoid killing civilians.” 

But worry not, he knows it “will of course be dismissed as ‘Kremlin propaganda’. But it makes intuitive sense.” Ah! Of course! Delingpole’s defense for regurgitating what even he admits looks indistinguishable from Kremlin propaganda, because it just plain makes sense to him!

And why wouldn’t it? His post concludes with a warning that “we cannot allow ourselves to be brainwashed by the propaganda narratives of people who do not share our best interests. If we do, we deserve every bit of misery that they send our way for it makes us willing participants in their deception.” 

It’s great advice, actually!

If only James would take it. 

Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up to receive Hot News every morning!

Send updates or feedback to nkauffman@climatenexus.org
Submit events and other items for consideration for a First Look using this form
Some articles require logins or subscriptions ($)