FIRST LOOK: 

Join the Associated Black Charities ‘Equity First’ multi-part online speaker series, featuring interviews with key leaders, from Baltimore and across the nation, on sustainable change for people of color and equitable policies for structural and institutional barriers. TODAY at 6:00pm EST.

Underpaid 'Heros' Fill Care Breach Widened By Climate Crisis: Health and home care workers are increasingly finding thesleves operating as first responders, choosing less-bad options to help their patients survive as climate change fuels extreme heat and other disasters and destabilizes the electrical grid, The 19th* News reports. Power outages linked in various ways to extreme heat, wildfires, and hurricanes — or simply financial hardship — can leave seniors, and those with disabilities, sweltering indoors without air conditioning. About 3,900 people in California died from heat-related causes in California last year, an LA Times investigation found, and a new pilot program in the state is seeking to educate care workers on how to better prepare for emergencies. Care workers are paid an average of just $13 per hour, without basic benefits like health care coverage, despite being expected to perform life-saving care in critical situations. Marquisa Jackson, a certified nurse assistant who participated in the training said she appreciated the practical skills it imparted. “We learned how to carry somebody that’s heavy [using a blanket], which is really important to me, because a lot of times when I’m working at these people’s houses it’s just me,” she said. “Everyone will tell you how important they are, and how they serve our communities and that they’re frontline heroes,” Kim Evon, of SEIU Local 2015, which represents more than 300,000 care workers, told The 19th*. “They receive low wages and poor benefits. … They don’t have a retirement. They get three sick days. Which we had to fight for legislatively to get that attributed to them.” (The 19th* News; Grid instability: E&E News, Heat-related deaths in California: LA Times, Politico Pro $; Climate Signals background: Extreme heat and heatwaves, Wildfires, Drought, Hurricanes)

HHS Announces New Environmental Justice Office: The Department of Health and Human Services will establish an Office of Environmental Justice on Tuesday to focus specifically on environmental health harms in "disadvantaged communities and vulnerable populations on the frontlines of pollution." The office, which is housed within the HHS Office of Climate Change and Health Equity will be led by Interim Director Sharunda Buchanan, a former CDC official, and three detaillees from other government agencies but Buchanan told CNN she believes it will be a longstanding office. The creation of the HHS OEJ comes less than a month after the creation of a similar office within DOJ. (CNN, Axios, E&E $, The Hill, Politico Pro $, Modern Healthcare, Law360 $, Fox News)

'Green' Apple's Trade Memberships Look Much More Red – Report: Apple's membership in multiple trade associations that undermine climate action stands in sharp contrast to its cultivated image as a supporter of environmental action, a new report says. Apple publically left the U.S. Chamber of Commerce more than a decade ago over the group's opposition to climate action, but the Campaign for Accountability’s Tech Transparency Project says Apple's ties to the US COC's Texas affiliate, the Texas Association of Businesses, contradict its public climate claims. Apple also plays a leadership role in the Business Roundtable, which lobbied hard to torpedo the Build Back Better Act, and is a member of multiple international groups that have worked to undermine climate action, according to the report. "The Texas Association of Business is doing as much, if not worse, than the Chamber of Commerce in terms of fighting against climate action and the transition off of fossil fuels," Luke Metzger, head of Environment Texas, to E&E. "They haven't been called out over it before, and so they would clearly think they have more to gain from membership in TAB than they have to lose." (E&E $, TechCrunch)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Pregnant Black woman shot five times by Missouri police (The Root, Kansas City Star, The Grio), The prison-industrial complex is an environmental catastrophe (The Real News)

HURRICANE "SEASON": The 2022 Atlantic hurricane season starts today. What's the forecast? How to prepare? (USA Today), Experts: Everything points to another busy hurricane season (AP), What rare 'triple-dip' La Niña could mean for hurricane season (Weather Channel)

• HURRICANE AGATHA: Agatha dissipates over Mexico after making landfall as strongest Pacific May hurricane (Yale Climate Connections), Hurricane Agatha sets May record, then weakens over Mexico (AP), On heels of Agatha, tropical storm may form in gulf of Mexico (Washington Post $)

FOSSIL FUELED WAR: Rallying on the streets for a Russian oil embargo (New York Times $), How the EU can kick Russian gas for good (Protocol), Oil prices climb to near highest level in a decade following EU crude ban (Washington Examiner), Russia halts gas supply to the Netherlands (Politico Pro $), Ukraine's giant seed bank at risk of being lost as war rages (Reuters)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: 50 years of UN environmental diplomacy: What’s worked and the trends ahead (The Conversation), German chancellor accused of comparing climate activists to Nazis (Politico EU), Singapore’s Menon calls for urgency to act on climate change (Bloomberg $)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Can Vanuatu inspire new legal game plan in climate justice fight? (Thomson Reuters Foundation), Climate court wins are hard. Don’t let that put you off (Bloomberg $), Climate damage case breaks ground with German judges' visit to Peru glacier (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

DENIAL: Meet the climate scientist taking on Joe Rogan and QAnon (E&E News), This new style of climate denial will make you wish the bad old days were back (Slate)

EAST AFRICA: A country-by-country guide to worsening drought in the Horn of Africa (The New Humanitarian)

"UNDERWATER LASCAUX": Race to save undersea Stone Age cave art masterpieces (AFP, The Connexion)

EMISSIONS: The US has fallen way behind on climate goals (The Verge)

TRANSPORTATION: Germans snap up inflation-busting public transit tickets (AP)

SCOTUS: Supreme Court decisions about guns, abortion and climate change to be made soon (The Root)

AGENCIES: Green group sues State Department, escalating feud over energy diplomat (Washington Examiner)

EPA: In reversal, EPA deems Pruitt’s phone booth ‘a violation’ (E&E News), How Scott Pruitt cashed in on consulting (E&E $)

DOE: ‘Dramatic shift’ in utility regulations, better pilot designs needed to propel energy transition, DOE report finds (Utility Dive)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: Financial Accounting Standards Board takes up environmental credits, carbon offsets (Utility Dive)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden’s executive police order: good enough or not enough? (The Root)

SENATE: Did Joe Manchin block climate action to benefit his financial interests? (The Guardian)

CITIES AND STATES AND DISENFRANCHISED COLONIAL TERRITORIES: Alaska’s environmental battles (New York Times $), Customer and conservation groups urge New York regulators to tackle medium- and heavy-duty EVs (Utility Dive), Why tiny solar projects play an outsized role in powering Puerto Rico (Bloomberg $), Will clean energy make the short list in North Carolina legislature’s short session? (Energy News Network)

• CALIFORNIA: California drought resurrects decades-old plan for controversial Sites Reservoir (LA Times $), Court case may determine future of Calif. oil drilling (E&E $), Does California have enough water for lots of new homes? Yes, experts say, despite drought (LA Times $)

FERC: FERC green-lights New England's delayed phase-out of controversial market rule (Politico Pro $)

IMPACTS: As private weather forecasting takes off, who is left behind? (Grist), At Cape Hatteras, they’re waiting for the next house to drop (E&E News), Storms will displace 224M people by 2042 — forecast (E&E $)

HEAT: For cities, staying cool is the hot new thing (Axios), Warmer nights caused by climate change take a toll on sleep (Inside Climate News)

AGRICULTURE: Spring floods delay planting, imperil crop insurance (E&E $), Sara Menker, CEO of Gro intelligence, warns the fallout of rising food insecurity will be wide-reaching (TIME)

WILDFIRES: A ‘perfect recipe for extreme wildfire’: New Mexico’s record-breaking, early fire season (New York Times $)

HOPEFULLY NOT THE BEST DAYS OF THEIR LIVES: Paradise High School class of 2022: freshmen during a wildfire and seniors during a pandemic (Teen Vogue)

HURRICANES: The Wall of Wind can blow away buildings at Category 5 hurricane strength to help engineers design safer homes – but even that isn’t powerful enough (The Conversation)

WATER: In worsening drought, southern California water restrictions take effect (Washington Post $), Why a global price on freshwater might be needed in the climate change era (TIME)

RENEWABLES: Here are ways to connect clean energy projects to the grid more quickly (Canary Media), Now hiring: The US needs more clean energy workers (Yale Climate Connections)

LNG: A CEO's quest to make LNG a climate policy (Axios)

OIL & GAS: Inflation is going to get worse. Blame a lack of diesel (TIME), Traders bet on Texas natural gas discount despite US export boom (Bloomberg $), Once-unthinkable: subsidies for American oil drillers (Axios)

NUKES: Operation of nuclear power unit in India's western Gujarat state delayed (Reuters)

UTILITIES: Energy retailer tells more than 70,000 customers to go elsewhere or face doubling of prices (The Guardian)

GRID: A key rule on the New England power grid will end, but not for a while (CT Mirror)

EVs: Electric vehicles not the only way to meet CO2 targets, Italy car lobby says (Reuters)

FOOD: The ugly produce industry faces an ugly question. Now it’s trying to solve it. (Grist)

CARBON CAPTURE: Bracewell launches pro-CCS group ahead of funding explosion (E&E News)

HEALTH CARE: Is nitrous oxide a climate risk? Yes, but doctors say effective pain relief in childbirth should be the priority (The Guardian)

FINANCE: Asset managers commit $16 trillion of assets to net-zero target (Reuters), Dimensional’s ESG boss voices doubts over industry promises (Bloomberg $), What’s next for climate-minded investing? (E&E News)

WILDLIFE: Monarch butterflies see resurgence in Mexico (Axios), The world’s largest plant is a self-cloning sea grass in Australia (New York Times $)

INTERNATIONAL: Australia's centre-left Labor party says it will govern outright (Reuters), China vows new financial tools to support drive to carbon neutrality (Reuters), India expects lower rainfall in coal-producing areas, potentially easing power crisis (Reuters), Sunak’s UK oil subsidy could have insulated 2m homes, says thinktank (The Guardian)

• Us older people must fight for a better America, and world, for younger generations (The Guardian, Bill McKibben op-ed)
• How Putin has played his energy cards (New York Times, David Wallace-Wells column $)
• Linking nitrous oxide to climate risk is yet another example of the disdain shown to women’s pain (The Guardian, Isabelle Oderberg op-ed)
• A ‘moderate’ Democrat isn’t code for ‘coward’ (The Hill, Jessica Tarlov op-ed)
• The future of renewables in nuclear (The Hill, Rep. Doug LaMalfa op-ed)
• When Elon Musk dreams, his employees have nightmares (New York Times, Edward Niedermeyer op-ed $)
• The canary in the Pebble Mine (Wall Street Journal, Editorial Board $)

Silicon Valley's Rep. Ro Khanna Previews His Climate Disinfo Demands For Facebook And Twitter

On Friday, we rolled our collective eyes at the latest GOP-washing in an E&E/PoliticoPRO story, so today we're going to highlight a great story that reminded us why the subscription's worth it. 

Kelsey Brugger interviewed Rep. Ro Khanna, Democratic chair of the House Oversight's Environment subcommittee and Silicon-Valley-representing Californian who's got some plans to hold Big Tech accountable for climate disinformation. 

Brugger reported that "his office has been working with the Climate Disinformation Coalition" to press Big Tech to "increase transparency" and for Facebook and Twitter specifically to "take their own steps to create standards for companies to follow." 

We're not so sure voluntary standards are going to cut it, but it sounds like Rep. Khanna's got a bit more than just that in mind. 

When he calls Zuckerberg and other CEOs to testify, he intends to ask directly if they're "targeting people based on their profile to join these climate denial groups? How does the algorithm work? Are certain posts that are denying climate — if they're sensational — getting recommended by your algorithm?" 

Specifically, "If something is blatantly false, equivalent to a 'flat Earth' type of post, or group, what do you see as your responsibility in limiting its virality? Or do you see yourself as not having any responsibility on that?"

Khanna is a "a strong First Amendment person" and wants to "allow for First Amendment's values to be protected," so he thinks "the government's role is to provide a diversity of discursive spaces and to require disclosure and maybe to create places in education for literacy about climate, based on facts, and then for the social media companies to come up with the standards of what they think what they want to stand for." 

So just like how "government cannot dictate the standards, just like the government doesn't dictate the standards for E&E News, right, on what you can print and what you don't print," there do need to be some sort of standards so that they're not "just gossip and conspiracy theories." 

On the censorship point particularly, Khanna says he does "understand some of those concerns" and "wouldn't say if someone is going to push back against what I believe on climate that their voices should be censored."

There should certainly be debate, "but that debate should not be distorted with millions of dollars behind a certain point of view." 

The industry spending on climate disinfo is "a distortion in the public sphere, where you've got certain viewpoints that happen to align with industry interests being funded with billions of dollars. And that is really the challenge." 

"If there were a Flat Earth Society on the internet," Khanna said, "I don't think people would say, 'Well, we should ban the Flat Earth Society from existing.' But if suddenly, 20 or 30 million Americans were being targeted with this and those groups were growing, I think that would be a legitimate concern." 

And if the Flat Earthers were blocking any policy that assumed a round Earth, condemning the planet to be flattened by political correctness, one would hope Big Tech would do something!

Michael Khoo, Co-chair of the Climate Disinformation Coalition that's consulting with Khanna, told Brugger that progress is quite possible.

“We’ve seen a number of different strategies social media companies can do at the turn of a switch. Solving climate change is quite complex. Solving disinformation is quite simple.”

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