FIRST LOOK:

The Solutions Project, Uproot and the Solutions Journalism Network, will present an assessment of shifting media landscape trends surrounding renewable energy, water and food systems, and other issues in solutions journalism. Webinar: Thurs., June 30, at 3:30 pm ET. Download the Climate Solutions Narrative Trends Report.

Covering Climate Now's week of joint coverage on food and water begins next week. An explainer is here, and a press briefing on climate, hunger, and the future of food will be held Wed., June 29, at 12:00 pm ET.

Waterborne Illnesses Rise In Bangladesh As Floodwaters Fall: Concerns are rising over the spread of waterborne diseases in Bangladesh as floodwaters recede there and in northeast India following the flooding and landslides that killed well over 100 people in the region over the past month, Reuters reports. "With the flood waters receding, there is a possibility of an epidemic. We fear the outbreak of waterborne diseases if clean water is not ensured soon," Atiqul Haque, director general of the Department of Disaster Management, told Reuters. More than 4.5 million people are stranded in their homes across nearly a quarter of the low-lying nation. The lack of safe drinking water means more than 4,000 people have already contracted waterborne illnesses, including diarrhea (which exacerbates dehydration), dysentery, fever, and skin infections. Flooding has also damaged more than 925,000 acres of agricultural land, in addition to wiping away families' entire possessions. "There is not even a trace," Fatema Begum, a mother of three in Sylhet's Sunamganjdistrict, told Reuters of her home. "We don't even have a second pair of clothes. No one has come to help." (Reuters, AP; Climate Signals: Extreme precipitation increase)

White House, 11 States Announce Wind-Boosting Partnership; DOE Meets With Oil Execs: The Biden administration and 11 East Coast governors announced a formal partnership to boost offshore wind energy on Thursday. The bipartisan collection of governors (which did not include Virginia's), Biden, Interior Sec. Deb Haaland and other top administration officials, and labor leaders all met at the White House to discuss ways to boost the industry and expand employment in the sector. Expanding offshore wind is key to meeting the nation's climate goals — Biden has set a target of 30GW of offshore wind production by 2030 — and building out a domestic supply chain will be crucial for the sector's success. After the meeting, Biden touted offshore wind as "a real boost to our energy security." Energy Sec. Granholm also met with oil and gas companies, which are raking in record profits while American families are paying record prices for gasoline, on Thursday. (Offshore Wind: AP, Reuters, Politico Pro $, The Verge; Oil & Gas: Axios, CNN, Houston Chronicle, Reuters, Houston Chronicle)

Germany Moves To 'Alarm Stage' Of Emergency Plan, TBD Whether Chaos Will Ensue: Germany activated the "alarm stage," phase two of three of the country's emergency methane-based gas plans on Thursday after Russia's Gazprom throttled deliveries by 60%. Phase three would allow the government to implement energy rationing. German economic minister Robert Habeck told reporters the cutbacks were a direct political attack in retaliation for Germany's sanctions against Russia and military support for Ukraine. “Even if you don’t feel it yet: We are in a gas crisis,” he said. "Winter will come." European gas prices rose, once again, in reaction to the news. Habeck warned this could have a "Lehman Brothers effect," explaining “[t]he whole market is in danger of collapsing at some point.” The ripple effects of limited gas supplies and skyrocketing European gas prices, exacerbated by the explosion at the Freeport LNG plant in Texas earlier this month, are getting more severe across the globe. Pakistan faces blackouts as prohibitively expensive gas prices have forced the country, heading into its hottest months, to decline purchases three times in June. Down under, the Australian gas market is in disarray as suppliers scramble to secure gas to meet winter demands. Amid all of this, China is increasing its purchasing of methane gas from Russia, tying the two countries' fortunes closer together. (German emergency plan: Reuters, New York Times $, Wall Street Journal $, Reuters Factbox; Lehman Brothers: Fortune; Euro ripple effects: Bloomberg $, Reuters, Bloomberg $, Reuters; Freeport explosion: Reuters; Pakistan: Bloomberg $; Australia: Reuters; China: Wall Street Journal $)

Basically Everywhere Is Really Hot: Huge swaths of the Northern Hemisphere are sweltering under extreme heat as summer begins. At least 30 million people in the U.S. were under a heat advisory on Thursday, and at least 113 weather stations tied or broke hot-temperature records in the second half of June. Extreme heat is a clear signal of climate change, mainly caused by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels. “It’s easy to look at these figures and forget the immense misery they represent, Texas A&M climate scientist Andrew Dessler told the AP. "People who can’t afford air conditioning and people who work outdoors have only one option, to suffer." Not limited to the contiguous U.S., the dry heat has fueled the incineration of more than 1 million acres across Alaska already this year – the fastest that much has ever burned on record. (Heat: AP, Washington Post $, Texas Climate News, Washington Post $, Alaska: Washington Post $; Climate Signals background: Extreme heat and heatwaves, Wildfires)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Black former Tesla contractor turned down $15 million award in racial harassment suit, likely setting up new trial (CNN, The Root)

COP27: COP27 conference must advance African energy, development - officials (Reuters)

(CLIMATE) DIPLOMACY: G7 mulls call for ‘necessary’ public gas investments (Politico EU), Tanzania’s Masaai demand Indigenous rights in UN framework (AP)

SOLIDARITY FOREVER: Climate justice groups join British rail strike picket lines (The Guardian)

COLONIAL LEGACIES: Climate, malaria highlighted as Commonwealth leaders meet (AP), Commonwealth meeting in Rwanda has a long agenda. Human rights isn’t on it. (New York Times $)

DOE: Department of Energy rethinks cyber resilience in strategy to secure the grid (Utility Dive)

DOI: Haaland lays out next steps on Native American boarding schools investigation, legislation (The Hill)

• ENDANGERED SPECIES ACT: Biden administration tosses Trump definition of ‘habitat’ for endangered species (New York Times $, The Hill, Politico Pro $)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden administration leans on Tesla for guidance in renewable fuel policy reform (Reuters), Biden’s new vision for the national flood insurance program (Grist)

• GASOLINE PRICES: White House shows renewed focus on gas prices (Axios), Suspend transit fares instead of the gas tax, climate advocates tell Biden (Washington Post $), Why a gas tax holiday won’t help lower prices or save the planet (Protocol)

THE HILL: Pelosi declines to endorse gas tax holiday (The Hill), House bills would require demand response-enabled water heaters, strengthen weatherization program (Utility Dive)

CITIES AND STATES: Community power advocates excited to see progress on New Hampshire rules (Energy News Network), The next battlefield for NY progressives? The state assembly. (New York Times $)

• CALIFORNIA: Not enough or too far? California climate plan pleases few (AP, Washington Examiner), The last nuclear plant in California – and the unexpected quest to save it (The Guardian), The push to ban new gas stations is coming to Los Angeles (Grist)
• TEXAS: ERCOT's plan to keep power in reserve could cost Texans $1.5 billion (Houston Chronicle), Texas repeatedly raises pollution limits for Cheniere LNG plant (Reuters)

IMPACTS: Flood control in Miami beach means dry roads for some, soaked homes for others (Wall Street Journal $), Rare ‘triple’ La Niña climate event looks likely — what does the future hold? (Nature)

FLOODING: The unique ways Filipinos are protecting their homes against floods (Washington Post $)

DROUGHT: Lake Mead could soon form a 'dead pool' as water levels drop to extreme lows (Gizmodo, NBC), Dams, climate change threaten Missouri River cottonwood forests (Yale Climate Connections)

WILDFIRES: Turkey battles wind-driven wildfire near resort for 3rd day (AP) 

HURRICANES: The changing face of hurricane fatalities (Yale Climate Connections)

WATER: Wastewater recycling startup CEO says we need to overhaul our ‘flush and forget’ society (CNBC)

TREES: The miraculous trees that could save Pakistan's largest city from climate disaster (TIME) 

BATTERIES: Chinese battery giant CATL raises $6.7 billion in share sale (Wall Street Journal $)

OIL & GAS: EU’s Russian oil ban: what to expect for energy markets (Energy Monitor), Oil refiners an easy, but odd, target for pump-price surge (Wall Street Journal $), Warren Buffett’s Berkshire boosts stake in Occidental Petroleum (Wall Street Journal $)

COAL: India must colour coal cash green for mining hubs to survive (Thomson Reuters Foundation), Japan stops financing for coal power plants in Indonesia, Bangladesh (Reuters)

HYDROGEN: These generators can switch from running on fossil fuels to clean fuels (Canary Media)

NUKES: Nuclear power is poised for a comeback. The problem is building the reactors. (Wall Street Journal $)

GRID: Massachusetts AG, Public Citizen warn JERA plan to buy New England power plants raises market concerns (Utility Dive)

EVs: E-bike sales and sharing are booming. But can they help take cars off the road? (Inside Climate News)

ACTIVISM: Digital activists are using Wikipedia to change the narrative around women and climate work (The 19th* News), Vietnam says environmentalist jailed for tax evasion, not activism (Reuters)

AVIATION: New plant to cover 20% of Germany's e-kerosene needs from 2026 (Reuters)

AGRICULTURE: Symbrosia raises $7 million to reduce livestock methane emissions (Reuters)

SHIPPING: We're gonna need a greener boat (TIME)

BUSINESS: Ferrari installs 1MW fuel cell plant to speed up carbon neutrality (Reuters), Google’s plan for 24/7 carbon-free energy ran into headwinds in 2021 (Wall Street Journal $), Salesforce teams up with AT&T to cut [Internet of Things] emissions (Axios)

I'VE DONE THAT A COUPLE OF TIMES BUT I DIDN'T KNOW THERE WAS FUNDING AVAILABLE: Swiss 'zero star hotel' offers sleepless nights to ponder world's crises (Reuters)

CARS: Sweden’s Einride to test autonomous trucks on US roads (Wall Street Journal $)

INTERNATIONAL: ‘Pandora’s box’: experts say Queensland’s windfall from coal royalties could set a precedent (The Guardian), Government extends $45m of funding to Australian solar scientists over next 8 years (The Guardian), Indonesia could push back carbon tax set to start next month (Reuters)

• It’s hot — Now you know what to blame (The Hill, Andrew Pershing op-ed)
• Green hydrogen may be energy's future, but it's complicated: Russell (Reuters, Clyde Russell column)
• A gas tax holiday from reality (Wall Street Journal, Editorial Board $)
• Europe takes action in case Russian gas supply stops (Reuters, Factbox)
• Why President Biden’s order to increase production of energy-saving technologies isn’t enough (Utility Dive, John Farrell op-ed)
• How to be a good person without annoying everyone (The Atlantic, Michelle Nijhuis commentary)
• The motion of the ocean could be the next big source of green energy (TIME, Tom Vanderbilt op-ed)

RealClearEnergy Provides Three RealClear Examples Of Big Oil's Disinformation Strategy

The Koch-funded, conservative-propaganda-laundering RealClearEnergy dot com is once again making it very easy to document various types of Big Oil disinformation in one place, with pieces this week from the oil industry's obvious trade lobby, one of the industry's front groups, and one of its PR/advertising professionals. 

First there's Mike Sommers, CEO of the American Petroleum Institute, speaking formally on behalf of the industry to demand that the government cut a bunch of regulations. From allowing lease sales in the Outer Continental Shelf so drillers can give Hollywood the east-coast sequel to Deepwater Horizon that no one asked for, to training workers for the industry that's laying off workers, it's a wishlist of 10 Big Government handouts and regulatory loopholes. Big Oil is using this time of record profits to demand the government undo what little environmental regulations exist. And that's the stance it's proud to make in its own name! 

What's Big Carbon Pollution saying out of the other side of its mouth? For that we click over to Larry Behrens, who works for industry front group Power the Future, and is calling on a hypothetical Republican-led Congress to take five steps to address "Joe Biden's Failures on Energy." 

The first is to pack the federal budget with pork-barrel spending for the fossil fuel industry, or as Behrens puts it "a revamped federal budget with incentives that focus on American energy production." The second is to "use the power of the budget" to force the Biden administration to restart the Keystone pipeline "along with all other refineries, pipelines and infrastructure" because the government should be picking winners and losers, as Republicans have said for years. That's why they also want to put a thumb/entire hand on the scale of the Securities Exchange Commission to prevent investors from being made aware of climate risks so they'll continue to pump money into fossil fuel infrastructure that will certainly doom the climate and/or be destroyed by climate impacts. 

Then, in case you were wondering about the stuff the industry doesn't want to say in its own name, we move to the fun stuff: "The next Congress must call Kerry to testify and demand every email, every calendar and every text message from Kerry’s office to determine the amount of influence he’s peddling against the American energy industry."

Yes, they're going to "but her emails" John Kerry, and they're not even pretending that there's a "Benghazi" scandal to prove, they're openly saying they just want to go FOIA fishing! 

Finally, the extremely good faith op-ed says that the Biden administration should "convert to green energy immediately" and "let Kerry take a wind-only sailboat to his next climate summit." Which, surprisingly, we might agree with, as a congressional budget that calls on the executive branch to produce and consume renewable energy would be an embrace of the Democratic Socialists' proposal for Public Power … which we just pointed out was a great idea. 

That's what the industry's spokesperson, and attack dog have to say. What about the Public Relations professionals trying to shore up the industry's negative reputation as a two-faced spreader of disinformation and destroyer of climates? 

Well not to worry, the industry isn't two faced at all! It's three-faced, at minimum!

Enter Kelsey Grant, from Adamantine Energy, "a consulting firm that works to future-proof the oil and gas industry against rising social risks," and who we noticed published at RealClear back in April. She's here to explain "what the oil and gas industry has to offer the energy transition."

Curious about how the industry responsible for the pollution destabilizing the climate could help not do the thing it does and has refused for decades to stop doing, we read on. "One side of the debate, often championed by broad swaths of the environmentalist community, argues that an all-renewable economy would free us from the puppet strings of fossil-rich autocracies, like Russia. In other words: Go fossil-free and don’t look back. Most proponents of this view see no future for the oil and gas industry."

Okay, so far so good. But unfortunately Grant continues. "This perspective, however, overlooks an essential point: The oil and gas industry must be a key ally in facilitating a structured and successful energy transition." 

Wait, why? Why must the industry be a key ally? Grant does not answer this, instead just asserts it, and immediately then moves on to "considering what the energy leaders today have to offer a low-carbon world tomorrow." 

And their insights? Nothing unique! The first, her best example, is "repurposing existing fossil-based infrastructure for low-carbon applications." Oh! Okay! We can use the tubes for other stuff, okay, great, thanks? What stuff? Oh, just industry hand-outs for fake solutions like CCS, supposedly renewable gas, etc. Also, some offshore oil drillers like TotalEnergy are getting into wind power! So, again, if fossil fuel companies want to do things that aren't fossil fuels, then sure they can be "a key ally." 

"Lastly," according to Grant, "the oil and gas industry has an unparalleled proficiency in geopolitics and a fluency in all matters of global energy markets — at a time when it is needed the most."

Yes, the industry that's making record profits while consumers pay outrageous prices certainly knows how markets work. But when you consider the track record of oil and gas-based geopolitics, it's not hard to imagine why Big Oil didn't want to make this argument themselves. 

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 ($)