HAPPENING SOON!

Today at 1pm ET (10am PT), PSE Healthy Energy will host a briefing on the results of a new study on the chemical composition of fossil fuel gas used in homes. Study authors will share key findings and discuss implications for the millions of Americans who cook on gas stoves.

At Least 46 Likely Migrants Found Dead From Extreme Heat In Tractor Trailer: At least 46 people died, trapped in a stifling semi trailer in San Antonio, along with 16 others suffering from heat exhaustion and heat stroke who were found Monday. This month is already the hottest June on record in San Antonio with 16 days so far hitting temperatures of 100°F or higher. Temperatures in the area hit 101°F on Monday, and the National Association of Medical Examiners has recommended that deaths where the body had a temperature of 105°F be certified as heat-related. The 16 survivors, including four children, appear to have been so overcome by the heat they were unable to attempt to escape the trailer. The victims appear to have been attempting to migrate from Central America, including from Guatemala, the Texas Tribune reports, and possibly Honduras, according to the San Antonio News-Express, as well as Mexico. They were “families who were likely trying to find a better life,” San Antonio Mayor Ron Nirenberg told reporters. Heat-related deaths along the U.S.-Mexico border are extremely common. At least 557 people died on the southwest border in the 12 months before last September 30 — more than 10 per week. A report published today in Environmental Research: Climate finds the human toll of climate change, especially from extreme heat, is vastly undercounted. (Texas Tribune, San Antonio Express-News, New York Times $, BBC; Heat-related death criteria and border deaths: NBC; Undercounted deaths: Bloomberg $; Climate Signals background: Extreme heat and heatwaves)

Gas Stoves Leak Hazardous Air Pollutants Into Homes: Unburned gas leaking from kitchen stoves contains at least 21 hazardous air pollutants, according to a study by researchers at Harvard and Boston Universities published this morning in the journal Environmental Science & Technology. The EPA-defined hazardous air pollutants the researchers identified include benzene, toluene, ethylbenzene, xylene, and hexane. “We found that unburned natural gas delivered to homes contains numerous air toxics ... that can cause cancer and other serious health effects,” lead author Drew Michanowics told the Boston Globe. The researchers also found that gas leaks are often undetectable by smell to people living in homes with gas stoves, and that these leaks are unaccounted for in state or federal pollution inventories, suggesting a threat to both public health and the climate. The Boston study builds on research published in January by Stanford scientists, which found that gas stoves leak significant amounts of methane, including when the stoves are turned off, and on a 2020 analysis showing that gas stoves are a significant contributor to childhood asthma, and likely exposing tens of millions of Americans to air pollution levels that would be illegal if they were outside. (Boston Globe $, New York Times $, Stat, The Hill, Inside Climate News, WBUR, AirQualityNews.com)

Court's Abortion Ruling Could Threaten Environmental Litigation: The Supreme Court's ruling in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization includes worrying signs for environmental litigators beyond the substance of the decision, E&E News reports. In Dobbs, a majority of the Court signaled its openness to limiting or eliminating the doctrine of "third party standing," holding earlier abortion cases "diluted" and "ignored" the Court's earlier applications of the doctrine. In order to have a case heard in court, a plaintiff must prove they have "standing" — including that they have been injured by the actions allegedly made by the defendant — and the doctrine of "third party standing" allows a third party (e.g. environmental non-profit) to file a lawsuit on behalf of an injured party (e.g. a community harmed by industrial pollution). The Dobbs ruling would not affect climate lawsuits brought by young people, like Juliana v. United States, because those plaintiffs are alleging they themselves are harmed by inaction on climate change. (E&E News)

TOXIC (PETRO)MASCULINITY: A truck driver ran into pro-choice protesters in Iowa (The Cut), Providence off-duty police officer on paid leave after assaulting political opponent at abortion rights rally (Boston Globe $, The Root, HuffPost, Washington Post $, CBS, AP)

FOSSIL FUELED WAR: France wants cap on oil prices worldwide — not just Russia (Politico Pro $), G-7 moves closer to backing price cap on Russian oil (The Hill), G7 to stand with Ukraine 'for as long as it takes' (Reuters), India’s finance minister defends increased purchases of Russian oil (Wall Street Journal $), Russian gas cuts threaten world’s largest chemicals hub (Wall Street Journal $)

• RECORD PROFITS: The biggest myths about gas[oline] prices (Vox), As gas prices surge, stations now hold up to $175 of your money when you swipe (Wall Street Journal $), The reason why gas prices are so high was decades in the making. Here's what Biden is trying to fix (Houston Chronicle)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: G-7 to allow fossil-fuel financing if climate pledges are kept (Bloomberg $), EU ministers agree on laws to save energy, promote renewables (Reuters), EU countries seek deals on laws to fight climate change (Reuters Fact Box), 

G7 leaders stare down energy and climate tug of war (Axios), Germany’s Scholz pitches ‘climate club’ at G-7 summit (E&E News), G-7 aims to create club of nations to boost climate action (AP), G-7 leaders end summit pledging to hurt Russia economically (AP), G7 commits to decarbonizing electricity by 2035 but leaves wiggle room for fossil fuels (CNN), G7 leaders debate fossil fuel investments amid energy crisis (Reuters), G7 to explore caps on energy prices to curb Russian revenues (FT $), Young activists dismiss 'vague' G7 climate pledges at summit (Reuters)

• BIODIVERSITY: Green groups fear failure on new global biodiversity pact after sluggish talks (Thomson Reuters Foundation), Risks to biodiversity remain even if a global temperature peak is achieved: study (The Hill), 
• OCEANS: UN chief: National selfishness delaying global oceans deal (AP, Reuters), Ocean treaty overdue as lockdown-driven green rebound fades, U.N. envoy says (Reuters), World leaders confront ‘ocean emergency’ at UN conference (Washington Post $, The Guardian)

SOUTH ASIA: Large parts of northeastern India still underwater after record rains (Washington Post $)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: 9th Circuit won't reconsider climate tort ruling (Politico Pro $)

DENIAL, DISINFO, AND GREENWASHING: 'Greenwashing': new climate misinformation battleground (AFP Fact Check)

BIG GREENS: Green group [Center for Biological Diversity] vows to pay staff costs for abortion-related services (E&E $)

DEMOCRACY UNDER ATTACK: Jan. 6 panel abruptly sets Tuesday hearing on ‘recently obtained evidence’ (New York Times $, AP, Washington Post $, Politico, CNBC, Bloomberg, Deadline, CNN, Black Wall Street Times)

SCOTUS: EPA deputy chief offers agenda ahead of Supreme Court ruling [West Virginia v. EPA] (E&E $), Justices called Roe important precedent, then tossed it (E&E News), Mitch McConnell’s Court delivers (New York Times $)

AGENCIES: FEMA ignoring equity in major buyout program, watchdog says (E&E $)

EPA: Ethanol trade group asks D.C. Circuit to review EPA refinery exemption approach (Politico Pro $), Regan to EPA staff after Roe demise: 'I have your back' (E&E $), 

DOE: DOE keeps hiring oil industry public relations firm (E&E News)

DOI: Lynching locations proposed as new national park sites (E&E News)

WHITE HOUSE: As Pride month closes, LGBTQ+ advocates are split on whether Biden is doing enough to protect the community (The 19th* News), Better late than never: Biden administration unveils new push for offshore wind (Grist), Experts see risk with little upside in Biden’s gas tax break (The Hill), US eyes Biden, Xi meeting in next weeks, sees growing convergence on China (Reuters), White House unveils 11-state partnership to boost offshore wind development, domestic supply chain (Utility Dive)

THE HILL: 'Rather pathetic': Dems grumble as climate talks lag (E&E $), Dems look to federal lands for red-state abortion access (E&E News), Energy, environment spending debate to sharpen this week (E&E News)

HOUSE: 'Broken recycling system' to drive House hearing (E&E $), House appropriators post Energy-Water committee report (Politico Pro $)

POLITICS: Jane Fonda is taking on Big Oil's political allies (Washington Post $)

ELECTIONS: Gubernatorial candidate is making Ore. climate hawks nervous (E&E $), Jane Fonda: If Biden runs in 2024, he’ll need to ‘get better on climate’ (The Hill)

TRIBES: Court: Land swap for Ariz. mine doesn’t violate tribal rights (E&E News)

FERC: FERC investigates Massachusetts generator, ISO New England over alleged capacity payment scheme (Utility Dive), FERC has big plans to remake the US power system. Figuring out who should pay is a challenge. (Politico Pro $)

IMPACTS: ‘Biblical’ insect swarms spur Oregon push to fight pests (AP), Black fly season lengthens with climate change, clean water (AP), Heavy rain, floods bring renewed calls in China for "sponge cities" (Reuters), Oak pollen concentrations are increasing 5% a year in Atlanta (Yale Climate Connections), The disease after tomorrow (Grist)

HEAT: More global heat records are broken, from the Arctic to Japan (Axios), Japanese told to turn off lights to save energy amid Tokyo heatwave (The Guardian, AP)

• THE ONE IN PARIS: Redesign around Notre-Dame to keep tourists moving and lower temperatures (New York Times $)

DROUGHT: A subtraction problem:’ A shrinking Colorado River faces sharp, sudden cuts (Nevada Independent)

WILDFIRES: Alaska set ablaze in record-breaking wildfire season (Gizmodo), A year on from Greek wildfires, locals are skeptical lessons have been learned (Politico EU)

HURRICANES: Three tropical systems, including one soon-to-be-depression, roam Atlantic (Washington Post $)

WATER: Pipelines? Desalination? Turf removal? Arizona commits $1B to augment, conserve water supplies (Arizona Republic), The Colorado stream case that could revolutionize river access (High Country News)

NATURAL DEFENSES: Swamps can protect against climate change, if we only let them (The New Yorker $), This super-tree could help feed the world and fight climate change (Canary Media)

RENEWABLES: Can dual-use solar panels provide power and share space with crops? (New York Times $), In Ecuador's Amazon, solar panels bring 'fire canoe' dream to life (Thomson Reuters Foundation), BPU set to rule on Ocean City clash with offshore wind project. That may not end the fight. (Politico Pro $), Wind farm, environmentalists agree on ways to protect whales (AP), Private investors betting on clean energy despite market selloff (Wall Street Journal $), The hottest investor in renewables is a big oil producer (Wall Street Journal $)

BUILDINGS: US jump-starts effort to curb residential CO2 emissions (E&E $)

LNG: LNG explosion shines light on 42-year-old gas rules (E&E $)

METHANE: Qatar Energy to cut emissions as methane movement grows (AP)

OIL & GAS: Greece looks to neighbour Italy for gas storage (Reuters), OPEC, recession worries to drive oil prices (Houston Chronicle), Economic impacts ripple out from shutdown of Texas LNG facility (Alaska Journal of Commerce), Germany's LNG terminals completion could be delayed, sector lobby says (Reuters)

PIPELINES: Mountain Valley pipeline asks FERC for four-year extension (E&E $)

HYDROGEN: Hydrogen’s spark gets swamped by rising interest rates (Wall Street Journal $)

UTILITIES: ‘We’re fully in.’ Utilities eye electric transition (E&E News), Entergy will refund $300M to Mississippi customers (E&E $), National Grid will pay households to shift electricity use to avoid blackouts (The Guardian)

GRID: CAISO’s proposed ‘emergency’ interconnection process could hurt pending projects: Vistra (Utility Dive)

EVs: Tesla's in the lead as US electric car sales get supercharged (Axios), Volkswagen nears deal to sell stake in Electrify America to Siemens (Wall Street Journal $)

ACTIVISM: Sustainability scientist explains how she uses TikTok to combat climate change (NBC)

DIRECT ACTION: Climate change protest throws Sydney traffic into chaos, 11 arrested (Reuters)

BOOZE: Virginians craft a plan to boost farmers while reducing beers’ carbon footprint (Energy News Network)

RELIGION: These clergy are bridging the gap between religion and climate (Inside Climate News)

GRETA: Photo of litter near Glastonbury’s Pyramid Stage taken in 2015, not after Greta Thunberg’s 2022 festival speech (Reuters, Fact Check)

IN MEMORIAM: Bodies of Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira returned to families (BBC), Funerals held for Dom Phillips and Bruno Pereira after their murder in Brazil (Democracy Now, The Guardian, Reuters), ‘Dom Phillips was natural storyteller – for us, he was always Uncle Dom’ (The Guardian)

INTERNATIONAL: Australia ‘ill-prepared’ for food insecurity driven by war and climate crisis, former defence leaders say (The Guardian), Australia's carbon emissions rise in 2021 amid pandemic recovery (Reuters), Dutch government issues world-first cap on flights from European hub (Climate Home), Mexico to offer fiscal support to firms that save water to address drought (Reuters), Norway, EU agree closer cooperation on batteries, raw materials (Reuters), Power companies ask EU to step in on Spanish profit claw-back plan (Reuters), Xinjiang law shows reach—and limits—of US economic power (Wall Street Journal $)

• Summer heatwave could be worst on record, will cause trouble for Texas electric grid (Houston Chronicle, Chris Tomlinson column)
• How utilities can harness green hydrogen production’s flexibility in balancing a high-renewables grid (Utility Dive, Eric Gimon op-ed)
• India’s electricity shortages ease as wind and hydro output rises (Reuters, John Kemp column)
• We’re winning with climate activism, ‘just not fast enough,’ says Goldman Prize winner (Mongabay, Julien Vincent commentary)
• Senator John Cornyn wants segregation in response to Pres. Obama tweet (Black Wall Street Times, Sydney Anderson op-ed)
• Republicans have hijacked the US Supreme Court. It’s time to expand it (The Guardian, David Daley op-ed)
• It’s time to say it: the US Supreme Court has become an illegitimate institution (The Guardian, Jill Filipovic op-ed)
• Requiem for the Supreme Court (New York Times, Linda Greenhouse op-ed $)
• With the end of Roe, the US edges closer and closer to civil war (The Guardian, Stephen Marche op-ed)

Deniers Turn To 'Money Machine Fraud Operation' Journal For Special Denial Edition of Journal Climate 

When you watch Sherlock Holmes or some other detective solve a murder, does it compel you to research all the ways people die naturally? Or when you lose your sense of smell and start coughing constantly and feeling terrible in the midst of a global pandemic, do you forgo a Covid-19 test to instead leave angry reviews because your Yankee Candle has no scent? 

And if you don't accept the scientific consensus that the carbon dioxide released by burning fossil fuels is dangerously heating the atmosphere, and think instead that scientists just haven't discovered the natural reason for climate change, well here's a chance to prove it!

It seems someone at the open access publisher MDPI has invited Ned Nikolov to guest-edit an edition of their Climate journal, and like the tobacco lawyer who brings up research on naturally-occuring cancers to defend his client against evidence of culpability, the theme of the issue is "natural drivers of the Earth’s climate." 

Yes, please just ignore the elephant in the room energy imbalance in the atmosphere and instead consider that maybe the temperature has a "higher correlation with seismic activity than it has with atmospheric CO2," or perhaps that the "high correlation between global temperature and the rate of annual migration of the North Magnetic Pole" means there's some causation, there, too! The call for submissions is now open, but before you jump in to validate this kangaroo court, perhaps some context is in store. 

Ned Nikolov is a longtime climate science denier, whose reputation is so irreparably damaged that back in 2016 he resorted to publishing one of his denial papers under a fake name. The then-retracted paper was so bad that even WUWT refused to post it, in case you were wondering about the paper's merits. 

And the publisher that apparently invited Nikolov to guest-edit (under his own name even!) is not exactly highly regarded. A quick search on RetractionWatch shows that MDPI has been publishing a LOT of Covid crap, and the company pressured a watchdog into reversing the determination that it's a predatory publisher, even though its questionable practices continue.

According to a remarkably lengthy, yet still not comprehensive, "Controversies" section on its Wikipedia entry, MDPI has experienced multiple mass resignations as a result of unethical publication practices. In 2018, 10 senior editors resigned from Nutrients because MDPI wanted to force them to run mediocre work. In 2021 five members of the Vaccines editorial board resigned after it published an article claiming the COVID-19 vaccine wasn't effective. 

And not included in the otherwise lengthy Wiki entry is the 2011 resignation of the editor-in-chief of the MDPI journal Remote Sensing, over its publication of climate denial, though it does note that Remote Sensing is rated poorly by official Norwegian academic standards. The Wiki entry also documents that scholars describe MDPI as "a 'money machine' based in China with 'a small 'artificial' office in Switzerland." 

MDPI, according to academics who just happen to not be engaged in selling climate, Covid or anti-vaxx disinformation, has "an aggressive focus" on "flooding the market with rapidly published special issues motivated purely by profit," and is a "money machine fraud operation." 

Making it the perfect place for a special issue of climate disinformation seeking out any possible excuse for climate change that doesn't implicate the fossil fuel industry's money machine!

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