FIRST LOOK: 

Texas, Plains See Extreme Heat, Fires: Not generally known for following European trends, Texas and the Great Plains are expected to hit high temperatures as hot as 115°F with heat indices above 120°F in the coming days. At least 100 million people in the U.S. are under extreme heat warnings as at least 89 wildfires burn across the country. The "extreme heat and humidity will significantly increase the potential for heat related illnesses,” the National Weather Service warned, “particularly for those working or participating in outdoor activities.” Extreme heat is also exceptionally dangerous for people experiencing homelessness, as well as to postal and delivery workers, like one UPS driver filmed staggering in the extreme heat in Arizona. The extreme heat isn't bad for everyone, however, as high temperatures will push Texas' electric grid to (and possibly past) the brink of failure, power generators there are expected to reap a windfall from the high electricity prices. (Heat: Washington Post $, Axios, ABC, NBC, ABC, Axios, The Hill, NBC, AP; Texas grid: NBC; UPS driver: The Guardian; Heat windfall: Utility Dive)

Biden To Tout Executive Climate Action, Will Not Declare Emergency — Yet: President Biden will speak today on his new efforts to combat climate change, but will not declare climate change a national emergency — for now. An invocation of the International Emergency Economic Powers Act would unlock presidential authorities to regulate financial transactions and impose sanctions on individuals and countries — it would not automatically set any specific policies into motion. Democratic lawmakers and climate advocates are loudly calling for Biden to make such a declaration, especially after Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.Va.) joined every Senate Republican in opposing action on climate change. “Biden needs to deploy every executive power, starting with banning crude oil exports," Jean Su, director of the Center for Biological Diversity's Energy Justice Program explained in a tweet. They also warned, as LCV's Tiernan Sittenfeld, told E&E News, "it's not a panacea." Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) agreed, telling reporters, “Declaring a climate emergency doesn’t lower any emissions … You have to move on to acting like it’s a climate emergency, and I’m looking forward to those steps.” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre told reporters Monday a climate emergency declaration is "not on the table for this week," adding, "We are still considering it." (AP, E&E News, Salon, Washington Post $, New York Times $, Reuters, Wall Street Journal $, The Hill, MSNBC, Politico Pro $, Washington Post $, NBC, Politico Pro $, Grist; Calls for action: (Reuters, The Guardian, The Hill)

Clean Energy Workers Push Employers To Clarify Provisions For Abortion Care: Clean energy workers disappointed by their employers' lack of response to the overturning of Roe v. Wade are organizing and pushing clean energy firms to guarantee employee access to abortion and other reproductive health care services. Women are a minority in both the clean energy workforce and its leadership. Among other considerations, the workers' open letter calls for clean energy firms to clarify whether their employee policies cover travel costs for abortion care, and to actually cover those health care costs. (Canary Media, expanded summary available at Nexus Media News)

Deadly European Heat Wave Drags On: Brutal heat has killed more than 1,700 people over the past week in Spain and Portugal alone, but the ultimate death toll of this week's extreme heat, there and across Europe, will be much higher. The UK hit 104.36°F (40.2°C) at Heathrow on Tuesday, "absolutely obliterat[ing]" the previous all-time record, set just three years ago, by 2.7°F (1.5°C). “Even as a climate scientist who studies this stuff, this is scary,” University of Reading professor Hannah Cloke told The Guardian. While the hottest peak of the heat wave may have passed yesterday, the WMO expects temperatures to stay above normal through the middle of next week. (Death toll: Axios, Reuters, Democracy Now; UK Heat: (The Guardian, Axios, Washington Post $, New York Times $, Reuters, The Guardian, Wall Street Journal $, CBS, Axios, Washington Post $, AP, The Verge, The Guardian, ABC, Politico EU; Forecast: Reuters)

• HOT NIGHTS AND WILDFIRES: The stifling daytime heat is only part of the danger. Extremely hot nights are especially dangerous because they prevent the body from a needed chance to cool down and hamper sleep which is linked to a raft of its own health concerns. They also further supercharge the wildfires burning across the continent and hinder firefighters' efforts to contain them. (Reuters, E&E News, AP)
• AIR POLLUTION SPIKES: As temperatures across Europe have skyrocketed, so has air pollution. Surface level ozone hit unhealthy levels across southern and western Europe on Tuesday and will likely worsen further north in the coming days. In addition, the wildfires burning across the continent are releasing huge amounts of particulate matter (PM2.5), especially dangerous when combined with extreme heat. "Smoke particles are one of the most toxic forms of particles we can generate," Athanasios Nenes, an atmospheric chemist at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Lausanne, told Reuters. As if that weren't enough, wildfires in Spain and Morocco have produced more carbon emissions in the last month than any similar period since data began being collected nearly two decades ago. (Ozone: Reuters, Politico EU; Wildfires: (Reuters, Axios, CBS, Gizmodo; Carbon: Reuters)

ENVIRONMENTAL (IN)JUSTICE: Life on Brazil’s open landfills (Atmos)

REALLY NOT GREAT: Most major nations lag in acting on climate-fighting goals (AP)

EUROPEAN HEATWAVE: Comparisons to Britain's summer of 1976 abound. They’re misleading. (New York Times $), Experts saw Europe's devastating heat wave coming (Axios), Mapping Europe’s heat wave (New York Times $), Visualizing Europe’s heat wave with melting popsicles (Washington Post $), Why this European heat wave is so scary (Washington Post $), ‘Pools of sunscreen, litres of water’: extreme heat around the UK – photo essay (The Guardian), "Melting" runways: Another sign we're not ready for climate change (Axios)(CBS), Why do Britain’s roads melt and its rails buckle in heat? (The Guardian), Londoners hold climate protest as temperatures approach 40°c (Democracy Now), UK, experts say net zero is the only way out (The Guardian), As UK boils, court tells government to do more on climate (E&E $), British homes were built to retain heat. that’s becoming a problem. (New York Times $), Extreme heat in UK adds further air travel disruption as it melts airport runway (CBS)

FOSSIL FUELED WAR: While Europe burns, leaders go shopping for gas (Politico EU), Amid summer heat wave, Germany worries over having enough gas for winter (Washington Post $), Europe fears a long, cold winter if Russia ends supply of natural gas (Wall Street Journal $), Gazprom won’t guarantee restart of gas in Russia-to-Germany pipeline (Democracy Now), Germany leaves door open for extending nuclear power use amid energy crisis (Politico EU), Human rights groups criticise EU’s Azerbaijan gas deal (The Guardian), Poland to give households one-off payment to offset rising coal prices (Reuters), Putin signals Russian gas will resume in a key pipeline but at a reduced level (New York Times $), Vladimir Putin says Russia will honor gas commitments, but warns of New Nord Stream curbs (Wall Street Journal $), Russia likely to restart gas exports from Nord Stream 1 on schedule - Russian sources (Reuters)

YOUTHS: Summer camp teaches kids about climate solutions (Yale Climate Connections), Too hot to handle: Climate considerations for youth sport during the hottest years on record (The Conversation)

AUSTRALIAN WILDLIFE: ‘Crisis and decline’: Report paints a bleak assessment of Australia’s environment (New York Times $)(Washington Post $)(AFP)(HuffPost)(Reuters), More than 1,000 hectares of koala habitat would be cleared for proposed Queensland coalmine (The Guardian)

TALK ABOUT YOUR FEELINGS AND CLIMATE CHANGE: Here’s a secret about your neighbors (New York Times $)

PUBLIC OPINION: Which elected leaders should do more on climate? Here's what Americans say. (New York Times $)

EPA: Regan to Dems: EPA not ‘out of the game’ on climate (E&E News), Cheniere says an EPA rule hurts Ukraine response. EPA says Cheniere made a risky bet and lost. (Houston Chronicle), Watchdog to probe EPA lab hazardous waste oversight (E&E $)

DOE: Biden appoints Robinson to DOE grid office after GOP pushback against previous nomination (Politico Pro $), Frantic push for DOE, science money in innovation bill (E&E $)

DOT: Buttigieg insists electrical grid will be ready to meet Biden's climate goals (Politico Pro $), Buttigieg spars with GOP lawmakers over Biden’s EV goals (The Hill)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden admin seeks dismissal of climate metric challenge (E&E $), White House privately fumes about Manchin — and sees the futility of airing it out in public (Politico Pro $), Biden’s climate plan in free fall (E&E News)

THE HILL: Sen. Warren leads lawmakers calling for DOE, EPA to track ‘disturbing’ Bitcoin, Ethereum energy use (Utility Dive)(Grist), Bipartisan sequoia rescue bill can't shake logging debate (E&E $), Democrats eye options for big climate action this year (E&E News), Democrats' policy package to include prescription drug cost controls and Obamacare fix (Reuters), Dems use minibus to showcase energy, climate contrasts (E&E $)

HOUSE: Democrats including Pressley, Omar, Ocasio-Cortez, Tlaib arrested at abortion rights rally outside Capitol (The Hill)

SENATE: Democrats have no appetite to punish Joe Manchin (The Hill)

ELECTIONS: Progressive campaign strategy: Make Manchin irrelevant (E&E News), Doug Mastriano called climate change ‘pop science.’ That video, and others, vanished from his social media. (New York Times $)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: EPA, NRC nominee votes delayed (E&E $), Panel to vote on Interior nominee, Grand Canyon mining bill (E&E $)

CITIES AND STATES: Crushed by heatwaves, more cities are hiring ‘chief heat officers’ (Washington Post $), Delaware will give free solar panels to low-income residents (Canary Media), How states could play a key role in climate fight with Congress stalled (The Hill), In Indiana, solar net metering rules go from bad to worse (Energy News Network)

FERC: D.C. Circuit rejects Entergy, Xcel bid to overturn FERC ruling on MISO transmission cost allocation (Utility Dive)

IMPACTS: Mangrove tree offspring travel through water currents. how will changing ocean densities alter this process? (Inside Climate News), More mountain glacier collapses feared as heat waves engulf the Northern Hemisphere (Inside Climate News), NYC subway floods show our transit systems are not ready for climate change (Gizmodo)

HEAT: Climate experts are testing new ways to reach the people most affected by extreme heat (TIME), Heat waves are getting hotter and more frequent. Here's how to prepare. (Washington Post $), Heatwave relief: What can hot countries teach us about keeping cool? (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

WATER: As celebs cheat drought restrictions, 'water police' are going door to door (Gizmodo)

RENEWABLES: Why put solar panels on the surface of water? (The Hill), Climate bill defeat a blow to US solar production, First Solar CEO says (Reuters), GE renames power division 'Vernova' as it eyes wind, hydrogen (E&E $), Renewables, EVs to double Northeast grid. Will it work? (E&E $), US solar company GAF Energy to open Texas manufacturing plant (Reuters), Where Dalí once painted the sea, wind turbines are set to rise (New York Times $)

GASOLINE PRICES: National average gas price falls below $4.50 a gallon (Axios)

BUILDINGS: The climate tech solutions European homes will need to confront the next heat wave (Protocol)

LNG: LNG exports shoot up in Louisiana, US in 2022 amid booming demand (The Advocate), Germany says fifth floating LNG terminal to be built by end of 2022 (Reuters), U.S. regulators to inspect shuttered Texas LNG plant in September (Reuters)

OIL & GAS: Could dispute over water rights derail Utah oil shale plant? (E&E $), US gas production heads for record as Europe faces shortages (E&E $)

PIPELINES: Oil-pipeline outage compounds Biden’s post-Saudi crude dilemma (Bloomberg $)

UTILITIES: Ohio utility seeks $626M grid upgrade, despite rate scandal (E&E $)

EVs: VW turns to electric Scout brand to win back Americans (Axios), Walmart’s EV deal blocks Amazon as rivalry expands (Utility Dive)

CRYPTO: Fossil plant in Finger Lakes could continue cryptocurrency mining for years to come (Politico Pro $)

AGRICULTURE: Climate change and extreme weather events hang heavy over global breadbasket countries (Energy Monitor)

RELIGION: How US and UK faith communities are addressing global warming (Yale Climate Connections)

XR: XR protesters smash windows of News UK over coverage of Britain’s heatwave (The Guardian)

CARBON REMOVAL: Carbon management companies form trade group in push for more influence (Axios)(Grist)(Protocol), How not to solve the climate change problem (The Conversation)

CARBON CAPTURE: 'First of its kind' CCS project opens in N.D. (E&E $)

NUKES: Calif.’s last nuclear plant faces closure. Can it survive? (E&E News)

FINANCE: US sustainable funds returned to inflows in June - report (Reuters)

WILDLIFE: How penguins beat the heat and went south (New York Times $), Threat of global extinction may be greater than previously thought, study finds (The Hill)

INTERNATIONAL: Tesla EV sales gaining momentum in Australia, chair says (Reuters)

• As peak hurricane season looms, banks bolster cozy relationship with fossil fuel industry (Louisisana Illuminator, Roishetta Ozane and Adele Shraiman op-ed)
• SCOTUS gutted part of the EPA, but it won’t stop climate progress (The Hill, Kevin Samy op-ed)
• Think you’re too hot? Imagine being street homeless in the UK right now (The Guardian, Daniel Lavelle op-ed)
• Joe Manchin is a symptom, but it’s the Senate that’s sick (New York Times, Jamelle Bouie column $)
• We’ve reached boiling point – nobody should have to work in temperatures above 30°C (The Guardian, Mika Minio-Paluello op-ed)
• Solar twine holds creaking Texas grid together (Reuters, Robert Cyran op-ed)
• Can we beat the heat — or is this the beginning of the end? (The Hill, Durwood Zaelke and Gabrielle Dreyfus op-ed)
• Will these ancient trees survive a drying west? (New York Times, Daniel Griffin op-ed $)
• Britain is melting (New York Times, Moya Lothian-McLean op-ed $)
• The Guardian view on public attitudes to the climate crisis: burning for change (The Guardian, Editorial Board)
• Yes, Britain had a heatwave in 1976. No, it was nothing like the crisis we’re in now (The Guardian, Ella Gilbert op-ed)
• How climate change drives heatwaves and wildfires in Europe (Reuters, explainer)
• Wildfires breaking out across the world (Reuters, Factbox)
• Want to help fight climate change? Don’t lift tariffs on Chinese imports. (Washington Post, Henry Olsen column $)
• Climate politics are worse than you think (New York Times, Paul Krugman column $)
• Reflections on the Supreme Court’s Decision in West Virginia v. EPA (Environmental Health News, John Holdren op-ed)
• Britain is boiling – and the government wants to dramatically expand UK aviation (The Guardian, Leo Murray op-ed)
• Unleashing the economic power and reliability potential of West Coast offshore wind (Utility Dive, Mike O’Boyle and Michelle Solomon op-ed)
• Climate movement must stop hoping for political heroes (The Hill, Nathaniel Stinnett op-ed)
• US counted over 126,000 new COVID infections yesterday. What are we doing? (Truthout, William Rivers Pitt op-ed)
• The role of startups in restoring our climate with carbon removal (The Hill, Ben Rubin op-ed)
• All the heat in Europe (Wall Street Journal, Editorial Board $) 
• Biden’s ESG tax on your retirement fund (Wall Street Journal, Vivek Ramaswamy and Alex Acosta op-ed $)

Fox News Dot Com Staffing Up With Climate Disinformation Spreading 'Journalists'

For the longest time, the FoxNews website seemed pretty normal on climate change, all things considered. While Fox TV centered hatemongers like Tucker Carlson and the website reflects that with ample coverage of what was on TV, the original content produced for the website was generally indistinguishable from any other lazy political "news" that quotes who said what. The site was clearly biased in every conceivable way (choice of stories to cover, who to quote, how to frame stories, etc) but wasn’t necessarily going out of the way to spread climate disinformation. 

That appears to be changing.

Fox News dot com has, in the last month or so, hired two conservative propagandists in journalist disguises, Thomas Catenacci, formerly an energy reporter at the Koch-sponsored Daily Caller, and Haris Alic, formerly of the cult-founded and $1bilion+ sponsored Washington Times where he turned fossil fool press releases into "news”. Before that, he was at white supremacy-laundering Breitbart, and before that, the billionaire-backed Free Beacon.

Back on June 21st, Thomas Catenacci published his first Fox piece attacking Michigan Gov. Grechen Whitmer for calling on Biden to pause the federal gas tax, "just months after declining to pause her own state's gas tax." (Maybe something changed in the months between?) 

Since then, he's published one Dem hit piece after another, real hard-hitting stuff like "Kamala Harris' office posts video of VP sinking basketball shot, leaves out her first 5 misses." 

He also covered the climate activists slashing SUV tires in NYC (twice), and somehow suckered a Sierra Club spokesperson into feeding him quotes for a piece about how environmentalists are "pushing extreme measures amid global energy crisis," like investing in clean energy sources not controlled by Russia, which is apparently extreme. 

This week, Catenacci helped propagate the lie that protests in the Netherlands and the uprising in Sri Lanka are driven by anti-climate policy sentiments, and yesterday he brought the Daily Caller's trick of "reporting" on a climate advocate's airline emissions to Fox with a piece about John Kerry's family's private jet emissions (quoting, of course, a professional denier). 

Meanwhile, on July 8th Haris Alic published his first Fox story, advancing the Koch network's organized anti-ESG disinformation with "news" that Sen. Steve Daines (R., Mont.) introduced a go-no-where bill to "block Biden from adding 'woke' requirements to US retirement plans." Then he did a puff piece about Republican Gov. Youngkin's "speculation of 2024 presidential run," followed by a piece about how Nancy Pelosi went on "lavish Italian vacation as inflation back home hits 40-year high." 

You know, Fair And Balanced.

This week, Alic is gassing up former ALEC chair Joe Manchin with an entirely credulous story headlined "Manchin denies he opposes Democratic spending bill, says he'll wait until August to decide." No surprise, when it comes to the fossil fuel loving Democrat, Fox News has no problem taking him at his word and including zero skeptical quotes pushing back on his claims! 

How do you follow "reporting" that is shamelessly tongue-on-boot? With a story about conservative ads, of course, turning your compatriot's paid media spend into some free earned media about how (industry front) groups have paid for a "deluge of conservative ads [to] urge Manchin to stand up to Democrats." 

Not exactly breaking news that Fox is backing fossil fuels over a livable climate, but the fact that its website just hired not one but two up-and-coming climate disinfo spreaders suggests Fox is only ramping up the lies as the midterm election season heats up.

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