FIRST LOOK: 

Extreme Heat Bakes US, Disproportionately Affecting Latinos: More than 100 million people in the U.S. were under excessive heat warnings or advisories Thursday as extreme heat broiled communities from California to Texas to South Carolina to Maine, with the dangerous temperatures expected to last through the weekend. Climate change, mainly caused by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels is making extreme heat and heatwaves hotter and more frequent. The extreme heat disproportionately burdens Latinos, Axios reports, as there are large Latino populations in states with a history of dangerous power outages, and because Latinos comprise a majority of the country's farmworkers and day laborers. In one of those states, Texas, extreme heat is pushing the electrical grid beyond the most extreme expectations, breaking all-time demand records 11 times so far this year. Even in the most extreme scenario ERCOT, the state's grid manager, originally said there was just a 5% chance demand would ever exceed 80,000 MW this summer — it's already happened seven times, and it's still only July. (Heatwave: Washington Post $, CNN, ABC, The Guardian, Reuters, The Hill, Axios, Democracy Now; Latino impact: Axios; Texas grid: Houston Chronicle; Climate Signals background: Extreme heat and heatwaves)

TV Meteorologists Including Climate In Weather Forecasts: TV weather forecasters are increasingly connecting extreme weather to climate change, Time reports. The field of meteorology has been cautious about explicitly connecting individual events like heatwaves to climate change in their forecasts, in part because of the historic difficulty of attributing a single weather event to climate change in real-time. But major advances in climate attribution science and new tools are helping to change this. Local meteorologists like Lena Arango, of Houston's FOX26, for example, are using the Climate Shift Index developed by Climate Central to inform their audiences about how the weather is influenced by the larger context of climate change. “The temperatures we’re experiencing today are five times more likely [because of] climate change,” Arango told her viewers earlier this month. “No one experiences global mean temperature; we experience the weather," Andrew Pershing, director of climate science at Climate Central, said of the tool. "We’re trying to make that connection really clear.” (TIME)

Oil & Gas Industry Making A Very Large Amount Of Money: A new analysis of World Bank data shows the global oil and gas industry has raked in $2.8 billion in profit, every day, for the last 50 years. The yet-to-be-published report comes as US oil and gas companies are posting record profits as they keep gasoline prices high and extreme heat drives up methane gas prices due to skyrocketing electricity demands to power air-conditioning, the Wall Street Journal reports. Despite U.S. firms paying less than their global competitors for crude oil, gasoline prices have stayed high. ExxonMobil told investors its refining profits could hit $4.4 billion in Q2, a fivefold increase over its Q2 average from 2017-2019. Meanwhile, extreme heat is pushing up methane-based gas prices as families struggle to keep cool. High methane-based gas prices, pushed even higher by increased exports to Europe, are driving inflation, and yielding big profits for companies like Kinder Morgan which are taking advantage of the geopolitical climate to increase their earnings. (Global profits: The Guardian; Refining profits: Wall Street Journal $; Methane gas prices: Wall Street Journal $; Kinder Morgan: Houston Chronicle)

ENVIRONMENTAL (IN)JUSTICE: Climate emergency is a legacy of colonialism, says Greenpeace UK (The Guardian)

ASIA HEATWAVE: Heatwaves to hit China from east to west as almanac's 'big heat' day looms (Reuters), Heatwave fee for Asia's gig workers does little to cool climate stress (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

EUROPE HEAT AND FIRES: Extreme weather is Earth's 'chorus of anguish', Pope says (Reuters), Europe's heatwave reaches Poland, Greece as it moves eastwards, brings wildfires (Reuters), Climate change collides with Europe’s search for fossil fuel (E&E News), Europe's power system feels the heat as cooling demand soars (Reuters), Europe’s wildfire threat eases but blaze grows in Slovenia (AP), Traditional British garden under threat from extreme heat, says RHS (The Guardian), Wildfires rage across Europe as climate alarm sounded (Reuters), As wildfires fueled by record heat menace Europe, a case for retreat in the age of fire (The Conversation), The UK's hottest day ever sparks a climate culture war (TIME), Wildfire leaves sense of 'total destruction', Spanish winemaker says (Reuters), Wildfires blazing across Europe cause thousands to flee their homes (NBC), What’s behind Europe’s spate of deadly wildfires? (AP, explainer)

• POLLUTION: Record-breaking heat in Europe spurs dangerous air pollution (Grist)
• NOT HELPFUL: Corporate carbon offset company accidentally starts devastating wildfire (Vice, Gizmodo)

FOSSIL FUELED WAR: Germany bails out struggling gas provider Uniper with a multibillion-euro rescue. (New York Times $), Europe fears a long, cold winter if Russia ends supply of natural gas (Wall Street Journal $), How reliant is Germany – and the rest of  Europe – on Russian gas? (The Guardian), Greece opposes EU plan to cut gas use, plans power cuts in emergency (Reuters), Russia's war in Ukraine is hurting nature (NPR), Russia's war spurs renewables, not coal in long run, UK climate envoy says (Reuters), Europe’s gas crisis is here (Vox)

• NORD STREAM: Russia restarts gas shipments through a key pipeline to Germany. (New York Times $, Wall Street Journal $, Politico Pro $, Axios), Nord Stream resumption brings relief to European executives (Wall Street Journal $)

DENIAL: Big Oil V the World review – how can these climate crisis deniers sleep at night? (The Guardian)

STRANGER THAN FICTION: A news anchor’s comments about the UK’s heat wave are getting compared to 'Don't Look Up' (Buzzfeed)

REALIZING STUFF: A 17-minute flight? The super-rich who have ‘absolute disregard for the planet’ (The Guardian, Gizmodo, Teen Vogue)

SCOTUS: Supreme Court ruling could mean less equitable school systems (Prism Reports)

EPA: EPA lead funding not going to areas most in need, analysis says (Politico Pro $)

DOI: Feds near decision on Arizona copper mine at sacred site (E&E $), Biden ’emergency’ offshore wind push faces Trump roadblock (E&E News), Biden administration reverses Trump endangered species rule (AP)

WHITE HOUSE: Climate advocates hoping Biden would declare a climate emergency are disappointed by the small steps he announced on Wednesday (Inside Climate News), Biden boosts offshore wind, resilience program, but balks at climate emergency declaration (Utility Dive), Biden’s offshore wind directive doesn’t end industry’s uncertainty in Southeast (Energy News Network), What would declaring a national climate emergency do? (The Hill), With Congress unwilling to act, pressure grows on Biden to declare national climate emergency (Democracy Now), Without the help of Congress, Biden tries to do more to address climate change (NPR), What would a climate emergency mean? Here are 4 key points. (New York Times $)

THE HILL: Democrats insist on climate emergency declaration (E&E News), Lawmakers, advocates turn up heat for worker protections (E&E $)

HOUSE: Furious AOC says Manchin has no authority to speak on climate ‘for the rest of our term here’ (The Independent, Truthout), Huge wildfire, drought package readied for House votes (E&E News)

SENATE: Manchin says climate bill risks inflation. But does it? (E&E News), Manchin, W.Va. lawmakers urge FERC to approve pipeline (E&E $)

• MORE LIKE JOSH HAUL-ASS, AMIRITE?: Jan. 6 committee plays slow-motion video of Sen. Josh Hawley running the hell away from capitol mob he had saluted earlier (Slate, Washington Post $, Rolling Stone, New York Times $, NBC, Business Insider, NBC, Kansas City Star, The Guardian, Salon, Daily Beast, Business Insider, People, NY Mag, Bloomberg $, Mother Jones, The Independent, Vice, HuffPost, Buzzfeed, Kansas City Star, Riverfront Times, KMOV, KMBC, KCTV)

POLITICS: We’ve had other climate defeats. This one is by far the weirdest. (The Atlantic)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Committee deadlocks on Laura Daniel-Davis for Interior (E&E News, Politico Pro $, The Hill)

CITIES AND STATES: 'Smart' surfaces could chill overheating cities (Axios), Interior Maine could be a viable climate refuge — but is it ready to host potential refugees? (WBUR)

FERC: Texas Uri disaster weighs on FERC, state regulators as they debate boosting interregional transmission (Utility Dive)

IMPACTS: Exclusive look at Yellowstone damage after historic floods (CBS), Extreme rainfall will be worse and more frequent than we thought, according to new studies (Grist), Greenland's recent ice melt could cover all of West Virginia in water (Gizmodo), Why climate change could spark conflict (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

HEAT: The World Meteorological Organization has ‘no immediate plans’ to name heatwaves (The Verge), 'Wet bulb' 101: here's why you're likely unfamiliar with this term (Gizmodo, The Hill), Scorching heat wave damaging crops and threatening cattle (NBC), Pacific Northwest braces for ‘hazardous heat’ (The Hill)

DROUGHT: In Syria, a poor wheat harvest adds to food worries (Reuters), NASA images show extreme withering of Lake Mead over 22 years (The Guardian, ABC), A drought in Italy’s risotto heartland is killing the rice (Washington Post $), Utah’s ‘environmental nuclear bomb’ (New York Times $)

WILDFIRES: Decades of 'good fires' save Yosemite's iconic grove of ancient sequoia trees (NPR)

WATER: A painful deadline nears as Colorado river reservoirs run critically low (New York Times $, The Hill), Big water pipelines, an old pursuit, still alluring in drying West (Circle of Blue)

SATELLITES: Landsat at 50: How satellites revolutionized the way we see – and protect – the natural world (The Conversation)

RENEWABLES: Workshops help people figure out if rooftop solar is right for them (Yale Climate Connections)

BUILDINGS: How can cities adapt to rising heat? Green design architects can help (NPR)

STORAGE: Tesla energy storage deployments fall 11% in Q2 amid supply chain challenges (Utility Dive)

POST-EXTRACTION: The rise of the restoration economy (High Country News)

LNG: Federal permit for $25 billion Louisiana LNG plant challenged by environmental groups (The Advocate)

OIL & GAS: Dow will 'slow something down' if Europe cuts natural-gas use (Bloomberg $)

PLASTICS: The search for the source of plastic pollution (Grist and InvestigateWest)

HYDROGEN: Green hydrogen prices have nearly tripled as energy costs climb: S&P (Utility Dive)

UTILITIES: Coalition criticizes Duke Energy carbon plan in N. Carolina (AP), New York City expands role in ConEd demand response program amid second week of stifling temperatures (Utility Dive)

GRID: ‘Batteries aren’t going to do it’: NERC’s Moura calls for gas investment to maintain reliability (Utility Dive)

EVs: Ford increases its battery supply to meet its electric-vehicle goals. (New York Times $, Protocol, Washington Examiner), Ford inks deal to get lithium from mine with ESA problem (E&E News), With EV benefits stalled, climate goals could suffer (E&E $)

CRYPTO: Chinese court rules Bitcoin mining harms the climate (Climate Home)

AVIATION: Aviation sector feels heat on emissions at air show (Reuters)

CARBON PRICING: In carbon markets we trust? New global guidance aims to stop greenwashing (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

CARBON REMOVAL: Carbon removal is moving full steam ahead. So is climate change. (Washington Post $), Company outlines plan to remove carbon using rail cars (E&E $)

FINANCE: Investment fund assets to miss climate goals, research says (Reuters), More investors vote against corporate directors over climate change (Wall Street Journal $), Wellcome Trust sells stakes in large oil and mining companies (The Guardian)

VANESSA: 'It’s already happening': Ugandan activist Vanessa Nakate on deadly climate crisis in Africa (Democracy Now)

WILDLIFE: Beloved monarch butterflies now listed as endangered (AP, Washington Post $, E&E News, NBC, New York Times $, Gizmodo), Thousands of frogs are dying in Australia. scientists aren’t sure why. (Washington Post $)

INTERNATIONAL: First UK-Germany power link gets financial green light (Reuters)

WEEKEND GOALS: No one is having a better summer than Freya the walrus (The Cut)

• Climate change is a crisis. Invoking emergency powers won’t solve it. (Washington Post, Editorial Board $)
• Mining giant Glencore’s Australian PR blitz forgets the coal driving the climate crisis (The Guardian, Graham Readfearn op-ed)
• Ignoring warnings of Europe’s extreme heatwave locks Australia into a worst-case scenario (The Guardian, Mark Ogge op-ed)
• The increasing death toll in the US from extreme heat (TIME, Sameed Khatana op-ed)
• I feel utterly hopeless about American climate policy (New York Times, Farhad Manjoo column $)
• ‘National emergency’ and the Democrats’ apocalyptic politics (Wall Street Journal, Daniel Henninger op-ed $)

Learn To Cover Climate and Combat Disinformation! For Free! 

How much would you pay to learn about climate reporting and combating disinformation from a former New York Times journalist? 

How about nothing?

That's how much it'll cost you to take a month-long online course from John Schwartz, former NYT science writer and current UT-Austin journalism professor, who said that “there is no beat that doesn’t have a climate angle today." 

No matter what kind of journalism you may be into, like it or not, you're also on the climate beat. "If you’re a business journalist, you have to understand what companies are doing," Schwartz said in a press release. "If you’re a social justice journalist, you have to understand the equity issues that are involved in climate change. A food reporter needs to know how climate is affecting the crops that reach our table.”  

That means, he continued, that "reporters need to have familiarity, at least with the basics, to be able to tackle the issues as they come into their beat, without fear." 

And "without fear" is where the disinformation comes in. Alongside three modules on the basics of climate science and how to report on it, the course promises that "students will learn how to identify disinformation about climate change and how to counter it." 

Per Schwartz, “anyone who writes about climate change can expect to get pushback from people who don't accept the scientific evidence and who both infect disinformation and who feed it back to you. When you write about climate, you can expect a fight. And so understanding the tools of disinformation, understanding not just why climate change is happening and what it is, but also being able to analyze the arguments of people who come at you, is very important and understanding the history of disinformation and being able to put that in the context of what the world has been through."

While it will cost all of $30 if you want to get a certificate of completion to mark your graduation of sorts, the knowledge itself is free, and you can also take the course in Spanish or Portuguese. "We are also lucky to count on assistant instructors with Meghie Rodrigues, from Brazil, and Emiliano Rodríguez Mega, from Mexico," said Rosental Alves, founder of the Knight Center for Journalism that's hosting the course, "both science journalists who have covered climate change issues in their countries.” And that may prove to be the most vital aspect, as non-English disinformation efforts become increasingly commonplace. 

Not that there isn't still plenty of English climate disinformation. But hopefully after this training from August to September, there will be a bunch more climate disinformation reporters, too! 

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 ($)