FIRST LOOK: 

Low-Income Texans Hit Especially Hard By Heat Blanketing US: More than 90 million people in the US were under a heat advisory or warning over the weekend as extreme heat sent temperatures soaring from Texas to the Northeast. At least two deaths have been reported, though officials warn many more could die as the heatwave broke 359 daily high-temperature records and a whopping 709 records for warmest overnight low temperature last week. High overnight temperatures are especially dangerous because they prevent the body from cooling down and recovering. That danger is especially high for low-income Texans unable to afford to purchase or operate air-conditioners as inflation, driven largely by high fossil fuel prices, and skyrocketing energy prices in a Texas electricity grid stretched to the breaking point by extreme heat, are squeezing already-tight finances from both sides. (CNN; Heat advisories: NPR, CBS, CNN, NPR, Washington Post $; Northeast: Washington Post $, Yahoo, CNN, New York Times $; Records: Axios, CBS; Climate Signals background: Extreme heat and heatwaves)

Government Failing Disaster Victims: The United States is failing to help Americans hit by extreme weather rebuild and recover, the New York Times reports, creating "an expanding archipelago of loss" as people struggle and languish in motel rooms and trailer parks across the country. Agencies, primarily FEMA, as well as HUD, stuck with plans and programs designed without accounting for climate change, are not equipped to keep up with the climate-accelerated pace of extreme weather disasters. The failure is “re-victimizing disaster victims,” Rep. Garret Graves — a Louisiana Republican who voted against providing more than $28 billion in emergency disaster funding for regions hit by extreme weather disasters including Hurricanes Ida, Laura, Delta, and Zeta — told the Times. In Lake Charles, hit by Hurricanes Laura and Delta six weeks apart in 2020, roofs are still covered with blue tarps as FEMA relief funds have been too small, and too late in coming — a vicious cycle that only increases costs as mold spreads and homes fall further into disrepair. The full cost of the failures will almost certainly never be calculated. Hurricane Laura destroyed the Lake Charles home where Adrian Swope, paralized decades ago, lived with his mother Betty. After fifteen months of being confined to a bed in small hotel and trailer rooms, Adrian died from what the coroner determined were complications of paraplegia. “If we were able to get one room fixed in [our] house,” Betty lamented to the Times, “he would have been here still today.” (New York Times $)

Oak Fire Quickly Becomes California's Biggest Fire Of 2021: The Oak Fire, southwest of Yosemite National Park, exploded over the weekend into California's biggest wildfire so far this year. So far, the fire has burned more than 15,000 acres and forced thousands to evacuate their homes. The fast-moving fire forced many to flee quickly, including Jane and Wes Smith of Mariposa who escaped, with "just the clothes on their back and the shoes on their feet," their Nick told CNN. "It's pretty sad to see the house that I grew up in and was raised in gone," he added. "It hits hard." The fire is currently completely uncontained and Gov. Gavin Newsom has declared a state of emergency. (CNN, LA Times $, New York Times $, AP, NBC, ABC, Axios, CBS, Axios, ABC30; State of Emergency: AP; Climate Signals background: Wildfires)

Deadly Weather Whiplash In Pakistan, Iran: At least 282 people have died in Pakistan over the last five weeks as heavy rains and flooding continue to pummel the country. The country has already faced a prolonged extreme heatwave this year made 30x more likely because of climate change. It is also struggling to keep its lights on as fossil fuel geopolitics have pushed energy prices to prohibitive levels.  In Iran, flash floods killed at least 21 in Fars province over the weekend. That province, and the nation overall, is suffering through a prolonged drought that has led to social unrest the government there has suppressed with violence. (Pakistan: AP, New York Times $; Iran: AP; Climate Signals background: Extreme precipitation increase, Drought)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: In Atlanta, work on a new EPA superfund site leaves Black neighborhoods wary, fearing gentrification (Inside Climate News), 'You're on Native land': The cultural district honoring urban Native history (KQED), Flooding could expose toxic soil in city neighborhoods (Center for Public Integrity), How a conservative US network undermined Indigenous energy rights in Canada (The Narwal, Floodlight, and The Guardian)

GET READY TO RAGE: This landlord did not pay $1.7M in water bills. Residents at 1,400 homes may lose water. (Indianapolis Star), More than 1,000 may lose water — or even their homes — because a landlord didn't pay (NPR)

FOOD INSECURITY: The horn of Africa is facing drought and food shortages (NPR), Climate disasters in Latin America threaten global food security (Bloomberg $)

GLOBAL HEATWAVES: Climate change is making extreme heat around the world more common (NPR), Heat waves are hitting around the globe. Scientists say climate change is making them more frequent (CBS), Heat waves around the world are connected, scientists say (Axios)

• US HEATWAVE: Yes, climate change is a factor in Oklahoma's current heat wave (Public Radio Tulsa), What is behind the heat waves affecting the United States? (Reuters explainer)
• Southern states brace for ‘whiplash’ of extreme weather (The Hill), Why the Dust Bowl was hotter than this heat wave, despite global warming (Washington Post $), As a heat wave blankets much of the US, utilities are managing to keep up, for now (NPR), Heat wave forces Amtrak to slow trains for fear of expanding tracks, wires (Newsweek)
• EUROPE HEAT/FIRES: London hit 104 degrees. That’s like 115 degrees in Houston. (Washington Post $), As Europe’s heat wave melts roads, tour de france races into an uncertain future (Washington Post $), Blistering heat threatens a European economy that teeters on the brink (CNN), Can Europe adapt to extreme heat? (Slate), What’s behind Europe’s spate of deadly wildfires? (AP explainer), Fire damages homes in southern Greece; more blazes active (AP), Protesters in UK decry climate change after record heat wave (AP), Wildfires: Europe's latest economic headache (Reuters), Low winds stopped what might have been new ‘great fire of London’, says expert (The Guardian)
• CHINA HEAT/FLOODS: China braces for an even hotter weekend as temperatures climb (CNN), China's Xinjiang warns of more floods, risk to cotton crop amid heatwaves (Reuters), Heatwaves to menace China as almanac's 'big heat' day looms (Reuters)

FOSSIL FUELED WAR: Ukraine war rekindles Europe's demand for African oil and gas (Reuters)

• GERMANY: Germany agrees to bail out energy giant Uniper as Russia squeezes gas supplies (CNBC)(New York Times $)(Bloomberg $)(Wall Street Journal $), Scholz opens door for extending nuclear power in Germany (Bloomberg $)

• ENERGY CRISIS: EU gas plan faces increasing opposition, risking energy shortage (Bloomberg $), Europe's surging electricity prices are shattering records (Axios), Four things nations can do to conserve energy (New York Times $)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: HELP WANTED: Self-starter to run U.N. climate program (E&E News)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Canadian city endorses climate litigation (E&E $)

DENIAL: ‘Super scorchio!’: heat brings out new face of climate denial in UK press (The Guardian)

STRANGER THAN FICTION: 'Don't Look Up' director Adam McKay on the climate crisis that's no joke (CBS), The climate crisis: The time to act is now (CBS)

WELL, THIS IS VALIDATING: The era of climate change has created a new emotion (The Atlantic)

PUBLIC OPINION: Large majority of Americans blame warming for extreme weather (E&E $), Polling shows climate change is a big issue for voters, including some Republicans (WPR), Why Democrats are disillusioned over climate change (FiveThirtyEight)

SCOTUS: High court hurdles shape debate over climate emergency (E&E News), Supreme Court's climate change ruling complicates the push for sweeping student debt cancellation (CNN)

DOJ: Black and Latino residents’ complaints about illegal trash dumping in Houston lead to federal investigation (Texas Tribune)(Houston Chronicle)(Texas Signal)(New York Times $)(Washington Post $)(The Hill)

EPA: Experts to Congress: Restore EPA enforcement staffing and funding for environmental justice (Grist), EPA shelves plan to take down online archive (E&E $)

DOE: $225M for energy-efficient building codes, $96M for EV charging, innovation in new DOE funding (Utility Dive)

DOI: Wildfire threat leads to emergency action to protect California's giant sequoias (Bloomberg $)(E&E $)(New York Times $)(AP)

FEMA: Audit: FEMA took 3 years to approve Puerto Rico projects (E&E $)

• FLOOD INSURANCE: FEMA report: Flood insurance hikes will drive 1M from market (AP)

WHITE HOUSE: Activists hold rally at President Biden’s beach home, push for climate action (WMDT), Biden’s global promises held back by politics at home (AP), Biden’s new economic scorecard: the price at the pump (New York Times $), Is Biden in a bind on climate? (CNN), Six climate emergency complications (E&E News)

THE HILL: Climate panel aide called ‘liar’ for speaking against Trump (E&E News), Democrats scramble to squeeze priorities into budget bill (The Hill)

HOUSE: 60 House lawmakers urge Biden to declare national climate emergency (The Hill), Freshman nabs lead GOP role on Oversight's Environment panel (E&E $), Ocasio-Cortez leads House bid to reverse EPA climate ruling (E&E News)

SENATE: Manchin bill would create agency to manage nuclear waste (E&E News), Senate panel deadlocks on Grand Canyon, wilderness bills (E&E $)

POLITICS: Democrats' fragile gas price reprieve (Axios)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Senate panel OKs Justice Jackson's D.C. Circuit replacement (E&E $)

CITIES AND STATES: Phoenix installs 'cool pavements' to combat extreme heat (CBS), A federal judge wants more information on polluting discharges from Baltimore’s troubled sewage treatment plants (Inside Climate News), Innovative new way one neighborhood is trying to cool their community (ABC), Las Vegas restricts pool sizes, targeting the super-rich (Gizmodo), Massachusetts passes ‘landmark’ climate bill to decarbonize multiple sectors, add 5.6 GW offshore wind (Utility Dive), Massachusetts set to enable citizens to give climate finance to vulnerable nations (Climate Home), Miami mayor says effects of climate change 'not theoretical' for city (CBS), How the climate is changing Georgia (WABE)

• TEXAS: Texas Republicans make renewable energy a political punching bag (Gizmodo)

• CALIFORNIA: California governor calls for no new gas plants in climate fight (Bloomberg $)

FERC: States to FERC: Here’s how to fix transmission problems (E&E News)

IMPACTS: Heating up the weekend with three climate indicators (NPR), How climate change drives heatwaves and wildfires (Al Jazeera), Is this season's heat wave an indication of summers to come? (Today Show), The economic impacts of unchecked climate change (PBS NewsHour),

COMPOUND IMPACTS: 2 dead, 1 missing after flash floods hit fire-scarred areas of n.m. (Washington Post $)(AP)(New York Times $)

HEAT: Hospitals feel the heat as climate change bakes Boston (Boston Globe $), In Boston’s hottest neighborhood, heat waves exact a cost, in the wallet and on the nerves (Boston Globe $), Beyond sunburns: How hot weather can hurt you (WBUR), Extreme heat makes pregnancy more dangerous (Yale Climate Connections), For coastal L.A., the hottest days of summer are yet to come (LA Times $), How people, pets and infrastructure can respond to extreme heat (NPR)

• CHECK ON YOUR NEIGHBORS: How can older adults stay safe during a heat wave? (New York Times $)
• VICIOUS CYCLES: The cooling problem (New York Times $), Record heat leads to more air conditioning, creating a depressing loop (The Hill)

DROUGHT: Lake Mead is now drier than before the reservoir was filled (Gizmodo)(New York Times $)(The Verge), Rio Grande runs dry in Albuquerque for the first time in 40 years (Washington Post $)

WATER: Los Angeles could soon put recycled water directly in your tap. It’s not ‘toilet to tap’ (LA Times $), Taps have run dry in Monterrey, Mexico, where there is water for factories but not for residents (LA Times $)

RENEWABLES: A pilot project in the North Sea will develop floating solar panels that glide over waves ‘like a carpet’ (CNBC), Offshore wind is a business risk, report says (E&E $), These solar companies could beat expectations this earnings season, according to Goldman (CNBC)

BUILDINGS: These home renovations will make your house more heat-wave resilient (Lifehacker)

LNG: Lawsuit targets [Driftwood] LNG terminal's impact on Louisiana wetlands (E&E $)

HYDROGEN: Hydrogen blends higher than 5% raise leak, embrittlement risks for natural gas pipelines: California PUC (Utility Dive)

UTILITIES: As energy costs soar, this federal program could help low-income women pay their bills this summer (The 19th* News), NextEra Energy beats profit estimates on surging clean energy demand (Reuters), State regulators approve Georgia Power’s plans to retire all coal plants by 2028 except for Plant Bowen (Utility Dive), Utilities are planning to shift to clean energy — just not too quickly (Canary Media)

EVs: Hyundai subsidiary has used child labor at Alabama factory (Reuters), 3-way ‘big deal’ eyes new model for EV chargers (E&E News), Can electric vehicle batteries be recycled? (Fast Company), Panasonic reveals Kansas as site for $4B EV battery megafactory (Canary Media), Vietnam's richest man is launching an ambitious—and controversial—gambit to sell Americans electric cars (TIME), Volkswagen-backed Northvolt to develop wood-based batteries for EVs (CNBC), VW taps porsche’s team-playing blume to amp up Tesla chase (Bloomberg $), Want an electric car but fear the cost? Here’s how to flick the switch (The Guardian)

• GM: GM is far behind Tesla in electric vehicle sales. CEO Mary Barra has bet the company that will change (CNBC), Cadillac thinks its hand-built electric car can take on Rolls-Royce (CNN), GM’s ultium battery inches ahead in the electric range race (Bloomberg $)
• FORD: Ford will reportedly slash a quarter of its workforce to fuel EV expansion (The Verge), Ford: EV output ready to 'scale quickly' with new contracts (E&E $), Ford's answer to EV supply chain hell: Cheaper batteries (Axios)

LA GRANDE BOUCLE: Protesters bring the Tour de France to a stop again, but are given no screen time (CyclingTips)(Cycling Weekly)(VeloNews)

REALIZING STUFF: Why we're directing so much rage at Kylie Jenner (Buzzfeed)

AL GORE: Al Gore compares climate deniers to Uvalde police who 'heard the gunshots, and nobody stepped forward' (CNN), Al Gore: America must address ‘democracy crisis’ to solve climate crisis  (The Hill), Al Gore: US must pay attention to 'democracy crisis' to solve climate crisis (Axios), Full Gore: US must look to its ‘broken’ democracy to fix climate crisis (NBC), 'The survival of our civilization is at stake': Gore on need for climate action (ABC), California Oak fire remains uncontained as Al Gore warns ‘civilization at stake’ (The Guardian)

BOOKS: The future of the earth under climate change is 'Denial' (NPR, Jon Raymond interview)

ACT LOCALLY: How to think about your carbon footprint (Bloomberg $)

CARBON PRICING: Booming carbon-credits market took hit as stocks sold off (Wall Street Journal $)

FINANCE: Fund managers face ‘rapidly closing’ window to fix CO2 math (Bloomberg $)

WILDLIFE: Audubon Texas works to keep island bird sanctuaries from losing ground (Yale Climate Connections), Beavers are heat wave heroes (Vox), Monarch butterflies are endangered, leading wildlife monitor says (New York Times $), Thousands of frogs are dying in Australia. scientists aren’t sure why. (Washington Post $), What happens if the world gets too hot for animals to survive? (Mother Jones)

INTERNATIONAL: Barcelona school and residents create solar energy community (The Guardian)

• World’s growing thirst for American gas tests US ability to meet demand (Wall Street Journal $)
• Europeans face a heat wave conundrum (NBC, Adam Larson op-ed)
• Unless we act soon, this heatwave is just a taste of things to come (The Guardian, Andrea Dutton op-ed)
• The cruel irony of inhalers that make climate change worse (New York Times, Dr. Alexander S. Rabin and Dr. Gregg L. Furie op-ed $)
• Air conditioning will not save us (TIME, Eric Dean Wilson op-ed)
• Joe Manchin squanders an opportunity and ushers in despair (New York Times, Farhad Manjoo op-ed $)
• White House EJ director [Jalonne White-Newsome] talks goals, accountability (E&E News, interview)
• Try to resist the call of the doomers (New York Times, Jane Coaston op-ed $)
• Climate setbacks aren’t the end of climate action (The Hill, Jessie Buendia and Quill Robinson op-ed)
• Berating climate sceptics isn’t enough – disruptive protest now seems the only way forward (The Guardian, John Harris op-ed)
• Surrender on climate change bakes catastrophe in the planet’s cake (Seattle Times, Jon Talton Column)
• Heat waves are only a preview of crisis to come (Bloomberg, Lara Williams op-ed $)
• Melting ‘snowflakes’? How climate change became a new front in the right’s culture war (The Guardian, Leo Hickman op-ed)
• US needs a national cooling strategy (The Hill, Mark Wolfe and Peter Kahn op-ed)
• Build back a better Joe Manchin (Bloomberg, Matthew Yglesias op-ed $)
• We’re entering a climate that humans did not evolve to withstand (The Hill, Neha Pathak op-ed)
• Climate change is not negotiable (New York Times, New York Times Editorial Board $)
• Wildlife bakes alongside humans during climate change-fueled extreme heat (The Hill, Noah Greenwald op-ed)
• A very European answer to air conditioning (CNN, Paul Hockenos op-ed)
• President Biden can (still) diffuse the climate bomb in America’s Arctic (The Hill, Peter Winsor op-ed)
• Roads are literally melting in Europe during unprecedented heat wave (Truthout, Sasha Abramsky op-ed)
• Blistering summers are the future (NPR, Scott Simon commentary)
• Catastrophic weather: The ghost of summer future (The Hill, Susan Joy Hassol and Michael Mann op-ed)
• How subbing pork for half your beef can cut your climate impact (Washington Post, Tamar Haspel column $)
• A nuclear horse trade for Germany? (Wall Street Journal, Wall Street Journal Editorial Board $)
• A new generation of data scientists could be our best weapon against climate change (Fortune, Weiwei Pan op-ed)
• The global Jenga game (The Hill, William S. Becker op-ed)

Preprint Study: 10 FIB Superspreaders Responsible for A Third of Twitter Misinformation

A new preprint study, not yet peer reviewed but up on Arxiv for public review (commonplace for tech-world papers), finds that Twitter is letting major misinformation superspreaders pollute its platform. These superspreaders are largely conservative pundits and pseudo-media outlets, and they're much more toxic than even other average misinfo shitposters. 

In a Twitter thread summarizing the findings, lead author Matt DeVerna explained that the team used "various metrics to predict whether an account will be a superspreader in future months and then see which ones perform the best. Then we do a qualitative review of the worst superspreaders we find and report what we learned."  

To find the superspreaders, they created the False Information Broadcaster, or FIB index, based on things like how many followers an account hase and how much they get retweeted, and then "finds the worst misinfo spreaders who consistently share low-credibility content." That's really key to the FIB index's power, the study explains, because it's identifying people who aren't accidentally sharing something that's wrong once or twice, amongst lots of other content. It's accounts that are repeatedly sharing misleading content, day after day, like it's their job. 

And it turns out, to the surprise of no one who's been paying attention, it is! Not only are many of the superspreaders blue-check verified, but also they found "pundits with large followings, low-credibility media outlets, personal accounts affiliated with those media outlets, and a range of less popular influencers. Most (not all) are conservative."  (Per the paper, 91% of the political accounts were conservative, so "these results agree with literature that finds an asymmetric tendency for conservative users to share misinformation online compared to liberal users.") 

Of the misinformation-spreading accounts identified, the "analysis found that 10 superspreaders (0.003% of accounts) were responsible for originating over 34% of the misinformation shared during the eight months that followed their identification, and 1,000 accounts (0.25%) were responsible for more than 70%!" 

How are those 10 superspreaders so effective? Part of it is that they're particularly nasty, as the research found that "superspreaders utilize more toxic language than the average misinformation sharer on Twitter." So not only would taking away their twitter megaphone make the site less lie-packed, it would also make it less toxic. 

And while many of the accounts in the dataset used have since been banned, DeVerna said the "analysis also suggests that Twitter may be more lenient with prominent superspreaders. Of the superspreaders who were suspended, less than 3% were verified and less than 10% had more than 150k followers." 

Which leads to one of the researchers' "key concerns: The more prominent misinformation superspreaders become, the greater their negative impact will be, and the more difficult they become to reign in." 

Turning to the study itself, a few fun highlights. To produce the FIB index, one of the tools the researchers evaluated was BotScore, the extent to which the account may be a bot. But that actually " performs the worst: even after more than 2,000 accounts are removed from the network, most of the misinformation still remains in the net- work. This suggests that bots infrequently originate the misinformation on Twitter." Bots may amplify someone's lies, but they're mostly a distraction. 

And while the paper doesn't seem to explicitly list the top 10 superspreaders they identified, they do name a few, like pro-climate but anti-vaxx Robert Kennedy Jr, "one of the top superspreaders of COVID-19 vaccine disinformation. 

Then there's a regular fixture in this space, "Steve Milloy, who has been labeled a 'pundit for hire' for the oil and tobacco industries". 

Given that his entire career is dedicated to disinformation, it'd make sense that he'd rank pretty high on the FIB index! Clearly the system works! 

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