FIRST LOOK: 

The National Academies Climate Conversations: Pathways to Action webinar series will host a discussion on how to protect human health and the built environment in the face of more frequent and severe wildfires in the U.S. on Thursday., August 25.

'Extreme Heat Belt' Will Broast Texas To Illinois By Mid-Century: More than 100 million people in the U.S. will live in areas exposed to heat indices of over 125°F by 2053 years and people of color will be disproportionately harmed, a new analysis by the First Street Foundation warns. Currently, 8 million people in the U.S. are exposed to heat indices of 125°F every year, but that number is expected to skyrocket to 107 million, including in the developing "Extreme Heat Belt" stretching from Brownsville, Tex., to Chicago, Ill. In 30 years — the length of a typical home mortgage — close to two-thirds of Americans will experience at least three straight days with a heat index over 100°F, according to a Washington Post analysis of the group's data, and some regions could see as many as 70 straight days with heat indices in triple digits. A number of historic and present-day racist policy decisions combine to put people of color at greater risk of extreme heat (and pollution) exposure. Neighborhoods with large populations of color will suffer far more than whiter neighborhoods, an E&E News analysis of the data found. So-called "majority minority" ZIP codes will experience an average of 43 days of extreme heat by 2053, more than double the 19.5 days experienced by ZIP codes that are 90% white. (Washington Post $, E&E News, Axios, CBS, Gizmodo, NBC, The Guardian, USA Today, ABC, People, Fortune; Climate Signals background: Extreme heat and heatwaves)

Gulf Offshore Oil And Gas Operations Produce 16x Avg. Permian Methane Pollution: Offshore oil and gas operations in the Gulf of Mexico release much more methane pollution than operations on land, a study published in Environmental Research Letters finds. Permian Basin oil and gas drilling operations have a "methane loss rate" (a calculation of methane pollution relative to reported extraction) of about 4%, but the academic, NGO, and NASA researchers' survey of 150 shallow water oil and gas platforms in the Gulf of Mexico revealed loss rates between 23% and 66%. Methane, the primary ingredient in what the industry calls "natural gas" traps 80 times more heat in the atmosphere than CO2 over a 20 year timeframe. Offshore oil and gas operations account for about 30% of global extraction but monitoring of their pollution has been limited, largely due to their remote location. The Biden administration has promised to cut methane pollution by 30% by 2030, the main target of its highly-touted Global Methane Pledge. (E&E $)

Drought Reveals Long-Submerged Settlements In Europe: The Welsh village of Llanwddyn is the latest submerged settlement to be revealed by falling water levels as Europe's worst drought in centuries continues to parch the region. Residents of Llanwddyn were displaced in the 1880s by the Liverpool Corporation Waterworks to make way for a reservoir for that rapidly growing industrial city. The then-submerged village has only been exposed once before, by a drought in 1976, and the current drought has caused water levels in the reservoir to drop to just 60% of capacity compared to the 90% of the reservoir that should be filled at this time of year. Earlier this year, a Bronze Age city in Iraq was also revealed and excavated when the Mosul reservoir fell due to extreme drought and human remains have been exposed by falling Lake Mead water levels in the U.S. (Llanwddyn: The Guardian, Shropshire Star, The Mirror; Climate Signals background: Drought)

INFLATION REDUCTION ACT: Biden to sign health and climate bill on Tuesday (The Hill, E&E News, AP), ‘A lot more to do’: Lawmakers eye additional climate action (E&E News), Greens running ads on climate bill, plot future work (E&E $), Mining projects get new tax break under climate bill (E&E News), Oil industry gears up to tap US climate bill for carbon capture projects (Reuters), Unions hope Biden's climate funding does more than Obama's (E&E $), Utility leaders hail clean energy tax incentives as House sends historic climate bill to Biden’s desk (Utility Dive), What inflation – and the Inflation Reduction Act – mean for the clean energy sector (Utility Dive), How the Inflation Reduction Act might affect you — and change the US (Washington Post $), Infrastructure money to almost double zero-emission buses on road (Washington Post $)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: After finally passing a climate bill, US calls on others to act (Climate Home), UN chief taps Grenada’s Simon Stiell as new UN climate chief (AP, The Guardian, Reuters)

FOSSIL FUELED WAR: Europe's efforts to shield households from soaring energy costs (Reuters Factbox), An invasion, and then a coal-buying frenzy (Wall Street Journal $), Europe Power: Lower wind supply and rising consumption lift spot price (Reuters), The UK is heading for a winter of discontent (Energy Monitor), Germany slaps levy on households to spread pain of gas surge (Bloomberg $)

PUBLIC OPINION: New poll shows American doubts on personally affecting climate change (Axios), Poll: most Texans want abortions legal, semi-assault rifles restricted (Black Wall Street Times)

AGENCIES: NOAA chief scientist sets sights on climate, integrity (E&E $), What’s in store for bureaucrats if Trump regains power (E&E News)

EPA: Regan on climate bill: 'This is a big day for EPA' (E&E $), Race car emissions suit against EPA sputters out (E&E $)

DOI: BLM, oil company agree to eliminate idle oil wells at monument (E&E $), Director sworn in at USGS (E&E $)

THE HILL: Democrats ask Biden for DOE Science Office budget hike (E&E $)

ELECTIONS: White House plans campaign to highlight policy wins ahead of midterm elections (Reuters), Primaries to decide fate of Liz Cheney, Sarah Palin (E&E $)

CITIES AND STATES: Chicago commits to 100% renewable energy at city facilities by 2025 (Utility Dive)

FERC: LNG company says FERC delays threatening Texas project (E&E $)

PUBLIC LANDS: Why scientists have pumped a potent greenhouse gas into streams on public lands (NPR)

IMPACTS: Facing extreme weather events, most Americans point to climate change (The Hill)

HEAT: 'Gravity waves' offer hope to coral in warmer ocean — study (E&E $), Hotter summers may fuel increase in skin cancers, doctors warn (The Guardian), What if we named and ranked heat waves like hurricanes? (Yale Climate Connections)

• CHINA: China shuts factories, rations electricity as heat wave stifles economy (Washington Post $), China lithium hub Sichuan cuts power supply to industry amid heatwave (Reuters)

DROUGHT: Why low water levels on the Rhine river hurt Germany's economy (Reuters Factbox), China's Yangtze river shrinks as heatwave, drought threaten crops (Reuters), Colorado River at drought tipping point (Axios), Drought is driving elephants closer to people. The consequences can be deadly (NPR), How drought-hit Kenyan herders stopped lions from raiding their villages (Thomson Reuters Foundation), Mexican drought spurs a south Texas water crisis (Inside Climate News), Megadrought emergency in Grand Canyon (NBC)

WILDFIRES: On the fire line after prison (Atmos), Wildfires in Europe burn area equivalent to one-fifth of Belgium (The Guardian), Goats and sheep deploy their appetites to save Barcelona from wildfires (The Guardian)

WATER: Colorado River cuts expected for Arizona, Nevada and Mexico (AP), Nevada official: Colorado River water-sharing talks have accomplished ‘exactly nothing' (The Hill), Nevada calls for feds to intervene on Colorado River (Politico Pro $), Pipe dreams: why far-fetched Western water projects won’t go away (Grist), Big changes are coming for the Colorado river soon—and they could get messy (National Geographic), Tensions grow over lack of a water deal for the shrinking Colorado River (LA Times $), SNWA chief criticizes inaction on Lake Mead water (Las Vegas Review Journal), Southwest states facing tough choices about water as Colorado River diminishes (CBS)

RENEWABLES: EnBW sells minority stake in 597 MW German solar portfolio (Reuters), Hawaii’s biggest solar+battery plant comes online — just in time (Canary Media)

• SOUTH AFRICA: South African coal miner Seriti plans 450 MW Mpumalanga wind farm (Reuters), South Africa's 'silent revolution' as those with cash go solar (Reuters)

"RENEWABLES": Politicians are touting corn ethanol as a climate solution. The truth is more complicated (TIME)

BUILDINGS: Global heat pump use to more than double by 2030 — analysis (E&E $)

OIL & GAS: How China manages refined fuel exports (Reuters explainer), NEPA settlement pauses Colo. oil and gas development (E&E $), US natgas futures down 1% on rising output, lower demand (Reuters), European gas prices surge toward record (Wall Street Journal $)

NUKES: Calif. governor gives lifeline to state’s last nuclear plant (E&E News), Should California keep its last nuclear plant open? The battle is back (Canary Media)

COAL: UK coal mine dilemma pits energy crisis against green goals (E&E $), More flooding in Mexican mine frustrates rescue effort for 10 miners (Reuters)

GRID: California to study plans for creating Western regional grid (E&E $)

AGRICULTURE: Climate bill rekindles debate over industrial livestock farms (E&E $), Encore: rising temperatures could threaten Georgia peaches (NPR), Out in the fields, contemplating humanity and a parched almond farm (Inside Climate News)

WILDLIFE: Scientists scramble to explain why western Alaska wild salmon stocks are low (NPR), Columbia River's salmon are at the core of ancient religion (AP)

INTERNATIONAL: Boris Johnson told to tackle rising energy bills to avoid ‘extreme suffering’ this winter (The Guardian), Norway's climate choice: old oil, gas fields switch to green power or close early (Reuters), Wind, hydrogen, no demolitions: how next PM can put UK on net zero path (The Guardian), Canada’s onetime 'Green Jesus’ okays oil megaproject (Washington Post $)

• Virginia’s clean-energy future is in peril (Washington Post, Alfonso Lopez and Michael Town op-ed $)
• OPEC, IEA oil demand views converging, optimistic over risks (Reuters, Clyde Russell column)
• Celebrate climate action — but do not let your guard down (The Hill, Gary Yohe op-ed)
• Without new leasing, Gulf Coast businesses face certain downturn (Houston Chronicle, Jennifer Medcalf op-ed)
• Climate legislation is finally here: It’s time to vote for your future (The Hill, Mike Hoffmann op-ed)
• MISO can improve reliability before building transmission (Utility Dive, Rao Konidena and Allison Bates Wannop op-ed)
• Inflation Reduction Act: Deploy, deploy, deploy! (The Hill, William Becker op-ed)
• How some subsidies in the climate bill keep oil and gas alive (New York Times, Charles Harvey and Kurt House op-ed $)
• The ESG investing backlash arrives (Wall Street Journal, Editorial Board $)
• Arizona defends retirees against ESG (Wall Street Journal, Mark Brnovich op-ed $)
• Why Republicans turned against the environment (New York Times, Paul Krugman column $)

Fox News Attacks Leo DiCaprio For Funding 'Nuisance' Climate Lawsuits, Daily Caller Gets Confused By The Phrase 

In the US legal system, a "nuisance" isn't just an annoyance, it's a term of art used to describe either the use of one's own property in a manner that interferes with another's use of theirs ("private nuisance"), or doing something that hurts the community writ large ("public nuisance"). 

For example, a private nuisance might be like a neighbor's dog that barks 24/7 or cigarette smoke that drifts up into your child's bedroom, while a public nuisance would be if a company dumps toxic waste into a river. The dozens of lawsuits against fossil fuel companies on the grounds that the carbon pollution from their product represents a public nuisance that's raising sea levels, worsening extreme weather and otherwise hurting public health, are known as "climate nuisance" suits. The climate is the subject of the public nuisance lawsuits. If you're talking to someone who knows all about it, you'd refer to them as "climate nuisance" lawsuits. 

It's also worth noting that "nuisance lawsuits," are not at all the same thing as "frivolous lawsuits." A frivolous lawsuit (or motion, or pleading, etc.) is one that wastes the court's and other parties' time, money, and resources with no reasonable legal or factual basis for success and attorneys can be sanctioned for filing such a lawsuit. It's Rule 11(b) of the Federal Rules of Civil Procedure, and every lawyer learns it in their first semester of law school. 

We say all this, because a story that Fox News ran this week (by dedicated climate disinfo guy Thomas Catenacci) accuses Leonardo DiCaprio of funding climate nuisance lawsuits. The Catenacci story, republished at the NY Post and picked up by the Washington Examiner tries real hard to turn some emails to and from academics talking about climate lawsuits into a scandal by calling a funding recipient a "dark money group," (despite the story coming from a dark money group and former tobacco lawyer now funded by the fossil fuel industry). But the person who apparently replaced Catenacci at the Daily Caller clearly needs an explainer. 

Kay Smythe, "news and commentary writer" at the Daily Caller, headlined her copy+paste version of Catenacci's story as: "REPORT: Leo DiCaprio Used Dark Money To Annoy People With Climate Lawsuits."   

The Caller's staff apparently either itself thinks, or wants its readers to think, that the point of these lawsuits isn't to hold companies accountable to clean up and repay the public for the damage caused by their pollution, but is instead just annoying them with "nuisance climate-related lawsuits," using the term in the colloquial sense instead of the accurate legal sense it's being used in the FOIA'd academic emails that form the basis of the attempted hatchet job. 

In their zeal to look clever, the Daily Caller confused the term "nuisance" for "vexatious" or "frivolous". For Smythe and any non-legalese-speakers in the audience, here's a sentence using the terms accurately: Chris Horner, who fed this story to Catenacci about the emails referencing the DiCaprio foundation support climate nuisance lawsuits holding fossil fuel companies accountable, is better known for getting paid by fossil fuel companies to target climate scientists with baseless or frivolous and harassing or vexatious FOIA lawsuits demanding they release their emails in an attempt to rerun the Climategate disinfo playbook.

Given that the Daily Caller is less known for hiring smart reporters than it is for repeatedly hiring racist white nationalists, we can't say we're surprised. 

But since they were just copying the work of Catenacci without actually adding anything of value, it is impressive that they nonetheless found a way to make the sad little story of DiCaprio actually doing something decent with his money even more asinine! 

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