FIRST LOOK: 

WRI will host a press call to take stock of where we stand on global climate action as we approach the doorstep of COP27 in Sharm-El Sheikh, Egypt in November. TOMORROW at 8:30 am ET

California Grid Avoids Blackouts As Heat Smashes Records: The California electrical grid survived — barely — a day of widespread, brutal heat on Tuesday. “This will be essentially the worst September heat wave on record, certainly in Northern California and arguably for the state overall,” UCLA climate scientists Daniel Swain said during a Twitter Spaces discussion Tuesday. “By some metrics, it might be one of the worst heat waves on record, period, in any month, given its duration and its extreme magnitude, especially in Northern California and especially in the Sacramento region.” As the mercury rose to 116°F in Sacramento, records fell across the state and electricity demand skyrocketed to a new all-time record of 52,061 megawatts, according to the state's grid operator, known as CAISO. Rolling blackouts were only avoided by California electricity customers — urged on by a well-timed text alert — voluntarily reducing their electricity demand during peak hours, along with rooftop solar panels and grid-scale batteries. Heat is the deadliest form of climate-related severe weather and compounds underlying societal inequities including racist housing policy; 42 million people were under excessive heat warnings Tuesday. The extreme heat, on top of the ongoing megadrout across the Western U.S. created extremely dangerous "red flag" fire conditions across parts of Idaho, Oregon, Washington, and the entire state of Montana. At least four people have been killed by fires across California this week. (Heat & Grid: Washington Post $, AP, LA Times $, San Francisco Chronicle, San Francisco Chronicle, Reuters, Bloomberg $, E&E News, New York Times $, USA Today, Vox, New York Times $, Wall Street Journal $; Text message: Bloomberg $; Fires: The Guardian, New York Times $, Reuters; Heat records: KCRA Sacramento, Democracy Now, Fresno Bee; Climate Signals background: Extreme heat and heatwaves, Wildfires, Western megadrought)

EPA Denies Cheniere Ask To Emit More Formaldehyde: The EPA on Monday denied a request from Cheniere Energy to exempt the LNG company from air pollution rules. Cheniere, the biggest exporter of liquified methane gas from the U.S., had sought exemptions from rules limiting carcinogenic formaldehyde pollution from its turbines. “Because it’s costly, Cheniere is asking for exemptions to EPA rules so they can continue to release cancer-causing pollutants into our communities — the same poor neighborhoods President (Joe) Biden has vowed to protect,” James Hiatt of the Louisiana Bucket Brigade, told the AP. (AP, Seeking Alpha, Reuters)

Thwaites Glacier Capable Of Existentially-Rapid Retreat: A massive Antarctic glacier is less stable and could potentially cause more and more rapid sea level rise than previously predicted, a study published Monday in Nature Geoscience finds. The Thwaites Glacier, known as the "doomsday glacier" because it holds enough water to raise global sea levels by multiple feet, is especially susceptible to rising ocean temperatures caused by climate change because it rests on the seabed and can thus be melted from underneath. After conducting an extensive mapping of the ocean floor, researchers found that at some point in the last 200 years, the base of the glacier dislodged from the seabed and retreated at double its recent rate of retreat. If Thwaites underwent another such rapid retreat, the results could be “existential,” University of South Florida marine geologist Alastair Graham, a co-author of the study, told the Washington Post. The specter of the rapid disintegration of the Thwaites Glacier comes as Greenland — which lost enough ice in one weekend this summer to put West Virginia under a foot of water — recorded its largest September ice melt on record. “This [September] event demonstrates how global warming does not only increase the intensity but also the length of the melting season,” Maurice van Tiggelen, a polar scientist from Utrecht University in the Netherlands, told the Washington Post. (Thwaites: Washington Post $, CNN, The Hill, CBS, USA Today, ABC, Business Insider, NBC, CNN, USA Today; Greenland: Washington Post $; Climate Signals background: Glacier and ice sheet melt, Sea level rise)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Daring to speak up about race in a divided school district (New York Times $), Unplugged: why utilities are more likely to disconnect Black, Latino, and Indigenous households (Grist), Smoke from ag burning contributes to long-term health effects for Valley Latino residents (KVPR)

• JACKSON WATER CRISIS: Black businesses in Jackson feel the hit as water crisis continues to impact residents (NewsOne), Jackson water crisis: Lawmakers react to Governor’s privatization comments (NBC29), Mississippi Gov. on Jackson water crisis: ‘Privatization is on the table’ (The Hill), The Water in Jackson, Mississippi, Was Bad Even When It Worked (Esquire), Water pressure returns to Jackson, Mississippi, with limits on how to use tainted H2O (The Grio, New York Times $)

PAKISTAN FLOODING: Damage from Pakistan floods is ‘far greater’ than $10 billion (Bloomberg $), Pakistan is bearing the brunt of the climate crisis despite ‘small carbon footprint,’ minister says (CNBC), Pakistan struggles to avert danger as floods rise, death toll tops 1,300 (Reuters), Pakistan tries to avert lake overflow amid floods; UN warns of more misery (Reuters), 'Start my life from zero': Poor Pakistanis face heavy cost of floods (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

FOSSIL FUELED ENERGY CRISIS: Europe is sacrificing its ancient forests for energy (New York Times $), Ukraine war forces German parties to cross red lines on energy, defense (Reuters factbox), Europe fights Putin’s energy crisis with cash (Bloomberg $), Europe’s new dirty energy: the ‘unavoidable evil’ of wartime fossil fuels (FT $), Germany introduces steps to boost renewable energy expansion (Reuters), Russia has cut off gas supplies to Europe indefinitely. Here’s what you need to know (CNBC), Scholz: Germany well-placed on energy to get through winter (AP), What’s happening with Ukraine’s threatened nuclear plant (AP)

COP27: Gabon record carbon credit issuance a ‘litmus test’ before COP27 (Bloomberg $)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: African leaders blast European no-shows at climate adaptation summit (Climate Home), Australia urged to ‘pull its weight’ on climate despite praise for Albanese ‘step-up’ (The Guardian), East Timor president pushes back on environmental criticism (AP)

DENIAL: How a billionaire’s 'attack philanthropy' secretly funded climate denialism and right-wing causes (ProPublica), Jacob Rees-Mogg, who decried ‘climate alarmism,’ to take on UK energy brief (The Guardian)

GOP vs. ESG: Inside Texas’ attempt to turn ESG upside down (E&E News)

INFLATION REDUCTION ACT: ‘Make the clean stuff cheaper’: did the IRA kill the carbon tax? (Grist), Climate law a ‘game changer’ for highways and bridges (New York Times $), ‘Huge amount of money’ in climate law could spawn gas bans (E&E News), Clean energy projects surge after climate bill passage (New York Times $), How faith groups helped pass the climate law (E&E News)

PUBLIC OPINION: Cost of living and climate are higher global priorities than Ukraine, poll finds (The Guardian)

NEWS YOU CAN USE: Does turning the air conditioning off when you’re not home actually save energy? (Big Think)

AGENCIES: HUD threatens Texas over alleged bias in disaster aid (E&E $), Inside the small federal agency funding the biggest climate moonshots (Protocol), OSHA fines over winter home explosion top six figures (The Aspen Times)

EPA: The methane rule is under review. Here’s what it would do (E&E News)

DOI: Court upholds Biden oil leasing pause (E&E $), GAO: Trump team bogged down sensitive Interior grants (E&E News)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: Yellen says US back on track to ending fossil-fuels dependence (Bloomberg $)

WHITE HOUSE: Democrats push White House to strengthen environmental justice efforts (Washington Post $), Biden heads to Detroit auto show (E&E News), DOE cyber official [Cheri Caddy] takes on new role for White House (E&E $), Meet Biden’s climate team 2.0 (E&E News)

THE HILL: Congress returns as Washington faces a full energy agenda (Politico Pro $), Lawmakers race to pass spending bill, Biden energy request (E&E News), What to expect on permitting reform as Congress returns (E&E News), Tim Ryan backing Manchin plan for expediting energy permits (The Hill), Manchin’s plan to fast-track energy projects headed for showdown (Bloomberg $), US Senate Democrats could link same-sex marriage, gov't funding bills -source (Reuters), Democrats face big legislative to-do list in sprint to midterms (Bloomberg $)

ELECTIONS: Will climate change figure significantly in the 2022 midterms? (Texas Climate News), Enviro group [LCV] backs independent challenger [Evan McMullin] to Mike Lee (E&E $)

TRIBES: ‘High and dry’: How toxic coal ash could be the next opportunity — or the next broken promise — for the Northern Cheyenne tribe (Energy News Network), NMED works on rules to limit carbon dioxide emissions from coal-fired power plants (New Mexico Political Report)

CITIES AND STATES: South Portland [Maine] launches rebate program for electric vehicles, lawn equipment (Portland Press-Herald), The most common congestion pricing misconceptions from marathon public hearings (Gothamist), Va. eyes exit from carbon trading program in 2023 (E&E News), What makes state legislatures uniquely prone to alleged harassment (The 19th* News), California vows to ban gas-fueled cars. But its record on big climate promises is mixed (LA Times $)

IMPACTS: A summer of climate disasters (New York Times $), Storm knocks out power for most residents of an Arizona city (AP), Tractors to the rescue as floods submerge India's tech hub (Reuters), India’s Bengaluru flooded after days of torrential rains (AP), East[ern] Med[iterranean] especially at risk as world heats up, report warns (AP)

• NEW ENGLAND RAIN: Rhode island streets turn to rivers amid nearly 11 inches of rain (Washington Post $), New England's huge rainfall, by the numbers (and how it affects the drought) (NBC Boston), Storms move out of region, leaving little damage behind (Boston Globe $)
• AFRICA: Sudan official: Death toll from seasonal floods reaches 112 (AP), Climate change leaves Iraq’s ‘breadbasket’ with less water, wheat, and farmers (The New Humanitarian), For New Zealand Māori, an uncertain future as fish move away (Hakai Magazine), Thousands battle 'catastrophic' floods after Chad's heaviest rains in 30 years (Reuters), Red Cross: Landslide kills 15 in remote Uganda district (AP), UN: At least $1 billion needed to avert famine in Somalia (AP, Democracy Now),

HEAT: ‘Heatflation’ hits the farmers market (New York Focus), Heat waves are getting hotter and more frequent. Here’s how to prepare.. (Washington Post $), A hiker died from heat exhaustion in Arizona and others were injured as dangerously high temps grip the West (CNN, AP)

DROUGHT: Could the drying up of Europe’s great rivers be the new normal? (Yale Environment 360), Drought and disease threaten renowned date palms in Africa's hottest oasis (Reuters), Utah’s great salt lake is disappearing, with mounting economic costs (Wall Street Journal $)

WILDFIRES: New task forces sent to fight remote NE Oregon wildfire (AP), Wildfire threatens homes, cabins near Idaho’s Alturas Lake (AP)

HURRICANES: Typhoon Hinnamnor pounds South Korea; Earl, Danielle lurk in Atlantic (Yale Climate Connections), Super typhoon brings high winds and 3 feet of rain to South Korea (Democracy Now), Hurricane Kay lashes southern Mexico with rain (AP), 

RENEWABLES: Now hiring: US offshore wind ramps up, workers taught safety (AP), Century-old church in Norfolk, Virginia, saves money by going solar (Yale Climate Connections), Switching the world to renewable energy will cost $62 trillion, but the payback would take just 6 years (Clean Technica), Tycoon bets on renewables in biggest 2022 Philippine IPO (Bloomberg $)

• TRANSMISSION: World spending on cables will have to rival solar and wind power (Bloomberg $), Accelerating renewable energy buildout faces big hurdles, even with Inflation Reduction Act: developers (Utility Dive), Embattled Maine power line foreshadows US climate obstacles (E&E News)

BATTERIES: See how electric cars are changing this South American desert (Washington Post $), Liquid battery startup Ambri ready to embark on first utility demonstration project with Xcel Energy (Utility Dive), The race for US lithium hinges on a fight over a Nevada mine (Bloomberg $)

LNG: 5th Circuit weighs Texas LNG challenge (E&E $)

METHANE: The oilfield that made the ocean burn last year is now spewing methane (Gizmodo)

OIL & GAS: Oil slips as China economic woes and risk-off sentiment weigh (Bloomberg $), OPEC+ output cut is mostly a ‘political snub’ and sends symbolic message, analysts say (CNBC), The $500bn Asia gas trap (Energy Monitor)

COAL: Blockades cut 70% of output at Colombia's Cerrejon coal mine (Reuters), Hawai’i shuts down its last coal plant (Grist)

HYDROGEN: Out of thin air: new solar-powered invention creates hydrogen fuel from the atmosphere (The Guardian), Uruguay tests green-hydrogen appeal with ocean wind tender (Bloomberg $)

UTILITIES: TVA, Southern eye extending lifespan of nuclear plants (E&E News)

GRID: 5 New England states propose ‘modular’ transmission plan to incorporate 8.4 GW of offshore wind (Utility Dive), Midwest grid operator feels heat as it signals need for gas (E&E News)

EVs: A better way to do smart EV charging: Talk to the car (Canary Media), Automakers race to build EV battery supply chains in North America (Utility Dive), Buick to buy out any US dealers who do not want to sell EVs (Detroit Free Press), Intercity bus lines begin trying out electric buses (Utility Dive)

CRYPTO: Low-carbon bitcoin? Crypto miners' green power talk angers Texas locals (Thomson Reuters Foundation)

ACT LOCALLY / OUT OF DESPERATION: Climate anxiety is a ‘motivating force’ behind eco-friendly choices: study (The Hill)

AGRICULTURE: Climate change raises new challenges for marijuana farmers (Bloomberg $), Food supply and security concerns mount as impacts stress agriculture (Yale Climate Connections), US farmers face plague of pests as global heating raises soil temperatures (The Guardian)

THEY'RE JUST LIKE US?: Kim Kardashian responds to climate change controversy: ‘You have to pick and choose’ how to help (Rolling Stone, HuffPost, Page Six)

BOOKS: Books by Black authors to read before the year ends (NewsOne)

REVOLVING DOOR: Trump EPA official joins law firm (E&E $)

GRETA: Greta Thunberg says Swedish politicians ignoring climate crisis as election nears (Reuters)

IN MEMORIAM: [Union of Concerned Scientists] co-founder [Kurt Gottfried] dies at 93 (E&E $)

WILDLIFE: Past reptiles survived climate change. Can their descendants? (E&E $), With less than 10 years to save Sumatran elephants, what’s being done? (Mongabay)

INTERNATIONAL: Dutch city becomes world’s first to ban meat adverts in public (The Guardian), Netherlands warns against EU carbon market fundraising plan (Reuters), The tough job of building institutions (New York Times $), UK energy bill boycott petition gains traction as new PM Truss under pressure to announce relief measures (CNBC)

• The energy crisis puts a health time-bomb under Britain’s most vulnerable (FT, Anjana Ahuja column $)
• I’ve had a long battle with climate despair. Now I’m leaving the ‘denial machine’ to their demons (The Guardian, Clive Hamilton op-ed)
• Record of climate denialism indicates how Rees-Mogg will handle energy brief (The Guardian, Fiona Harvey column)
• Give Africa’s youth a voice in shaping the climate agenda. It is their future at stake (The Guardian, Graça Machel op-ed)
• China's drought intensifies global coal shortage: Kemp (Reuters, John Kemp column)
• California loves EVs but will be stuck in hybrid for years (Bloomberg, Liam Denning column $)
• Europe can — and must — win the energy war (FT, Martin Wolf column $)
• On climate change, Republicans need a crash course in capitalism (Bloomberg, Michael Bloomberg op-ed $)
• Do ‘Trump judges’ exist? We’re about to find out (Bloomberg, Noah Feldman op-ed $)
• The world is getting less flat (New York Times, Paul Krugman column $)
• China's nuclear outlook is sunny and windy (Reuters, Robyn Mak op-ed)

But What If Climate Change Is Actually Good, Wonder Professional Morons In Unison 

Sometimes, when reading through reams of climate disinfo, what stands out isn't what one person writes, but when multiple, seemingly disparate people, all hit on the same line. We'll leave the full quantitative analysis to others (maybe you?) but for now, we just want to flag that not-racist Alex Epstein isn't the only one pushing the hilariously, intentionally ignorant disinformation line from the 90s "asking" 'what if climate change/CO2/fossil fuel emissions are actually a good thing.' 

Spoiler alert: they're not, the latest Social Cost of Carbon came in at $185/tonne CO2, and even the real "CO2 fertilization" effect is no longer a good thing! 

Over the Labor Day weekend, three pieces at three different disinfo outlets talking about three different subjects featured that same stupid idea: Maybe scientists who have spent decades calculating how bad climate change is and will be just forgot to look at fossil fuels' benefits. 

At the Watts Up With That blog, a guest post (as usual) from Gregory Rummo, former chemical CEO, "lecturer of chemistry" at Palm Beach Atlantic University and writer for the Christian climate disinfo-spreading Cornwall Alliance, took issue with a sociologist's paper in a Chemistry journal. Now, far be it for us to play Ivory Tower gatekeeper, but Rummo's complaint about a journal publishing someone from a different field of study is hilariously ironic for denierland, given their history of slipping climate disinfo into dodgy journals for different fields of study, AND that deniers like WUWT's namesake have failed to get their (pseudo)science published in ANY journals. 

Given the headline, "When a Chemistry Journal Publishes a Sociologist on Climate and Energy," and the way Rummo wrote his response, we assumed this was about a peer-reviewed study. But no, clicking through, and it turns out it's just a Chemical and Engineering News interview with developmental sociologist Holly Jean Buck, who has a message for the publication's chemical and engineering audience that Rummo didn't like: We have to stop fossil fuel emissions. 

Apparently "like all too many anti-fossil fuel activists, Buck simply fails to take into account all the direct benefits of fossil fuels—the enormous amount of energy indispensable to lifting and keeping whole societies out of poverty." Except one of the main points of stopping climate change is to protect societies that burned fossil fuels to build and lift themselves of poverty — and polluted the global climate in the process. And besides, what good is a fancy new house if it burns down or floods? 

But Rummo isn't mad that the author of "Ending Fossil Fuels: Why Net Zero Is Not Enough" didn't address the benefits of fossil fuels in her actual scholarship about the need to nationalize the fossil fuel industry, he's mad that she didn't answer the interview questions in the way he would have, if he were given such an opportunity. That she didn't heap praise on the industry destroying the climate was just one of his lengthy list of gripes. 

It's the same over at the Washington Times, where geophysicist David Deming claims in an op-ed headlined "the ignorant mob's climate crisis is a hoax," that "the positive benefits of carbon dioxide and warming ought to be balanced against any possible detrimental effects, yet they are rarely discussed." 

Deming of course doesn't cite any supposed cost-benefit analysis that fails to account for the positive benefits, because no such analysis exists. But that doesn't stop deniers from pretending!

Coming closest to showing his work and linking to sources for the outrageous claim that the destruction of the climate in which 10,000 years of human infrastructure and agriculture have developed is somehow a good thing is professional 'not the white guy saying this for once' Vijay Jayaraj, with another of his op-eds for the fossil fueled CO2 Coalition. In the Daily Caller, Jayraj's op-ed headline proclaims "Climate change transformed India into an agricultural superpower – just ask my grandparents."

Jayaraj does not, of course, actually prove that. Instead, he gives credit where it's due, Norman Borlaug's green revolution, before then saying that the massive industrialization process "was helped by moderate increases in both temperatures and CO2 levels." 

Jayaraj then goes on to cite NASA and the UN about the limited, narrow and specific benefits of warming or CO2 levels on plants, ignoring the larger "what about the costs?" question in precisely the way Deming and Rummo claim alarmists do about the benefits. 

But in doing so, and laying out where official sources do very much acknowledge and calculate the precise "benefits" of warming and CO2 levels on plant life, Jayaraj manages to disprove his fellow deniers' assertions that people simply ignore those facts. Deniers only know about that science, because of the very scientific institutions they're accusing of covering up those facts!

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