FIRST LOOK:

GreenLatinos is hosting a panel discussion AT 10:00 AM EST on Spanish-language climate disinformation in Washington DC and online. 

Gas, Oil Heating Prices To Jump This Winter: Skyrocketing fossil fuel prices could force American families to choose between heating their home and paying for other necessities this winter. The U.S. Energy Information Administration's annual Winter Fuels Outlook, released yesterday, warns families who heat their homes with methane gas will pay 28% more than last year, and 27% more than last year for those burning heating oil. Utilities are expected to pass those higher costs onto consumers. Those heating their homes with electricity will see costs rise by 10%. Rising prices, precipitated by the war in Ukraine and the oil and gas industry's record profits, will hit low-income families and renters — who are more likely to live in inefficient, poorly-insulated homes and who are unable to do anything about it — the hardest. "[Gas] is becoming a more expensive way to heat your home, your water and cook your food,” RMI's Mike Henchen told E&E, adding high methane gas prices are "making it more cost competitive to heat with electricity." (Winter Fuels Outlook: E&E $, Bloomberg $, Reuters, CNN, NBC, NPR; Utilities: Energy News Network)

Injustices Intersect In 'America's Winter Garden': Climate, worker, and housing injustice all intersect in Imperial County, California, High Country News reports. Also known as "America's Winter Garden" it is by far the hottest county in the West, and also the region's most Latino (more than 85% of residents identify as Hispanic or Latino. Imperial has seen at least 117 days so far this year with temperatures over 100°F, and in the border county dependent upon immigrant farmworkers, more than one-in-five Imperial residents live in poverty, and just one-third do not have air conditioning. In addition, more than 22% of elementary school children have asthma caused or exacerbated by the heat, agricultural dust, and truck traffic, as well as the region's smog-trapping topography. All of these factors force workers — outdoor workers are 35 times more likely to die from heat — to choose between putting their own health at risk and being able to put food on the table. “Just having the concern and uncertainty can trigger asthma, high blood pressure and other cardiovascular impacts … it reduces quality of life” said Luis Olmedo, head of the farmworker-founded Comité Civico del Valle. (High Country News; Climate Signals background: Extreme heat and heatwaves)

Ground Sinking Out From Under NOLA Community: The land beneath much of New Orleans is sinking, but among the worst-hit neighborhoods is the predominantly Black and Vietnamese community known as Village de L’Est, The Guardian and Floodlight report. There, subsidence is worse because a now-shuttered Entergy power plant pulled so much groundwater out from under the neighborhood that homes are sinking, foundations are crumbling, and driveways are cracking apart. (Be sure to click through for photos. — Ed.] Beyond damage to residents' homes, and neighborhoods, the subsidence also means the levees built (some fortified after Hurricane Katrina) to protect them from flooding are lower too. “If the land is subsiding then the levee is subsiding too,” said NASA scientist, and co-author of the report that identified subsidence around the power plant, Cathleen Jones. (The Guardian / Floodlight)

PAKISTAN: UN tells world to speed up response for flood-hit Pakistan (AP), Funds for Pakistan flood relief come too little, too late (Climate Home)

FOSSIL FUELED ENERGY CRISIS: Leak detected on another Russian pipeline connecting to Europe, but Poland says it looks accidental (CNBC, AP, OilPrice), Oil refinery strike grips France amid energy crisis (Wall Street Journal $), Putin blames Europe for energy crisis as price cap divides EU (Reuters), Putin’s war accelerates the EU’s fossil fuel detox (Politico Pro $), Germany’s new hunger for coal dooms a tiny village (New York Times $)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Latin American ministers call for finance tools to protect against climate disasters (Reuters), US, Germany back ‘fundamental reform’ of World Bank to scale climate finance (Climate Home, Politico Pro $)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Greens hope Biden doesn’t undermine climate lawsuits (E&E News), Youth climate plaintiffs cite novel precedent: SCOTUS’s landmark abortion ruling (Reuters)

(E&E $)

DENIAL & DISINFO: Leonard Leo pushed the courts right. Now he’s aiming at American society. (New York Times $)

CLIMATE COMMUNICATIONS: How activists put the ‘climate emergency’ on the map (E&E News)

SUCKS TO SUCK: Alex Jones owes nearly $1 billion for Sandy Hook lies, Connecticut jury rules (Connecticut Public Radio, Hartford Courant, AP, Washington Post $, NPR, NBC Connecticut, Rolling Stone, Bloomberg $, NBC, MSNBC, HuffPost, Insider, The Verge, Reuters, Politico, ABC, Deadline, Variety, CBS, Forbes, FT $, New York Times $, BBC, Vanity Fair, CNN, Wall Street Journal $, Al Jazeera, Axios, The Hill), Tucker Carlson warns that Alex Jones’s billion-dollar penalty will have chilling effect on lying (The New Yorker $)

AGENCIES: FEMA plan sparks fears of renewables slowdown (E&E News), Minority farmers' lawsuit claims US reneged on loan-relief plan (Bloomberg $), Why agencies buy less clean power under Biden than Trump (E&E News)

EPA: Bipartisan lawmakers prod EPA on 'forever chemicals' (E&E $), EPA finalizes SO2 cleanup strategy for Detroit area (E&E $)

DOE: DOE seeks input on $1B program to tackle energy gaps in rural and remote communities (Politico Pro $), Former DOE chiefs not sold on Russian oil price cap (Politico Pro $)

DOI: Interior offers cash to keep water in Colorado River (E&E $, Politico Pro $), Interior releases plan to remove 23 Calif. oil platforms (E&E $)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: Yellen warns of 'geopolitical coercion' by Russia, China (Reuters)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden 'to re-evaluate' US-Saudi relationship after OPEC oil cut (Axios, OilPrice, CNBC), Why Biden has few options after OPEC cut (E&E $), Biden’s national security strategy focuses on China, Russia and democracy at home (New York Times $, AP, Reuters), Biden names WWII camp in Colo. as his first national monument (E&E News, E&E News)

THE HILL: Congress eyeing ‘NOPEC’ bill to take on Saudi Arabia (The Hill), NDAA may carry water projects bill, billions for uranium (E&E $), NOPEC bill won’t bring oil prices down (OilPrice), Republicans repeatedly criticized Biden’s infrastructure program. Then they asked for money. (CNN)

SENATE: Manchin urges Biden to boost production after OPEC cuts (E&E $, Axios), Warren, Dems want to know much power Texas crypto miners are using (Gizmodo, Bloomberg $)

ELECTIONS: Connecticut GOP candidate acknowledges work in Saudi Arabia (AP), Getting voters the truth in a whirlwind of lies (Yes Magazine), Green groups tout 'largest-ever' get-out-the-vote effort (E&E $), Groups mobilize members to get pro-environment candidates elected (The Hill)

TRIBES: Land is power, and the Osage Nation is buying theirs back (Bloomberg $)

CITIES AND STATES AND DISENFRANCHISED TERRITORIES: Big Pharma is flooding Puerto Rico with toxic waste (Mother Jones), Delaware program repairs homes so they can be weatherized (Yale Climate Connections), Everyone gets the same chance,' with new City of Dallas racial equity plan (CBS), NYC congestion pricing ‘comes at the expense’ of New Jersey (Bloomberg $)

• CALIFORNIA: California delays decision to list Joshua tree as threatened (AP), California passed a landmark law about plastic pollution. Why are some environmentalists still concerned? (Inside Climate News)

IMPACTS: Amid rising seas, Atlantic City has no plans for retreat (AP), Flooding, climate change raise risk of infectious disease outbreaks (Bloomberg $), Hurricane Ian brings billion-dollar disasters this year well above average (Axios), Flood warnings as southeast Australia lashed by heavy rain (AP)

HURRICANES: Building a better hurricane ‘cone of uncertainty’ (Yale Climate Connections)

• IAN: Florida refuge gets reinforcements as it cleans up from Ian (E&E News), Rough times ahead: Hurricane Ian batters SW Florida economy (AP), Tens of thousands likely jobless after Hurricane Ian, economists say (CNN), Think DeSantis deserves praise for his Hurricane Ian response? Think again (MSNBC)
• JULIA: Hurricane Julia leaves a path of destruction through Central America (Grist)
• KARL: Tropical Storm Karl heads back at Mexico’s south Gulf coast (AP)

DROUGHT: Lake Mead water crisis is exposing volcanic rock from eruptions 12 million years ago (CNN)

RENEWABLES: Can renewables solve the inflation crisis? (Energy Monitor), Wind and solar farms are hard to predict. Utilities are looking to change that. (Wall Street Journal $), Brazil's 'people of the river' pay price for Amazon hydropower (Context)

BUILDINGS: Give up the gas: Switching to electric appliances could save Australians up to $1,900 a year, report says (The Guardian)

OIL & GAS: Diamondback energy to buy Permian driller firebird for $1.6 billion (Bloomberg $), OPEC slashes oil-demand forecasts after supply cuts (Wall Street Journal $)

NUKES: Brookfield, Cameco partner to buy nuclear services company Westinghouse in $7.9B deal (Utility Dive, Axios), Uganda seeks investors in nuclear plant that may cost $9 billion (Bloomberg $)

COAL: Coal miner Peabody Energy in deal talks with Australian rival Coronado (Wall Street Journal $), Judge rejects Mont. laws meant to help large coal plant (E&E $)

HYDROGEN: Green hydrogen corridor aims to harness Spanish sunshine and decarbonize Europe’s industrial north (CNBC)

UTILITIES: Electric utilities 101: A breakdown of the basics on US power providers (Canary Media), What are public utility commissions? A beginner’s guide (Canary Media), Maine opposes Versant Power, CMP rate increases as New England wrestles with higher power prices (Utility Dive), Major utilities oppose Sunnova’s ‘micro-utility’ microgrid proposal at California PUC (Utility Dive), Northeast embraces first-of-a-kind virtual power plant (E&E News), NREL partners with Duke Energy to chart green transition (E&E $), TVA sued over refusal to release gas plant communications (E&E $)

EVs: Billionaires battle Lyft over tax raises for EV credits (Gizmodo), Oakland tests electric transit buses for resilience in vehicle-to-building pilot (Utility Dive)

FOOD: Inside the global effort to keep perfectly good food out of the dump (New York Times $)

AVIATION: UN countries adopt ‘aspirational’ net-zero goal for aviation (Grist), No, your flight to Europe probably isn't 'carbon-neutral' (Gizmodo)

BOOKS: 4 science fiction and fantasy books mine a real issue: Climate change (Washington Post $)

BUSINESSES: Apple to withhold its latest employee perks from unionized store (Bloomberg $), Carbon credit use could curb company climate action, warns UK advisers (Reuters)

GENIOUS GRANTS: MacArthur 'genius' grants awarded to 3 environmentalists (E&E $)

CARBON PRICING: Calls grow for CFTC to address carbon markets (E&E $)

UMMMM…..: Will Qatar really produce ‘the first carbon-neutral World Cup in history’? (The Guardian)

WILDLIFE: Antarctic researchers report a 'dramatic decline' in adélie penguin (Gizmodo), Global wildlife populations have sunk 69% since 1970 - WWF report (Reuters), State of the Birds' report warns of continued declines (E&E $), Researchers report a staggering decline in wildlife. Here’s how to understand it. (New York Times $)

INTERNATIONAL: Britain plans 'de-facto windfall tax' on low-carbon energy producers (Reuters, FT $), UK clean-energy revenue cap may deter investment, industry says (Bloomberg $), Insulate Britain glue themselves to ground in PMQs-timed protest (The Guardian), Investors call for urgent clarity on level of UK energy windfall tax (FT $), Labor ramps up pressure on gas industry as energy prices rise but stops short of price caps (The Guardian), UK fracking and oil drilling good for environment, claims climate minister (The Guardian)

• Energy crisis? It isn’t that we have too little oil and gas. It’s that we have too much (The Guardian, Caroline Lucasop-ed)
• How do you accelerate energy transition when current crisis slams the brakes (Reuters, Clyde Russell column)
• I’m part of the ‘anti-growth coalition’ Liz Truss loves to hate – and I’m proud of it (The Guardian, George Monbiot op-ed)
• The fed did print oil once. Those days are gone (Bloomberg, Javier Blas column $)
• To end price spikes and climate catastrophe, ban crude oil exports (The Hill, Kassie Siegel op-ed)
• What Republicans should do about climate post-midterms (The Hill, Kristin Eberhard op-ed)
• It’s time for biodiversity’s Paris moment (Context, Lenoardo Lacerda op-ed)
• UN climate talks in Egypt must urgently focus on methane (The Hill, Morgan Bazilian, Arvind Ravikumar, and Simon Lomax op-ed)
• Westinghouse deal will overpower immediate fallout (Reuters, Robert Cyran op-ed)
• Truss plan to block solar farms is deeply unpopular – so why is she so keen? (The Guardian, Simon Evans op-ed)
• The UK has far bigger problems than a 'nanny state' (Bloomberg, Therese Raphael op-ed $)
• Hurricane Ian proved why Ron DeSantis’s version of climate resilience is a disaster (New York Times, Craig Pittman op-ed $)
• The inadequacy of the stories we told about the pandemic (New York Times, David Wallace-Wells column $)
• Is it time for the United States to break up with Saudi Arabia? (New York Times, Spencer Bokat-Lindell column $)

Climate Deniers' Newest Tactic: Claim To Be Debunking Myths And Misinfo

One of the key tactics of propagandists is to appropriate the language of their opposition, watering down a term's real meaning while glomming on to the attention it's getting. It's a way for them to make fringe ideas sound mainstream, by positioning them squarely within the bounds of reasonable discussion as a Trojan Horse for rejected, racist or otherwise wrong arguments and narratives pushed for ideological or industrial reasons. 

Now, debunking climate denial has become so popular and mainstream that those spreading it have resorted to assuming the opposition position: They're actually the ones debunking climate myths. 

John Stossel, for example, continues to prove why he was a top contractor for the Koch Institute, with a (monetized Youtube) video on "Hurricane Myths" in the wake of Ian. The first "myth" he addresses by attacking FEMA, the second "myth" is that price gouging is bad. Yes, he defends people exploiting emergencies by price gouging (seriously!). 

The third "myth" is that hurricanes are getting worse, and he uses Pat Michaels to make his claims, despite (or because of) the fact that Pat Michaels was funded by the fossil fuel industry to spread climate disinformation, and the even more pertinent fact that Pat Michaels literally can not have anything relevant to say about Hurricane Ian is because he's dead. 

Stossel's fourth “myth” is that "America must have government flood insurance," for which he cites his own experience of having a house wash into the ocean, but that being fine because of federal flood insurance. 

The man admits that sea level rise destroyed his oceanfront house, and that it cost him nothing because of federal flood insurance, in a video arguing that climate change is no problem and federal flood insurance is bad, actually. Incredible!

Similarly bold in its unintentional irony is a piece at RealClearEnergy by Canadian disinfo spigot Tom Harris and Dr. Madhav Khandekar, who you know has nothing going on because his byline cites him as "an Expert Reviewer for the 2007" IPCC report. But literally ANYONE can sign up to be an "expert reviewer" for the IPCC because all that is required is "a self-declaration of expertise." 

So putting that in the byline means someone is desperate to appear credible, but the fact that he didn't even bother to sign himself up to review any of the reports since 2007 is rather telling! 

Especially since the person whose comments the entire column is attempting to rebut is Katharine Hayhoe’s, who is  an actual practicing climate scientist, and an actual lead author of the US National Climate Assessment, basically an American version of the IPCC reports. So we'll not waste any further time on their disinfo, beyond pointing out that it's framed as "Debunking the climate myths of Hurricane Ian" but obviously is merely reiterating myths in an attempt to debunk reality.  

We expect to see more of that in an event tomorrow. Because you know how sometimes disinfo front groups appropriate the names/initials of real institutions to seem more credible, like how the Oregon Petition Project formatted its denial petition to look like a Proceedings of the National Academies of Sciences paper?

Now the National Academies of Science rip-off, the "National Association of Scholars," a rightwing disinfo group, is holding a "climate misinformation" event with... Roger Pielke Jr., the basement-office'd, self-appointed "honest broker" of science advice who always says he supports a carbon tax and climate policy while delivering talking points and conspiracy theories about how billionaires "corrupted climate science" to climate deniers who are very much opposed to climate policy. 

It's hosted by J. Scott Turner, "Director of the Intrusion of Diversity in the Sciences Project." 

If you skimmed it, go back and read his title again. His whole job is being anti-anti-racist! Definitely someone interested in a good faith conversation about climate misinformation. 

It's tomorrow, if anyone would like to attend and tell us about it, here's the Eventbrite link.

Obviously the climate content is paramount, but we'd also be curious to ask Pielke what he thinks about this other NAS's views on things like women and people of color in STEM (who needs 'em?), slavery (British slaves had better live than free Africans) and our personal favorite: The Case for Colonialism.

Runner up: the "most commented" piece on the nas.org page announcing Pielke's event is "Against Transgenderism."

Illustrating once again how organizations built to spread conservative propaganda and industrial disinformation will exploit hatred and bigotry to gain support for otherwise unpopular policies, and how propaganda co-opts the very language used to describe and counter it.

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