MEDIA BRIEFING:

Join the Water Hub tomorrow at 10:00 am PST for an expert panel on multi-solving with nature in the Colorado River Basin. Discussion and Q&A with speakers from Stanford Water in the West, Sixth World Solutions, National Forest Federation, Audubon California, Watershed Management Group, and @WesternWaterGirl.

Proposed LNG Terminal Would Continue Legacy Of Environmental Racism In FL Panhandle: Residents of Port St. Joe, Florida, worry a proposed LNG export terminal will do little but continue a legacy of polluting industry in the predominantly Black part of town north of the railroad tracks, E&E News Reports. For decades, a now-shuttered paper mill and chemical plant inundated North Port St. Joe with noxious odors and toxic pollution — the paper company, which is now a major landowner and developer, allegedly dumped toxic waste into a nearby wetland, which it then filled and sold to Black families. “I can go down this street and name a whole lot of people that passed, on every street here. Most of them had cancer-related illnesses,” Beverly Ash, the owner of Moma Dot’s soul food restaurant in North Port St. Joe. “We don’t need another plant, because we had a lot of people that got sick and died.” Miami-based Nopetro LNG is seeking to build a — relatively — small LNG export terminal to avoid needing to satisfy federal permitting requirements, which it has admitted it wants to substantially expand after the plant is built.  In addition to the ongoing threat of toxic pollution, residents are also worried about potential explosions — worries validated by the explosion at the Freeport LNG facility in Texas. The liquefaction facility would be supplied by a local methane gas utility owned by the family of the Republican state representative who represents the area in the Florida House. "For me, we just got out of what I call the 'stank industry,'" said North Port St. Joe pastor Charles Gathers. "I'm not trying to stop growth … I just want good growth." (E&E News)

Drought shuts down 70% of Zimbabwe Power Supply: Record low water levels caused by years of drought are forcing the shutdown of the hydroelectric power plant responsible for generating more than 70% of Zimbabwe's electricity. The Zambezi River Authority ordered the Kariba Dam shutdown on Nov. 25; the jointly Zimbabwe- and Zambia-owned Kariba South hydropower station has already used more than its 2022 water allocation and usable storage was at just 4.6% of capacity. The plant had been producing 572 MW of the 782 MW generated in Zimbabwe. (By way of comparison, the 400 MW shortfall caused by PG&E accidentally shutting down a gas plant in August 2020 accounted for "roughly 0.5%" of California's power demand at the time.) Zimbabwe's already-unreliable electrical grid will likely get even spottier, and more polluting, with increasingly old and unreliable coal-fired power plants being called upon for more power. (AP, Reuters, Bloomberg $, Al Jazeera; Climate Signals background: Drought)

BLM Releases Draft Public & Native Lands Methane Rules: The Bureau of Land Management, on Monday, released draft rules to limit methane pollution from oil and gas drilling on public and Native lands. Along with requiring methane leak detection and repair plans in lease applications, the proposed rules would also limit flaring due to lack of pipeline capacity. Flaring and venting have increased on public and Native lands — enough gas was burned between 2010 and 2020 to power roughly 675,000 homes per year. Recent research has also found far more methane is being released into the atmosphere during flaring than EPA estimates; methane traps 80 times more heat in the atmosphere than CO2 over a 20-year timeframe. The draft rules follow the Biden administration's more comprehensive methane pollution reduction plan announced at COP27. (E&E News, AP, Washington Post $, Reuters)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Brittney Griner reportedly sent to ‘slave-like’ Russian prison (The Root, ESPN, Reuters, The Guardian, Daily Beast)

• VOTER SUPPRESSION: Long lines during only weekend of early voting in Georgia runoff election (NewsOne)

OWNING THE LIBS: Herschel Walker, South Park, and the Prius: how loving gas-guzzlers became political (Grist)

COP27: COP27 climate summit missed chance for ambition on fossil fuels, critics say (Reuters)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Groups ask EU to drop carbon removal from climate plans (AP), How ‘spurious science’ threatens Antarctica (E&E News), 

FOSSIL FUELED ENERGY CRISIS: Big Oil made big bucks. Will the windfall fund green energy? (E&E $)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: ‘This case has made legal history’: Young Australians just won a human rights case against an enormous coal mine (The Conversation), Greta Thunberg and 600+ Swedish youth activists sue gov’t over climate inaction (Democracy Now)

DENIAL & DISINFO & GREENWASHING: EU’s proposed carbon removal rules open to greenwashing, say experts (FT $), 'A forgotten conflict': Sahrawi activists slam Moroccan greenwashing amid Western Sahara occupation (Democracy Now)

FOSSIL VOLATILITY:

GOP vs. ESG: BlackRock, UBS ask to be removed from Texas’ energy boycott list (Bloomberg $), ESG woes may hurt public pensions’ returns (Bloomberg $)

IN MEMORIAM: Congressman Donald McEachin dies at 61 (Richmond Times-Dispatch, Virginia Mercury, Washington Post $, WWBT, ABC 27, WAVY, WDBJ, NBC Washington, USA Today, CNN, New York Times $, Bloomberg $, The Hill, Politico, Reuters, Axios, CBS, NBC, Business Insider, New York Post)

AGENCIES: GAO: Prioritize vulnerable communities for disaster aid (E&E $)

DOE: DOE tests blockchain technology to ensure grid security, resilience in first-of-its-kind demonstration (Utility Dive), DOE to test rapidly deployable, portable wind turbines for military use, disaster relief (Utility Dive), DOE watchdog begs for cash to combat ‘large-scale frauds’ (E&E News), DOE girds for House Republican oversight (E&E $)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden requests $3B for residential solar, battery systems in Puerto Rico (Utility Dive), Top US, French officials discuss electric vehicle dispute (Politico Pro $), Biden's clean-energy czar faces his toughest task yet (Washington Post $)

THE HILL: Congress looks to intervene in rail dispute as strike deadline looms (New York Times $)

HOUSE: Energy companies expect more friends in Washington as Republicans take over house (Wall Street Journal $), House Democrats to elect next generation of leaders (E&E News)

SENATE: Infrastructure law hearing to focus on EV sector, builders (E&E $), Senate committee takes up energy, drought, resource bills (E&E $)

POLITICS: Another Fox News-driven target of likely GOP probes: ‘Looting’ (Washington Post $), 'Nonpartisanship'? Murkowski, Peltola notch election wins (E&E $)

NOMINEES & CONFIRMATIONS: Dems look to make progress on energy, environment nominees (E&E $)

TRIBES: On Vancouver Island, Land Back looks like going home (Atmos)

• HAIR BACK: Harvard announces return of Native hair samples (Indian Country Today)

CITIES AND STATES AND DISENFRANCHISED COLONIAL TERRITORIES: Puerto Rico’s troubled power utility faces make-or-break moment (Bloomberg $), Alaska fights for federal cleanup of contaminated lands (E&E $), The lowly boxcar can make your city a better place to live (Bloomberg $), Troubled Puerto Rico power grid faces uncertain future (Politico Pro $), California draft rule targets train pollution (E&E $)

• TEXAS: Houston power outage triggers boil water notice for millions (E&E News, AP, The Hill), Houston boil water notice forces schools to shut down (Texas Tribune), Texas enviro agency 'reluctant regulator,' state report says (E&E $)

CITIZEN SCIENCE: It takes a village to map the urban heat island effect (Bloomberg $)

IMPACTS: Climate change made rain more extreme during Pakistan’s deadly 2022 floods (Yale Climate Connections), Spotlight on illegal buildings as Ischia death toll now at 8 (AP, Reuters)

GREAT BARRIER REEF: Great Barrier Reef should be placed on the ‘in danger’ list, UN-backed report shows (CNN, AP, New York Times $)

FLOOD INSURANCE: Private flood insurance coming to FHA-backed mortgages (E&E $)

HEAT: The 2021 Pacific Northwest heat wave was a climate change warning (Axios)

HURRICANES: We’re decoding ancient hurricanes’ traces on the sea floor – and evidence from millennia of Atlantic storms is not good news for the coast (The Conversation)

WATER: Water as part of the climate solution (Inside Climate News), Alfalfa and hay use more than half of Utah's water, but also helps the environment (Casper Star-Tribune), Drying California lake to get $250M in US drought funding (AP), Research tests drought strategies for ranchers on Colorado River (E&E $)

RENEWABLES: Climate tech accelerator aims to bridge gaps for Black and Brown entrepreneurs (Energy News Network), Green factories are changing minds in more conservative US states (Bloomberg $), JPMorgan downgrades First Solar, cites stock’s recent outperformance following climate bill passage (CNBC), Spain's Acciona to build $1.3 billion wind farm in Australia in expansion drive (Reuters)

"RENEWABLES": Shell buys Nature Energy in $2 billion push into biogas (Bloomberg $, Wall Street Journal $)

OIL & GAS: BP weighs ending its 70-year-old Statistical Review of World Energy (Reuters), Oil rises with OPEC+ seen considering cuts amid faltering market (Bloomberg $), Researcher says ancient agricultural fields are threatened by oil and gas near Chaco (New Mexico Political Report), The week that could unravel the global oil market (FT $)

🤔 🤔 🤔: Why Ohio’s top oil and gas producing counties continue to lag in jobs (Energy News Network)

PLASTICS: Behind the plastic industry's latest recycling push (E&E $)

COAL: ‘Still creeped out’: Queensland activist asks Adani to destroy surveillance photos taken of family (The Guardian)

UTILITIES: With federal aid on the table, utilities shift to embrace climate goals (New York Times $)

NUKES: How to tear down a nuclear power plant in Vermont and bury it in Texas (Bloomberg $)

GRID: A cleaner US energy grid will boost air quality — study (E&E $), Midwest transmission project goes on trial again in Illinois (E&E $)

EVs: Hamilton succeeds Rosberg as Extreme E's champion team owner (The Race, Reuters, Road & Track), Schools scramble to prepare for $1B in federal money for electric buses (Canary Media), Who's next? Chinese EVs drive Stellantis' Jeep off the road (Reuters)

PFAS: As the outdoor industry ditches ‘forever chemicals,’ REI lags behind (Grist)

AVIATION: Rolls-Royce tests hydrogen-fueled aircraft engine in aviation world first (FT $)

AGRICULTURE: Food of the future: London air raid shelter to underground farm (Reuters)

BOOKS: Best new books on the environment (FT $)

BUSINESSES: Amazon vows to replenish all the water it uses for data centers (Bloomberg $)

RELIGION: Rowan Williams urges wealthy to stump up cash for climate fund (The Guardian)

WILDLIFE: Climate change is causing narwhals to change migration patterns (Bloomberg $)

• COP15: International conference prompts new species protections (E&E $), COP15: Why the world needs a new deal to protect nature (Context, explainer), COP15 essential reading: Six books that explain the biodiversity crisis (The Guardian)

INTERNATIONAL: Italy plans 50% one-off windfall tax on energy firms in 2023 (OilPrice), Prince William focuses US trip on climate amid Harry row (AP), South Africa faces decade of blackouts without gas, study finds (Bloomberg $), Sunak eyes u-turn on onshore wind as tory divisions grow (Bloomberg $), Tories will not reach ‘embarrassingly poor’ [UK] nature targets by 2030, Labour says (The Guardian)

• Help Black farmers, who know hyperlocal doesn’t mean fancy (New York Times, Tressie McMillan Cottom column $)
• Small modular reactors will not save the day. The US can get to 100% clean power without new nuclear. (Utility Dive, Arjun Makhijani op-ed)
• How to design a formula to pay for climate loss (Reuters, Hugo Dixon column)
• Is OPEC+ about to cut oil output again? Don’t rule it out (Bloomberg, Julian Lee column $)
• Here’s how to get private finance into climate action (Context, Makhtar Diop and Oliver Bäte op-ed)
• Nick Fuentes is a symptom of the GOP’s problem, not the disease (Washington Post, Philip Bump column $)
• Protecting America’s abundant supply of reliable, affordable electric power (The Hill, Rep. Randy Feenstra (R-IA) and Chuck Soderberg op-ed)
• Venezuelan oil offers little to US or Chevron (Reuters, Robert Cyran commentary)

Daily Caller's Russian Propaganda Slides Under Radar As 'Climate Reparations' Take Heat From Disinfo Outlets

Just because we took last week off doesn't mean deniers did, too. Fortunately, the chatter post-COP27 looked a whole lot like the chatter at the start of it, focused on toxifying the simple and fair idea that polluters should pay to clean up their messes. 

While official UN negotiations use the phrase "loss and damages," some activists have called it "climate reparations," and sure enough, that's the language that disinfo outlets use to make their readers angry about the thought of sending their hard-taxed dollars to what they consider shit-hole countries. (Not, of course, that these outlets actually quote climate justice activists using the phrase in the pieces to even pretend to justify their use of the term as a dog whistle.) 

Most, like the Daily Caller, Free Beacon, and Wall Street Journal's opinion page, were clearly using the same talking points about COP27 being a (Sharm el-) "shakedown" and quoting professional disinformation spreaders, letting "reparations" trigger their readers without saying anything too explicit themselves. 

But one really stood out. Washington Examiner's Editor-in-Chief Hugo Gurdon apparently thought contributor Dan Hannan's piece calling "climate reparations" "laughable" was insufficient, and wrote his own column on "the climate grift." Hopefully no one read it when published the Examiner published it the day before Thanksgiving, lest they lose their appetite at his totally not accidentally self-revealing line: "Prompted by their own pink ideology and thrilled by the lash of Greta Thunberg, our 'leaders' adopt a posture of penitent readiness to be punished." 

Gurdon does not explain what a "pink ideology" is, and thankfully does not extend the BSDM metaphor starring former child activist Greta Thunberg any further in the otherwise forgettable piece.

More interesting and less stomach-turning was a take over at the Daily Caller. On Thanksgiving, they published an opinion piece by Rich Berdan, "a freelance writer based out of Detroit, MI." In it, he talks about "climate zealots" and reparations, of course, rattles off some already-debunked disinformation.

We hadn't heard of Berdan before, and given that the Daily Caller offered nothing but his freelance status in the byline, we went looking for more context with a good ol' Google search. 

Now that may sound like a basic step, but apparently it's one the untrained political activists posing as journalists over at the Daily Caller are unfamiliar with, because while this isn't yet another case of the Daily Caller "accidentally" (they claim) hiring another white supremacist, it's not much better. 

Because it turns out that Berdan also appears to do a little "freelance" for the Russian International Affairs Council, blogging for the think tank created to spread Russian propaganda and overseen by Foriegn Affairs minister and sanctioned Russian official Sergey Lavrov. 

And by what is surely only a terrible coincidence, Berdan also publishes pro-Russia/anti-Ukraine columns, including one at the Daily Caller where Berdan quotes Lavrov then calls on Republicans to end Putin's war "by stopping the flow of money and weapons" to Ukraine. 

Despite the obvious political bias of the outlet founded by Tucker Carlson, its steady stream of Koch-sponsored disinformation and Koch et al funding, and now its publication of Russian state propaganda, the Daily Caller is accredited with the International Fact-Checking Network (IFCN) that Facebook uses for its content moderation. 

You can file a complaint with the IFCN here. 

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