Wildfire Smoke Harms To Linger: While the immediate impacts of the dangerous pollution across the eastern U.S. from Canadian wildfires are clearing, the long-term risks of toxic air pollution, are not going away. Major League Baseball games, hundreds of airline flights, a White House Pride event, and even children's swimming lessons were canceled or postponed due to the toxic smoke. "The data shows that wildfire smoke is 10 times as toxic to children compared to the pollution that the Air Quality Index was built off of," Lisa Patel, a pediatrician and head of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, told the Washington Post. Climate change is increasing the size, frequency, and intensity of wildfires as well as the length of the fire season and multiple studies have found the fingerprint of global warming in Canadian wildfire activity. The long-term effects of the horrific air quality, especially in a region unaccustomed to such high levels of air pollution, are unknown, and even if quantified are unlikely to be included in official calculations of the cost of climate change. Meanwhile, though not the source of American air pollution, wildfires in Alberta, just downstream from oil sands extraction operations, forced the remote Indigenous community of Fort Chipewyan to evacuate ahead of a 60,000-acre wildfire. (Baseball: AP; Flights: NBC, Bloomberg $); Pride event: Bloomberg $, The Hill; Swimming lessons: Hot News staff; Wildfire smoke toxicity: Washington Post $, New York Times $; Outdoor worker impacts: AP, Washington Post $; Long-term damage: Heatmap $; Alberta fire: Democracy Now; Climate Signals background: Wildfires)

al-Jaber Silent On Oil Ties As (More) Alarms Raised: Sultan al-Jaber, head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company and president of COP28, said nothing about his connections to fossil fuels in a Thursday appearance in Bonn, Germany, in the leadup to the UN conference in November. His comments largely focused on his desire to make the November event inclusive for young people. The remarks landed just as multiple reports warned of the gulf between current and needed action to address the climate crisis. A study published Thursday in Earth System Science Data found global climate pollution has reached unprecedented levels, burning through half the planet's "carbon budget" for meeting the Paris Agreement goals in just three years. Another study, published Thursday in Science, found most countries' net-zero plans lack credibility, a report from Climate Focus warned the Russian war in Ukraine has substantially undermined efforts to address climate change, and the vast majority of major global companies have done basically nothing to address climate change in the last five years. (al-Jaber: AP; Emissions & carbon budget: The Guardian, Bloomberg $, Washington Post $, FT $; Russian war: CNN; Businesses: CNN)

El Niño Cycle Officially Declared: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration on Thursday officially declared that an El Niño has formed in the Pacific Ocean, and forecasters expect the phenomenon will bring hotter temperatures to an already heated world. The El Niño/La Niña cycle is the natural oscillation of the warming and cooling (respectively) of the Pacific Ocean, meaning that global temperatures — already heated by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels — will likely be pushed even higher. “The onset of El Niño has implications for placing 2023 in the running for warmest year on record when combined with climate-warming background,” University of Georgia meteorology professor Marshall Shepherd, told the AP. The phenomenon formed 1-2 months earlier than normal, which gives it over a 50% chance of being classified as “strong,” and a 25% chance of being supersized, according to Michelle L’Heureux, who leads NOAA’s El Nino/La Nina forecast office. El Niño cycles have wide-ranging effects on extreme weather worldwide, but one of the usual impacts — a muted Atlantic hurricane season — is unlikely to happen this year. Record hot Atlantic Ocean temperatures are expected to counteract hurricane-diminishing wind patterns. (AP, Washington Post $, Vox, Bloomberg $, Axios, Reuters)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: The ways pollution and climate change are linked to policing and incarceration (Capital B News), 240 Black Tesla workers seek class-action lawsuit over racism (Black Wall Street Times)

FOSSIL FUELED ENERGY CRISIS: Putin and Saudi crown prince discuss OPEC+ oil deal (OilPrice), Russia’s lack of oil cuts will test Saudi patience (Bloomberg $)

SMOKE: Air pollution in US from wildfire smoke is worst in recent recorded history (The Guardian), A third day of smoky air gives millions in US East Coast, Canada a new view of wildfire threat (AP), New York City could be in for a smoky summer as wildfires rage (Bloomberg $), Why some of the US has the most polluted air in the world right now (Vox), Wildfire smoke shrouds huge swaths of north America, turns New York City’s skies orange (Democracy Now), ‘Everything is dirty’ as wildfire smoke thickens over Toronto. (New York Times $), Canada wildfires smoke could linger over parts of US for days, officials warn (The Guardian), Canadian wildfire smoke drives record poor air quality in East Coast (Axios), D.C., Baltimore choked by smoke from Canada wildfires (Axios), In pictures: Canadian wildfires impact US air quality (CNN), Intense East Coast smog ‘a critical issue,’ says US senator (CNN), Millions in US under air quality alerts as Canada wildfires rage (CNN), Philadelphia’s air quality hits disastrous levels as smoke blankets city (Washington Post $), In pictures: Canadian wildfires impact US air quality (CNN), Watch the New York City skyline go full mad max in this wild time lapse (Gizmodo), Where the smoke from Canadian wildfires is headed next (CNN)

• DISPROPORTIONATE IMPACTS: Here's why NYC looks post-apocalyptic and why Black folks should stay clear (The Root), Environmental racism: pollution from Canada wildfires exacerbates existing air quality inequities (NewsOne), Smog is choking New York. But for these cities, it’s just another day (CNN), New York’s toxic wildfire smoke is all too familiar to Asia (Bloomberg $)
• STAY SAFE: What’s actually in all that smoke you’re breathing (Washington Post $, AP), How to stay safe from wildfire smoke indoors (Heatmap $), What science tells US about the dangers of wildfire smoke (Bloomberg $), When there’s smoke, getting indoors isn’t enough (Heatmap $), The air we breathe was getting better. Then climate change hit. (Vox, New York Times $), Mask and air filter sales spike on Amazon as Northeast still lives with smoke (CNN), Wildfires – and their toxic smoke – are affecting us more often. What can we do about it? (CNN), Social media and duct tape are helping people make DIY air purifiers that filter out wildfire smoke (AP)
• FIRES: Why is eastern Canada on fire — and when will the smoke clear? (Vox), International help rolls in to fight unyielding Canadian wildfires (Reuters), Hundreds of US firefighters deployed north to battle Canadian wildfires (Gizmodo), Schumer wants twice as many Forest Service personnel fighting Canadian wildfires (The Hill)
• REALITY CHECK: Joy Reid on climate crisis, oil dependency: 'You'd think it would be a priority to keep breathing' (MSNBC), The East Coast is finally having its climate moment (Washington Post $), Western senators: America ‘waking up’ to wildfire problem as smoke blankets East Coast (The Hill)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Climate lawsuits turn to human rights in search of justice (Context)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Rich world’s leaders fail to commit to Paris global financing summit (Climate Home)

GOP vs. ESG: Investors pull back support for green and social measures amid US political pressure (FT $), Republicans’ anti-ESG attack may be silencing insurers, but it isn’t changing their pro-climate business decisions (The Conversation)

INFLATION REDUCTION ACT: Solar power in US to more than double by 2028 as IRA spurs usage (Bloomberg $), Post-IRA optimism continues for renewable energy developers, but have expectations soared too high? (Utility Dive), Red tape is slowing the shift to renewables, but Biden’s permitting reform likely won’t help (Grist)

SCOTUS: Clarence Thomas leads dissent as SCOTUS rejects Alabama racial gerrymandering, protects Black voters (NewsOne, Black Wall Street Times, Capital B News)

AGENCIES: Will faster federal reviews speed up the clean energy shift? Two legal scholars explain what the National Environmental Policy Act does and doesn’t do (The Conversation)

EPA: EPA proposes partial ban on toxic dry cleaning chemical (E&E News, Politico Pro $), EPA to staff: Telework, mask up due to haze (E&E $)

DOI: Haaland’s ‘freeze’, As Interior secretary bans oil and gas on lands around Chaco, naat’áanii frustration bubbles (Navajo Times)

WHITE HOUSE: Protesters to march on White House as anger mounts over Appalachia pipeline (The Guardian), Wildfires reignite calls for Biden to declare a climate emergency (Washington Post $), Harris to travel to Bahamas for talks on climate, firearms, Haiti (The Hill, Reuters), Sunak and Biden reach for critical minerals deal in show of unity (Politico Pro $, E&E $),  White House greenlights ESA revisions. Hot debate to follow. (E&E $), The White House announces its first-ever Juneteenth concert (NewsOne)

HOUSE: 'A little chaos going on': GOP rebellion shuts down House (E&E $), Natural Resources finds bipartisan harmony on China (E&E $)

SENATE: Significant parts of US at risk for wildfires, Senate is warned (Bloomberg $), Bipartisan bill would lay groundwork for US carbon tariffs (E&E News)

ELECTIONS: Where Republican presidential candidates stand on climate change (New York Times $)

CITIES AND STATES: Ashland moves toward natural gas ban in new homes (The Oregonian), Cities, states increasingly base building performance standards on carbon emissions: report (Utility Dive), A bill to protect outdoor workers in extreme heat failed in New York (Washington Post $), NYC chief climate officer: Working on how to get ahead of current climate crisis (CNBC), Tensions, gas prices rise as Washington state auctions carbon (E&E News), How three US governors approach climate action (Bloomberg $), Va. regulators vote to exit regional carbon trading program (E&E News), With reboot, Illinois hopes for more orderly solar incentive rollout (Energy News Network)

• TEXAS: Alarm at rightwing push to reverse clean-energy success in Texas and beyond (The Guardian)
• CALIFORNIA: A California bill could reveal corporate America’s climate secrets (Grist), Car-obsessed California seeks to follow New York’s lead and save public transit (AP)

FERC: FERC forum on power market sparks clean energy firestorm (E&E $), Industrial groups urge FERC to reject incentives for $280M in NIPSCO transmission projects (Utility Dive)

IMPACTS: How warming ruined a crab fishery and hurt an Alaskan town (Yale Environment 360), Why insurance companies are pulling out of California and Florida, and how to fix some of the underlying problems (The Conversation), Air conditioners aren’t ready for our humid future (Washington Post $), Where will all that snow go? Here’s what California’s 'Big Melt' looks like (LA Times $)

HEAT: Burned to the Ground: the Canadian village incinerated by record temperatures (The Guardian), Siberia swelters in record-breaking temperatures amid its ‘worst heat wave in history’ (CNN), Summers are heating up fastest in these cities (Axios)

WATER: A puzzle in Arizona’s boom towns: how to keep growing with less water (New York Times $)

OCEANS: The race to map the world’s seagrass — before it disappears (Washington Post $)

RENEWABLES: US solar power installations soar in Q1 on easing panel import gridlock (Reuters, E&E $, OilPrice), Vineyard Wind puts 'steel in the water' (E&E $)

BATTERIES: America’s long, tortured journey to build EV batteries (Bloomberg $), Battery storage installations drop to 2-year low (E&E $), Chinese energy storage, battery firms consider big investments in Vietnam (Reuters), Lithium shortages could hand salt a starring role in EV shift (Bloomberg $), The South is building the most vibrant EV and battery hub in the US (Canary Media)

MINERALS: Why a copper shortage threatens EVs and green transition (Wall Street Journal $), A copper buying spree is set to commence (OilPrice), Namibia bans export of unprocessed critical minerals (Reuters)

LNG: 140+ groups demand insurers end support for 'toxic' LNG terminals (Common Dreams), Worst-case forecast for LNG plays out differently (Bloomberg $)

METHANE: The war against methane leaks gets a new data tool (Bloomberg $), Methane reduction holds key to averting climate catastrophe (The Guardian)

OIL & GAS: Exxon CEO warns overemphasis on renewables could backfire (OilPrice), Jury returns $63M verdict after finding Chevron covered up toxic pit on California land (AP)

PLASTICS: Uber vows to scrap ‘unnecessary’ plastic waste from deliveries (Bloomberg $)

COAL: Despite China heatwave, weak factory demand curbs coal prices, LNG imports (Reuters), Higher renewable energy generation to cut coal reliance this summer, says EIA (Reuters)

HYDROGEN: China set to become the world’s largest green hydrogen importer by 2030 (OilPrice)

UTILITIES: The revolving door at public utilities commissions? It’s alive and well (LA Times $), Duke Energy hikes five-year capital plan to $65 bln, focus on low carbon energy (Reuters), NERC’s role in public-private security collaboration can deter utilities from sharing information: report (Utility Dive)

GRID: Flood of US renewable projects risks ‘breaking’ power markets (Bloomberg $)

EVs: Electric vehicles alone can’t solve transportation’s climate problems (Yale Climate Connections), Can Uber go all-electric? (Bloomberg $), EV sales are soaring and oil use is about to peak: hyperdrive (Bloomberg $, OilPrice), EV sales in US expected to more than triple by 2026 (E&E $), Four takeaways on the future of the global EV market (Bloomberg $), GM EV owners to tap Tesla’s supercharger network (Wall Street Journal $, AP), It’s the features, stupid: EV market share is growing because the vehicles keep getting better (Inside Climate News), The US has big EV goals. Can the domestic EV industry meet them? (Canary Media)

CRYPTO: As states differ on the benefits of Bitcoin, is there a solution to its climate and power-system impacts? (Utility Dive)

ROBOTS: As the AI industry booms, what toll will it take on the environment? (The Guardian), Is the future of environmental storytelling artificial? (Atmos)

WORKERS: [Friends of the Earth] announces first union contract (E&E $), ‘War for talent’ at mines could drive up cost of energy transition (Wall Street Journal $)

HOUSING: World's slum populations set to surge as housing crisis bites (Context)

BOOKS: A supersized list of Juneteenth books for the entire family (The Root)

FINANCE: Big investor group urges action, not words, to meet climate goals (Reuters), BlackRock eyes $7 bln for new Global Renewable Power Fund (Reuters), World Bank set to take on risk of insuring carbon credits amid market upheaval (Climate Home)

WILDLIFE: Human-wildlife conflict worsened by drought is deadly to Kenya's lions (E&E $), To restore reefs dying in warming seas, UAE turns to coral nurseries (AP)

INTERNATIONAL: EU offers tweaks to contested nature law in bid for support - document (Reuters), France is not prepared to give up competitive advantages from nuclear power -finance minister (Reuters), Labour MP defends plans to block North Sea drilling against union criticism (The Guardian), Oops, they did it again? After ICE controversy, now EU's gas boiler ban may be killed (Energy Monitor), South African presidency maps out vision to end loadshedding (Bloomberg $)

• Why are insurers fleeing California? (Bloomberg Editors $)
• Climate solutions need queerness (Yes Magazine, Owen George commentary)
• Rejecting nature restoration in Europe is a shot in the foot (Context, Enric Sala op-ed)
• Do the fossil fuel industry’s claims of Australia’s gas-fired future stack up? (The Guardian, Graham Readfearn op-ed)
• Orange skies, red alerts and the future (New York Times, Paul Krugman column $)
• Washington is literally suffocating under its own climate apathy (Heatmap, Ryan Cooper commentary $)
• The government needs to measure things. somehow, that’s controversial. (Washington Post, Catherine Rampell column $)
• Gavin Newsom, please don’t cut public transit funds. that’s short-term thinking. (New York Times, Farhad Manjoo column $)
• Musk promised transparency, then hid Twitter data (Bloomberg, Faye Flam op-ed $)
• On the smoke crisis, New York City’s mayor chokes (New York Times, Mara Gay op-ed $)
• Holding China accountable for its emissions-heavy manufacturing (The Hill, Sen. Chris Coons and Sen. Kevin Kramer op-ed)

Science-Denying Right-Wingers Use Transphobia To Undermine Climate Action

Everyone knows that the political right is full of transphobes and climate deniers, but are you aware that Republicans are using transphobia as a tool to obstruct climate action? The genocidal campaign against trans rights ignores huge bodies of scientific evidence, like climate denial, and actively serves to turn people against other science-backed facts, like climate change.

Harmful transphobic disinformation has been debunked time and time again, and there are dozens of major medical groups that “recognize the medical necessity of treatments for gender dysphoria and endorse such treatments.” Furthermore, research has shown that denying trans people gender affirming healthcare has such costly, negative health outcomes that insurance companies often cover trans healthcare simply to save money. 

In his landmark ruling this week, U.S. District Judge Robert Hinkle blocked Florida’s ban on gender affirming care for minors and stated clearly that “Florida’s decision to ban the treatment is not rationally related to a legitimate state interest.” Hinkle reviewed the widely accepted treatments for gender dysphoria and determined that, “at least as shown by this record, not a single reputable medical association has taken a contrary position.”

Despite this overwhelming body of evidence, right-wing disinformers, from Twitter trolls to Tucker Carlson to Republican lawmakers, all spread hateful falsehoods about trans people in the same science-denying way they lie about climate issues. 

These transphobic lies have serious consequences: The American Civil Liberties Union has identified 118 anti-trans health care bills across the US among a slew of other proposed anti-LGBTQ+ legislation in the 2023 legislative session alone. Republicans have silenced transgender Montana Democratic State Representative Zooey Zephyr and likely contributed to an increase in hate crimes against trans people.

So, right-wing disinformers reject science when it comes to both climate change and trans rights, but it’s also important to remember that these are not simply parallel issues: Right-wing disinformers deliberately use transphobia to undermine climate action. 

This April, right-wing disinformation group The Heritage Foundation released an article filled with projection that distracts from the climate crisis by accusing Democrats of denying the science on trans issues, a standard rhetorical troll. “Forget climate change,” the article declares. “These Democrats are the true science deniers—deniers of biological reality, genetics, XX/XY chromosome science…”

The conservative campaign against environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investment considerations has also clearly used transphobia to obstruct climate solutions. At this week’s House Oversight Committee hearing on ESG, Rep. Becca Balint (D-VT) shot down transphobia and stated, “It feels like every single hearing that I am in, whether it is in Oversight or whether it is in Budget or whether it is in a subcommittee, the witnesses find a way to bring in trans children into whatever conversation we’re trying to have here.” 

And that's probably true, because right-wingers don’t actually have any factual arguments for why companies should be prohibited from considering environmental, social, and governance-related financial risks, they pivot to hateful and false claims about trans kids.

It's hard to overstate how saturated conservative, fossil-fueled media is with anti-trans content. There are multiple transphobic pieces of content every day from every single website that also runs climate disinformation as "news." 

So while we usually talk about a new topic every day, there is so much more to discuss that we’ll pick this topic back up on Monday. We’ll continue by exploring the rhetorical tactics that right-wingers use to disseminate false claims about both climate change and trans rights (and immigration and racism and sexism and unions).

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