Collagen Industry Linked With Amazon Deforestation, Indigenous Dispossession: Production of collagen from Brazilian cattle is contributing to the destruction of the Amazon rainforest and dispossession of Indigenous groups living there, an [extraordinary —Ed.]  investigation by the Bureau of Investigative Journalism, the Guardian, ITV, and O Joio e O Trigo reveals. Makers of the protein product, proponents of which claim slows some physical changes associated with aging, say it is merely derived from cattle "by-products" that would be otherwise discarded. That claim is belied, however, by the tight margins of the meat industry in which every sellable part of the animal is integral to the business model and products made from cattle hide (collagen and leather) are by far the most valuable non-meat parts of the cow. The cattle industry accounts for 80% of all Brazilian Amazon forest loss. Collagen firms also use the complexity of bovine supply chains to market their products as not being linked to deforestation while also obfuscating the actual origins of their products, origins Brazilian federal prosecutor Ricardo Negrini says they do have the ability to track. “No cattle ranching expansion in the Amazon can take place without violence,” said Bruno Malheiro, a geographer and professor at the Federal University of Southern and Southeastern Pará. That violence was enabled, if not encouraged, under the Bolsonaro government and is entrapping the Indigenous communities who rely on — and are the best managers of — the rainforest into ever-constricting "islands" surrounded by ranchland. The Gavião people live “surrounded, suffocated” in one such island in Mãe Maria Indigenous Territory, Pará, their leader Kátia Silene Akrãtikatêjê said. “[The farmers] destroy what is theirs, and invade what is ours." (Bureau of Investigative Journalism, The Guardian, ITV, O Joio e O Trigo)

Oil CEO Admits Industry Needs Carbon Capture For 'License To Operate': As the men, and a few women, of the oil and gas industry meet in Houston for the CERAWeek conference, how to keep extracting and burning hydrocarbons and products derived thereof is front and center. Instead of transitioning away from fossil fuels — the extraction and combustion of which are mainly causing global climate change, in line with industry expectations — firms are looking for new ways to keep using them. One option is hydrogen, which Exxon CEO Darren Woods described as "an extension of [the firm's] core capacity" which has been "transform[ing] molecules. Another is to simply continue to extract and burn fossil fuels and simply rely on carbon capture to fix the problem later. “We believe that our direct capture technology is going to be the technology that helps to preserve our industry over time,” Occidental CEO Vicki Hollub told the audience. “This gives our industry a license to continue to operate for the 60, 70, 80 years that I think it’s going to be very much needed.” (Politico Pro $)

Atmospheric River Could Flood California With Rain, Melted Snow: A "pretty epic" amount of snow has fallen on California this year, but an atmospheric river bringing heavy rain from the Pacific is threatening to set off major flooding. “We’re going to see rain on top of snow, and for elevations of say 2,000 feet to about 4,000 feet, a lot of that snow is going to melt,” Carlos Molina, a meteorologist with the National Weather Service, told the LA Times. “We’re going to basically lose a lot of the snow that fell from the previous storms. We’re looking at potential for flooding.” Big Bear City was buried under 80 inches (2.03 m/1 Scottie Pippen) of snow in just seven days and a National Guard unit accustomed to fighting wildfires was issued shovels to help residents simply get food and supplies to residents trapped in their homes. The already-dangerous flood risks of rain on top of snow are exacerbated by the Caldor and DIxie Fires, which left vast burn scars that now increase the potential for debris flows and substantial runoff into the Sacramento and San Joaquin watersheds. “We haven’t had a big, warm atmospheric river atop a major snowpack in these regions, really, since we had these big wildfires," UCLA climate scientist Daniel Swain told reporters. "We might be doing some science experiments in real time over the coming couple of weeks.” (Atmospheric river/flooding threat: LA Times $, CAL Matters, The Hill; Snow: AP, Washington Post $; "Pretty epic": E&E $; Climate Signals background: Extreme precipitation increase; Wildfires)

ENVIRONMENTAL (IN)JUSTICE: An Alabama clean water fund discriminated against Black communities, complaint alleges (Grist), 10 badass women centering environmental justice at work (Greenbiz)

WILLOW OIL: Everything you need to know about the controversial Willow project (Gizmodo), #stopwillow: Gen Z organizes millions online to pressure Biden to stop oil project (Teen Vogue), Alaska lawmakers make final push for Willow project (E&E $)

COP CITY: ‘This is how I’m going to die’: Police swarm activists protesting ‘Cop City’ in ‘week of action’ (The Guardian), 23 face domestic terrorism charges after arrests in ‘Cop City’ protests at planned police training site in Atlanta (CNN, BBC, Al Jazeera), Legal observer hit with terrorism charges after mass ‘Cop City’ arrests (Daily Beast), Activists denounce Atlanta’s plan for ‘Cop City’ after police clash (MSNBC), What's at stake in Atlanta's 'Cop City' protests (NPR, USA Today)

GAS LEAKS: ‘We don’t feel safe’: US community in shock after record methane leak (The Guardian), Revealed: 1,000 super-emitting methane leaks risk triggering climate tipping points (The Guardian)

WESTERN FORESTS: The West’s iconic forests are increasingly struggling to recover from wildfires – altering how fires burn could turn that around (The Conversation)

FOSSIL FUELED ENERGY CRISIS: Britain uses coal-power back up for the first time with supply tight (Reuters), Europe's draft plan to cushion power price spikes (Reuters Factbox), Intelligence suggests pro-Ukrainian group sabotaged pipelines, US officials say (New York Times $), Kazakhstan struggles to find enough crude oil to pipe to Europe (Bloomberg $), Gas industry lobbying hard against EU boiler phaseout, leaked emails suggest (The Guardian)

ELECTRIFICATION: A gas utility’s astroturf campaign threatens Oregon’s first electrification ordinance (Grist)

9:37 🚂 TO THE PETROCHEMICAL DYSTOPIA: Frenemies US EPA and Ohio EPA team up on rail cleanup (E&E $), Workers say it’s time to nationalize the railroad (Prism Reports)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Climate case takes unusual turn to Hawaii's highest court (E&E $)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: China warns of path to 'confrontation and conflict' with US (Axios), Kerry: China tensions hurting climate talks (Axios), What to know about the new UN high seas treaty — and the next steps for the accord (NPR), Why some Indonesians worry about a $20 billion international deal to get off coal (NPR)

FOSSIL VOLATILITY: A (possible) first for natural-gas markets (Wall Street Journal $), US natgas jumps 5% on colder forecasts, record gas flows to LNG plants (Reuters)

CERAWEEK: Podesta permitting push, climate, Kerry LNG spat (E&E News), Climate Czar John Kerry urges climate mobilization at CERAWeek. (Houston Chronicle), Biden climate law will stumble without permitting reform, industry warns (Reuters), US permit reforms needed to achieve Inflation Reduction Act goals -Conoco CEO (Reuters), Oxy CEO, at CERAWeek, says oil giant is open to expanding into nuclear: 'I'd love to' (Houston Chronicle), Chevron CEO says natural gas markets fundamentally changed by war (Reuters), What Big Oil thinks of the climate law (E&E News)

• COP 28: Oil industry must 'lead the way' on climate — COP 28 president (E&E $, Climate Home)

MEDIA: The Week alums launch climate news startup with $4M Series A funding (Axios)

INFLATION REDUCTION ACT: Uncertainty abounds as EV tax credit guidance looms (E&E News)

SCOTUS: Supreme Court’s ‘dark money’ rulings anchor defense in Ohio political corruption trial (Wall Street Journal $), SCOTUS requests Biden admin's views on transmission fight (E&E $), Supreme Court asks solicitor general to weigh in on Texas law banning non-incumbent transmission (Utility Dive)

EPA: Biden EPA, IG at odds over Trump-era changes to PFAS assessment (Politico Pro $, The Hill, E&E $)

DOI: Greens sue to stop Gulf lease sale revived under climate law (E&E $)

TREASURY: Yellen warns climate change may trigger losses in US (The Hill)

WHITE HOUSE: Harris woos young people with promise of future climate jobs (E&E $), White House to host first-ever Jewish women leaders summit to mark Women’s History Month (The 19th* News)

HOUSE: GOP Rep. Rosendale posed with far-right extremists, says he didn’t know them (Washington Post $), GOP targets FERC environmental justice, pollution plans (E&E $), House Dem bill would block Ariz. copper mine on sacred land (E&E $)

SENATE: Same message, bigger audience: Sen. Whitehouse flags climate costs (New York Times $)

CITIES AND STATES: A proposed six-week abortion ban in Florida could threaten access for the entire South (The 19th* News) Maryland bill aims to expand commitment to offshore wind (AP)

FERC: FERC reverses its approval of SPP’s capacity accreditation plan for wind, solar resources (Utility Dive)

IMPACTS: A looming El Niño could give us a preview of life at 1.5C of warming (Yale Climate Connections), Asian megacities could see worst sea-level rise, study finds (E&E $), Cherry blossoms hit third stage in near record time. it may affect peak bloom. (Washington Post $), Without cross-border flood alerts, disaster risk grows in Nepal (Context), Greenland temperatures surge up to 50 degrees above normal, setting records (Washington Post $)

CYCLONIC STORMS: Deadly cyclone Freddy has become earth’s longest-lived tropical storm (Washington Post $)

DEFORESTATION: Western firms certified as socially responsible trade in Myanmar teak linked to the military regime (InsideClimate News)

POLLUTION: 99 percent of global population exposed to unhealthy levels of tiny air pollutants: study (The Hill)

SCIENCE: The golden age of Earth observation is here (Axios)

RENEWABLES: Shenandoah County farmer embraces solar for his grandkids' 'best possible life' (Northern Virginia Daily), Bringing community solar to low-income customers is a lot harder than you might think (Energy News Network), Sámi demonstrators end mass protests against illegal wind farm (Grist)

BUILDINGS: The case for heat pumps, a climate-friendly investment (WBUR)

OIL & GAS: Inside BP's plan to reset renewables as oil and gas boom (Reuters)

PLASTICS: Once hailed as a solution to the global plastics scourge, PureCycle may be teetering (Inside Climate News)

COAL: Minergy halts Botswana coal mining ops after contractor downs tools (Reuters)

HYDROGEN: Is hydrogen really a clean enough fuel to tackle the climate crisis? (The Guardian explainer), Constellation Energy launches 1-MW nuclear-powered hydrogen production facility at Nine Mile Point (Utility Dive)

NUKES: Texas energy company plans massive nuclear expansion (E&E $), Vistra moves more deeply into nuclear power with planned $3.43B acquisition of Energy Harbor (Utility Dive)

EVs: California’s plan to electrify trucking may be hard for small companies (Canary Media)

BOOKS: A climate journalist explores her oil-field heritage (E&E, Erika Bolstad interview $)

CARBON CAPTURE: Chevron takes over East Texas carbon capture project as it triples in size (Houston Chronicle)

GEOENGINEERING: Old bomber will sniff the sky for geoengineering aerosols (E&E News)

CARS: What are e-fuels, and can they help make cars CO2-free? (Reuters explainer)

FINANCE: [Foreign direct investment] in renewable energy: A success story (Energy Monitor), Bank of England doubts need for climate capital buffer for banks (Reuters), Canada issues final guidelines for banks to manage climate-change risks (Reuters), South Korea pension fund to consider climate change in management work (Reuters)

WILDLIFE: As Virginia restores quail habitats, their unique call is heard again (Washington Post $), Protecting sagebrush habitat can help wildlife and the climate (Yale Climate Connections)

INTERNATIONAL: Costa Rica ponders ways to sustain reforestation success (AP)

• Why is the EPA so timid in the East Palestine train disaster? (New York Times, Judith Enck op-ed $)
• It’s up to Biden to stop a climate and environmental disaster in Alaska (The Hill, Ben Jealous op-ed)
• Competition policy in the 2023 Farm Bill offers next chance for bipartisan progress (The Hill, Anthony Pahnke op-ed)
• Fed’s reluctance to go green will cost the Earth (Reuters, Ben Winck commentary)
• Biden should fight climate change, not trade wars (Washington Post, Catherine Rampell column $)
• Joe Biden’s ESG rule is sound risk management (FT, Editorial Board $)
• West Virginia joins the tax cutters (Wall Street Journal, Editorial Board $)
• Riley Black reflects on the power of growth (Atmos, essay)
• India’s booming economy stretches coal and power supplies to limit (Reuters, John Kemp column)
• Energy leaders at Houston summit should embrace energy and climate security (The Hill, Mark Brownstein op-ed)

Alex Epstein Cites MLK in Fossil Fuel Propaganda at Heartland Conference, After Blaming MLK for Black Crime

The climate deniers at the Heartland Institute held their big climate disinfo conference last week, with hours and hours of mostly old, almost exclusively white, and predominantly male free market fundamentalists talking to each other. While Heartland's weekly climate newsletter claimed to have gotten over 100,000 views on the stream, the YouTube videos from the 2-day denialfest struggle to crack just 1,000 views.

Even more pitiful is that they brag about getting coverage, but all they can point to are three stories, two of which are very critical of Heartland's conference. Scott Waldman at E&E described it as "who’s who of climate deniers," and focused on Trump election denial lawyer (detained pantless) Jeffrey Clark, who "held up a piece of cardboard on which he had written 'meta control'" to illustrate his discussion of the "communistic purposes" and the "self-interested… dark forces" behind climate change.

The second story Heartland had to promote (because there was nothing kinder) was from Inside Climate News, where Kristoffer Tigue covered the conference in the context of how it disproves the propaganda about the GOP's supposed climate conversion. He described Heartland as having "a long history of spreading misleading and false claims about global warming" and being "widely viewed by climate advocates as a disinformation machine." (Fact check: true, but it's not just climate advocates! Journalists like Emily Atkin have referenced Heartland as being part of the disinformation machine, author Shawn Laurence Otto called it back in 2012, as have professors and scientists like Michael Mann, and Duke historian Nancy MacLean even listed Heartland in an Orion Mag piece headlined "The Disinformation Machine.") 

Somewhat disappointingly, by comparison, the third link Heartland had to show for its work was from fringe right-wing blog Ace of Spades HQ, which is only worth mentioning for the sake of acknowledging the disinfo conference’s third media hit. We'll just mention that this post praising Heartland's conference ends with an old song about spring being a little late this year, which is funny, because it was in the 80s in February when Heartland held the conference in Orlando, a cool 20°F above average. 

But those articles actually weren't the only coverage that Heartland got! It received a second favorable write-up from Cowboy State Daily, another right-wing blog. There's little worth saying about it, except that it focused on comments by Alex Epstein, the Big Oil whipping boy who was Heartland's keynote speaker. 

It was interesting to see the Cowboy State's reporting that Epstein, in addition to his standard spiel, also said that conservatives need to reframe the climate and energy issue. Specifically, Epstein turned to none other than "Martin Luther King" to support his case, because the Reverend/Dr./Nobel laureate — supposedly — just reframed "the issue of civil rights around the idea that people should be judged by the content of the character and not their skin color" and found success by linking policies "to a goal people agreed with." 

While white people have exploited, appropriated and bastardized King's advocacy for years, this is a particularly egregious example when you know about Alex. Not only is Epstein invoking Martin Luther King Jr. to sell a product that disproportionately hurts Black communities, in a way that shamelessly invokes King's "Dream" as though it were merely a marketing gimmick or crisis communications trick, but also it's not even an intellectually honest speech by Epstein, because Alex has a history of trashing the very legacy that he now co-opts for his fossil fuel propaganda. 

Epstein's racist history was covered by The Washington Post last year, and his reaction didn't exactly clear him of the allegations. Back in college, Epstein argued against recognition of Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday as a federal holiday. He noted that "Black crime has increased steadily since King’s time," and then wrote, and published, on purpose, in a college newspaper, that "because of the bad ideas he promoted, Dr. King is responsible for a great part of the destruction that has occurred in America today, especially among black Americans." 

Yes, demonstrating his early adeptness at disinformation, a young Epstein blamed Martin Luther King Jr.'s "bad ideas" for causing the Black struggle, as though campaigning against about structural racism is what actually somehow caused the symptoms of that structural racism decades later. 

Alex Epstein is on the record, in writing, of disapproving of Martin Luther King Jr's "bad ideas" about race. So why is Epstein invoking those very ideas now, to sell fossil fuels? 

Because that's how propaganda works, and this is as hamfisted as it gets. 

Epstein’s hypocritical past might just be why Heartland chose to promote two stories embarrassing them, instead of the one that let Epstein embarrass himself. 

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