EACOP Impoverishes Thousands of Ugandans: The planned East Africa Crude Oil Pipeline has already “devastated” the livelihoods of thousands of Ugandan people who were displaced but have not received any or all compensation for their land since construction began earlier this year, according to a new report from Human Rights Watch. When completed, the pipeline will displace 100,000 people, disrupt farmers’ ability to harvest coffee, bananas, and other cash crops, and cause severe environmental damage. Farmers described being forced to sign agreements in English, which many don’t read. Cash payments and promises to relocate graves and provide improved infrastructure and social services have frequently failed to materialize. “They come here promising us everything,” a resident said. “We believed them. Now we are landless, the compensation money is gone, what fields we have left are flooded, and dust fills the air.” EACOP, owned by French oil company TotalEnergy, will stretch about 900 miles from western Uganda to the port of Tanga, Tanzania, if completed. However, the company has only secured about 60% of its funding, and it says compensation still owed to displaced residents will be paid as additional project funding is secured. Projects such as EACOP have come under severe criticism, due not only to the climate, environmental, and human rights damage they cause, but also due to the economic threats that lie at the heart of the so-called “dash for African gas.” According to the Don’t Gas Africa campaign, pipeline and extraction projects on the content enrich foreign investors while risking some $1.4 trillion in projects becoming stranded assets, increasing debt burdens, and failing to deliver economic benefits to the communities who will suffer lost livelihoods and a degraded environment. (Reuters, Al Jazeera, VOA News, Human Rights Watch report)

Extreme Flooding Kills Dozens in Asia, US: Pakistan, India, Japan, China, and the northeastern U.S. were each battered by torrential rain, heavy flooding, and mudslides in recent days, killing dozens of people. Flash flooding in Northern India from unusually heavy monsoons forced the closure of schools in New Delhi, leaving at least 15 people dead from landslides and flash floods over the past four days. In Pakistan, at least 50 have died since the beginning of monsoon season on June 25. Historic storms on Kyushu, in southern Japan, killed at least three people and left several others missing on Monday. At least 15 were killed, with tens of thousands of people displaced, as heavy rains were accompanied by an unusually prolonged heat wave across China over the last week. And at least one person was killed as intense storms dropping a month’s worth of rain overnight Sunday spawned flash floods in Vermont and New York. Experts say damaging rainfall will become increasingly common as the atmosphere, warmed by the burning of fossil fuels, holds more moisture. The intensity – and the resulting damage – of storms like those wreaking havoc this month is only expected to worsen as the planet warms, often in places that bear little responsibility for the pollution causing climate change. “The bulk of the emissions have come from the industrial Western nations,” Gavin Schmidt, a climatologist and the director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies, told the Associated Press. “The bulk of the impacts are happening in places that don’t have good infrastructure, that are less prepared for weather extremes and have no real ways to manage this.” (AP; India: AP, Washington Post $, Times of India, CBS; Pakistan: CBS; Japan: Asahi Shimbun, Washington Post $; China: AP, CNN; New York: Washington Post $, New York Times $, Gothamist; Vermont: NPR, New York Times $, Axios, Climate Signals Background: Extreme Precipitation Increase)

Delayed Childhood Vaccinations Another Dangerous Climate Impact: Newborn babies in India are seeing their childhood vaccination schedules delayed thanks to impacts from climate change, resulting in spikes of preventable diseases such as measles. Severe weather, such as flooding, can bar expectant people from accessing prenatal vitamins and other critical care before their child is born, and prevent healthcare workers from reaching babies to administer vaccines on the prescribed schedule. Low birthweight, exacerbated by climate impacts and pollution, and challenges in breastfeeding from stress due to heat and dehydration can also force a delay in vaccination. In flood-prone Maharashtra, in southwest India, measles spiked eightfold from 2021 to 2022, accounting for more than a fifth of the country’s measles cases. According to India’s National Family Health Survey, less than a third of children aged 2 to 3 years old had received their second measles vaccination in the period from 2019 to 2021. In 2020, about two-thirds of India’s children aged 6 months to 5 years were anemic, and a third underweight. Nor is the problem unique to India: The World Health Organization reported that in 2021, 25 million children under 1 year old were not vaccinated according to recommendations. “I’ve been vaccinating children for over a decade, but things never got this difficult,” healthcare worker Kavita Magdum told Toward Freedom. “We took vaccines to the last mile. Now, climate change is eroding progress.” (Toward Freedom)

Death Toll of 2022 Heat Waves in Europe 61,000: Heat stress killed more than 61,000 people in Europe last summer, according to new research published Monday by the journal Nature Medicine. The worst impacts were felt in Italy, Spain, and Portugal, with the highest incidence of excess deaths occurring among women older than 80, although younger men were more likely to die than younger women. The report calculated there were 25,000 more heat-related deaths in 2022 than the average from 2015 to 2021, due to the brutal heat waves that scorched the continent last year. Despite similar temperatures as other Mediterranean countries, France saw many fewer heat-caused deaths, likely thanks to early warning systems and public announcements advising residents on how to protect themselves, put in place following a deadly heatwave in 2003. Without policies to protect people from heat, researchers say the number of people dying from extreme heat each summer in Europe could rise to more than 68,000 every summer by 2030, 94,000 by 2040, and 120,000 by 2050. (Bloomberg, $, The Guardian, New York Times $, AP, CBS, CNN, E&E $)

ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Alabama Black Belt becomes environmental justice test case: Is sanitation a civil right? (Inside Climate News), A heat wave killed hundreds in Chicago nearly 30 years ago (Washington Post $), Some say the century-old water rights system in the West is unfair and racist (NPR)

HBCUs: There aren't enough Black firefighters. HBCUs want to help (The Root)

FARMWORKERS: It's hot. For farmworkers without federal heat protections, it could be life or death (NPR), Could rice be the key to Southern Black farmers' battle against climate change? (The Tennessean)

FOSSIL FUELED ENERGY CRISIS: John Kerry addresses the high stakes of the climate crisis and the war in Ukraine (MSNBC)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Conservation groups sue EPA over Colorado’s smog (The Hill)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: President Biden, King Charles III zero in on climate change in Windsor Castle meeting (LA Times $, The Guardian), King Charles ditches tradition in climate change talks with Biden (Daily Beast), UN's sustainable development goals are mission impossible (Bloomberg $), Biden and Sunak pledge support for Ukraine ahead of NATO summit (Washington Post $)

CHINA: Yellen says US, China want to 'stabilize' relationship (Reuters), Despite Yellen, U.S.-China decoupling has momentum of its own (Wall Street Journal $)

DENIAL: Big meat’s big PR investments are blocking climate action (Energy Monitor)

GOP vs. ESG: Businesses, governments clash over how to tackle climate change (NPR)

INFLATION REDUCTION ACT: The Inflation Reduction Act is turning America into a renewable energy superpower (Daily Kos), The relentless rise of the IRA (FT $), Minnesota will use $3M IRA grant to expand outreach on climate action plan (Energy News Network)

SCOTUS: Why SCOTUS might stop Republican attacks on carbon metric (E&E $)

EPA: EPA proposal would require more oversight on methane emissions (Digital Journal), Proposed PFAS rule would cost companies estimated $1B; lacks limits and cleanup requirement (KFF Health News), EPA climate rule could make air pollution worse in some areas (E&E $)

DOE: DOE announces $200M to protect grid, avoid blackouts (E&E $)

LAWSUITS: Does carbon-capture pipeline plan comply with Iowa law? Landowner, in challenge, says no. (Des Moines Register)

WHITE HOUSE: White House opposes climate provision in House defense bill (E&E $), Biden is pushing contractors to cut emissions. The GOP is pushing back. (Washington Post $)

THE HILL: Group finds ‘poison pills’ in GOP budget targeting climate action, more (New Mexico Political Report), Republicans take aim at climate funds in spending bills (Roll Call)

HOUSE: House panel sets vote on bill to block EPA tailpipe rule (E&E $)

CITIES AND STATES: Disaster towns: Victims of environmental catastrophes — and Americans’ short attention spans (E&E News), Extreme heat will smother the south from Arizona to Florida (NPR, Axios), Cities have long made plans for extreme heat. Are they enough in a warming world? (AP), A hurricane wiped out their Florida beach homes. Then it made them unaffordable. (Politico Pro $), Florida in hot water as ocean temperatures rise along with the humidity (AP, Washington Post $), Is a deal in Western Md. to help utility customers and accelerate the shutdown of a coal plant too good to be true? (Maryland Matters), DeWine veto allows Ohio to divert abandoned well funding (E&E $), An Ohio college town wants to lead on fighting climate change. it also has a 1940s-era, diesel-burning power plant (Inside Climate News), In Oregon timber country, a town buys the surrounding forests to confront climate-driven wildfires (Inside Climate News), Oregon gas company using ratepayer money to fight state climate program (The Oregonian)

~CALIFORNIA: Dueling California agendas: Building affordable housing vs. protecting the coast (San Francisco Chronicle), New emissions lab in California aims to fight pollution, help with climate goals (WBUR)

IMPACTS: Climate disasters daily? Welcome to the ‘new normal.’ (New York Times $), What are El Niño and La Niña and how do they affect temperatures? (CBS), Study: Climate change brings more extreme rainfall to mountain towns (Boise State Public Radio), Antarctic ice levels undergo 'massive decrease', data shows (Reuters), Scientists see a connection between shrinking ice in the Arctic and wildfires (WBUR), Climate change bringing more than heat — malaria and dengue on the rise (Forbes)

HEAT: A sprawling dome of heat will engulf most of the southern U.S. this week. What to know: Live weather updates (Washington Post $), Extreme heat will cost the U.S. $1 billion in health care costs — this summer alone (Yale Climate Connections), How climate change drives hotter, more frequent heat waves (Grist), Last week the hottest in recorded world history, U.N. agency says (Politico Pro $, CNN), Don’t crank down your thermostat when it’s hot out. Do this instead. (Washington Post $)

DROUGHT: How the Western drought has increased carbon emissions (Grist)

RENEWABLES: Referrals could boost participation in low-income rooftop solar programs: study (The Hill), US urged to carve out wind, solar build zones to curb delays (Reuters)

BATTERIES: Lithium scarcity pushes carmakers into the mining business (New York Times $), Union workers cry foul over safety at GM’s Ultium battery plant (Bloomberg $)

BUILDINGS:  Massachusetts' new 'green bank' for climate-friendly housing, explained (WBUR)

LNG: Next wave of North American LNG export projects to face labor challenges (Reuters), Buffett takes control of US LNG plant with $3.3 billion deal (Bloomberg $)

METHANE: Climate change: Could daffodil diet for livestock help? (BBC), The Arctic is farting ‘ancient’ methane and it’s scary as hell (Rolling Stone)

OIL & GAS: Report: Oil and gas air pollution effects health of Pennsylvanians (Heartland Signal)

UGH: Oil companies are laughing while the world burns (Heated) 

ORPHANED WELLS: Biden administration announces $650 million to plug orphaned gas and oil wells (The Hill), Plugging methane leaks from derelict oil wells for carbon credit (Bloomberg $), Meet the engineer finding Appalachia's hidden oil wells (E&E $)

MVP YOYO: Court halts construction of Mountain Valley pipeline in forest (E&E, Politico Pro $), Mountain Valley Pipeline receives FERC approval to resume construction (WV News)

PIPELINES: Mountain Valley got new lobbyist before debt deal (E&E $), Colonial Pipeline tank farm in Greensboro cited for discharging MTBE at 312% above permit limit (NC Newsline), Conservatives at Iowa event say GOP officials need to step up on pipeline issue (Des Moines Register)

COAL: New study reveals a startling fact about America’s coal-based power plants: ‘all but one’ (Yahoo), Glencore boss considers the unthinkable: Spinning off coal (FT $), Coal-project financing outside of China hits 12-year low (Carbon Brief)

HYDROGEN: How many bad assumptions can one offshore hydrogen report make? (Clean Technica)

NUKES: Pro-nuclear energy EU states ask for 'level playing field' with renewables (Reuters), Lawmakers scramble to pass bipartisan nuclear bills (E&E $)

THE OTHER KIND: Warming threatens U.S. nuclear strike capability — report (E&E $)

UTILITIES: EPA says carbon capture is within reach. Utilities aren't biting. (E&E $) 

GRID: As Texas cranks up the AC, congested transmission lines cause renewable power to go to waste (Inside Climate News), Investments in updating the electrical grid is entering a new phase of growth, which could benefit one stock in particular (CNBC), Soaring temperatures test electric grid in transition (E&E News)

EVs: Auto-industry group assails Biden’s plan to electrify America’s cars (New York Times $), What it’s like to road-trip cross-country in an electric car (Yale Climate Connections), Unsold electric cars are piling up on dealer lots (Axios), Electric-vehicle startup Fisker is reborn into a crowded, competitive field (Wall Street Journal $)

AVIATION: Is it better to take a cruise than fly? (Energy Monitor)

WOOD CITY: Sweden is building the world’s largest wooden city (Axios)

…ABOUT THAT: Wood isn’t the climate-friendly material you think it is (Grist)

THAT SINKING FEELING: Underground climate change is weakening buildings in slow motion (Scientific American, USA Today, SciTechDaily)

BOOKS: Documenting the terrifying fragility of human bodies in a burning world (Washington Post $)

EXTREME REALITY: ‘Fear is motivating’ says Chris Packham as BBC series re-creates past extinction event (The Guardian)

CARBON PRICING: Drop carbon offsetting-based environmental claims, companies urged (The Guardian), The hunt to fix carbon offsets (Politico Pro $)

FINANCE: Climate change is influencing how young people invest their money (Canadian Business), World Bank names CEOs to help bring private funds to climate, development finance (Reuters)

THE BIG Q: How to raise kids in the face of climate change (Vox)

MINING: Deep-sea mining: a new gold rush or environmental disaster? (Context), IEA warns of supply risks as critical mineral demand doubles (E&E $)

WILDLIFE: Birds around the world are building their nests with trash (EcoWatch)

INTERNATIONAL: Australia joins G7-backed ‘climate club’ and promises to drive down greenhouse gas emissions (AP), Queensland identifies ‘renewable energy zones’ as part of $62bn ‘super grid’ plan (The Guardian), In China, the era of Western carmakers is over (Wall Street Journal $), ‘Historic milestone’: Ecuador nears vote to keep Amazon oil on the ground (Climate Home), EU faces cliffhanger vote on major bill protecting nature and fighting climate change (ABC), Monster trucks and lots of rail: The wish list for the EU’s Greening Transport Package (Politico Pro $), Peak power demand in India hits record in June on extreme heat (Bloomberg $), Iraq, TotalEnergies sign massive oil, gas, renewables deal (Reuters), UK should quit ‘climate-wrecking’ energy treaty, say official advisers (The Guardian), UK should press pause on deep-sea mining, Labour says (The Guardian), London is falling down — because of climate change (Insurance Journal)

• Looking for shelter from extreme weather? Try a voting booth. (Philadelphia Inquirer, The Editorial Board)
• How much heat can the human body stand? (Bloomberg, FD Flam $)
• Capitalism alone won’t save the planet (Bloomberg, Mark Gongloff $)
• I grew up in West Virginia coal country. It’s time for my home state to start leading on clean energy (Fast Company, Scott Buckley)
• Remaining “Calm” About Climate Change Will Kill Us (The Lever, Adam McKay)
• Column: Europe's surging solar sector set for cannibalization risk (Reuters, Gavin Maguire)
• Why climate tribalism only helps the deniers (The Guardian, Hannah Ritchie)
• How to crack the climate free rider problem (Reuters, Hugo Dixon)
• Why the oil industry should set greenhouse gas emissions reduction target at COP28 (The National News, Robin Mills)
• Why PFAS have no place in everyday products, including paint (Environmental Health News, Teresa McGrath)
• I walked the Alps’ largest glacier. It felt like ‘last-chance tourism’ (The Guardian, Nick Hunt)

Newsflash: Threads Is Not The Antidote To Twitter’s Disinformation

Those of us who took the July 4th week off returned to our desks to find social media in absolute disarray. Climate disinformer Elon Musk shot his climate disinformation and hate speech-filled platform in the foot by limiting the number of tweets that users can see per day, and Twitter’s desktop service has been plagued with outages. Meanwhile, Mark Zuckerberg, co-founder of the climate disinformation haven known as Facebook, launched the Twitter competitor Threads, which is just as much of a privacy nightmare as Instagram and Facebook. In response, Twitter threatened legal action against Meta for supposed “misappropriation of Twitter's trade secrets.” Twitter’s user traffic is now decreasing, while over 100 million people have already signed up for Threads. In other words, it’s an absolute garbage fire out there on the billionaire-owned social media platforms!

Numerous right-wing disinformers have already begun spreading hate speech and false content on Threads and actively testing the platform’s content moderation, according to Media Matters for America and Bloomberg. Hateful users that have already opened Threads accounts include white nationalist Richard Spencer and Chaya Raichik, the creator of the anti-LGBTQ+ hate generator “Libs of TikTok.”

Unfortunately, experts don’t have high hopes for Threads’ content moderation. As the Institute for Strategic Dialogue’s US Head of Research Melanie Smith told Bloomberg, “This is a social media app that is owned by Meta who have failed consistently in governing and moderating other platforms that they own.” Smith’s words are already ringing true, since Meta really doesn’t seem to be trying that hard to combat the spread of toxic content on Threads.

Last Friday, Matt Binder at Mashable reported that right-wing disinformers were complaining on Twitter that their Threads accounts had almost immediately been flagged for disinformation. “As Threads is so new and still so tightly connected to Instagram, it appears Meta used an account's existing reputation to inform Threads users of their history,” Binder writes. However, he goes on to explain that just two days after Threads’ launch, the warnings on the harmful accounts disappeared, and Meta Communications Director Andy Stone said that, at least in the case of Donald Trump Jr.’s account, the notice was placed in error. We are disappointed but not surprised to see Meta caving in so quickly to the slightest bit of pressure from right-wing disinformers, thereby inviting the very kinds of toxic content that made users and advertisers flee Twitter in droves.

This weak-willed reversal is not even the worst part, though. Meta is not even doing the bare minimum of extending its fact-checking program to Threads, Katie Paul at Reuters reported. According to Instagram spokesperson Christine Pai, the consolation prize for this massive decrease in protection against mis/disinformation is that any fact-checked Facebook or Instagram content that is also posted on Threads will carry over its “false” label. We have three words for you, Zuckerberg: Not. Good. Enough.

A third content moderation challenge on Threads comes from outside the platform itself. Meta aims to eventually make Threads part of the Fediverse, the decentralized network of servers that operate separately but can communicate with each other. As Katie Paul, Casey Newton, and Alex Stamos all pointed out, having accounts from non-Meta platforms interact with Threads users will add an extra layer of complexity to content moderation on Threads.

Meta is well aware of this potential issue. As it currently stands, Threads only shows posts from its own server, and the platform is still governed by Instagram’s community guidelines, according to Instagram head Adam Mosseri. In the future, though, “If an account or server, or if we find many accounts from a particular server, is found violating our rules then they would be blocked from accessing Threads, meaning that server's content would no longer appear on Threads and vice versa,” spokesperson Pai stated. Mosseri also explained that there is a way to block damaging types of content before they make it onto Threads. One can only hope that Meta will use this tool to prevent other servers’ climate mis- and disinformation from entering the platform.

So, what are climate disinformers saying about all this turmoil? Just like all the other right-wing trolls, known spreaders of climate disinformation like Michael Shellenberger and Paul Joseph Watson are using Twitter and YouTube, respectively, to decry Thread’s “censorship.”

Wailing about free speech and social media censorship is nothing new for conservatives, and the assertion that major social media platforms are muzzling right-wing users is far from true. A Media Matters study published this June confirmed that Facebook definitely isn’t censoring right-wing media pages, despite what conservatives like to claim. In reality, “right-leaning pages earned more total interactions than either left-leaning or ideologically nonaligned pages between January 1, 2020, and December 31, 2022.” The way things are going, we wouldn’t be surprised if the same ends up being true for Threads.

Only time will tell if climate disinfluencers will follow the other hatemongers and establish the same robust network on Threads as they currently have on Twitter, but whatever happens, we’ll do our best to keep you posted.

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