Not rendering correctly? View this email as a web page here.
Hot News Logo

FIRST LOOK

Want to help those who were in Hurricane Ida's path? Here's a list of organizations to check out.
Want to help those in Texas and elsewhere fight for abortion access? Here's a brief interview with Shae Ward of the Lilith fund for Reproductive Equity, and here are some local organizations that could use your support.
 
Top Stories

Caldor Fire Burns Toward Nevada: Tahoe survived another night as a fire crews worked to keep the Caldor Fire away from South Lake Tahoe as the fire continued burning east toward the Nevada Border. The fire has now burned nearly 208,000 acres and was just 23% contained as of Wednesday evening and is the 15th largest wildfire in state history. Seventeen of the state's 20 largest fires have burned in the last 21 years as climate change caused by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels has supercharged fires. "This is getting to be, you know, ridiculously stupid," South Lake Tahoe resident Mark Rickter told NPR at a Red Cross shelter on the norther side of the lake. "Wind-driven fires - this is what, you know, burned Paradise," he added. "This is what's happening with the Dixie Fire. Now we have the Tamarack Fire and the Caldor Fire. So yeah, I've been scared." (Sacramento Bee $, CNN, NPR, ABC, KCRA Sacramento, Tahoe Daily Tribune, AP; Climate Signals background: 2021 Western wildfire season)

Extreme Weather Gets More Frequent and Costly, While Air Pollution Costs More Lives Than Car Crashes: A new report from the World Meteorological Organization examines weather-related disasters over the last 50 years and finds that while the frequency and cost of climate-related weather disasters like hurricanes and heat waves has increased, thanks to improved preparations and resilience measures, their death toll has decreased. The most lethal events were droughts and storms in the ‘70s and ‘80s that caused hundreds of thousands of deaths in Ethiopia, Bangladesh and Sudan, while the most costly events were Hurricane Katrina followed by 2017’s trio of Hurricanes Harvey, Maria and Irma. However, while emergency response and infrastructure improvements have protected people from fossil-fuel-intensified extreme weather events, the air pollution from fossil fuels remains a steady and significant health threat. A new report from the University of Chicago’s Air Quality Life Index shows that coal is killing us, with the average global citizen losing 2.2 years of life due to air pollution, primarily from burning coal. Overall, that adds up to 17 billion lost years. If India were to meet WHO guidelines for pollution, particularly in the north of the country where nearly a half-billion people live with air ten times as dirty as anywhere else in the world, it would add an average of nearly 6 years to residents’ lives. “Coal is the source of the problem in most parts of the world,” said report author Michael Greenstone. “If these [health] costs were embedded in prices, coal would be uncompetitive in almost all parts of the world.” (Extreme Costs: AP, Reuters, Axios, Reuters; Air pollution: The Guardian, Axios, The Hill)

Ida Impacts Continue: The impacts of Hurricane Ida continue to be felt in the Gulf Coast and along the eastern seaboard. Heavy rains from the remnants of Ida flooded an apartment complex in Rockville, Maryland - leaving a 19-year-old dead after he went into a flooded apartment to try and save his mother, and another resident unaccounted for. In Annapolis, a tornado caused by the storm tore off roofs, caused gas leaks, and left thousands of homes and businesses without power. Flash flood warnings continue in the Northeast and Mid-Atlantic, with 24-hour rainfall totals potentially reaching 1-in-100 year events. The Weather Service estimates twenty million people are in a high-risk zone for flooding, and an additional 32 million in the surrounding moderate risk area. Thousands of residents are being evacuated in Pennsylvania after hours of heavy rain while in New Orleans, carbon monoxide leaks are poisoning residents as they run generators indoors, with seven kids and five adults were hospitalized from carbon monoxide poisoning from a single home in New Orleans, and a 24-year-old was found dead inside his business on Monday. Untreated sewage is also being dumped into the Mississippi River after backup generators failed, an emergency measure that highlights the continuing challenges after Entergy New Orleans’ eight transmission lines into the region went offline in the face of Ida’s intense winds. Gasoline distribution has also been impacted as demand for the fuel has skyrocketed but refineries and distribution centers remain offline. (Maryland death: Washington Post $, AP; Flash flooding and evacuations: Washington Post $, CBS, Yale Climate Connections, AP; New Orleans impacts: NOLA 1, NOLA 2, NOLA )

Climate News

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: BIPOC workers grapple with public anger over masks (Prism Reports)

COP26: Global South climate activists doubt COP26 participation over vaccine delay (Thomson Reuters Foundation)(Climate Home), Glasgow records hottest summer in run-up to COP26 climate summit (The Guardian

IDA: Biden to travel to Louisiana Friday, survey Ida damage (The Hill AP), Before and after images show the devastation from Hurricane Ida (Washington Post $), Satellite photos show Louisiana coast is still dealing with major flooding post-Ida (NPR), Shocking aerial images show extent of Ida’s damage in Louisiana (Earther), Hurricane Ida shows how New Orleans is still trying to police its way out of disasters (Grist), Photos show black slick in water near Alliance Refinery rig after Hurricane Ida (Times-Picayune, AP)

  • Adaptation: How wetlands can help buffer Louisiana storms (AP, explainer), Ida exposes weak infrastructure as storms grow stronger (E&E News), Hurricane Ida’s aftermath, recovery uneven across Louisiana (AP)
  • Ongoing Impacts: At least 8 deaths as Hurricane Ida’s remnants hit Northeast (AP), Remnants of Hurricane Ida take aim at Northeast (ABC), In Ida’s aftermath, no quick relief in sight for Louisiana (AP), Remnants of Ida produce multiple tornado warnings in Northeast (ABC), Challenges remain as refineries, pipelines open after Ida (Houston Chronicle), Rescues, damaged homes amid flooding in western Virginia (WDBJ), Hurricane Ida and the coming eviction crisis (Grist), Bonnaroo music festival cancelled due to flooding from Ida (Earther), Crew of ship left to ride out Ida, reportedly still stranded at sea (DeSmog), Frightening surge in carbon monoxide poisonings after Hurricane Ida: Generators 'can kill' (Times-Picayune), Ida unleashes tornadoes, flooding in Maryland as storm hammers East Coast (NBC), The whole system imploded': How Ida crippled Louisiana's gasoline distribution (Times-Picayune), We might not know the true toll of Hurricane Ida for weeks (HuffPost), Drillship crew in Gulf says they were not evacuated for Hurricane Ida, still stranded with no rescue in sight (KLFY), Remnants of Hurricane Ida hit US Open, creating some chaos (AP), Scenes from New York City as Ida paralyzes region. (New York Times $)
  • Power: Power makes slow return to eastern New Orleans (AP), One million without power as Ida leaves trail of destruction (Reuters), Hurricane-driven blackouts in New Orleans send a dire warning about the need for distributed energy (Canary Media), Energy provider says restoring power in parts of Louisiana will be 'weeks-long process' (The Hill), Where it stands: Ida's energy aftermath (Axios), Gulf Coast grapples with power outages amid Ida's destruction (CBS), New Orleans needs a better backup plan for blackouts (The Verge), Lack of power hinders assessment of toxic pollution caused by Ida (New York Times $), Race to restore power in Louisiana (NBC)
  • Science: The science behind super-strong hurricanes like Ida (Grist), Why Hurricane Ida has been so devastating to Louisiana and the Gulf Coast (Vox)

CLIMATE COMMUNICATIONS: Atlas of the Invisible: using data to map the climate crisis (The Guardian), study: the public is pretty confused by your climate change jargon (Grist)

EXECUTIVE BRANCH: Treasury hopes to tackle climate insurance risks (Axios)

HOUSE: House Democrats propose sweeping changes to oil and gas program (Politico Pro $), progressive Dems call on Biden to replace Powell with Fed chair who will take on climate crisis (Democracy Now), [Natural Resources Committee] girds for partisan reconciliation clash (E&E News)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden infrastructure plan takes on EV charging’s inequality problem (Reuters)

POLITICS: Chamber calls for Biden, Congress to slow their push for carbon border tax (Politico Pro $), progressives launch campaign to exclude gas from Congress's clean electricity program (The Hill, Politico Pro $), Democrats race to resolve House-Senate disputes on $3.5T megabill (Politico), Ida churns up tension on infrastructure vs. climate change (Politico)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Biden offers support, new aid in first meeting with Ukraine's Zelenskiy (Reuters), China warns U.S. strained relations could sink climate cooperation (New York Times $), Poor U.S.-China ties will hurt climate change cooperation, Beijing warns Kerry (Washington Post $)

CITIES AND STATES: Illinois Senate passes bill to save nuclear plants, sends to House (Reuters), Does rural Illinois really need a new gas pipeline? (Grist), Vermont digs in on incentives to boost geothermal heat pumps (Energy News Network), Top New Mexico lawmakers concerned about oil and gas rules (AP), Climate change is bankrupting America’s small towns (New York Times $)

TEXAS: Tesla plan to sell electricity in Texas would cut out the 'middleman' (Utility Dive), Texas law banning abortion as early as six weeks goes into effect as the U.S. Supreme Court takes no action (Texas Tribune, Black Wall Street Times), Texas’ new abortion law just took effect. Here’s what it does — and what you need to know. (The 19th* News)

HEAT: Climate-driven extreme heat threatens $500B in new U.S. costs by 2050 (Thomson Reuters Foundation, TIME)

DROUGHT: Activists fought rounding up U.S. wild horses. Then came drought and climate change (Reuters), Acequias along the Rio Chama face water shortages amid drought, climate change (New Mexico Political Report)

WILDFIRES: How one town put politics aside to save itself from fire (Grist), One night on the fire lines at Lake Tahoe (New York Times $), Weather slows California wildfire, but flames keep moving (AP)

HURRICANES: Ida’s not done, Kate persists, Tropical Storm Larry forms (AP)

RENEWABLES: Hi-tech wooden flooring can turn footsteps into electricity (The Guardian), Wind energy's record 2020 growth to continue this year, but deployment could slow in 2022, DOE finds (Utility Dive)

BUILDINGS: A Dutch group may have a way to drastically cut carbon emissions (NPR)

LNG: New fortress renews $766M LNG project for Ireland with ‘future-proofed’ hydrogen option (Natural Gas Intel)

OIL & GAS: Huge Arctic oil find makes waves (E&E News), OPEC member [Iraq] urges oil producers to focus more on renewable energy (The Guardian)

OIL SPILLS: A New York City-sized oil spill is contaminating the Mediterranean Sea (Earther)

UTILITIES: Duke explores shutting coal-fired plants by 2030 in South Carolina plans (Utility Dive)

EVs: Europe's automakers gear up for an all-electric future (Politico Pro $), five facts on the state of the U.S. electric vehicle charging network (Reuters Factbox), Shell aims to install 50,000 on-street EV charge points by 2025 (The Guardian), Tesla made electric trucks 'cool.' Now fleets face financial hurdles. (Utility Dive)

XR: WWF office sit-in enters second day as XR keeps up London protests (The Guardian)

AGRICULTURE: Extreme weather adds to crop issues (Axios), how do we know cows are so bad for the climate? (Earther)

GEOENGINEERING: The problem with playing God to fix the climate: It might not work (Politico Pro $)

FINANCE: Battle to host global sustainability company disclosures body heats up (Reuters), Bank of England highlights environmental regulation of banks (Reuters), Clash among progressives is boosting the Fed chief’s path to keeping his job (Politico)

STEEL: With the right policies, the UK could lead on green steel production (Energy Monitor)

IN MEMORIAM: Nature Conservancy official [Nancy Kelley] who led group into oceans work has died (E&E News)

WILDLIFE: As nature shifts, climate change forces rewrite of U.S. conservation strategy (Thomson Reuters Foundation), in the Amazon, the world’s largest reservoir of biodiversity, two-thirds of species have lost habitat to fire and deforestation (InsideClimate News), new research helps explain a sudden population crash for rare whales (New York Times $), the riverkeeper’s quest to protect the Delaware River Watershed as the rains fall and sea level rises (InsideClimate News)

INTERNATIONAL: The Amazon rainforest’s most dogged defenders are in peril (Vox), 'get on with it’: Australia already has low-carbon technology and Coalition should embrace it, scientists say (The Guardian), Canada's 'infernal summer' puts climate change at forefront of election (Reuters)(Politico Pro $), Norwegian government proposes overhaul of petroleum tax system (Reuters)

Analysis & Opinion-Resized

Denier Rounup-2

Organized Denial Fighting Climate Action At The State Level, From Pennsylvania and Virginia to Washington State

While the Democratically-controlled US House, Senate and Presidency wrangle with themselves over passing what may turn out to be some of the most consequential climate policy ever, the fight is between those who prize the idea of Moderation and Centrism and those who would prefer people not die needlessly from fossil fuel pollution. With Republicans largely irrelevant to the conversation, the organized climate denial set has little leverage to gum up the works. 

Which perhaps is why they appear to be setting their sights a little closer to home, attempting to run the denial playbook at the state level. 

For example, Pennsylvania has been moving towards joining the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative (RGGI), a carbon market that’s driving down emissions and power bills across the Northeast. In response, industry has set up a web of front groups, and over the summer, even brought in the big guns of career deniers like Steve Milloy and Marc Morano to speak at a House committee meeting. 

The state’s Republican party has been working hard on behalf of its fossil fuel benefactors to try and prevent the Democratic governor Tom Wolfe from joining RGGI, and even national-level professional denial lackey Kevin Mooney wrote up the situation for the Daily Signal, the Koch/Mercer/tobacco/polluters-funded Heritage Foundation’s fake news website. 

While RGGI started as a Northeast and Mid-Atlantic initiative, in 2020 Virginia announced that it would be the first southern state to join. And like its northern counterparts, the state’s seen an influx of disinfo carpetbaggers. For example, the industry-funded CFACT’s Collister Johnson Jr. recently bragged in Koch-funded RealClearEnergy that Republicans in Virginia oppose the Virginia Clean Economy Act thanks to CFACT’s hard work and dedication of publishing "a series of articles" starting in 2021. VCEA passed with only Democratic support the year before, but thanks to CFACT’s lobbying on a bill that had already passed, Johnson wonders to what extent the 2021 Virginia state elections will be influenced by their “Repeal VCEA” message.

(Given that the only other big thing Collister has to brag about in life besides being frequently wrong on purpose is that he was given a seat on the board of the Overseas Private Investment Corporation by his Yale roommate, George W. Bush, we’ll forgive his eagerness to brag about the amazing feat of turning Republicans in 2021 against climate action passed in 2020.)

Across the country, but just a click away at the organized denial clearinghouse RealClear, Duggan Flanakin, also working for CFACT, describes the effort in Washington state to oppose a Spokane city council ban on new methane gas hookups. 

Now, what Flanakin definitely won’t tell you is that, like it is across the country, the gas industry in Washington is pouring at least a million of dollars into opposing these individually small but collectively mighty moves to kick the fossil fuel addiction, with Washington being home to at least one of the trade groups working nationally to fight electrification. 

So if you’re looking at the reconciliation fight, and wondering where the climate deniers vocal opposition is, you might want to check a little closer to home!

  Facebook Link     Twitter Link     LinkedIn Link    

View this email in your browser
Send updates or feedback to Molly Taft at mtaft@climatenexus.org.

You received this email because you are subscribed to Daily Hot News from Climate Nexus.
Want to change how you receive these emails? You can update your preferences or unsubscribe from this list.

Climate Nexus· 322 8th Avenue · New York, New York10001 United States