Climate Change Is Making El Niños and La Niñas Worse, Costing Trillions: A new study published in the journal Science finds that the average El Niño costs the global economy around $3.4 trillion. This tab could run to $84 trillion by the end of the 21st century, as climate change continues to increase the frequency and duration of the El Niño weather pattern. “The fact that these events are so costly was definitely a surprise,” Chris Callahan, lead author and doctoral candidate at Dartmouth College, told the Washington Post. “We have this sense that El Niño is a really big hammer that hits the Earth system every few years. But we didn’t have as much of a handle on its sort of macroeconomic implications, both what that means just on a year-to-year basis and what that might mean with future global warming,” Callahan told the AP. An El Niño weather pattern includes warming ocean temperatures in the Pacific and weaker trade winds that last from a few months to over a year. (AP, Axios, Gizmodo, Grist, The Guardian, New Scientist, The Conversation, Washington Post $, Bloomberg $; Climate Signals: El Niño and La Niña)

World’s Largest Lakes Are Shrinking From Climate Change: Using satellite measurements of almost 2,000 of the world’s largest lakes and reservoirs and images taken over 30 years, University of Colorado Boulder researchers found that 53 percent of the freshwater resources studied had lost significant amounts of water. Half of the loss, the researchers found, is attributable to human activities and climate change. University of Oregon researcher Sarah Cooley, who was not involved in the study, told Inside Climate News “the major takeaway of this study is that drying trends in lakes are prevalent worldwide, and perhaps more so than previously thought.” Shrinking lakes and sources of freshwater have contributed to starvation and dislocation around the world, impacts that could be exacerbated from a warming world. In reservoirs, the study found that increased sedimentation - the deposit of rock or soil from erosion - drove a significant decline in reservoir water levels. (Inside Climate News, Reuters, CNN, Washington Post $)

How To Grill Cleaner Outdoors: Summer is around the corner, and across the US people are gearing up to put some shrimp on the barbie. However, for the eco-conscious, grilling can have some negative impacts on the environment and your health. Studies have found that charcoal grills release substantial amounts of climate pollution, and demand for charcoal made from burnt wood can contribute to deforestation. The solution? High-quality pure lump charcoal that hasn’t been chemically processed or shaped. This type of charcoal is the preferred grill fuel for BBQ pros, since it lights easily, burns hot, and leaves behind less ash. Chef Luis Mata recommended Binchotan to Huffington Post, “a Japanese crafted hardwood lump charcoal that’s known as the purest in the world. It burns longer, hotter and cleaner than any other charcoal or briquette. It’s also smokeless and odorless, and can be reused.” Be mindful of lighter fluid, which can cause ground-level ozone, a pollutant that especially affects children and the elderly. (Huff Post)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) INJUSTICE: Judge signals hesitance to shut down pipeline, pleads with Wisconsin tribe to work with oil company (AP)

CLIMATE LITIGATION: Judge rejects lawsuit by Nantucket residents to block wind turbines, protect right whales (AP)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: ‘It’s just crazy’: How the U.S.-China energy race imperils the climate fight (Politico), G7 leaders must fulfill their promise to stop funding fossil fuels (Climate Home), G-20 countries avoid climate backslide despite rush for energy (Bloomberg $)

DENIAL: Documents reveal how fossil fuel industry created, pushed anti-ESG campaign (The Hill)

GOP: Republicans slam FEMA 'woke agenda' (E&E $)

DOE: Granholm defends support for gas pipeline, citing energy security (Politico)

SENATE: Markey bill would restore ban on U.S. fossil fuel exports (The Hill), Senate Democrats enter permitting fray with proposal focused on climate, electricity and environmental impacts (The Hill)

CITIES AND STATES: Utah allocates millions to prepare for flood damage after wet winter (AP)

~CALIFORNIA: California bill would hit oil companies with $1 million penalty for health impacts (Inside Climate News), Drinking water at 1 in 4 California child-care centers tests dangerously high for lead (LA Times $)

FLOODING: Almost 250,000 flee floods in Somali city that ‘became like an ocean’ (CNN), Crews work to reach Italian towns isolated by floods as toll rises to 13 and cleanup begins (AP), Italy’s disasters suggest the climate crisis is at the gates of Europe (The Guardian)

MOCHA: Myanmar raises death toll from Cyclone Mocha to 54, but full extent of damage still unknown (AP)

HEAT: Northwest heat wave shows climate change has no winners (Bloomberg $), Yet another massive heat wave was all but impossible without human-caused warming (Scientific American), Climate change worsened Asia's April heatwave by 2C (BBC)

WATER: Arizona's farms are running out of water, forcing farmers to confront climate change (NPR), Future of food production hinges on water (Axios)

2C: Climate pledges reach threshold to keep warming below 2C (Bloomberg $)

SHOCKER: Exxon says reaching net zero global emissions by 2050 ‘highly unlikely’ (Bloomberg $), Pipeline companies use expired materials to cut costs, flouting regulations (Truthout)

OIL & GAS: Oil falls as traders raise bets on further fed rate hikes (Bloomberg $), As oil giants retreat globally, smaller players rush in (Wall Street Journal $) 

UTILITIES: Replace fossil fuels — with more fossil fuels? That's one major utility's plan (Grist)

GRID: A huge chunk of the US could see blackouts this summer (Gizmodo), US greenlights major transmission line for renewable energy in Western states (AP), The US ‘fast-tracked’ a power project. After 17 years, it’s nearing approval. (Wall Street Journal $)

RENEWABLES: What high interest rates mean for US renewable energy (TIME), Why the US is so bad at building clean energy, in 3 charts (Washington Post $), Alaska's big shift to renewable energy appears stalled, as future access to natural gas in doubt (Alaska Public Media)

SOLAR: How robots could dramatically speed up solar farm construction (Canary Media)

EVs: EV battery-swapping could help solve the US charging problem (Bloomberg $)

SCHOOL: Most teachers support teaching students about climate change, survey finds (Yale Climate Connections)

BATTERIES: A new battery intended to power passenger airplanes and EVs, explained (Inside Climate News)

REMOVAL: Corporate heavyweights unveil major carbon removal deal (Axios), Saving the forests won’t be enough to stop climate change — we need substantial emission cuts (The Verge)

CCS: Biden administration invests in carbon capture, upping pressure on industry to show results (AP)

PFAS: The EPA’s proposed PFAS regulations ignore a major source of drinking water contamination (Grist)

CONCRETE: An Alabama plant is now churning out low-carbon concrete (Canary Media)

H2: This East Coast bus depot will make its own carbon-free fuel (Canary Media)

FINANCE: Citigroup’s Smith sees ‘need to do more’: ESG latest (Bloomberg $), 

BUILDINGS: Joe Manchin just can't let gas stoves go (Gizmodo), Clean condo life: taking heat pumps to my vertical village’s council (Clean Technica) Are your gas bills paying for the campaign against banning gas? (NY Focus)

INTERNATIONAL: Brazil Petrobras blocked from drilling at key offshore zone (Bloomberg $), Huge setback for Indonesia’s massive coal gasification plans as US company withdraws (Energy Monitor), France moves to ban smoking in woodlands to combat growing climate-related risk of mega fires (AP), Oil drilling project near mouth of Amazon River rejected by Brazil’s environmental regulator (AP)

• The problems — and opportunities — with US energy policy (The Hill, Rep. Sean Casten)

• Biden’s fossil fuel turn is bad politics — and even worse science (The Hill, Basav Sen)

• Shell faces tense shareholder meeting as profits and climate collide (Reuters, Ron Bousso, Shadia Nasralla)

• Canadian financial institutions are fuelling the climate change crisis (The Conversation, Bruce Campbell)

Mail Call: GOP Sending Angry ESG Letters To Do Billionaire's Bidding

There have been a few great pieces lately chronicling the $1.6 billion donation that Leonard Leo got to spread conservative propaganda and disinfo.

This week, Nina Burleigh at The New Republic went deep on Barre Seid, the erstwhile billionaire who gave his $1.6 billion company to Leo, providing the most comprehensive history of Seid that we've seen to date. (We will just note that we flagged back in 2014 that Seid was funding climate denial and add that he was for years a Hot News subscriber and Denier Roundup reader!) 

Earlier this month at Politico, Heidi Przybyla looked at how Leo met billionaire Barre Seid through the supposedly nonpartisan Federalist Society. Przybyla warns that "Leo appears to be planning to use Seid’s money to create a new ecosystem of conservative activism that he’s likening to a Federalist Society for cultural institutions from schools to boardrooms." Sure enough, Rebecca Davis O'Brien at The New York Times attempted to track where the $182.7 million Leo spent in 2021 went. And while tens of millions are getting tossed to and fro, unfortunately, "it is impossible to directly trace where" all the money ended up, thanks to deliberately opaque disclosure laws. 

So what'd all that money buy? We know millions of dollars are changing hands, but what's Leo getting for all Seid's money? 

By the looks of it, the money bought a revival of McCarthy-era communist witch hunts, only now the communists are supposedly in Wall Street as well as Hollywood. While we can't trace where the money went, we can see where the disinfo is coming from and connect some dots. 

For example, on Tuesday and Wednesday, three successive stories broke in right-wing media about Republicans sending threatening anti-ESG letters. 

We can't know for sure, but odds are, had a billionaire not dumped money into fighting against responsible investing that incorporates environmental, social, and governance risks into financial decisions, Fox News wouldn't be reporting that Republicans are sending a letter pressing the Federal Reserve to deny climate risks under the guise of the anti-ESG campaign that Seid's money seeded. 

And we can probably assume that without Seid’s money, Republican state attorneys general would be doing something more helpful with their position as the state's top law enforcement officers than sending threatening letters to insurance companies for factoring in climate risk, again in keeping with the anti-ESG crusade.  

And of course, the Seid/Leo-funded State Financial Officers Foundation (SFOF) wouldn't be pushing GOP state treasurers into sending threatening letters to major financial institutions — costing their states billions of dollars for their anti-ESG efforts — without billionaire backing. 

But hey, who cares if the public's losing money, so long as Leonard Leo and friends are rolling in it? Apparently not Republicans!

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