FIRST LOOK

Emory University Medical School Adds Climate Change To Curriculum: Medical students at Emory University pushed for climate change to be added to their curriculum — and won. After studying the health impacts and realizing the correlation was not being taught, students convinced the administration to integrate climate change into standard courses for first-year medical students. Climate change harms human health via direct impacts (heat waves, droughts, heavy storms, and sea-level rise), and indirect impacts (vector-borne and airways diseases, food and water insecurity, undernutrition, and forced displacements). “We ended up really one by one going through every single lecture we ever went through throughout our medical school curriculum,” Emaline Laney, a student at the Emory University School of Medicine, told Yale Climate Connections. (Yale Climate Connections)

The Haves And The Have Nots Of Climate Migration, Real Estate Edition: Climate migration is well underway, and it is the poorest and most vulnerable who do not have the resources or capacity to leave their homes. Climate stressors, like wildfires,  heavy flooding, and sea-level rise, put pressure on people to leave their homes and livelihoods behind. Nearly half of Americans who plan to move in the next year say extreme weather and heat influenced their decision to relocate, a Redfin survey found. Affordability is a major factor. According to Redfin, counties, where many homes face high heat risk, are less expensive on average, making it expensive to move away from the oppressive heat. “Climate change will definitely impact poorer people more than wealthier people,” Daryl Fairweather, Redfin’s chief economist. “Wealthier people can adapt. They can modify their homes to be more resilient … and they can also just pick up and move.” (CNBC)

House Oversight Broadens Inquiry Into Big Oil Deception: The House Oversight Committee is calling representatives from top oil and gas firms and their lobbying groups to testify on the industry's role in deceiving the public about fossil fuels' role in causing climate change. The inquiry is modeled on the tobacco industry hearings of the 1990s, and the committee said it may subpoena representatives from Exxon, Chevron, BP, and Shell, along with API and the Chamber of Commerce, depending on their initial responses to the request to testify. The committee is seeking information and internal documents regarding their efforts to undermine climate policy since 2015. The requests come as Congress debates legislation that would begin to address the climate crisis, while climate-fueled disasters have left trails of death and destruction across the country, with nearly a third of the country affected in the last three months alone. (New York Times $, CNN, The Hill, Reuters)

CLIMATE DISCLOSURES: SEC takes a different route than Europe on climate disclosures (Bloomberg $) 

CORPORATE GREENWASHING: Carbon offset transactions surge despite environmental concerns (FT $), widespread lapses in climate risk reporting found in company accounts (FT $)

GREEN IN NAME ONLY: Greens seek K Street wedge on climate (Axios) 

BIG COAL: Rich nations head to South Africa seeking coal exit deal (Bloomberg)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: A historically Black town stood in the way of a pipeline – so developers claimed it was mostly white (The Guardian), defending wild rice (Atmos), Louisiana's communities of color already suffer from pollution and COVID, now it's climate change. (USA Today), why investing in libraries is a climate justice issue (National Observer)

(MENTAL) HEALTH: 75 percent of young people are frightened by the future, that’s the only sane reaction to climate change. (New Republic), climate change isn’t coming in the future, it’s already here. This is how it’s impacting your everyday life. (The Colorado Sun), mental health could be the next casualty of global warming (Bloomberg $)

POP-CULTURE: Can this cajun-punk musician protect his culture from climate change? (Rolling Stone)

COP26: UN climate summit warning signs are adding up (Axios)

DENIAL: Facebook thinks Buzzfeed-style quizzes will solve its climate misinformation problem (Gizmodo)

AGENCIES: USDA accepts more than 2.5 million acres in grassland conservation program (Modern Farmer)

EPA: EPA poised to slash HFCs 85% with new climate rule (E&E $), allegations of racism, abuse cloud EPA whistleblower hearing (E&E $), EPA scraps Trump-era Clean Water Act guidance (E&E $), former EPA chief to chair pro-Trump think tank's environmental center (The Hill)

THE HILL: US miners decry mineral royalty plan floated in Congress (Reuters), would Biden's oil freeze increase emissions, Dems seek 'historic' changes to US flood program (Politico Pro $), Democrats rethink climate measures, consider carbon tax (Wall Street Journal $), House and Senate Democrats face differences on clean energy tax subsidies (Washington Examiner), Tlaib and Pressley file bill to force fed to divest banks from fossil fuels (Truthout)

WHITE HOUSE: US to struggle to meet Biden's power grid climate goal (Reuters), Biden bids to break U.S.-China deadlock (Politico), how Joe Biden’s green agenda threatens the Alaskan wilderness (Politico)

INFRASTRUCTURE BILL(S): Here's what is in House Democrats' multi trillion-dollar infrastructure and social spending package (Washington Examiner)

POLITICS: How to talk about climate change across the political divide (The New Yorker $), the rocky road to reconciliation (Politico), 'transform America': one climate slogan for both parties (E&E News), industry, greens look to woo Manchin on drilling reforms (E&E News), lawmakers lay out arguments for boosting clean energy through infrastructure (The Hill)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Warming-hit nations get closer to creating UN climate rights envoy (Thomson Reuters Foundation), UN says world likely to miss climate targets despite COVID pause in emissions (Thomson Reuters Foundation), UK climate envoy to visit South Africa to discuss helping shift from coal (Thomson Reuters Foundation), 4 strategies for a UN breakthrough on energy and climate change (The Conversation)

CITIES AND STATES: Santa Fe group home to go solar, save money (Yale Climate Connections), how does Kansas City fare as climate change leads to warmer fall season across the US (Kansas City Star), Andrew Wheeler enters fight over VA bag tax (E&E News), Alabama PFAS manufacturing plant creates the climate pollution of 125,000 cars (Environmental Health News)

CALIFORNIA: California wants to ban misleading recycling labels. Plastic companies don’t. (Grist), the beginning of the end of oil is here for Los Angeles County (Gizmodo)

FERC: We're obviously in the middle of a dramatic transformation,' FERC's Glick says amid market reform talks (Utility Dive)

IMPACTS: ‘Larger than usual’: this year’s ozone layer hole bigger than Antarctica (The Guardian, Gizmodo), why saving world’s peatlands can help stabilize the climate (Yale Environment 360), what’s going on in this graph (New York Times $), drenching rains to visit Pacific Northwest, Northern California (Washington Post $), devastating floods spur new debate on how best to warn people (Washington Post $), living on the front lines of climate change: victims of fire and flood tell their stories (CNBC)

HEAT: August 2021 was sixth hottest recorded August since 1880 (Yale Climate Connections)

DROUGHT: Drought haves, have-nots test how to share water in the West (Washington Post $)

WILDFIRES: California wildfires threaten famous giant sequoia trees (Washington Post $), future of Lake Tahoe clarity in question as wildfires worsen (Washington Post $), wildfires in Australia caused an explosion of sea life thousands of miles away (Vox), fighting fire with fire to protect sequoia trees (AP)

HURRICANES: Atlantic disturbances 95L and 96L expected to soon develop (Yale Climate Connections), Nicholas, big and slow (New York Times $), teachers organize supply drive for Ida-impacted schools (AP), jobless claims rise in wake of Hurricane Ida (The Hill), oil supply losses from Hurricane Ida reach 30 million barrels, impacting gas prices (Washington Examiner)

RENEWABLES: US states partner up to grow the offshore wind industry(Energy Monitor), recycled carbon emissions are coming to consumer shelves (Thomson Reuters Foundation), body composting a 'green' alternative to burial, cremation (Washington Post $), Dominion Energy proposes a large number of solar projects (Richmond Times-Dispatch) 

EFFICIENCY: Blowers, mowers and more: American yards quietly go electric (Washington Post $), Al Gore's Climate TRACE finds vast undercounts of emissions (Axios), gas power to electric power to... foot power? (NPR)

OIL & GAS: Production of forever chemicals emits potent greenhouse gases, (The Guardian), Ontario teachers’ targets 45% cut in carbon emissions by 2025 (Bloomberg $), [British Airways'] ‘carbon neutral’ flight exposes problems cutting emissions (Bloomberg $), British Airways operates carbon-neutral flight using recycled cooking oil (The Hill), food production generates more than a third of manmade greenhouse gas emissions – a new framework tells us  how much comes from crops, countries and regions (The Conversation)

PLASTICS: Ocean cleanup struggles to fulfill promise to scoop up plastic at sea (Reuters)

GRID:How decades of neglect left Detroit’s grid vulnerable to powerful storms (Energy News Network), when lack of power turns deadly (Canary Media), climate change is creating unrelenting challenges for the country's power grid (NPR), this grid technology could make or break Biden's solar plans (E&E News), why did more than 400K people lose power during seemingly minor Hurricane Nicholas (Houston Chronicle)

EVs: Ford’s truck of the future looks pretty familiar (New York Times $), the best (and worst) metro areas for electric cars (New York Times $), why an electric car battery is so expensive, for now (Washington Post $), Ford adds jobs to meet soaring demand for electric F-150 Lightning (Axios, The Hill), all-electric aircraft from Rolls-Royce completes maiden flight in Britain (CNBC)

ACTIVISM: 9 questions about the Civilian Climate Corps, answered (Washington Post $), activists ‘born into the climate crisis’ face another challenge: fear of the future (Washington Post $), why the space race should inspire climate-minded young people (Washington Examiner, Danielle Butcher)

AVIATION: Biofuel makers seeks changes to aviation fuel tax credit in Biden spending plan (Reuters)

AGRICULTURE: Climate change may halve sugar and coffee output by 2099 (Bloomberg $)

BUSINESS: Chevron CEO explains why the oil giant’s lower-carbon investments look past wind and solar energy (CNBC), tallying emissions becomes a new challenge for companies (Wall Street Journal $)

FINANCE: Making rural minigrid economics work for investors (Canary Media), where is the money, climate finance shortfall threatens global warming goals (Thomson Reuters Foundation), White House economists say a clean energy transition will lower consumer costs (CNN); how the oil patch turned itself around and is attracting a whole new group of investors (CNBC), World Bank kills business climate report after ethics probe cites ‘undue pressure’ on rankings (CNBC)

WILDLIFE: Feds consider reinstating gray wolf protections (E&E News), new rainbow fly species with ‘legs for days’ named after RuPaul (HuffPost), red states’ wolf-killing campaign may have just backfired (HuffPost)

INTERNATIONAL: Whitehaven Coal’s Vickery mine given green light by environment minister (The Guardian), fire shuts one of UK’s most important power cables in midst of supply crunch (The Guardian), labour condemns new trade secretary for tweets rejecting climate science (The Guardian), why Canada’s emissions have risen since Trudeau took office (Climate Home), Lord Deben says street lights not needed in rural areas (BBC), Italgas expects DEPA deal to drive earnings as Greece looks to gas (Reuters), China's winter air pollution drive to encompass more cities (Reuters), Russian diamond producer tests CO2 capture potential by its ore (Reuters), slow aid response frustrates Congolese made homeless by volcano (The New Humanitarian), what’s behind Europe’s skyrocketing power prices (Bloomberg $), soaring utility bills alarm Europe, raise fears for winter (Washington Post $), China’s push for rooftop solar and rural wind boosts producers (Bloomberg $), surging energy prices close UK factories, another bottleneck in a world full of them (Wall Street Journal $)

• Exxon helped cause the climate crisis. It’s time they owned up (The Guardian, Mark Hertsgaard)
• We don’t have to fly blind into the next pandemic (Washington Post, Ngozi Okonjo-Iweala, Tharman Shanmugaratnam, Lawrence H. Summers op-ed $)
• Carbon reduction tax credit: an investment we can't afford not to make (The Hill, Alice Madden)
• The Great Lakes region is not a ‘climate haven’ (Bloomberg, Joel Brammeier op-ed $)
• Do we need to shrink the economy to stop climate change? (New York Times, Spencer Bokat-Lindell $)
• Climate change saves more lives than you’d think (Wall Street Journal, Bjorn Lomborg op-ed $)
• Congress’s climate crackup (Wall Street Journal, Kimberley A. Strassel $)

Facebook Gives 2 Weeks of Exxon Ad Revenue to Factcheckers to Stop Climate Disinfo on its Platform While Also Ignoring Said Factchecks

Yesterday Facebook announced “several new measures” for its users to “have access to reliable information while reducing misinformation,” which certainly sounds good. Unfortunately, a new report from Friends of the Earth found Facebook’s factchecking is only catching less than 1% of the disinformation on the platform. 

This is why it’s so disappointing that none of the steps Facebook announced actually do anything, at all, to reduce the misinformation and, worse, disinformation, that’s rampant on the platform. They don’t even try to address the problem. Instead, all they’re doing is revamping the page of accurate climate information they have by adding “new features, like quizzes” and additional new information, doing a video series on youth climate advocates (which is good, but doesn’t address disinformation), and giving their fact check network an whole one million dollars to grant out to “organizations working to combat climate misinformation.” 

Now sure, a million dollars sounds like a lot, but a million bucks is literally one-fifth of what just one oil company, ExxonMobil, gave to Facebook for ads last year alone. Overall, a recent InfluenceMap report found, just 25 top oil and gas advertisers spent nearly $10 million on Facebook ads in 2020, which were seen hundreds of millions of times. As InfluenceMap’s Faye Holder said in a press release, “Facebook often talks about its commitment to tackling climate change, but it continues to allow its platform to be used by the fossil fuel sector to undermine science-based climate action.” 

These token measures, Sean Buchan of Stop Funding Heat said, “are insufficient and not based upon the evidence. We are disappointed that Facebook is not following the latest climate communication science, nor several reports written about climate misinformation on their platform this year … Facebook, ironically, seem to remain in denial.” 

If Facebook really cared about not showing its users climate disinformation, it could start by not profiting from climate disinformation its fossil fuel advertisers pay for instead of giving a fraction of that money to third-party factcheckers to do the work Facebook should be doing.

But it gets worse! Because even when content is factchecked, that doesn’t mean users see less of it. In fact, Media Matters has found that when Facebook put labels on Donald Trump’s disinformation, those posts actually got twice as many interactions as the overall average. 

So Facebook content that does get factchecked doesn’t even get removed, and instead can actually be more popular than non-labeled content. But that’s just what gets factchecked, which is only a tiny fraction of the disinformation on the platform. According to the Friends of the Earth report released yesterday, during the Texas blackouts earlier this year 99.1% of the windmill-blaming lies on the platform were allowed to spread unchecked. While most of the popular posts of the actual images of a frozen wind turbine (originally taken in Sweden years ago) did get a label, the ensuing Fox News disinformation campaign that sprang forth, blaming the blackouts on frozen wind turbines instead of the actual gas culprit, was allowed to spread far and wide, without consequence. 

If Facebook’s fact checking program is only catching less than 1% of the false content, it makes sense that they’d try and beef it up with a chunk of cash. 

But what would make even more sense is if it actually respected the resulting factchecks, instead of essentially exempting anyone who complains about it, as the Wall Street Journal recently revealed is common practice. The outlet got a hold of a tranche of internal Facebook documents that reveal the company knows full well about a variety of problems it’s causing but leadership refuses to act on. 

For example, the documents reveal that even as Facebook touted out its factchecking work publicly, “in private, the company has built a system that has exempted high-profile users from some or all of its rules,” wrote Jeff Horwitz. The program is referred to as “XCheck or “cross check”, and the documents reveal how “it shields millions of VIP users from the company’s normal enforcement process,” creating a “whitelist” of users that are “rendered immune from enforcement actions'' or who “are allowed to post rule-violating material pending Facebook employee reviews that often never come.” 

Surely there’s a better way!  As Imran Ahmed of the Center for Countering Digital Hate said in a statement, “as with anti-vaccine misinformation, this problem requires comprehensive action to tackle superspreaders of misinformation and for the playing field to no longer be titled towards controversial misinformation which benefits from the amplification of both negative and positive engagement. 

Or more concisely, as Michael Khoo of Friends of the Earth told Molly Taft, he’s “a big fan of deplatforming known liars. You get rid of the liars, and guess what, you have fewer lies.” 

Turns out the one thing Silicon Valley can’t bring itself to disrupt is the disinformation industry, and the flow of cash it brings. 

Was this email forwarded to you? Sign up to receive Hot News every morning!

Send updates or feedback to nkauffman@climatenexus.org
Submit events and other items for consideration for a First Look using this form
Some articles require logins or subscriptions ($)