Flooding Kills Over 400 In Democratic Republic Of Congo: The tragedy comes days after flooding killed over 120 people in neighboring Rwanda. U.N. Secretary-General António Guterres remarked, “this is yet another illustration of accelerating climate change and its disastrous impact on countries that have done nothing to contribute to global warming.” Flooding in the DRC began last Thursday as heavy rains caused rivers to overflow, destroying homes, communities, and farms. Nearly 3,000 families have been left homeless in a region already struggling with armed conflict. "It's like the end of the world," 27-year-old Gentille Ndagijimana, who lost her parents and two sisters, told the AFP news agency. Climate change is increasing extreme precipitation and intensifying storms, putting a growing number of inland and coastal communities at risk. (Reuters, CNN, ABC News, BBC, NBC News, Democracy Now, New York Times $; Climate Signals: Floods)

Climate Driven Heat Waves Break Records In Asia And Europe: A historic heat wave is sweeping across the two continents, threatening vulnerable populations and triggering severe thunderstorms and flooding. Temps hit over 111 degrees Fahrenheit this past weekend in Vietnam, where the previous heat record was (just) 110 degrees Fahrenheit. Similar records were broken in Thailand, Cambodia, and Spain, which recorded the hottest and driest April since record-keeping began in 1961. A heatwave of this magnitude should only have about a 1-in-400 chance of occurring each year, according to World Weather Attribution. Climate change continues to drive extreme heat and its impacts, which are likely to continue as Pacific Ocean conditions begin to shift from three years of a worldwide La Niña to a more warming El Niño pattern. Maximiliano Herrera, a climate historian who tracks temperature records, tweeted that the episode is “one of the most brutal heat event[s] the world has ever witnessed,” adding that “records are being pulverized.” (Gizmodo, Scientific American, AP, Axios, Washington Post $, Bloomberg $; Climate Signals: Heat)

New Mine Headed For Swift Approval By Biden Administration Despite Community Concerns: The U.S. Forest Service and other agencies will expedite the review of a $1.7 billion underground mine that will process manganese and zinc, two minerals that have recently been deemed by the U.S. Geological Survey as “critical” for national security and the energy transition. The mine would be the only in the U.S. to produce battery-grade manganese, and tap one of the world’s largest undeveloped deposits of zinc. The project is located in southern Arizona - near the Mexican border - and faces local opposition over worries it would disturb sensitive ecosystems within the Coronado National Forest, and push already endangered species closer to extinction. “Yes, we do need to be moving away from fossil fuels, but there are other places to mine these minerals and there’s even the possibility to extract minerals that have been tossed into the waste bin,” Carolyn Shafer, president of the Patagonia Area Resource Alliance told E&E. The mining company - South32 Hermosa - has 646 acres of patented private land, and more then 34,000 acres of unpatented mining claims in the area. (E&E $)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Alabama neglected Black residents' health by ignoring raw sewage crisis, DOJ finds (Gizmodo), A landmark investigation brings environmental justice to rural Alabama (Grist)

COP28: Phasing out fossil fuels hasn’t worked. Europe has a new idea for COP28 (Bloomberg $)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: US, UAE climate-friendly farming fund grows to $13 bln (Reuters)

AGENCIES: US agency plans deeper study of sea turtles, dredging threat (AP)

EPA: EPA preps Trump-era plan to push wetlands permitting to states (E&E $), EPA’s car pollution rules would save Americans trillions of dollars (Yale Climate Connections)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden notched big climate wins. Can his campaign sell that? (E&E News), Pro-Biden groups spend $20M+ to promote record ahead of ’24 (AP)

THE HILL: Biden’s oil-reserve withdrawals spark Republican demand for audit (Bloomberg $), ‘Over our dead bodies’: backlash builds against $3 trillion clean-energy push (Wall Street Journal $), ‘Hostage situation’: stakes for climate policy high in US debt ceiling fight (Guardian)

LNG PERMITS: Democrats call for greater White House scrutiny of gas projects (Washington Post $), Democrats press Biden administration on climate impact of LNG buildout (Reuters), Congressional Democrats ask Biden administration to revamp LNG permit process (The Hill) 

CITIES AND STATES: Florida tosses climate lifeline to swamped 'Keybillies' (E&E $), Why Texas, a clean energy powerhouse, is about to hit the brakes (Washington Post $), In parched Arizona, the produce gardens bloom (New York Times $), El Paso voters soundly reject Proposition K climate charter (Texas Standard)

~CALIFORNIA: California’s forests are packed with dead trees. Harvesting them could cut wildfire risk. (Yale Climate Connections), What to know about California’s boosted water allocations (New York Times $), Cracks, hacks, attacks: California’s vulnerable water system faces many threats (LA Times $)

IMPACTS: Wildfires rage across Canada’s gas heartland, shutting output (Bloomberg $), The speed of this Greenland glacier’s melt could signal even worse sea level rise (Washington Post $), Warming-stoked tides eating huge holes in Greenland glacier (AP)

“RENEWABLES”: The investment boom in ​‘renewable natural gas’ is sparking debate (Canary Media)

CCS: Biden’s plan to cut power emissions hinges on little-used carbon capture (Bloomberg $)

GEOTHERMAL: Abandoned coal mines may be gold mines for geothermal energy (CNBC)

OIL & GAS: American drivers are last hope for global fuelmakers ahead of tenuous travel season (Bloomberg $), The gulf of Mexico has a $30 billion unplugged oil well problem (Bloomberg $)

ORPHANED WELLS: Price to plug old wells in Gulf of Mexico? $30 billion, study says. (New York Times $)

COAL: In the game of musical mines, environmental damage takes a back seat (ProPublica)

FINANCE: Nextera unit jumps as gas pipeline sales mean it won’t have to issue equity (Bloomberg $), Oil’s sharp slide has surprised markets. But some traders now see a bottom for prices (CNBC), Big oil has $150 billion in cash and investors want a share (Wall Street Journal $), Carbon markets get boost from Wall Street (Wall Street Journal $)

WIND: With revenue flowing into its coffers, a German village broadens its embrace of wind power (Inside Climate News)

EVs: Why most car dealers still don’t have any electric vehicles (Vox), Colombia’s women-led electric bus fleet is reshaping Bogotá’s public transit (Bloomberg $), Is battery swapping the solution to EV charging woes? (E&E $), A California bill could help EVs prevent blackouts (Canary Media), In Norway, the electric vehicle future has already arrived (New York Times $)

MR. FUSION: Fusion breakthrough hits hurdles as five experiments fail (Bloomberg $)

WATER: Report: Farm bill offers water equity opportunity (E&E $)

WILDLIFE: All birds are shrinking — but small birds are shrinking fastest (The Hill), ‘Unique’ frogs in NSW rainforests feared locally extinct after black summer bushfires (The Guardian), Frogs in Puerto Rico croak at a higher pitch due to global heating (The Guardian), 7 animals we could lose forever due to climate change (Salon)

INTERNATIONAL: India oil panel urges diesel vehicle ban in big cities by 2027 (Bloomberg $)

• Oil companies give back the cash (Bloomberg, Matt Levine $)

• New York banned gas from new buildings. Why not California? (LA Times, Editorial Board $)

• We must take care to not ‘greenwash’ environmental justice (South Seattle Emerald, Grant Gutierrez)

Checking In On RealClearEnergy: Yep, Still A Bunch Of Professional Dirty Energy Disinfo

Are you curious about what various professional dirty energy defenders are up to? Well, look no further than RealClearEnergy, the longtime conservative and dirty energy propaganda site that publishes regular op-ed content from obviously corrupt sources. 

Let's run through last week's offerings! 

On May 3rd, a chemical industry consultant was basically cheerleading the dirty energy industry's profits (relative to "woke investing") during the period of time in which the industry was profiteering off of the war in Ukraine. So, if you too would like to exploit tragedy for profit, then yes, the dirty energy industry will take your money! 

The same day it published this anti-woke piece, RealClearEnergy also ran a woke-washing piece from one of the first groups set up explicitly to woke-wash the energy industry's discriminatory practices and pollution. Since 1993, the National Black Chamber of Commerce (NBCC) has been lobbying on behalf of industry by claiming to speak for Black businesses, and indeed, they're still at it thirty years later. Oddly, this piece argues against deregulation but only, apparently, when it comes to letting people buy clean energy.

And appearing next to the anti-woke and the woke-wash is a rambling anti-EV piece by Trump EPA staffer Mandy Gunasekara, who casts doubt on the Biden administration's clean car policies. This article is part of her post-MAGA gig at the Independent Women's Forum, which, like the NBCC, is a right-wing identity politics-based group posing as one that speaks for women while really speaking for their big-money-backers. 

But it's not like RealClearEnergy is above blatant shilling, as a pro-nuclear piece the next day, by a nuclear engineering company co-founder, demonstrated. It too took a shot at EVs, before pivoting to the argument for "energy gradualism," which is basically lifted directly from the discourse of climate delay.

Though it's not like RealClearEnergy is only running content consisting of people begging for more money for their funders! The outlet also ran something by an employee of Power the Future, a Koch-linked lobby shop that's denied its own lobbying status. Their communications director Larry Behrens apparently felt the need to stick up for gasoline-powered lawnmowers, because green groups are pointing out how dirty and polluting they are and encouraging people to choose better options. 

Behrens doesn't even attempt to argue any of the facts about how "No Mow May" is meant to give bees and other pollinators a chance to do their thing; or even pretend loud, noxious, fickle gas mowers aren't in need of improvement. Instead he just opposes it on principle because "only by standing up to their lunacy will they back down." 

… so wrote the man acting as the Lorax of fossil fuels, yelling at you to only use gas for your weekly ritualistic mowing of grass.

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

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