NYC’s Latest Deluge Dropped a Month's Worth of Rain in Just Hours: New York City came to a standstill last week after intense rainfall caused flash flooding across much of the city. Almost 8 inches of rain fell on JFK Airport on Friday, the most rainfall in one day since record-keeping began in 1948, while CNN reports that Brooklyn got a month’s worth of rain in just a few hours. Much of the city’s subway services were suspended, leaving the 2.4 million daily riders across the five boroughs stranded during morning commutes; while firefighters performed some rescues of people in basement apartments, no fatalities have yet been reported. More intense storms and higher rainfall totals are a sign of climate change, as warmer air can hold more moisture. Some important provisions that would keep New Yorkers living in illegal basement apartments safe—set in motion after 11 New Yorkers drowned during Hurricane Ida in 2021, trapped in their own homes—got stuck in the NY state Assembly earlier this year, and advocates say more needs to be done to keep the city safe during flash floods. Louise Yeung, the comptroller’s chief climate officer, told MSNBC in an interview that "Heavy rainstorms like the one we are seeing today are becoming our new normal as climate change intensifies…We are not fixing things at the pace our climate is changing and that’s going to continue to be a challenge every time we get one of these rain storms or hurricanes." (CNN, New York Times $, Reuters, NBC, BBC, Scientific American, The Independent, The Atlantic, The Verge, Vox, The Messenger, New York Post, New Republic: Kate Aronoff column $)

NOLA Faces Saltwater Onslaught—And a New Water Crisis: As drought lowers fresh water levels on the Mississippi River, a flood of salt water is slowly traveling up from the Gulf of Mexico to take its place, threatening the city of New Orleans’s water supply. Thousands of people living in Plaquemines Parish have already had their water supply contaminated by ocean water this summer, and officials expect that New Orleans, which draws much of its water supply from the river, will be forced to contend with saltwater creating unsafe drinking conditions, corroded pipes and destroyed appliances over the next few weeks. President Biden declared a state of emergency in the region on Wednesday, while the state of Louisiana and the Army Corps of Engineers are attempting various techniques to improve conditions, including osmosis machines to desalinate the water, a massive pipeline to bring drinking water south from upstream, and underwater levees to keep the saltwater at bay. But this confluence of sea level rise and climate-charged drought, officials say, is much broader than one solution can tackle. “This is not typical,” Robert Miller, a coastal hydrologist and professor at the University of Louisiana at Lafayette, told CNN. “When you have a back-to-back situation, the salinity will keep creeping in. It’s a buildup, it’s a cumulative effect.” (CNN, New York Times $, Axios, WDSU, WSJ $, CNBC)

Senator Dianne Feinstein's Death Leaves Complex Environmental Legacy: California Senator Dianne Feinstein died on Friday, at the age of 90. Long regarded as an environmental champion, though no radical progressive, Feinstein’s thirty-year career in the Senate began with a significant win in the early 90s with legislation that created Death Valley National Park, Joshua Tree National Park and Mojave National Preserve, significantly preserving swathes of California desert. On climate, Feinstein backed drives to improve fuel economy standards and pipeline safety—but her record on water preservation in the West was much more complicated, and she famously clashed in recent years with progressives pushing for a Green New Deal. “For decades, I was fortunate to count Dianne as a partner in protecting the American people from the existential threats of our time: advancing historic fuel economy standards to combat the climate crisis, championing an assault weapons ban to curb gun violence, and stopping the proliferation of nuclear weapons to avert Armageddon,” Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) said in a statement. (Grist, E&E, LA Times $, Sacramento Bee $, CBS)

CLIMATE JUSTICE: Extreme heat can be a death sentence in Texas prisons (Yale Climate Connections), Indigenous Brazilians celebrate land claims win - but fight goes on (Context), climate change is destroying public housing and displacing women of color (The 19th* News), a gas storage plant and new pipeline disrupt life for this Black community (Capital B News), from Katrina to Maui, disaster capitalism continues to exploit across many 'Souths' (Scalawag Magazine), emergence: the weather bears witness (Scalawag Magazine), radioactive waste problems have plagued this St. Louis community. Where are the reparations? (HuffPost)

WHITE HOUSE: Biden approves new offshore oil leases, faces hits by both sides (Washington Post $, AP)

SHUTDOWN AVOIDED (FOR NOW): How a government shutdown would slow US climate efforts (Bloomberg $), climate disasters drain US emergency fund, adding to government shutdown risk (Bloomberg $), government shutdown could delay climate action (Scientific American), FERC, DOE face major furloughs under government shutdown (Utility Dive)

CITIES & STATES: No water, roads or emergency services: How climate change left a rural neighborhood nearly uninhabitable (Texas Tribune), New York makes $100M available for schools to adopt zero-emission buses (Utility Dive), first floods, now fires: how neglect and fraud hobbled an Alabama town (Inside Climate News), environmental justice activists issue a call to ‘wage love,’ work toward building an environmentally just Detroit (Energy News Network), for Sanibel, the recovery from Hurricane Ian will be years in the making (Inside Climate News), NYC lawmakers urge rollback of climate change law, citing costs to constituents (New York Post), lobbyists weaken Miami-Dade bill workplace safety bill (Miami Herald), Shapiro advisors endorse emissions curbs to fight climate change but don’t embrace RGGI membership (Inside Climate News)

CONGRESS: Feinstein’s death leaves hole in Western water policy (Politico Pro $), Manchin lays out legal path for challenging Biden's EV requirements (Politico Pro $)

GOP: Republicans fight over who loves fossil fuels the most at second GOP debate (HuffPost), it's time to fact-check this big GOP claim on Biden's EV revolution (HuffPost), Trump supporter shoots someone attending peaceful rally (Indian Country Today), revealed: Trump administration forced Joshua Tree to stay open during last US shutdown (The Guardian)

THE COURTS: Unprecedented lawsuit over climate change underway (CNN), Texas regulators vow to fight EPA coal plant rules 'all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court' (Houston Chronicle), European court hears historic case from Portuguese youth suing 32 nations over climate crisis (Democracy Now), advocates increasingly rely on the courts to effect climate change. Is it the right approach? (Prism Reports), Biden ESG rule survives challenge in court. ‘Tonal shift’ may be biggest victory, lawyer says (CNBC)

AGENCIES: FERC must review local transmission planned by AEP, Duke, other Ohio utilities: complaint (Utility Dive)

TRANSPHOBIA: Ron DeSantis and the assault against trans rights and the environment (Earth Island Journal)

UAW: The UAW strike is the latest GOP culture war talking point (Inside Climate News), Trump and the GOP are trying to drive a wedge between autoworkers and EVs (The Verge), ‘this is history’: UAW workers from the picket lines (The Real News)

COAL: Pakistan's largest coal miner to boost output by over 50% in 2024 (Reuters), despite climate promises, insurance companies are still covering coal (Grist), ADB set to launch first coal early retirement scheme in Indonesia (Climate Home)

RENEWABLES: Where renewable energy is growing (and where it is stalling) (Forbes), using renewable energy for all the wrong reasons (Clean Technica), renewable energy is reckoning with its perception in rural America (CNET), one of America’s reddest states wants 100% green energy — if dams count as green (LA Times $), what does the green transition mean for energy jobs? (Context), climate models underestimate renewables progress, overstate net zero costs: study (Utility Dive), want to spur green energy in Wyoming? Aim for the billionaires. (New York Times $), with renewables deployment under way, now comes the hard part – storage (Energy Monitor), the growing danger of dams (TIME), Native American tribes have vast energy resources, but face barriers developing them (New Mexico Political Report)

SOLAR: How solar strengthened Texas’ grid  (The Hill), can the US make solar panels? This company thinks so (New York Times $), this miner's son went solar. Can his coal-mining home state see the light? (Newsweek),

OIL & GAS: Shell employees urged to revolt as oil giant faces internal backlash for ditching renewables (Common Dreams), environmentalists slam UK approval of Rosebank oil project in North Sea (Democracy Now, CNN), ‘monster fracks’ are getting far bigger—and far thirstier (New York Times $), New Mexico bans drilling within a mile of schools (Navajo Times), fossil fuel rules catch western towns between old economies and new green goals (NPR), inside the rough-and-tumble race to clean up America’s abandoned oil wells (Grist)

COP28: The UAE holds a major oil and gas conference just ahead of hosting UN COP28 climate talks in Dubai (AP), COP28 president says oil companies support 2050 net-zero goal (Reuters)

INT’L: Libya flood deaths expose climate chasm in conflict-hit states (Context), EU's candidate climate chief takes aim at fossil fuel subsidies, document shows (Reuters), Bolivia faces water shortage as winter heat wave drives drought (Reuters)

CARBON CAPTURE: Lagging Iowa carbon capture pipeline hearing to continue for another week (Des Moines Register), carbon capture tech hype is fizzling out, IEA says (Gizmodo), US carbon capture pipeline setbacks reflect challenges in climate fight (Reuters), a new NIMBYism blocks carbon pipelines (Wall Street Journal $)

METHANE: White House reviewing EPA methane rule (Politico Pro $), the 27-year old climate sleuth finding methane leaks for the UN (Bloomberg Law)

IMPACTS: As heat waves warm the Pacific Ocean, effects on marine life remain murky (LA Times $), how powerful land barons shaped the epic floods in California’s heartland (LA Times $), warmer Mediterranean threatens Spain's mussel farms (Context), the world’s poorest people won’t be able to migrate to escape climate disasters (Yale Climate Connections), Switzerland’s glaciers lose ‘mind-blowing’ volume of ice in just two years (CNN), warming oceans are fueling destructive hurricanes earlier, study finds (Washington Post $)

SEA LEVELS: As waters rise, a community must decide: do we stay or go? (Yale Environment 360), a hidden climate danger threatens coastal communities (Bloomberg $)

WILDFIRES: Is California’s wildfire season finally over? Don’t bet on it, experts say (LA Times $), should the feds cut trees in California’s wilderness to reduce fire risk? new lawsuit says no (San Francisco Chronicle), Canada's "hellish" wildfire season defies the calendar (Axios), PG&E’s $6 billion plan to prevent wildfires is in peril (Wall Street Journal $)

WATER: ‘A ticking time bomb’: Why California can’t provide safe drinking water to all its residents (LA Times $)

SOLUTIONS: The world already has its climate solutions. Now is the time to deploy them (TIME), techno-fixes to climate change aren’t living up to the hype (The Verge), seaweed is mucking up beaches. this robot could stop it — and fight climate change (NPR)

GRID: The US power grid quietly survived its most brutal summer yet (Vox), inside the decades-long permit process holding back 10,000 energy projects (Wall Street Journal $)

FINANCE: World Bank proposes ways to boost lending by over $100 billion (Reuters)

HOMES & BUILDINGS: ‘A contradiction’: U.S. subsidizes ‘sustainable’ buildings, but leaves them vulnerable to floods (Politico), in storms, Florida’s population boom beats better building codes (Miami Herald), US Treasury: homes must be 'zero energy ready' to get full tax credit (Reuters), as, interest take most out of American incomes since 2014 (Bloomberg $), what one motel tells us about survival in post-disaster America (Washington Post $), underground climate change: How heat is trapped under the surface, threatening buildings (CNBC)

HEALTH: Rising temperatures might spike drug and alcohol abuse hospital visits (Gizmodo)

EVS: What the EV industry can learn from the explosive growth of data centers (Utility Dive), electric vehicles may improve a community’s health (Yale Climate Connections)

MINERALS: $67 billion of rare minerals is buried under one of the world’s biggest carbon sinks (Wall Street Journal $)

ACTIVISM: Dutch climate activists have been blocking a major highway for 20 days (Democracy Now), how radical should you be when you’re trying to save the planet? (Vox), eighteen climate activists arrested for shutdown protest in McCarthy’s office (The Guardian), Vietnamese climate activist jailed in ‘unjust’ government crackdown (Climate Home)

CRITTERS: Mass death of Amazonian dolphins prompts fears for vulnerable species (The Guardian)

FARMING: To reverse a troubling trend, farmers are adding rocks to their fields (Modern Farmer), extreme heat is forcing America’s farmers to go nocturnal (Washington Post $)

TREES & SHRUBS: Some jerk just chopped down one of the world’s most iconic trees (HuffPost), a mission to protect thorn forests in the Rio Grande Valley (Yale Climate Connections), Brazil touts climate credentials as Amazon deforestation falls — but draws criticism over oil bet (CNBC)

BUGS: The mosquitoes are coming (New York Times $)

SPORTS: American football season is getting hotter. Young players are dying (The Guardian)

BOOKS: The summer that reality caught up to climate fiction (Gizmodo)

FOOD: Food prices are rising as countries limit exports. Blame climate change, El Nino and Russia’s war (AP)

• Climate journalists need to connect the dots between climate change and the invasion of Ukraine (Reuters Institute, Baktygul Chynybaeva essay)
• The cruise industry says LNG is a climate solution. It’s not (Climate Home, Carly Hicks op-ed)
• Biden is right to praise the auto strike. His climate agenda depends on it (The Guardian, Kate Aronoff op-ed)
• Fossil fuel companies must be held accountable for role in climate crisis  (Providence Journal, Everett Pope and Greg Gerritt)
• I’m an ecologist and second-generation Chinese immigrant. I had to define my own environmentalism (LA Times, Jenny Liou op-ed $)
• Classifying heat waves will help people better understand their dangers (Scientific American, Gina Jiménez essay)
• How long can America’s climate hypocrisy last? (New York Times, David Wallace-Wells column $)
• No one should call climate change a hoax (PennLive, Donald Brown oped)
• Florida farmers face heat, risks from climate change (Palm Beach Post, Mary Anna Mancuso oped)
• Free the American west from barbed wire (New York Times, Michelle Nijhuis op-ed $)
• Biden needs to step up and declare a climate emergency (Opinion) (Houston Chronicle, Robin Schneider and Dave Cortez o-ed)
• Hold climate change activists accountable for Maui wildfire missteps (Washington Examiner, Jeff Steir op-ed)
• Climate solutions are necessary. so we're dedicating a week to highlighting them (NPR, Julia Simon essay)
• Climate change is forcing families into a new kind of indefinite hell (New York Times, Matthew Wolfe and Malcolm Araos op-ed $)
• Why is it that Californians hardest hit by climate change are in denial about it?(Sacramento Bee, Max Taves op-ed $)

Catching Up On Two Weeks Of Climate Disinfo

Hello and welcome back, dear readers! What'd we miss? Anything juicy? 

Here's some of what stood out to us! 

ProPublica dropped another damning Clarence Thomas piece, detailing how the Koch network has been schmoozing the Supreme Court justice. And, much to our surprise, it turns out the case Koch influence operation changed his opinion on is Loper Bright Enterprises v. Raimondo — the fishing industry case that our fisherman-turned-lobbyist friend Jerry Leeman knows all about. 

And speaking of industry-backed legal lobbying, disinformation outlet RealClearEnergy published the latest on how polluter-protecting propagandists are using the "Major Questions" doctrine to undercut climate policy. Elsewhere in disinfoworld, The Washington Times ran an op-ed by Richard W. Rahn promoting Judith Curry's latest book, and in true denier fashion, Rahn manages to misrepresent the basics of Curry's career. 

"In 2016," Rahn writes, "Ms. Curry resigned her university position, in part to get away from the academic BS (my words, not hers) and joined the private sector as president of the Climate Forecast Applications Network to work on real, applied science, without having to be politically correct." Technically Curry resigned on January 1st, 2017, so Rahn's details are already suspect. 

The bigger problem? Curry "joined the private sector as president" of CFAN back in 2006, when she co-founded it! Coincidentally, that's when her heel-turn to denial began, though who's to say if her slow descent into disinfoworld is because she started signing, per her blog, "contracts with private sector and other non-governmental organizations include [sic] energy and power companies, reinsurance companies, financial companies, other weather service providers, NGOs, development banks and government agencies." 

But "person who started getting checks from Big Oil started saying there's no need to reduce fossil fuel use" doesn't quite have the same narrative zing to it as "capitalism frees scientists from politically correct restraints of the ivory tower," so there ya go.

Elsewhere in narrative-over-facts land, The Washington Free Beacon continues turning lobby groups’ white papers into news-like content, attacking the Biden administration’s green buildings policies, for example, on behalf of the National Association of Home Builders. Then there's the outlet’s obviously bad-faith "damned if you do, damned if you don't" coverage of the administration's efforts to work with China to reduce emissions. 

Same goes for The Daily Caller, where Nick Pope is emerging as the latest in a rich history of polluter errand boys pretending to be reporters with, you guessed it, an anti-China-themed story about the John Locke Foundation’s report comparing individual state climate policies to the country of China's emissions. Pope also carries the GOP's (oily) water too, though, as per Daily Caller tradition, dutifully turning Republican attacks on the Biden administration into faux news content.

And the same can be said for his predecessor at the Caller, Thomas Catenacci, who's now doing the same exact thing over at Fox News: turning GOP shenanigans targeting climate action into something with the tone and cadence of a news story revealing wrongdoing, but without any actual evidence that anyone's done anything illegal, immoral, or in any way unethical. 

But hey, maybe now that Fox News is getting a new boss, things will change! 

(Clearly, our sarcastic sense of humor has not.) 

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