Restoring Peatlands Proves To Be Effective Carbon Sink: Last week, Tero Mustonen won a Goldman Environmental Prize for his work with the Snowcharge Cooperative to restore peatlands in Finland in partnership with the Sámi Indigenous and Finnish rural communities. Peatlands, many of which formed 12,000 years ago, are some of the largest and most important carbon sinks on Earth, and until a century ago, almost a third of Finland was covered in peat. But half of the Finnish peatlands have since been lost from strip mining and lumber operations. Yale Environment 360 interviewed Tero Mustonen, a Goldman Environmental Prize winner for his work with the Snowchange Cooperative, who is trying to restore 130,000 acres of peatlands in Finland, and to restore the land rights of the Sámi Indigenous people. “Our approach supports traditional knowledge and Sámi rights,” Mustonen told E360, “and recognizes that nature has its own distinct value separate from financial value. We are proud of that.” (Yale Environment 360)

Those With PJs Emit Tons, But Pay Pennies: Private jets are a luxury that's dirtier than what most jet owners had to do to get all that money. Four hours of flying on a private jet produces more climate pollution than what an average person in the EU produces in a year, and aviation contributes to global warming more than most countries. New analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) finds that private jet owners are not just emitting more, but paying much less in taxes for doing so. Those who fly on commercial flights pay a 7.5 percent tax and separate $4.50 surcharge to fund the services of the Federal Aviation Administration. Private flights, in contrast, are exempt from these fees, and fund just 2 percent of the money directed to the FAA, yet are one out of every six flights the FAA handles. "The private jet folks are not, in our analysis, chipping in to the system," Chuck Collins, a director at IPS, told CBS News. "You're subsidizing the air travel space — they're not paying 70% of the cost of the air traffic system," he said. "In effect, commercial passengers subsidize the carbon and convenience of the High Flyers," the IPS report notes, alongside recommendations for how to more equitably tax private jet travel. (CBS News, Gizmodo)

Climate Protestors Block Meta Gala Goers Like Paris Hilton: Some 15 climate activists in Manhattan were arrested after shutting down traffic and blocking motorcades like Paris Hilton's trying to reach the Met Gala Monday evening. “I blocked A-list limousine traffic today because the world should be paying attention to impending climate catastrophe rather than the luxury excesses of the Met Gala,” one protester from Reclaim Our Tomorrow told the Independent. “At a reported $50,000 per entry ticket, the Met Gala is a gross display of extravagance during a time when ordinary people are struggling to make ends meet.” The textile industry creates about 10 percent of global climate pollution and uses more energy than aviation and shipping combined, according to the United Nations Environment Program. (The Independent, LA Times $)

ENVIRONMENTAL (IN)JUSTICE: Ideas, and coffee, robust enough for the climate crisis (New York Times $), Clean energy technology can reduce energy costs for low-income people (Yale Climate Connections)

(ENVIRONMENTAL) RACISM: Rainforest nations seek easier access to UN carbon credit scheme (Reuters)

COP28: Cop28 boss slams rich nations “dismal” $100bn finance failure (Climate Home), Cop28 head backs fossil phase-out with carbon capture caveat (Climate Home), Next UN climate summit to consider health issues in depth for first time (The Guardian), Climate talks see push for deadline on ending ‘fossil fuel age’ (Al Jazeera)

CLIMATE DIPLOMACY: Rich nations to meet overdue $100 billion climate pledge this year (Reuters) 

DISINFO: Google still profits from climate lies on YouTube (The Verge), Whoops! YouTube shares profits with climate liars two years after it promised to stop (Gizmodo), YouTube still displays ads on some climate change denial videos (Engadget), The Murdoch media empire has been lying in Australia as well (Quartz), The thinking error that makes people susceptible to climate change denial (The Conversation)

EPA: Coming EPA power plant rules will put carbon capture to the test, but better oversight is needed, critics say (Utility Dive)

DOI: ‘A cry for help’: federal agency eyes a new kind of leasing to safeguard public lands (HuffPost)

SCOTUS: Supreme Court moves put Biden climate agenda at risk (E&E $) 

WHITE HOUSE: White House slams GOP 'loyalty to Big Oil' in debt talks (E&E $), Biden administration pledges fight to keep climate-friendly farming funds (Reuters), Biden’s push to disclose climate risks hits wall of industry resistance (Washington Post $)

THE HILL: Top Energy Republican blasts Haaland on lease sales: ‘You haven’t been following the law’ (The Hill), Senate GOP scoffs at highway nominee's green record (E&E $), Top Biden official suggests there are too many jobs while defending climate agenda in tense exchange (Fox News)

SENATE: Hard to overstate': A look at Cardin's water legacy (E&E $)

PFAS: PFAS lurking in waterways pose hidden threat to health (CBS)

CITIES AND STATES: Budget calls for N.Y. to retire downstate gas peakers by 2030 (E&E $), DeSantis signs sweeping anti-ESG legislation in Florida (Reuters), New York environmentalists have long list of items they want to address (Albany Times-Union), Delaware lawmakers introduce bills to dramatically reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 (Wilmington News Journal), Key climate change proposal dies in CT legislature — for now (CT Insider)

~CALIFORNIA: California spent $1.3B in cap-and-trade funds on climate, equity projects in 2022 (SmartCities Dive)

IMPACTS: 6 died in an Illinois dust storm pileup — will climate change bring more such tragedies? (USA Today), Hundreds of hazardous sites in California are at risk of flooding as sea level rises, study finds (CNN), California redwoods suffer from effects of climate change-fueled weather whiplash (CBS), Climate change: life in ocean ‘twilight zone' at risk from warming (BBC), El Niño, global weather pattern tied to intense heat, is expected by fall (New York Times $)

BUILDINGS: New York poised to pass first statewide law banning natural gas in new buildings (CNBC)

WIND: Healey administration aims to ‘go big’ on offshore wind, seeking to generate 25 percent of state’s electricity (Boston Globe $), Danish wind pioneer keeps battling climate change (New York Times $), Iowa regulators approve key terms for $3.9B wind project (E&E $)

FINANCE: Climate change is high on the agenda as the world bank gets a new president (Marketplace), Former Facebook CTO Mike Schroepfer launches climate investment firm: 'We need business' to solve climate change (CNBC)

TRANSMISSION: Maine court recharges plan for embattled transmission line (Grist)

CHOO-CHOO: California adopts first-ever rules to decarbonize freight trains (Canary Media)

CRYPTO: Activists target crypto’s climate impact (Politico)

ARTS: How the arts can help US face the world’s most pressing challenges (New York Times $)

UTILITIES: Renewable energy delays threaten grid reliability, PJM says (E&E $)

GEOENGINEERING: A vintage warplane is scouting for clues that geoengineering could actually work (Gizmodo)

LNG: German leaders promise that new liquefied gas terminals have a green future, but clean energy experts are skeptical (Inside Climate News)

EVs: Ga. governor: Nix EV tax credits or expand them (E&E $), Maryland embraces gradual transition to zero-emissions trucks and buses (Inside Climate News)

IN HARVARD YARD: Why free street parking could be costing you hundreds more in rent (Washington Post $)

TRUCKS: EPA begins marathon hearing on truck rule (E&E $)

MINERALS: U.S. to partner with Philippines on green tech minerals (E&E $)

CRITTERS: Juvenile salmon migration timing responds unpredictably to climate change (Phys.org)

INTERNATIONAL: Climate talks see push for global renewable energy target (Phys.org)

• Investors, pay attention to the electricity grid (Bloomberg, Merryn Somerset Webb $)

• We are opening the lids on two giant Pandora's boxes (New York Times, Thomas Friedman column $)

• Opinion: finance is not the choke point to accelerating the energy transition in the global south (Energy Monitor, Brian O'Hanlon and Justin Locke op-ed)

• We can’t afford tariffs on Chinese solar panels (Bloomberg, Mark Gongloff $)

• Rainstorm destruction a stark reminder of threat of climate change (Portland Press Herald, editorial)

• How a misreading of the Bible fuels many Americans' apathy about climate change (Los Angeles Times, Bart Ehrman op-ed $)

• Why have no US Catholic dioceses divested from fossil fuels? (National Catholic Reporter editorial)

• The 'woke mind virus' is eating away at Republicans' brains (New York Times, Jamelle Bouie column $)

• Climate change, Maryland, and the expanding role of universities (Maryland Matters, Maggie Holland and Candace Dodson-Reed commentary)

Disinfluencers Appropriate Class Struggle Arguments To Attack Climate Leaders

Fossil fuel interests love to steal social justice language and use it to trick people into supporting the oil and gas industry. This fossil fuel “woke-washing” often comes in the form of false class struggle arguments that wrongly present climate action as a scam used by elite actors to disempower the working class, when it’s really the fossil fuel industry that’s hurting low-income communities through air pollution and petrochemical-linked cancer.

These false arguments are especially apparent in the recent online attacks against climate activist Sophia Kianni. For example, disinfluencer Tom Nelson has recently been harassing Kianni on Twitter multiple times per week, writing things like “Looks like UN #ClimateCult advisor Sophia just took yet *another* hydrocarbon-fueled trip across the U.S.!”

Fossil fuel cronies love pointing to long-distance flights and private jet usage to bolster the conspiracy theory that climate change is a made-up plot to “force the lower working class into submission” while billionaires like Bill Gates get to live in luxury. Just like every conspiracy theory, there are some shreds of truth embedded within this claim: regardless of what climate activists do, billionaires should absolutely not exist, private jet users do in fact emit a disproportionate amount of carbon emissions, and people should certainly call out hypocrisy and demand climate action from those in power. However, rich people being hypocritical doesn't negate the facts that climate change is very real and low-income communities are the most vulnerable to dangerous climate impacts. Harassing Kianni and other climate advocates for taking flights in the process of their climate advocacy serves only to further delay climate action and push us closer to climate catastrophe, which hurts low-income communities the most.

In case you’re still feeling swayed by the ‘fossil fuels benefit low-income people’ woke-washing claims, we’ll point out that the people and organizations spreading this narrative are usually financially backed by the fossil fuel industry. Alex Epstein, who constantly waxes poetic about “energy poverty,” openly acknowledges having received money from fossil fuel interests. Similarly, the Heartland Institute, which pretends to care about the people in poverty who are supposedly “missing out” on fossil fuels, has literally received funding from ExxonMobil.

The disingenuous nature of these woke-washing claims becomes especially obvious when you consider that these supposedly pro-social justice actors also routinely engage in sexist online attacks. In March, we wrote about how Kianni, Greta Thunberg, and other women climate activists and scientists routinely weather storms of online abuse and petro-masculine climate disinformation. Just last week, Alex Epstein, climate denier Tony Heller, and others all badgered Kianni for the supposed crime of protecting her sanity by blocking climate change deniers who seem to think that digital catcalling is their immutable right.

So, don’t fall for any fossil-fueled woke-washing. Instead, channel your anger at polluting, climate disinformation-spreading billionaires into advocating for working class climate justice. And at a minimum, if you're a grown adult who is constantly posting about young women you disagree with but refuse to ignore, maybe go touch grass.

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