Florida may be dealing with flooding

Let's get ready for today's hearings

Feb 08, 2022

PRESENTED BY DISAPPEARING HORSERADISH

It’s a very full day today for Public Citizen’s climate policy counsel Tracey Lewis: she’s testifying at 10 am before the House Oversight Committee on how Big Oil is fueling global climate destruction, and moderating an online teach-in with Stop the Money Pipeline on how Wall Street is financing global climate destruction at 7 pm.

No news yet on how she’s spending the afternoon, though.

The Republicans have managed to find a climate denier to testify at the Big Oil hearing, big shock, she works for the Heritage Foundation. Katie Tubb, whose research background is being an intern for Mike Pence, penned a classic climate-denier essay just this past December, which is honestly pretty impressive. I especially liked this line:

“So, Florida may be dealing with flooding, but not necessarily from global warming.”

She runs through all the denier greatest hits, but my favorite is citing a recent paper blaming the sun for global warming penned by Big Oil’s favorite climate-denier scientists who are still alive, including Willie Soon, David Legates, and Sallie Baliunas.

Given that the Kochs and ExxonMobil have given millions of dollars to Heritage to finance its climate denial for decades, Tubb’s appearance at this hearing about how Big Oil has financed climate denial for decades is quite apt.

I’m looking forward to watching Tracey Lewis and Dr. Michael Mann with Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) at the hearing, but I’ll be flipping tabs to also watch my fave Keya Chatterjee appearing before Rep. Raúl Grijalva (D-N.M.) to discuss diversity and equity in environmental organizations and grantmaking. Which is a pretty big deal, because the environmental movement continues to be bifurcated between extremely white, extremely well-resourced organizations, and everyone else.

If I want to headdesk, I’ll flip over to the Senate Energy Committee hearing to watch Republicans performatively attack the climate hawks nominated by Biden for key positions.

WINTER OLYMPICS BREAK: BOBSLED

Wonder of Science @wonderofscience

Adélie penguins in Antarctica sliding on their tummies, using their flippers for guidance and their legs for propulsion, a behavior known as tobogganing. Credit: Myeongho Seo. bit.ly/2sGnoeh

The long-time CEO of mega-utility NextEra Energy (55% fossil-fuel, 12% nuclear, 33% renewable), Jim Robo, is stepping down, with John Ketchum taking the reins. I mainly report this because Bloomberg describes NextEra as a “clean-energy giant.” Whee.

But I will credit Bloomberg for the best headline about the new Nature Geoscience paper on the world’s glaciers, which hold considerably less ice than previously thought: “Studying Glaciers From Space Reveals Mostly Bad News.”

Zahri Hirji reports on hundreds of New Jersey residents who have been evicted after losing their apartments to Hurricane Ida.

SoCalGas fined $10 million for fighting energy efficiency standards. Europe’s working on green steel. Bye-bye wasabi.

WWF’s NFTs are over.