Putting September to bed
A late-night compendium of one day’s worth of climate news.
PRESENTED BY THE TRIPITAKA KOREANA
It’s Wankard Pooser Week—born 129 years ago, Pooser was a proud anti-tax Florida politician, whose legacy is carried on by Floridian neo-fascists like Gov. Ron DeSantis and Rep. Matt Gaetz.
FROM THE FOSSIL-FUELED CYCLONE DESK:
“No reason to come ... there’s nothing here.”
Hurricane Ian, whose official U.S. death toll has reached 27 so far, is a perfect storm for Florida’s fragile insurance industry. The storm made landfall, again, this time in Georgetown, S.C., bringing heavy rain from South Carolina to New York City over the weekend.
From Dánica Cato: “Hurricane Fiona damaged 50% of transmission lines and distribution feeders across Puerto Rico as hundreds of thousands remain without power or water service almost two weeks after the storm hit.”
In the five years since Hurricane Maria, the private utility LUMA has done little other than extract wealth from the island. “Basically, nothing had been done to strengthen the electric grid and other critical infrastructures or increase their resiliency,” the Puerto Rican Center for a New Economy reports.
The remnants of Tropical Storm Noru, which struck the Philippines with catastrophic force on Sunday and Vietnam on Wednesday, caused deadly flooding in Thailand.
Tucker Carlson told his viewers that most warnings about hurricanes are a “scam.”
FROM THE POLITICS DESK:
Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.) was caught on camera in 2021 calling climate change “bullshit,” an act now memorialized by climate activists with a life-sized statue constructed of cow manure.
A Johnson campaign spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment about the existence of a poop sculpture with the senator’s likeness.
George Cahlink has a run-down of 32 top swing climate U.S. House races this November, from Colorado’s 7th—where climate-hawk state Sen. Brittany Pettersen (D) is competing with fracking executive Eric Aadland (R)—to California’s 47th, where Big Oil scourge Rep. Katie Porter (D) is defending her seat against climate conspiracy theorist Scott Baugh (R).
FROM THE POLLUTION DESK:
Scientists have found that oil and gas flaring is releasing five times more pollution than official estimates. While the EPA assumes flaring efficiency of methane leaks from oil and gas wells is 98%, the researchers found the actual number is closer to 91%. Three million cars worth of methane pollution, off the books.
Frackers are fracking New Mexico into a megadrought, while paying big to propagandize the state: Chevron is the top sponsor of the New Mexico State Fair and Exxon is sponsoring the Albuquerque International Balloon Fiesta. Who needs water when you’ve got hot air?
The international aviation industry is a climate disaster, and their climate targets are a disaster.
Bitcoin’s climate damage is similar to beef. Can’t eat a bitcoin, though.
FROM THE CIVILIZATION PRESERVATION SOCIETY:
Indigenous groups in Congo are protesting their government’s plan to auction oil and gas leases in the nation’s protected areas and national parks. Indigenous groups in Peru are blockading the Maranon River in the Amazon in protest of a large oil spill from a ruptured pipeline. “Some 200 environmental and land defense activists were killed around the world in 2021, including some 54 in Mexico.”
Scientists Naomi Oreskes and Geoffrey Supran are hosting a conference at Harvard University on holding Big Oil accountable for the industry’s decades-long campaign of misinformation.
The Board of Trustees at Princeton University has voted to dissociate from the worst actors of the fossil-fuel industry, not only divesting its endowment from carbon criminals but also refusing gifts, grants, and research partnerships. The now-banned companies include ExxonMobil, which financed the 2021 research by Princeton professor Jesse Jenkins’s Net-Zero America research group into the market potential of carbon capture and sequestration.
New York Gov. Kathy Hochul announced Thursday that all new vehicles purchased in New York will need to be zero-emission models beginning in 2035.
FROM THE BIRDS:
There are three billion fewer birds in North America than there were in 1970. Three billion birds, gone.
Finally, from David Karpf: Stewart Brand is an important figure in self-congratulatory eco-modernist circles. One might call him a wanker poser.
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Having passed the government-funding bill without Manchin’s dirty deal, Congress is going into recess to allow members to get on the campaign trail. Hill Heat will be on partial recess this October but we’ll be in your inbox with updates on the campaign. DMs are open—@climatebrad