Up Elevator Goes Up!

We could press the down button, say most humans. Joe Manchin begs to differ

PRESENTED BY WEE OCTOPI

This morning, Sen. Joe “Rolling Coal” Manchin (D-W.Va.) chaired a hearing to attack President Joe Biden’s moratorium on approval for new liquefied natural gas export projects. A troupe of protesters was escorted out during Manchin’s opening statement, decrying his legacy of devastation and singing protest songs as he grimaced, sagging.

The face of a carbon criminal forced to listen to climate protesters.

Department of Energy official David Turk, who has a striking resemblance to Gary Walsh, gamely explained how limited an effect this moratorium will have on the gusher of American LNG exports, as projects being constructed and already approved will more than double our export capacity, even as getting to net-zero carbon pollution by 2050 means a global decline of 75 percent of LNG use. Sen. Angus King (I-Maine) noted that many of the proposed projects are financed by Chinese companies for the benefit of the Chinese market. There was shockingly (okay not really a surprise) little discussion of the catastrophic health costs of LNG infrastructure to the communities in Cancer Alley.

Maria Gallucci profiles several activists, including Cancer Alley’s Roishetta Ozane, writer Bill McKibben, and Earthjustice lawyer Moneen Nasmith, who had been preparing to shut down the Department of Energy headquarters this week until Biden announced the moratorium they demanded.

An octopus hatchling emerges from a group of eggs at a new octopus nursery, first discovered in June 2023, off Costa Rica.

Cool, cool (not): we’ve now officially achieved a full year at 1.5°C above pre-industrial global temperatures.

After handing $1.9 million over to McKinsey, Oregon’s public pension fund, the Oregon Retirement Fund, has gotten a recommendation to sort of phase out investments in the fossil-fuel industry by 2050.

Oh, and our friends at Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, and HSBC are preparing to help Saudi Arabia sell $20 billion in shares of the state oil giant Aramco. Probably to pension funds like the ORF!

Despite endless right-wing attacks, a strong majority of coastal residents back offshore wind farms, because most people are actually perfectly reasonable adults, unlike the power-mad sociopaths who hold sway over our politics.

Puerto Rico, now dependent on fossil fuels, could go 100% renewable by 2050, a joint study by the DOE and FEMA finds.

The lives that are disappearing along with the Aral Sea.

Monarch butterfly populations are continuing their catastrophic collapse (report here).

Hearings on the Hill:

• 9:30 AM: Senate Energy and Natural Resources
  The Administration’s Pause on LNG Export Approvals and the Department of Energy’s Process for Assessing LNG Export Applications

• 10:30 AM: Senate Indian Affairs
  Tribal Access to Clean Water Act and other bills

• 3:30 PM: House Natural Resources
  Federal Lands
  Southern Federal Border Lands: Environmental and National Security Concerns Arizona Field Hearing

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