Another problem with the debate:

Q&A: The First Presidential Debate Hardly Mentioned Environmental Issues, Despite Stark Differences Between the Candidate’s Records
Trump said he had “the best environmental numbers ever” without giving any specifics while Biden lambasted his predecessor for his environmental claims and for pulling out of the Paris Agreement, but failed to detail many of his own administration’s efforts to confront climate change.
[Not to mention there was only one question on climate change in 90 minutes and no fact checking – so Trump got away with not answering it.]

Unelected Trump appointees eviscerate environmental protections:

  • In a ruling involving a challenge to a fisheries regulation, the Supreme court consigned to history a 1984 ruling called Chevron v. Natural Resources Defense Council.That decision had said judges should defer to federal agencies in interpreting the law when the language of a statute is ambiguous, thereby giving regulatory flexibility to bureaucrats. It is the latest in a series of rulings in which the conservative justices have taken aim at the power of federal agencies, including one on Thursday involving in-house Securities and Exchange Commission adjudications. The ruling was 6-3, with the conservative justices in the majority and liberal justices dissenting. [The NYTimes says: “The Supreme Court’s decision on Friday to limit the broad regulatory authority of federal agencies could lead to the elimination or weakening of thousands of rules on the environment, health care, worker protection, food and drug safety, telecommunications, the financial sector and more.”]
  • The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday temporarily blocked the Environmental Protection Agency’s “Good Neighbor Plan.” By a 5 to 4 vote, the court ruled that the emissions-reductions standards set by the plan were likely to cause “irreparable harm” to almost half the states unless the court halted the rule pending further review by the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia. The EPA’s Good Neighbor Plan aimed to ensure compliance with the 2015 Ozone National Ambient Air Quality Standards law. To carry out the law’s mandate, the EPA required “upwind” states to reduce air pollution affecting “downwind” states. Under the Good Neighbor rule, states are first given the chance to create a plan that complies with agency’s ozone guidelines. If a state fails to submit an adequate plan, the EPA then designs a compliance plan for the state. In February 2023, the EPA determined that 23 states had not provided sufficient plans and the agency then decided to implement its own emissions-control program for those states.

California legislative wins and losses. SB 252 (Gonzalez) failed. It would have required CalPERS and CalSTRS to divest from fossil fuels. However, the oil and gas industry failed in its attempt to put on the ballot a law that would have overturned SB 1137, passed in 2022, that limited oil and gas facilities to more than 3200 feet from schools.  That win might be temporary as they say they will sue, and the Supreme Court is the final resting place for environmental justice.

Oil and gas:

  • Oil and gas giant BP has imposed a hiring freeze and paused new offshore wind projects to place a greater emphasis on oil and gas rather than renewables amid investor discontent, sources at the company told Reuters.
  • The Biden administration finalizes plans to ban oil and gas drilling, mining and other development on 28 million acres of federal land in Alaska. (Washington Post)
Microplastics. A new study from a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Bioenergy Technologies Office (BETO) funded startup, Algenesis Corporation and the University of California San Diego has demonstrated the ability to formulate high-quality polyurethane products that generate no persistent microplastics. By utilizing some clever chemistry and sourcing oil from algae instead of petroleum, they can produce polyurethane plastics, including waterproof fabrics and cell phone cases, that biodegrade naturally in the environment. The promise of high-quality yet biodegradable polyurethane plastics offers hope in the fight against microplastic pollution.

Experts have long said global warming will increase the likelihood of tropical diseases. In the first half of 2024, countries in the Americas have reported more than 9.7 million dengue cases, double the total for all of 2023, according to a CDC advisory. Infectious-disease experts say cases will probably continue to increase with summer travel and rising global temperatures. Why it matters: Epidemics in the Americas raise the number of travel-associated cases as well as local transmission in the continental United States. Since January, 745 dengue cases have been identified among American travelers infected abroad. Last year, there were 1,829 travel-associated cases in the United States.

Bird flu. Factory farms are a pandemic risk. [Vox article]  While cows are much more closely related to humans than birds, it would take another evolutionary leap for H5N1 to become easily transmissible between humans and set off a wider outbreak. The worst-case scenario would be a virus evolving to be more transmissible while also carrying a high risk of death. H5N1, with its 50 percent fatality rate in the roughly 900 human cases reported over the last 20 years, has been sitting in this pandemic staging area for years. How could it make the jump? One concerning scenario would be if avian flu started spreading among pigs, a species that is genetically even closer to humans than cows and cats, and has long been considered a petri dish for dangerous pathogens to evolve to better infect humans.

SOLAR:

  • California nonprofits and government agencies launch an initiative to install rooftop solar on up to 140 homes in South Los Angeles. (Los Angeles Business Journal)
  • A California solar group challenges a new state rule banning solar contractors from installing or maintaining battery storage systems, saying it will harm the clean energy industry and climate goals. (Courthouse News)
  • A Wyoming economic development official proposes installing solar arrays on reclaimed Powder River Basin mines to replace lost coal tax revenue and jobs, but runs into opposition from fossil fuel-loyal residents. (Inside Climate News)

Double whammy: A peer-reviewed study finds an experimental method of brightening clouds in the Western U.S. would cool the atmosphere and mitigate climate change’s impacts in the region, but also stoke heat waves as far away as Europe. (Common Dreams)

Youth Win: Hawaii on Thursday agreed to take action to decarbonize its transportation system by 2045 to settle a lawsuit by 13 young people alleging the U.S. state was violating their rights under its constitution with infrastructure that contributes to greenhouse gas emissions and climate change. Democratic Governor Josh Green announced the “groundbreaking” settlement at a news conference attended by some of the activists and lawyers involved in the lawsuit, which they called the first-ever youth-led climate case seeking zero emissions in transportation.

Sue the hand that feeds you.  A report finds Wyoming has received more federal climate-related funding per capita than any other state even though it is dominated by fossil fuel-friendly politics. Nonetheless, Wyoming Gov. Mark Gordon is paying a law firm $800,000 in state funds as a down payment to fight Biden administration power plant regulations, public land rules and a proposal to end coal leasing in the Powder River Basin.

Success story. The corporation that manages Montreal’s public transit system has been named the most sustainable large company in Canada. Société de transport de Montréal (STM), which oversees a network of 68 subway stations and 2,000 buses, sits atop this year’s Best 50 list. Journalist John Lorinc examines how STM climbed into first place, partly by aggressively electrifying its fleet while miraculously drawing ridership back after the worst days of the COVID-19 pandemic – something other large cities are struggling with. Lorinc writes that whatever STM is doing, “it seems to be working.”  Read more »

Sea level rise

  • Sea level rise driven by global heating will disrupt the daily life of millions of Americans, as hundreds of homes, schools and government buildings face frequent and repeated flooding by 2050, a new study has found. Almost 1,100 critical infrastructure assets that sustain coastal communities will be at risk of monthly flooding by 2050, according to the new research by the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS). The vast majority of the assets – 934 of them – face the risk of flood disruption every other week, which could make some coastal neighborhoods unlivable within two to three decades.
  • A detailed new analysis of NASA satellite images shows there is much more meltwater sitting atop Antarctica’s ice shelves than previously estimated, much of it in huge slush zones that haven’t been carefully mapped until now. The new information will help determine how vulnerable the shelves are to cracking and disintegration, according to an international team of scientists who published their findings in Nature Geoscience this week.

Tired of potato chip wrappers and other single-use plastic waste clogging streams, littering public spaces and creating air pollution when burned, the city of Baltimore has gone to court to ask for relief. City officials and their lawyers claim global beverage giants PepsiCo and Coca-Cola, along with six other companies, used deceptive business practices and created a public nuisance, while causing harm to people’s health and the environment, according to the lawsuit they filed late last week. In doing so, Baltimore adds to a surge of plastics litigation amid a rapidly expanding body of knowledge detailing how burgeoning production and ineffective waste management damage the planet and threaten public health. The Baltimore suit, among the first of its kind for a U.S. city, claims the companies knew that discarded plastic would litter streets and contaminate waterways but instead left the cleanup responsibility and costs, in the tens of millions of dollars annually, to the local government.

Bill Gates: “AI — whether it’s health or education or climate science — is extremely promising. Aurora model that Microsoft announced for weather prediction, the Gates Foundation will take tools like that so that smallholder farmers understand when to plant, which is more challenging in the face of climate. The net balance in terms of climate is that AI will be a very good thing, whether it’s the material science part of the thing, or managing plasmas in fusion reactors, it’s going to accelerate the innovation. So AI with that extra 5% of energy demand is not the thing that prevents our climate goals. And AI probably helps us with 100% of emissions, so I certainly wouldn’t want to take AI out of the picture.” [Speaking to journalist Akshat Rati on the excellent climate podcast called Zero.]

Joke: The Hill reports ex-California governor Arnold Schwarzenegger thinks we should reframe the global warming conversation. His message: “We want to terminate pollution.”