The U.K.-based InfluenceMap recently released a report that fossil fuel industry trade groups "used a playbook of narratives and arguments to systematically oppose, weaken, and delay the transition to renewables and electric vehicles (EVs) since at least 1967. Analysis of historical data on engagement with climate advocacy from three of the most powerful oil and gas industry associations in the United States and Europe—the American Petroleum Institute (API), FuelsEurope, and Fuels Industry UK—finds that these groups have for decades been using the same playbook in their advocacy against renewable energy and electric vehicles.”
Not exactly a surprise given Big Oil’s long but only relatively recently exposed record of ignoring their own and government-funded research into climate change, telling lies and smearing scientists, paying others to tell lies and carry out the smears, and working to hamstring public policy by pouring money into the campaigns of helpful members of Congress. And they’re still at it, as can be seen from OpenSecrets’ tallies showing Republican vice president-wannabe J.D. Vance—who advocates for burning even more fossil fuels and transferring subsidies for EVs to gas-powered vehicles—as ranking 19th highest in campaign contributions from the oil and gas industry.
Not only has the industry—including its heavy-hitting lobbyist the American Petroleum Institute—fought against renewables and sneered at other efforts to address the climate crisis, it’s also used its clout to sabotage efforts to clean up the mess it has left behind at hundreds of thousands of abandoned but perilously unplugged oil and gas wells throughout the nation. All those messes as well as the climate crisis mess they want taxpayers to pay to clean up. This while Big Oil’s profits soar to record heights along with their still rising production levels.
An excerpt from the InfluenceMap report:
Three distinct narratives can be traced across 51 separate instances of the associations’ advocacy against fossil fuel alternatives between 1967 and 2023. These narratives include “Solution Skepticism,” which has been in use for 56 years, “Policy Neutrality” for 34 years, and “Affordability and Energy Security” for 51 years. Despite advancements in understanding the threats posed by the climate crisis, these narratives persist as of 2023. They represent a continuation of historical climate science denial tactics that have been prevalent within the fossil fuel industry, as documented by Inside Climate News and research published in Nature Climate Change.
All three narratives are found to be misaligned with IPCC recommendations. For example, “Solution Skepticism” downplays the impact and viability of alternative energy sources and infrastructure to undermine the potential of cleaner energy in communications to policymakers. However, the IPCC's Sixth Assessment Report emphasizes that transitioning from fossil fuels to renewables contributes significantly to broader sustainable development goals and that the alternatives are fully viable. (AR6, WG3, Mitigation of Climate Change, April 2022).
Tessa Khan, founder and executive director of Uplift, which supports a rapid and fair transition away from fossil fuel production told Jessica Corbett at Common Dreams: "This report shows that even faced with mounting scientific evidence over decades, the oil and gas industry have pushed ahead with a damaging messaging strategy they developed as early as the 1960s. It shows the crucial need for increased awareness of the delaying tactics of fossil fuel companies from policymakers if they are to successfully drive the energy transition forward at the pace we need."
Geoff Dembicki is an investigative reporter for The Guardian and author of The Petroleum Papers: Inside the Far-Right Conspiracy to Cover Up Climate Change. He recently dug out a 1977 article from an archive of the Marathon Oil Company’s magazine—Marathon World—which stated that temperature rise from “industrial expansion” could lead to “widespread starvation and other social and economic calamities." The unsigned article reported on a debate within the scientific community, “Although climatologists disagree on the underlying reasons, many see a future climate of greater variability, bringing with it areas of extreme drought.”
Why would a 47-year-old article matter now? Because Marathon Petroleum, the largest U.S. oil refinery, a spin-off of Marathon Oil Company, is one of several defendants in the case of City and County of Honolulu v. Sunoco, et al. The plaintiffs, which include Exxon, Shell, and BP along with Marathon—say that major oil companies coordinated efforts to "conceal and deny their own knowledge" about the harmful impacts of burning fossil fuels.” Marathon is in the process of merging with another oil giant, ConocoPhillips. Marathon and the other defendants have petitioned the Supreme Court to throw out the case.
Titled “World Weather Watch,” the Marathon World article quotes J. Murray Mitchell of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. A U.S. government scientist who during the 1970s warned that industrial carbon dioxide emissions could melt the polar ice caps and pose threats to human civilization, Mitchell said in the article, “The climate is not going to get better, only worse. Over the long haul, we are going to have to brace ourselves for the prospect of a lot of poor harvests.” The article cited research from Mitchell and other climate scientists showing that “industrial expansion during the last century may be affecting the weather through carbon dioxide pollution.”
Who among Marathon’s leadership saw the article is unknown, but it names senior officials at the company. The lawsuit alleges that Marathon knew the dangers of global temperature rise well before the general public, something the archived article backs up.
Bryant Sewell, senior research analyst at the shareholder advocacy group Majority Action, told The Guardian, “I’m not surprised that Marathon would have documents that shed light on its awareness” [of climate change]. Whether it’s Marathon, Exxon, or electric utilities, we have seen a longstanding strategy from these companies of climate denial, disinformation and delay.”
Unlike ExxonMobil and Shell, Marathon hasn’t been much scrutinized in this matter. The company owns 13 oil refineries and more than 6,000 U.S. gas stations. It had a net income of nearly $10 billion in 2023. In 2019-2020, a New York Times exposé spurred a congressional investigation into secret industry efforts to get the Trump administration to roll back vehicle efficiency standards. In an open letter at the time, several Senators called Marathon"one of the most anti-climate companies."
Shown the 1977 article, Timmons Roberts, a professor of environment and sociology at Brown University who is an expert in climate disinformation, told Dembicki, “Pestilence, starvation, drought. To know one’s product may bring that about, and bury the evidence, is unspeakable.”
—MB
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RESOURCES & ACTION
BIDEN-HARRIS ECO-doings
GREEN BRIEFS
HANDWRINGING OVER SLOWING GROWTH IN EV SALES WAS A PREMATURE BURIAL
Growth in sales of electric vehicles have indeed slowed, but some media coverage of this has treated it as a disastrous turn of events for manufacturers that calls into question the very future of EVs. After the first quarter, a number of analysts started shoveling dirt into the grave they imagined was the EV fate.
It’s true sales were flat in the first quarter, Ford scaled back expansion plans, and Tesla laid off a big chunk of its global workforce. But in the inevitably disruptive nature of the green transition, there are bound to be oscillations. Moreover, for most automakers, the first quarter was still a big winner, not a stomping on the brakes. Of the 10 biggest EV makers in the United States, six saw sales grow at a phenomenal pace over 2023, even though that year saw a 52% rise in EV sales. The first quarter of 2024 showed an EV sales rise of 56% at Hyundai-Kia and 86% at Ford.
Results of the second quarter, which ended three weeks ago, indicate that the sudden panic (or glee in some circles) over weakening growth may well have been misplaced. The Kelley Blue Book reported that a record-breaking 330,463 EVs were sold in the U.S. from April-June. That’s an 11.3% rise over the same period in 2023, and 23% better than sales in the first quarter. This made up 8% of all new-vehicle sales in the U.S. for the quarter, and beat the previous record of 7.2%.
Cox Automotive’s Industry Insights Director Stephanie Valdez Streaty told Forbes: “EV sales exceeded expectations during a record-breaking quarter. Increased competition is leading to continued price pressure, gradually boosting EV adoption. Automakers that deliver the right product at the right price and offer an excellent consumer experience will lead the way in EV adoption.”</p>
Range anxiety and finding charging stations has been a legitimate concern for EV-reluctant motorists since EVs first started getting noticeable market share. Early adopters ridiculed this by noting that people could charge their vehicles at home and cheaply, so what was the problem? Well, not everybody is a homeowner or rents a place where they can charge. This issue is addressed in a piece highlighted below titled EV charging for those without a garage. </p>
According to estimates from the National Renewable Energy Laboratory, the number of plug-in electric cars in the U.S. might reach 33 million by 2030, which will require a fairly vast expansion of the charging infrastructure. The number of charging ports is expected to reach 28 million units of various types—private and public, AC and DC—in the same time frame.
That's up from approximately 3.1 million ports in 2022, the study said, although 2023 alone was said to be an exponential year of charger growth.
—MB
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ECO-TWXXT
HALF A DOZEN OTHER THINGS TO READ (OR LISTEN TO)
Trump’s Environmental Impact Endures, at Home and Around the World by Marianne Lavelle at Inside Climate News. Former President Donald Trump dismantled the pillars of U.S. climate policy when he exited the Paris climate accord and rolled back more than 100 regulations to protect air, water, endangered species and human health. But it’s clear, as he officially assumes his role as the Republican nominee and standard bearer this week, that he altered American environmental protection in even deeper and more longer-lasting ways. The United States returned to the Paris pact after Trump’s presidency, but he showed other populist leaders a way out of the global climate agreement, which is itself now unstable. While no other nation has as yet followed suit and walked away, pledges to cut carbon emissions—already inadequate, according to the scientific consensus—are weakening. Insurgent right-wing politicians in Europe have embraced the Trump doctrine, insisting that backing down from climate pledges can boost faltering economies.
EV charging for those without a garage by David Roberts at Volts. EVs are great for people with garages to charge them in, but what about everyone else? In this interview, Gabe Klein of DOE’s Joint Office of Energy and Transportation talks about new approaches to EV charging for people in multifamily residences in urban settings, including new business models, new technologies, and even new vehicles. (You can listen to the podcast or read the pdf transcript.)
China Building Twice as Much Wind and Solar as Rest of World Combined by staff at the Global Energy Monitor. Since 2015, China has seen the amount of coal capacity in the pipeline shrink from 738 gigawatts to 408 gigawatts, according to a new analysis from the World Resources Institute. If the wind and solar buildout continues apace, then renewables will further drive down emissions and further dim the outlook for coal. China added almost twice as much utility-scale solar and wind power capacity in 2023 than in any other year. By the first quarter of 2024, China’s total utility-scale solar and wind capacity reached 758 gigawatts, though data from China Electricity Council put the total capacity, including distributed solar, at 1,120 GW. If all proposed utility scale solar and wind projects come online as intended, China could easily reach 1,200 GW of installed wind and solar capacity by the end of 2024, six years ahead of the pledge made by President Xi Jinping and one year
earlier than GEM’s forecast last year..By comparison, U.S. electricity-generating capacity from ALL sources is 1,300 GW. Wind and solar now account for 37% of the total power capacity in the China, an 8% increase from 2022, and is widely expected to surpass coal capacity, which is 39% of the total right now, in 2024.
Li Zhou
The U.S. is failing renters during extreme heat waves by Li Zhou at Vox. Despite the growing toll, there’s shockingly little regulation around protecting people from the effects of heat. It’s a stark contrast to how policies tend to treat the extreme cold. And while extreme cold continues to be deadlier than extreme heat, as heat waves become more dangerous, the gap between the two is likely to shrink. For example, very few states have laws that require landlords to provide air conditioning for their renters. Conversely, most states have policies that mandate the provision of heat in the winter. But even navigating what is and isn’t required around extreme heat is difficult. A comprehensive state-by-state cooling policy resource doesn’t yet exist, which speaks to the sparse landscape of regulations considering heat exposure. That’s largely due to policymakers lagging behind climate change, the opposition from landlord groups to such requirements, and the hefty cost of both energy bills and equipment that would actually address the problem. There are questions, too, over who would bear those costs, including concerns that mandates for air conditioning would simply fall on tenants in the form of higher rents.
Fewer bees and other pollinating insects lead to shrinking crops, an interview with Rachel Mallinger, professor of entomology at the University of Florida, conducted by Vivian Lam in coordination between The Conversation and SciLine. (You can watch the full interview here.)
How ecologically critical are insect pollinators?
Mallinger: A small percentage of flowering plants are pollinated primarily by wind, but new research suggests that as much as 90% require animal pollinators. Although birds, bats and other mammals also pollinate, insects are the main pollinators for the vast majority of those plants.
Without insects and their pollination, these plants would not be able to reproduce, and we would see a dramatic decline in plant diversity and abundance. Without insect pollinators, these plants wouldn’t produce the seeds and the fruit that feed many animals – including people.
Have insect pollinator populations declined?
Mallinger: Recent studies have shown pretty dramatic declines in insects generally, and this has been shown even in conservation lands. So we think that in highly developed areas, insect declines are probably even more dramatic.
I study primarily native wild bees. Here in North America, we have between 4,000 and 5,000 species. For many species, we don’t know if they’re declining. Of the ones that we do have some information on, it’s estimated that about half are declining and about a quarter are imperiled and potentially on the road to going extinct.
The insect pollinators that tend to be most at risk are ones that are specialists – those that require really unique, specialized food or nesting resources. Also ones that already have a limited range. For example, maybe they are found only on islands or in a small area. [...]
The McNeal Solar Power and Battery Storage Project in McNeal, Arizona.
California Officials Praise Renewables, Battery Storage for Grid Resilience Amid Heat Wave by Paige Bennett at Ecowatch. After a few weeks of heat advisories and even devastating wildfires, California’s power grid has faced minimal disruptions. Officials are praising the state’s long-term focus on renewable energy infrastructure and battery storage for enhancing grid stability, even in the extreme heat. “This was a good early test that we passed in very good shape,” said Elliot Mainzer, president and CEO of California Independent System Operator (CAISO), as reported by The Sacramento Bee. “Investments in new clean energy and in dispatchable battery storage played a major role.” As Dede Subakti, vice president of system operations at CAISO, explained on the company’s website, increasing temperatures can strain power grids. In addition to more households cranking up the heat and using more power, high temperatures over 90 degrees Fahrenheit can also cause power plants to operate less efficiently, the Union of Concerned Scientists explained on its blog. These issues can cause energy demand to exceed supply, leading to outages that put communities in more danger from the extreme temperatures. Grid operators may also trigger rotating power outages to different communities to reduce the strain on the grid and avoid larger, longer-lasting power disruptions. But clean energy resources can improve grid resiliency by providing stored energy, and solar power can meet energy demand where it’s needed, alleviating some of the demand on the grid.
maga ECO-QUOTE
“If Democrats “care so much about climate change and they think climate change is caused by carbon emissions, then why is their solution to scream about it at the top of their lungs, send a bunch of our jobs to China, and then manufacture these ridiculous ugly windmills all over Ohio farms that don’t produce enough electricity to run a cell phone?”—JD Vance in 2022
ECOPINION
Wind vane J.D. Vance, a product of billionaire Peter Thiel
The Us vs. Them of Energy by Paul Waldman at Heatmap. You can turn even the wonkiest policy into a culture war issue if you try hard enough. “We need a leader,” said JD Vance as he accepted the Republican nomination for vice president, “who rejects Joe Biden and Kamala Harris’s Green New Scam and fights to bring back our great American factories.” The election, he said, is “about the auto worker in Michigan, wondering why out-of-touch politicians are destroying their jobs,” and “the energy worker in Pennsylvania and Ohio who doesn’t understand why Joe Biden is willing to buy energy from tinpot dictators across the world, when he could buy it from his own citizens right here in our own country.” This is the tale Vance tells about energy and climate — one of contempt and betrayal, elitists sacrificing hard-working blue-collar Americans on the altar of their alien schemes. On the surface it may sound like it’s about jobs and economics, but it’s really about the eternal culture war that divides us from them. This is nothing new. Maintaining this artificial division between environmental and economic concerns is central to the effort to protect the fossil fuel industry, and has been for decades. Voters must be convinced that any attempt to do something about climate change is not just unserious but an assault on virtuous working people waged from Washington and other places controlled by the snobbish liberal elite.
Needles in Project 2025’s Haystack by Rick Perlstein in his The Infernal Triangle column at The American Prospect. Uncanny things happen when you read through Project 2025’s Mandate for Leadership: The Conservative Promise. You’re plowing through the most soporific bureaucratic gobbledygook imaginable, somnolent wave after somnolent wave. This is the chapter on the Pentagon, authored by Christopher C. Miller, the retired Special Forces officer Trump appointed as acting defense secretary after losing the presidency, who held back the National Guard from the Capitol for three hours after it had been breached by rioters on January 6th: “The record-low FMS sales in 2021 were driven partly by the high costs of converting weapon systems on the back end of production rather than emphasizing exportability in initial capability planning … The contracting timeline for the FMS process is shockingly slow …” You want to Google every technical term in every sentence Miller writes, figure out which one might hide some Strangelovian plot, but there’s but no time, so you plow on, and on, and on, propping your eyelids up with toothpicks. And then, on the bottom of page 102: “Require completion of the Armed Services Vocational Aptitude Battery (ASVAB)—the military entrance examination—by all students in schools that receive federal funding.” I don’t think I’ve seen it reported that MAGA-land’s very own General Jack D. Ripper is trying to lubricate every last high schooler’s path to the nearest local military entrance processing station at the order of their lunatic commander in chief. That’s the thing about Project 2025. The haystack is huge. The needles are so easy to hide.
Ayelet Hines
Nowhere to sell: As local bans proliferate, renewable energy companies must prioritize politics by Ayelet Hines at Utility Dive. We need to give enough room in the transition for open-minded fossil fuel companies to find a way to be part of it. Not through green washing, like ExxonMobil’s former algae biofuels initiative. But through actions that make substantial carbon pollution cuts. We must create an option for these companies other than going out of business. The reality is that profit margins are higher for polluting fuels, and that encourages their processors to commit to pulling the last drop of oil out of the ground and thwarting any effort to stop them from doing it. Even the sincere actors that burn bad stuff today but want to do it right need more runway than the science says we have. Helping to clear the way for them to transition themselves is a much faster route than winning global and national policies that regulate them out of polluting.
This Heat Wave is a Car Dependency Problem by Kea Wilson at Streetsblog. Along, sweaty wait at an unsheltered bus stop for a ride that only comes once an hour. A sweltering walk to a grocery store that's two miles away because the city zoning code doesn't allow developers to build a closer store in your neighborhood. A brutal bike ride to work on an unshaded street that your local traffic designers have stripped of all street trees in the name of keeping drivers safe if they happened to run off the road. For Americans outside of cars, these aren't just hypotheticals, but a daily reality. And they're also a serious health threat. According to the CDC's new "Heat and Health" Index, residents of ZIP codes in which a high percentage of households don't own cars are at greater risk of heat-related illnesses, which claim the lives of about 1,220 people every year. Why? Because "those without a vehicle and without access to public transportation may be more likely to be exposed to extreme heat in the course of daily activities," the agency said simply. And make no mistake: most of that "exposure" is the result of deliberate policy choices.
Greedy Utilities Pass Climate Costs on to Customers: Here’s How to Stop Them by Kat Ruane & Brooke Errett at Common Dreams. We need more climate adaptation for our country’s power infrastructure. But the costs shouldn’t burden families that already must choose between electricity and other essentials—nor should they serve as cover for boosting utility profits. Yet, that’s exactly what’s happening in many utilities across the country, including Florida’s TECO. “With rate increases, energy bills have gone up to the benefit of those shareholders who invest in TECO’s Canadian mother company, Emera,” said Tampa-based Sierra Club organizer Walter L. Smith II. “Meanwhile, people in underserved frontline communities continue to suffer because of TECO’s bad practices that contribute to public health issues and economic strife. This devastation cannot go on.” In Louisiana, electric company Entergy raised rates by $8 a month after destructive hurricanes caused billions of dollars in damages in 2020 and 2021. At the same time, it was doling out $1.5 billion in dividends to shareholders and gave its CEO a $4 million raise.
Handy Kennedy, founder of AgriUnity cooperative, feeds his cows on HK Farms on April 20, 2021, in Cobbtown, Georgia.
Farmers of color need climate action now. The farm bill is our best hope by Navina Khanna & Larisa Jacobson at Environmental Health News. For most farmers, climate change is not a future problem, but a daily challenge. This is especially true for Black farmers like Ashanti, as well as Indigenous and other farmers of color who are particularly vulnerable due to well documented discrimination by the USDA and by banking institutions. When climate disasters hit, these systemic challenges have prevented many such farmers from receiving loans to pay for repairs to damaged farms, or from owning land, as opposed to leasing it. As advocates for farmers with the HEAL Food Alliance and Northeast Farmers of Color Land Trust, we’ve seen firsthand how farmers of color struggle to deal with climate challenges amid a systemic lack of resources and the impacts of structural racism. Our organizations have worked with dozens of farmers who steward their land, but lack access to the capital they need to adapt to climate change or to secure the long term land tenure stability that makes investment in climate adaptations more feasible. Community leaders have warned of this need for years, but opportunities for federal action have been limited – until now. Amid growing opposition to clean energy and climate resilience investments, an unexpected avenue for climate justice has emerged—the Farm Bill, an over $400 billion legislative package that funds key federal programs and shapes our country’s food and agricultural policy. This year, Congress has the opportunity to make a historic investment in regenerative farming practices that would meaningfully reduce emissions that come from agriculture and provide real relief to farmers of color.
OTHER GREEN STUFF
Coal-filled trains are likely sending people to the hospital ¶Federal Funds to Help Low-Income Families With Summer Electric Bills Are Stretched Thin ¶Tribes and Environmentalists Press Arizona and Federal Officials to Stop Uranium Mining Near the Grand Canyon ¶Plants With Racist Names to Be Renamed ¶In U.S. Prisons and Jails, Exposure to Extreme Heat Is Increasing ¶Wolverines Continue Their Comeback — This Time in Colorado ¶Why Is the Oil Industry Booming? ¶Wyoming bans conservation bidders from oil and gas lease sales ¶What Project 2025 would do to climate policy in the US ¶Farm programs, USDA would shrink under Project 2025 goals for agriculture ¶The Great Lakes region has a chance to replace the Rust Belt with the Blue Belt
