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NNU and U.S. Representative Delia Ramirez will hold a press conference in Washington, D.C. on Tuesday, June 30 to demand an end to the Trump administration’s blockade of oil supplies entering Cuba. Union nurses will be joined by Global Health Partners, which is working to supply the island nation with critical medical equipment and medicine, as fuel shortages enter its fourth month and the humanitarian crisis escalates.

Bold Nebraska was concerned, like communities across the country, that Big Tech was trampling on property rights and polluting water without regard to anyone’s energy bill or clean air. So we, along with allied groups and citizens across the state, encouraged lawmakers to put guardrails and real accountability in place on data centers.

Bold worked with Senators Spivey, McKinney, and Machalea Cavanaugh on a bill that we believe is the first-in-the-nation to require both a decommissioning plan and a Community Benefits Agreement, while also mandating disclosures on key issues that the community has been demanding, like water and electricity usage.

Nebraska Data Center Law:

LB 1111 is a data center bill that was sponsored by Senators McKinney, Spivey and Machaela Cavanaugh, which was also supported by Bold Nebraska. Key guardrail provisions from LB 1111, including disclosure and transparency, and requiring decommissioning plans and a community benefits agreement, were included in another data center bill, LB 1010, which passed the Nebraska Legislature and was signed into law this year. The new law holds data centers accountable and provides for transparency that no other state has been able to pass. Nebraska is already home to more than 30 data center facilities, operated by tech giants including Meta and Google.

Nebraska is believed to be the first state in the nation to pass a law requiring Community Benefits Agreements for data center projects. A Community Benefits Agreement is an actual contract between the developer and impacted local communities that require the developer to ensure local community members benefit directly from the development activity – so these billion-dollar data center projects are obligated to pay back millions of dollars annually to impacted communities.

Nebraska is also now one of the first states to impose a statutory requirement for data centers to implement decommissioning plans, so that rural communities are not left holding the bag when these massive facilities housing huge amounts of hazardous environmental waste go out of business or are no longer of use.

The public disclosures that data centers in Nebraska are now required to provide include:

• The name of the proposed data center.
• The names of the developers and owners of the proposed data center.
• The physical size of the proposed data center in square feet.
• The location of the proposed data center, including street address and County.
• The annual electricity demand of the proposed data center.
• The annual water usage of the proposed data center.
• The sales and use tax exemptions that the proposed data center utilizes or expects to utilize.
• Any incentive payments for the proposed data center under the ImagiNE Nebraska Act and the Nebraska Advantage Act.
• All energy efficiency, load management, and conservation measures implemented by the proposed data center.
• All commitments by the proposed data center to use renewable energy.
• The service life of the proposed data center.

Community Organizing Resources:

All of these resources are focused on putting communities first. 

Bold Data Center Resources for Communities & Organizers: 

• View and download (PDF)

Bold Energy Builders Toolkit for Rural Communities

• View and download (PDF)

AI Now: A policy-driven resource that has sample laws, ordinances, white papers, and more.

• https://ainowinstitute.org

NAACP Stop Dirty Data Centers: A coalition site that many groups, including Bold Alliance, helped provide resources for, including sample Community Benefit Agreements (CBA).

• https://naacp.org/campaigns/stop-dirty-data-centers
• bit.ly/naacpcba (NAACP sample CBA for data centers)

“My community is being polluted every single day by a coal plant that stays open largely to power data centers. This bill finally forces public disclosure of the electricity and water demands we’ve been demanding — and couldn’t get. It puts people in the driver’s seat with legally binding Community Benefits Agreements and decommissioning plans, so we’re not left cleaning up a corporate mess decades later.” 

—Nebraska State Senator Terrell McKinney

“Communities deserve to know basic facts about data centers when deciding what’s best for their towns. Nebraska had zero guardrails on data centers before this law, and now developers must, if a community decides this is right for their town, enter into a Community Benefits Agreement and put a decommissioning plan in place. No data center should be able to run roughshod over a community while making billions of dollars. Communities and those who live near these massive projects deserve to generate wealth and be protected from any public health and environmental harms. This law provides guardrails to protect communities and put them first, not big corporations.”

—Jane Kleeb, Bold Alliance Founder and Director 

“We are pleased to see that the Legislature passed LB 1010 on a vote of 49 to zero to establish important guardrails on data centers, including requiring data centers to pay the full cost of electricity and ensuring that no costs are passed on to other retail customers. We greatly appreciate the leadership of Senator Machaela Cavanaugh, Senator Terrell McKinney and Senator Ashlei Spivey in introducing the original legislation and making sure that necessary amendments were added to LB 1010. We want to recognize the importance of requiring data centers to bear all decommissioning costs and requiring them to enter into community benefit agreements with communities affected by the data center. This legislation provides a great opportunity for local communities to tailor their community benefit agreements to meet the needs of their community. This could include projects that mitigate the data center’s use of water or other natural resources, or funding for projects the community cannot otherwise afford such as low-income energy efficiency programs, solar and battery powered community resilience hubs or assistance with affordable housing. These agreements should be funded at a meaningful level and funds should be provided throughout the operational life of the facility because the companies behind data centers are some of the richest corporations on the planet.”
—Ken Winston, Chapter Director of the Nebraska Sierra Club

An entire wolf pack was murdered by a hunter on a snowmobile. It’s time to end this senseless killing.

The head of the United Nations has launched an initiative aimed at holding artificial intelligence companies accountable for their exploding environmental impacts, including their carbon emissions, the amount of water and land used for data centres, and the energy they consume.

During a speech at London Climate Action Week on Tuesday, António Guterres noted that AI can accelerate climate solutions, among other key challenges, and said its potential must be harnessed.

“But AI is also hungry for land, water and power,” he emphasised, adding that the data centres needed to run AI models already consume more electricity than most countries. 

The UN Secretary-General repeated a call he first made in July 2025 for all big AI companies to commit to power every data centre with renewable energy by 2030. 

Some tech firms have announced they are sourcing or building out clean energy to run their hubs, but growing power demand is also contributing to gas-fired generation in the US, according to data from Global Energy Monitor.

The International Energy Agency (IEA) estimates that data centres are set to more than double the emissions from the electricity they use between 2024 and 2030 in a high-growth scenario. But AI’s use could lead to far larger reductions in the energy sector through efficiency gains if adopted widely.

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‘No more hidden costs’

Proposing the new “AI Environmental Transparency Initiative” on Tuesday, Guterres also urged big AI firms companies to measure and publicly disclose the full environmental impact of their systems, including their carbon, water, and land footprints.

“No more hidden costs. No more shifting the burden onto those least able to bear it. It is time to come clean,” he said in a major speech on responding to the world’s twin climate and energy crises. “If AI is to help build a better future, it must be honest about what it costs us now.”

A report issued earlier this month by the UN University Institute for Water, Environment and Health noted that most current assessments of AI’s environmental cost focus on carbon emissions from training models. But, it added, this misses a substantial part of the picture. 

Every kilowatt-hour of electricity for AI also carries a water footprint, from cooling and generation, and a land footprint, from infrastructure and supply chains, it said. 

Explainer: Will AI data centres make or break the energy transition?

The report estimated that AI data centres globally could consume 945 terawatt-hours of electricity annually by 2030 –  more power than all but five countries and roughly twice France’s 2025 consumption.

Offsetting this carbon footprint by 2030 would require growing some 6.7 billion trees over 10 years, it calculated. Producing power for the data centres would consume water equal to the basic needs of 1.3 billion people in sub-Saharan Africa for a year and take up land of more than 14,500 square kilometers, roughly twice the Jakarta metropolitan area.

The European Union said earlier this month it will develop minimum energy-efficiency standards for both new and existing data centres, with a “needs assessment” ​due by 2027, Reuters reported. It’s also planning ⁠a sustainability label for data centres, covering criteria including water use and clean energy supply – but that has been delayed.    

US community push-back 

Asked after his speech what the response had been, the UN chief said “we’ll see”, without giving more details.

But, he argued that, in his view, the push for transparency “is perfectly reasonable and even positive for the AI industry, because eventually some people will say that they consume much more than they really do”. “I think the truth is essential,” he added. 

Concerns about the environmental impacts of AI and the infrastructure needed to run the technology have led to growing opposition in some communities, especially in the US.

This month, Monterey Park in Los Angeles County was the first city in the United States to enact a citywide prohibition on data centres through a voter-approved ballot measure. The developers behind a proposed centre in the area had already pulled the project in April amid an increasingly hostile local environment and regulatory uncertainty.

The vote that stopped a data center: US communities query resource-hungry AI

According to nonprofit Data Center Watch, around $64 billion-worth of data centre projects nationwide were delayed or blocked between May 2024 and March 2025 as communities pushed back against them. 

Industry lobby groups argue that data centres can provide economic benefits in their host communities. According to the US-based Data Center Coalition, which represents big operators and developers, data centres generate tax revenue, support construction and technical jobs, and provide infrastructure needed for cloud computing, scientific research and AI development.

The industry has also challenged claims that data centers necessarily raise electricity costs for households.

Force for good?

The UN chief said benefits can be few in the places that are home to the data centre, while “communities are often left in the dark about the environmental impact of the infrastructure rising around them”.

Guterres said companies have an “obligation” to be clear and open about the services they are offering but also the level of resources they require. 

“Transparency is essential for the decisions that communities must make – and transparency is essential even for the future of artificial intelligence, and to make sure that artificial intelligence is essentially a force for good,” he told an audience of climate professionals in London

A senior UN official told journalists ahead of Tuesday’s announcement that the AI industry has started to talk about and disclose some of their impacts, but those efforts are not yet comprehensive enough. 

The hope is that the new initiative will “encourage the industry to come together and take further action on it”, the official said.

The post UN asks AI companies to reveal full environmental impacts appeared first on Climate Home News.

June 23, 2026 – FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

SUWA Statement on three BLM Travel Management Plans moving forward – 6.23.26 Solitude, wildlife, and cultural resources all at risk from off-road vehicles use, statewide 

Contacts:
Grant Stevens, Communications Director, Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA); (319) 427-0260; grant@suwa.org

Salt Lake City, UT – Yesterday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) announced it was moving forward on three Travel Management Plans in Utah: Trail Canyon (east of Zion National Park), Dinosaur North (near Dinosaur National Monument), and the Dolores River (northeast of Moab). Travel plans guide where motorized recreation is and is not allowed on public land; the agency is accepting public comment on the Trail Canyon and Dinosaur North Plans. Below is a statement from SUWA Senior Attorney Laura Peterson and additional information.  

“After years of dragging its feet, the BLM is suddenly racing ahead to finalize three plans for off-road vehicles (ORVs) – plans we expect will wrongly promote motorized recreation over the interests of all other public land visitors,” said Laura Peterson, Senior Attorney at the Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA). “These three landscapes highlight the beauty and diversity of public lands in Utah, but one thing unites them: none of them should be transformed from quiet, wild places into motorized playgrounds.”

Additional information: 

The Trail Canyon, Dinosaur North, and Dolores Triangle travel plans – totaling approximately 816,000 acres of public lands – are three of 11 travel plans the BLM is completing as part of a court-supervised settlement agreement between the BLM, conservation groups, and ORV groups. Covering more than 6 million acres of BLM-managed lands in eastern and southern Utah, these plans will determine where motorized vehicles will be allowed on some of Utah’s wildest public lands. To date, the BLM has completed five of the 11 plans and is currently working on new plans for some of Utah’s most beloved landscapes. At the behest of the Trump Administration and some motorized recreation groups, the BLM is reconsidering the previously completed Labyrinth Canyon, San Rafael Swell, and San Rafael Desert plans. Read more about SUWA’s litigation to ensure these travel plans follow federal laws to protect public lands and resources. 

The Trail Canyon plan (draft environmental assessment) has a 30-day public comment period running June 22 – July 22;  the BLM is hosting a public meeting on July 9, 2026, from 6 to 8 p.m. at the Kanab Center (20 N. 100 E., Kanab, UT 84741). The Dinosaur North plan (draft environmental assessment) has a 30-day public comment period running June 22 – July 22. 

### 
The Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance (SUWA) is a nonprofit organization with members and supporters from around the country dedicated to protecting America’s redrock wilderness. From offices in Moab, Salt Lake City, and Washington, DC, our team of professionals defends the redrock, organizes support for America’s Red Rock Wilderness Act, and stewards a world-renowned landscape. Learn more at www.suwa.org. 

 

 

The post SUWA Statement on three BLM Travel Management Plans moving forward – 6.23.26 appeared first on Southern Utah Wilderness Alliance.

Under John Cook's supervision, Monash University's honours student Ruby Flack spent her thesis deconstructing climate myths in the CARDS taxonomy. With involvement of an interdisciplinary team, her honours thesis was subsequently converted into the paper “Identifying Flawed Reasoning in Contrarian Claims about Climate” and recently published in Environmental Communication (paywalled) with a free pre-press manuscript available here.

What follows is a quick summary based on John Cook's thread on Bluesky. In the new paper, the authors identify the logical fallacies in a comprehensive taxonomy of contrarian claims about climate change from Coan et al. (2021). An important aspect of this initial research was that it didn't make any judgements about whether the claims were misleading. That's what this new research set out to do.

Figure 1: CARDS Taxonomy - Only “childless claims” (claims with no sub-claims) were deconstructed, indicated by solid color boxes. “Parent claims” (claims with sub-claims) were excluded from deconstruction, indicated by boxes with no coloured fill. All level 1 claims are parent claims, while all level 3 claims are childless claims. Grayed-out claims were excluded from this analysis due to insufficient example paragraphs.

The authors argued that there are a number of limitations to fact-checking. While science myths (like the bulk of the myths debunked by Skeptical Science) are ripe for fact-checking, other types of myths such as policy claims, conspiracy theories, and ad hominem attacks are more challenging. Fact-checking also struggles with arguments that contain hidden premises (or unstated assumptions) which are especially insidious because they can hide where the argument misleads.

They therefore proposed logic-checking as a complement—not a replacement!—to fact-checking. This involves identifying the presence of logical fallacies—an alternative way to tag arguments as misleading. One of the benefits of logic-checking is, that it can address forms of misinformation that fact-checking struggles with. It also has another benefit which will be mentioned later.

In 2018, John Cook worked with critical thinking philosophers to develop a step-by-step methodology for logic-checking. It involves deconstructing claims into an argument structure (one or more premises leading to a conclusion), then checking for hidden premises followed by examining each premise for logical fallacies (Cook et al. 2018):

Figure 2: Simplified deconstruction workflow from Cook et al. (2018)

For this new paper, the authors expanded the 2018 flowchart to make it more practical, working with a variety of real-world misinformation. This was necessary because climate myths can come in a variety of flavours, so before they can be deconstructed, an exemplar version of each contrarian claim needed to be developed. 

Exemplars were sorted into four types depending on how varied the arguments were within each claim. The first two types were where every version of the claim could be represented by the same argument. For example, the argument “CO2 lagging temperature disproves the warming effect of CO2” essentially always takes the same form. The third type was when a claim appeared in different forms but one argument dominated. E.g., the claim “Arctic isn’t melting” took various forms such as “there’s still lots of Arctic sea ice” but most of the time, this argument took the form “Arctic sea ice hasn’t significantly decreased recently.” The fourth type was when some versions of a claim was recategorised into other claims. 

Figure 3: Deconstruction workflow from Flack et al. (2026)

They also clarified the differences between some fallacies that conceptually can be difficult to distinguish—such as cherry picking from slothful induction, and misrepresentation from oversimplification. Wendy Cook created this lovely infographic for the paper.

Figure 4: Infographic explaining two conceptually difficult to distinguish fallacies (from Flack et al. 2026)

The result of this work was a detailed summary of climate myths from the CARDS taxonomy, how each of them was deconstructed, any hidden premises in each myth, and ultimately the logical fallacies in each myth. This table is intended as a resource for anyone wishing to write debunkings of climate myths that use the fact-myth-fallacy format. A more detailed PDF-version of the deconstructed climate contrarian claims is available for download here.

Figure 5: Sample from table 3 summarizing deconstructed climate contrarian claims (Flack et al. 2026)

The authors also identified the most common fallacies in climate misinformation. Slothful induction and cherry picking were the most common, followed by oversimplification and misrepresentation. Single cause (a form of oversimplification) came in fifth.

Figure 6: Bar chart of the most common fallacies in climate misinformation (from Flack et al. 2026)

One of the most significant findings was that 91% of the claims analysed contained hidden premises with fallacies. Almost all misinformation tries to hide how it misleads. This underscores the importance of logic-checking as an essential tool in countering misinformation.

Logic-checking segues seamlessly into logic-based corrections that explain misleading techniques in misinformation. In 2017, John Cook published research finding that logic-based corrections neutralise climate misinformation across the political spectrum. In other words, logic-checking depolarizes misinformation that otherwise has a polarizing effect on the public (Cook et al. 2017).

Bottom line: logic-checking is beneficial both epistemologically (help identify misleading content that fact-checking struggles with) and with communication (neutralising polarizing misinformation). Hopefully, this research will spark both more research and practical interest in logic-checking. 

Reference:
Flack, R., Cook, J., Ellerton, P., Kinkead, D., Coan, T., Boussalis, C., … Dargaville, R. (2026). Identifying Flawed Reasoning in Contrarian Claims about Climate Change. Environmental Communication, 1–22. https://doi.org/10.1080/17524032.2026.2663476 

The Pembina Institute supports Canada’s goals in Powering Canada Strong: A National Strategy for an Electrified Canadian Economy:Building new infrastructure to double Canada’s electricity supply by 2050 and meet growing demand.Accelerating...

Europe is sweltering through an intense heat wave that is setting temperature records in the U.K. and France. It comes on the heels of another record heat wave in May.

Read more on E360 →

Raymond’s hands look worn from sourcing water for people in his community. 

In an image, his left hand is shown draped over a block of wood, reflecting years of hard work and determination as he pushes a cart filled with pails of water through the streets.

The picture was taken by Danelle Fraser, a woman in her thirties who lives in Rose Town, Jamaica. She puts herself, and her family, into the photo essay, revealing how they must wake up early every day and travel to neighbouring communities to fetch water.

The residents of Rose Town, in West Kingston, have been forced to do this for decades after their own water pipes stopped working.

The photos are personal history, depicting the efforts of local people making do without access to a reliable water supply, leaving their community less resilient and more exposed to climate-related shocks.

“It has been over 23 years now since I saw water running through the pipes of my house in Gordon Lane,” writes Danelle in the essay.

Women’s lived experience

She is one of six women in Jamaica chosen to take part in the first phase of the Envisioning Resilience initiative in 2023. Led by the NAP Global Network and Lensational, a non-profit social enterprise, the project is designed to enable women to tell their own climate stories through photography. 

So far, these stories have ranged from how street vendors are surviving extreme heat to the Rastafari community’s attempts to adapt to drought.

The project, extended to another seven women in 2025, was born out of an understanding that women and girls are more severely impacted by climate change. The UN estimates the crisis is pushing tens of millions more women than men into poverty and food insecurity around the world. Global warming is worsening gender inequalities and making it harder for women to survive and become more resilient to extreme weather events.

“Women are one of many vulnerable groups and one that often lacks agency when it comes to decisions of critical importance such as climate change,” explained Orville Grey, head of secretariat for the NAP Global Network.

“Empowering women to speak to their lived experience [and] capture that through creative communication tools such as photography is a unique way to get them involved in the process of developing adaptation plans that are fit for purpose and inclusive,” he added.

Raymond, a resident of Gordon Lane, is seen pushing his own cart, loaded with water-filled pails, by hand. Photo: Danelle Fraser, Envisioning Resilience, Jamaica (2023) Raymond, a resident of Gordon Lane, is seen pushing his own cart, loaded with water-filled pails, by hand. Photo: Danelle Fraser, Envisioning Resilience, Jamaica (2023) The power of individual action

Starting in 2021, Envisioning Resilience initially ran pilots in Ghana and Kenya before expanding to Jamaica in 2023. The initiative formed a new partnership with GirlsCARE, a feminist climate justice organisation, based in the Caribbean country. Ayesha Constable, founder of GirlsCARE, told Climate Home News that participants on the programme are selected through a targeted call shared across their national network.

“We intentionally focus on reaching young women and girls from vulnerable communities, including rural and inner city areas,” she said. “The selection process… ensures a cohort that is both engaged and reflective of the communities most impacted by climate change,” she added.

The group goes through a training programme of between four to six months, learning professional photography skills through workshops and individual assignments. Participants are also provided with policy training and a grounding in how their stories are connected to wider climate concerns.

Jamaica set for post-Melissa payout but experts warn of limits to hurricane insurance

“We sometimes say if you only had one day to tell this story, what words would you use, what actions would you take to do so?” explained Lydia Wanjiku, CEO of Lensational.

Envisioning Resilience offers a rare opportunity for women from different backgrounds to tell these stories, reach a wider audience, and gain valuable skills along the way. The photo essays are collected online and the stories have received widespread media attention.

“Ultimately, we want participants to embrace their own agency, and recognise the power of individual and collective action in driving change, and to carry forward the principles of justice, care and equity in whatever paths they choose,” added Constable of GirlsCARE.

From pilots to policy

The wider intention in Jamaica is that the photo essays influence the development and implementation of new climate policies. When the stories are complete, they are shared in a dialogue that brings the newly trained photographers together with adaptation policymakers. 

According to Angie Dazé, director of gender equality and social inclusion at the International Institute for Sustainable Development (IISD), the policy dialogues “flip the script, allowing the conversation to be led by the women and their stories, placing the government representatives in listening mode”.

Lensational is seeing interest from some countries in using the programme as a core part of national policy processes. The essays have validated some issues that government departments have known about, while others have shone a light on new areas of concern.

Women must be a starting point, not an afterthought, for adaptation

“We have really tried to embed policy and storytelling elements into the training, ensuring the projects are more targeted and aligned with what policymakers are working on,” added Wanjiku. The intention is to support women to articulate their stories with policy concepts in mind, broadening their reach and impact.

The approach seems to be paying off in Jamaica. Wayne Robertson, permanent secretary at Jamaica’s Ministry of Water, Environment and Climate Change, said the initiative had “meaningfully supported the Jamaican government in strengthening climate adaptation policy development by bridging the gap between technical planning and lived community experience”.

He added that the photo essays are supporting Jamaica’s National Adaptation Plan process and contributing to existing efforts by reinforcing the need for “inclusive, locally informed and participatory adaptation planning” and allowing for “a more people-centred understanding of climate risk.”

Participants on the initiative go through a six-month training programme. Photo: Jik Reuben, Lensational Faye Edwards, a street vendor in Kingston, awaits customers as the midday heat rises at her stall on Seymour Avenue. Photo: Shekinah Wright, Envisioning Resilience, Jamaica (2025). Participants on the initiative go through a six-month training programme. Photo: Jik Reuben, Lensational Faye Edwards, a street vendor in Kingston, awaits customers as the midday heat rises at her stall on Seymour Avenue. Photo: Shekinah Wright, Envisioning Resilience, Jamaica (2025). Jamaica’s growing climate impacts

Jamaica is a natural choice to run an initiative of this kind. As a small island developing state in the Caribbean, it is vulnerable to rising sea levels, coastal erosion and intense cyclones and hurricanes. A 2024 USAID assessment found that these stressors are likely to increase due to climate change.

Grey, of the NAP Global Network, commented that Jamaica is “dealing with rising temperatures impacting ambient heat both in day and night-time, increased severity of hurricanes, longer duration droughts, increased variability in rainfall, increased impacts of coastal erosion due to storms… and warmer oceans”. These climate stresses all have economic impacts on agriculture, tourism, fisheries and productivity.

A tale of two women: What climate vulnerability actually looks like

Many Jamaicans now have direct experience of what it means to live in a hotter world. In October 2025, Hurricane Melissa, a Category 5 storm, battered the island, causing multiple fatalities and almost $9 billion in economic damages. Researchers rank Melissa as one of the strongest storms ever recorded – with winds of up to 185mph (295km/h) – and the costliest hurricane in Jamaica’s history.

Climate change played a direct role in making the storm worse, according to a study from Imperial College London. Its storm model, called IRIS, found that climate change increased Melissa’s extreme rainfall by 16%, with a hurricane of its kind made four times more likely due to rising temperatures.

Collective action for resilience

Surrounded by the devastation of Hurricane Melissa, the new recruits to the Envisioning Resilience initiative picked up their cameras to record the event. 

Ashlee Gooden travelled to Treasure Beach on Jamaica’s south coast a few days after the hurricane made landfall. She spent time documenting how one family, the Ritchies, had prepared for what was to come. Fishermen tied down the zinc roof, with sandbags placed on top for extra support. Plywood was nailed to windows, and essential food items stockpiled in the days leading up to the storm.

Gooden’s essay demonstrates not only the physical impacts of Hurricane Melissa – destroyed businesses and beach debris – but how the close community has bounced back,  although a full recovery could take years. “One member of the community even opened their backyard to be used as a makeshift trail, allowing residents to bypass the blocked main road,” she writes.

A restaurant in Treasure Beach bears the scars of Hurricane Melissa. Photo: Ashlee Gooden / Envisioning Resilience A residential property damaged by two severe hurricanes within two years: Beryl and Melissa. Photo: Ashlee Gooden / Envisioning Resilience A restaurant in Treasure Beach bears the scars of Hurricane Melissa. Photo: Ashlee Gooden / Envisioning Resilience A residential property damaged by two severe hurricanes within two years: Beryl and Melissa. Photo: Ashlee Gooden / Envisioning Resilience No one left behind

The UN reports that in recent years the development of National Adaptation Plans under the UN climate process has moved from formulation to “implementation readiness”.

As adaptation policy matures, the photo essays produced by women on the Envisioning Resilience initiative are supporting governments to create plans that are more sensitive to the climate-related issues communities are now facing. 

Jamaican official Robertson said the initiative “strengthens gender-responsive adaptation by creating space for women, youth, and community members to share their experiences and priorities”.

While much work has been done to centre women’s issues and decision-making within the climate debate, researchers acknowledge it is still not a high priority for some countries. The photo essays can help change that, by providing an insight into stories that “don’t typically get heard in adaptation policy conversations”, according to IISD’s Dazé.

“The project is about a shift in mindset on the role that women are playing and their adaptive capacity. Women are resilient in their own right,” she added. “Women are already adapting to climate change, and policymakers are getting to see them as agents of change.”

Adam Wentworth is a freelance journalist based in Brighton, UK

The post Women in Jamaica are opening eyes with climate photography appeared first on Climate Home News.

UN chief António Guterres called on Tuesday for stronger action to cut emissions of planet-heating methane, taking aim at the fossil fuel industry’s practices and profits, and pointing to coal, oil and gas as the root of today’s climate and energy crises.

In a major speech at London Climate Action Week, with the British capital under a heatwave warning, the UN Secretary-General said countries had not done enough to reduce greenhouse gas emissions in line with what is needed to keep warming below the globally agreed goal of 1.5C. 

“The task before us is to strictly limit the overshoot, shorten its duration, and bring temperatures down below 1.5 degrees Celsius as fast as possible,” Guterres said. One way of doing that, he added, is by cutting methane emissions first.

He noted that methane – a potent greenhouse gas that traps around 80 times more heat than carbon dioxide – is responsible for around one-third of global warming but breaks down in the atmosphere within a decade or two.

“That means that aggressive cuts could produce visible temperature relief within a generation,” the UN chief emphasised, launching a global call to action on methane covering fossil fuel production, agriculture and organic waste disposal.

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Of the three main sources of methane, he singled out the fossil fuel industry, where he said “the most immediate gains can be made”.

He cited the International Energy Agency (IEA) finding that around 70% of oil and gas methane emissions can be eliminated using existing technology, mostly at low or no net cost. This is because the gas leaking from coal mines and oil and gas production facilities can be captured and then used or sold.

Despite this, in 2025 alone, Guterres said some 167 billion cubic metres of gas were flared – as much as Africa consumes in a year.

“I am urging the fossil fuel industry to step up and do what is long overdue,” added the UN chief, whose term ends this year.

Guterres said voluntary action “is no longer enough” and there were similar global precedents for getting rid of harmful substances, including leaded petrol and ozone-depleting chemicals. “Methane pollution must be next,” he emphasised.

Methane emissions stuck at highs

The latest Global Methane Tracker report from the IEA shows that methane emissions from fossil fuels remained at very high levels in 2025, with no sign of a decline globally despite progress in some countries. In 2025, energy generated 41% of global methane emissions, followed by agriculture (40%) and waste (17%).

On Tuesday, a World Bank tracker showed that global gas flaring rose for the third year in a row in 2025, wasting an estimated $54 billion worth of gas by burning it off.

Demetrios Papathanasiou, the World Bank Group’s global director for energy, said that at a time when many countries are struggling to expand their access to affordable and reliable energy, “the economic development costs of continued flaring are simply too high”. “The gas currently flared could be captured to power industries and businesses, create jobs and strengthen energy security,” he said in a statement.

As well as easing climate change, the IEA says capturing waste methane could help improve gas market security after Iran’s near-closure of the Strait of Hormuz removed close to 20% of global liquefied natural gas supply from the market. 

The prime minister of Barbados, Mia Mottley, last year called on leaders at the UN General Assembly to draw up a “legally binding global agreement” to reduce methane emissions, an idea that is also supported by France. 

Mottley’s “legally binding” methane pact faces barriers, but smaller steps possible

However, Guterres stopped short of supporting such a solution on Tuesday, throwing his weight instead behind a proposal for governments to set a new global standard for net near-zero methane emissions across the value chain in the oil and gas sector.

This initiative, outlined in a report on the new call to action, would establish a common, internationally recognised methane intensity benchmark, for use by both producers and consumers. Compliance with the standard would then become a condition for financing, procurement and long‑term market access.

Voluntary action ‘not enough’

In recent years, countries and companies willing to act on the methane problem have teamed up on the Global Methane Pledge, which aims to cut methane emissions by 30% by 2030 from 2020 levels, and the UAE-led Oil and Gas Decarbonisation Charter, signed by over 50 oil and gas companies. But their success has been limited in real terms.  

Speaking at a separate event on Monday, Jonathan Banks, vice president of methane pollution prevention at the Clean Air Task Force (CATF), said the global pledge had been successful in creating “high-level political buy-in”, raising more money to detect methane emissions and helping countries plug their sources.

But it “is not there to be this all-encompassing binding treaty that drives emissions down”, he added.

At last year’s COP30, 11 countries representing around 10% of global oil production and 18% of gas exports signed a pledge to “drastically reduce” methane emissions in the fossil fuel sector, including by eliminating routine gas flaring and venting.

Comment: Curbing methane is the fastest way to slow warming – but we’re off the pace

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) also runs a system that detects methane leaks around the world. It has issued more than 5,000 alerts across 33 countries, but received responses in only 12% of cases.

Meghan Demeter, a programme manager at the UNEP service, said on Monday that countries face several barriers to responding to the alerts, including limited capacity to interpret the data and act on it, as well as funding shortages, particularly among national oil companies.

A senior UN official told journalists that existing initiatives on methane had raised awareness of the issue but had failed to deliver the emissions cuts needed. “’It’s absolutely critical that governments step in and strongly regulate the oil and gas sector,” he added.

Norway leads the way

As an example of how this could work, the call to action report singled out Norway, which banned routine flaring in 1971, imposed a tax on emissions from petroleum production and transport in 1991, and increased its tax on flaring and methane emissions in 2017. It now has one of the lowest methane emissions intensities of upstream oil and gas production in the world. 

The report said that if all countries matched Norway’s standards, global methane emissions from oil and gas operations could fall by roughly 90%.

Recent COP hosts Brazil and Azerbaijan linked to “super-emitting” methane plumes

It added that China, Canada, the United Arab Emirates and Qatar reduced or maintained their methane emissions from oil and gas production between 2023 and 2024, even as output increased, indicating a decline in the emissions intensity of their operations.

On Monday, the Fossil Fuel Regulatory Programme (FFRP), a UNEP-backed initiative that works with governments to strengthen regulatory frameworks for cutting methane emissions from their energy sectors, added Egypt, Brazil, and Bosnia and Herzegovina to its existing partners, Ghana, Kazakhstan and Iraq.

Windfall tax on fossil fuel profits

Guterres also made a strong push for states to hit the very deep pockets of fossil fuel companies with windfall taxes, as countries like the UK, Italy or Spain have done in recent years.

He said fossil energy giants had reaped ”extraordinary profits”, with the eight biggest making an extra $6.5 billion in the first quarter of this year alone, which included only one month of the Middle East crisis which has pushed up oil prices.

“These are windfall gains born of pain – of instability, hardship and dependence. I urge governments to tax them,” said the UN chief. 

He added that the proceeds should be used “where they belong: helping vulnerable families and communities, and accelerating the shift to clean, affordable energy”.

The post UN chief says fossil fuel industry must cut methane for warming “relief” appeared first on Climate Home News.

As Palestinian firefighters face multiple threats under occupation, Rachel Spence reports on acts of solidarity and support between international workers' unions

The post Fighting fire with fellowship appeared first on Red Pepper.

Gemeinsam mit der FAU und dem NO SOLO organisiert die IWW in Bern einen Rundgang durch die Lorraine mit anschließender Verpflegung und Austausch! Los geht es um 10 Uhr!

Der Beitrag IWW JAM: Netzwerktreffen am 27. Juni 2026 erschien zuerst auf [:de]Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) im deutschsprachigen Raum[:en]Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) in the German Language Area[:].

Kudos to VJayBombs, ingenious street artists who once emblazoned L.A. with projections of ICE hauling off Jesus, and who just hit D.C. to plaster “Guardians of Pedophiles" on the Kennedy Center's "literal cover-up" and murky regime minions - bats, worms, turtles - on the besieged Reflecting Pool. Growing more ideological as the fascist stakes rise, they use peaceful but splashy projection bombing to "make our voices heard," sensibly arguing, "If you're gonna say something, say something."

It seems only apt an anonymous collective of renegades chooses as weapons the visual tools of their oppressors, slathering multiple regime cover-ups - like the attempted removal from National Parks of information on slavery and other historical facts that “disparage Americans past or living” - with their own rowdy retorts. Large-scale, dissident projections are part of a relatively new protest tradition, "accessible, disruptive, but not violent," that evidently grew from the Occupy movement. In 2013, using an Illuminator- like projector that came out of a car roof like a turret, one Charles Lechner projected an image of a ballot box stuffed with dollar bills onto Michael Bloomberg’s New York apartment; the Mayor, unamused, had him arrested.

VJayBombs began about ten years ago when three filmmakers and neighbors in a Koreatown apartment complex started

projecting abstract visuals onto nearby buildings during house parties. That pastime evolved during the lead-up to the 2024 election into "Life's Projections," peaceful guerrilla protest that "sits right in the sweet spot of all our skill sets"; they now have over 300,000 online followers and merch - ICE guy with gun: "Our humanity" - to help raise funds. Moving through group chats, location-scouting, brainstorming - what will resonate, how to highlight absurdity and communicate clearly in seconds - they've progressed from "total novices" who blew a fuse by trying to run power through a car lighter to a large-venue projector.

Their goal is to effectively merge message with architecture in a story that unfolds like a digital billboard or comic strip and gets "the longest legs online - as many eyes as possible." Their projections across L.A. have ranged from No Kings messages to Matt Gaetz as Butt-Head to a spoof of Trump's endless, babbling State of the Union speech, with Trump holding the Statue of Liberty hostage amidst flashing messages of "Immigrant Bad!" and “Forget the Files!” A Super Bowl parody, "Redacted Bowl," featured Trump and cronies as football players with their stats matching their references in the Epstein files. Last week's UFC cage match became Donald Trump vs. the Epstein Files celebrating "the pound-for-pound best cover-up in history."

D.C.'s besieged Kennedy Center and besmirched Reflecting Pool - now the surreal scene of a Stalinist police stop - were logical, tempting next stops. A week after a court ruling forced the removal of Trump's name from the Center, the tarp hung in the dark to hide a fragile narcissist's shame and fury from a gleeful crowd is still there, obscuring not just the spot where the name allegedly came down but the entire facade. In a June 19 court filing, Center lackeys say it's to do maintenance on the marble. Lawyers for Rep. Joyce Beatty, who filed the original lawsuit, say it's a lame move to soothe "broken egos,” one that both conceals whether officials have in fact complied with the court and reduces a once-vaunted arts venue into a "lifeless husk."

Frustrated visitors to the site have their own ideas: One suggested Trump is focused on "trying to deface America’s symbols before he finishes defacing the country," and another proposed using the tarp to cover the brackish debacle that is now the Reflecting Pool. Others have simply moved on to pay tribute to VJayBombs artists for giving Trump "a lesson in the law of unintended consequences" and projecting "what we all wanted" on the Kennedy Center: A "Guardians of Pedophiles" montage of Trump, Epstein, regime toadies - Bondi, Johnson, Patel - with, "No one bends the knee like the GOP,” and a guy climbing a ladder towards the name "Donald," its letters slowly cascading down to form the word "pedo."

In their weekend art spree, VJayBombs also took to other D.C. landmarks. At the Lincoln Pool, they placed in that now-sorry site a fitting array of swamp creatures: McConnell as turtle, Hegseth as crocodile, Vance as worm, Rubio as fish, Stephen Goebbels Miller a bat hanging upside-down, bald head glinting. At the DOJ, Ted Cruz popped up as a grotesque sex worker in Trump underwear. Hard to unsee, but VJayBombs argue, these dark days, it's "more important than ever to use whatever skills we have to push back." Their art "gives people a new way to engage," they say. "We all have more power than we think...Real change doesn’t come from one big event - it comes from countless small acts that, together, move the needle."

For Immediate Release:

June 22, 2026

Contact:
Ashley Castaneda, ashley@restorethedelta.org

SACRAMENTO — On behalf of The Delta Tribal Environmental Coalition (DTEC), the Environmental Justice Law and Advocacy Clinic at Yale Law School has submitted a letter to the California Senate Natural Resources and Water Committee opposing AB 2215. DTEC consists of the Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians, Winnemem Wintu Tribe, Little Manila Rising, and Restore the Delta. Coalition members warn that the bill is an attempt to clear the path for controversial projects, including the Delta Conveyance Project, without proper regulatory and public oversight.

AB 2215 would extend the Department of Water Resources’ (DWR) water rights permit for the State Water Project by more than forty years, overriding established State Water Board authority and limiting public participation in critical water rights proceedings. The coalition argues that the bill would undermine longstanding procedures governing water rights permit extensions, grant preferential treatment to DWR, and bypass established hearing processes designed to ensure permit extensions serve the public interest.

The letter describes the bill as the latest effort by DWR to exempt itself from rules that apply to all other water rights holders, at the expense of the environment, Delta communities, Tribes, and the public interest.

At a time when the Bay-Delta watershed faces ecological crisis, the coalition emphasizes the importance of maintaining robust State Water Board processes that ensure transparency, accountability, and meaningful public participation in water management decisions. The coalition is urging senators to reject AB 2215 and preserve the safeguards that allow Tribes, Delta communities, and other key stakeholders to participate in decisions that affect California’s water future.

STATEMENTS FROM COALITION MEMBERS:

Vice Chair Malissa Tayaba, Shingle Springs Band of Miwok Indians

“The reason that water rights permit extensions require public interest evaluation and environmental review is so that Tribes and others can provide input on impacts and alternatives and the State Water Board can issue an informed decision. AB 2215 would circumvent that process, eliminating our voices and perpetuating centuries of injustice.”

Gary Mulcahy, Government Liaison with the Winnemem Wintu Tribe

“Apparently, existing rules and regulations proved inconvenient for DWR. Rather than follow the established process, the solution appears to be seeking a special legislative exemption so those requirements no longer apply.”

Cintia Cortez, Program Manager, Restore the Delta

“Eliminating the Water Board’s ability to establish regulatory conditions, as directed by the legislature, sets a dangerous precedent. The state cannot achieve equitable management of limited water resources by granting regulatory exemptions.”
 

###

Aiqun Yu, Christine Shearer and Joe Hittinger work at Global Energy Monitor, a US-based organisation that seeks to provide the worldwide energy transition with transparent data and analysis.

With global oil and gas prices soaring at the start of the Iran war, China quietly broke ground on three major coal-to-gas and coal-to-chemical projects worth roughly $10 billion in two regions with abundant coal resources.

But as a Chinese saying goes, “three feet of ice does not form in a single day”. China’s push to use coal as a substitute for imported oil and gas has been gathering momentum since the Russia-Ukraine war began in 2022, prompting a recalibration of energy security priorities in Beijing and beyond.

The policy raises new concerns, threatening China’s climate goals and growing reputation as a global clean energy leader by creating renewed demand for coal.

A new expansion wave

Over the past three years, China has entered a new cycle of investment in so-called “modern coal chemicals”, differentiated from conventional coal chemicals. Four pathways – coal-to-gas, coal-to-liquids, coal-to-olefins, and coal-to-ethylene glycol – account for the bulk of new modern coal-chemical capacity under development.

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According to Global Energy Monitor data, proposed and under-construction coal-to-gas capacity is approaching three times current operating capacity. Together, 34 projects under active consideration represent more than 1 trillion yuan ($150 billion) in planned investment and could add roughly 300 million tonnes of annual coal demand if completed, equivalent to South Africa’s entire coal mining capacity.

Most projects are in Xinjiang, Inner Mongolia, Shaanxi and Ningxia, regions with plentiful coal resources and relatively low mining costs. Xinjiang has emerged as the epicentre of the new boom, accounting for more than half of all proposed modern coal chemical projects.

Why the world abandoned coal chemicals

Coal chemicals are often presented as an emerging industry, but the technologies themselves are more than a century old.

Earlier “conventional” coal chemistry was a byproduct of coking, a process run primarily for iron and steel making. “Modern” coal chemistry instead uses gasification to convert coal into synthesis gas, a versatile building block for fuels, plastics, fertilisers and other chemicals that would traditionally be made from oil or gas.

These modern processes were developed in the early 20th century and expanded during periods of wartime fuel shortages. For example, Germany relied heavily on synthetic fuels during the Second World War while South Africa developed similar technologies in the apartheid era to reduce vulnerability to international sanctions.

A livestreamer promotes coal during a livestreaming session for Huaze Coal Industry on the Douyin app, in this illustration picture taken June 15, 2023. REUTERS/Florence Lo/Illustration A livestreamer promotes coal during a livestreaming session for Huaze Coal Industry on the Douyin app, in this illustration picture taken June 15, 2023. REUTERS/Florence Lo/Illustration

Once cheap oil and gas became widely available, however, most countries moved away from coal chemicals, which required large amounts of energy, water and capital investment, and generally produced more pollution and carbon emissions than the conventional alternatives.

Today, only a handful of commercial coal gasification facilities operate outside China.

China has already tested this theory once

The current expansion is not China’s first attempt to build a major coal chemical industry.

A previous boom emerged during the 2010s, driven by many of the same arguments: high oil prices, concerns over energy security and expectations that technological improvements would unlock a new era of coal-based industrial growth.

Brazil jostles for rare earths share as US-China rivalry heats up

The outcome was far from successful. Dozens of projects were proposed, but many were delayed, suspended or scrapped before completion, and there were difficulties among those that did get off the ground.

Three of China’s four operating coal-to-gas projects reportedly spent much of the past decade operating at a loss, and several large coal chemical facilities generated only marginal returns despite government support.

Policy support is driving the revival

Backers say technological improvements have made the industry more competitive than it was a decade ago.

Yet coal chemical projects remain highly dependent on oil and gas prices. When international prices rise, coal-derived products can appear competitive. When prices fall, the economics often deteriorate rapidly.

More than changes in technology, government policy has played a pivotal role in the sector’s revival.

Following power shortages in 2021 and the energy market disruptions that followed Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, energy security became a national priority. Coal production expanded, particularly in western China, boosted by government support.

China’s solar exports reach “gigantic” record in March as energy crisis bites

A key policy change in 2022 exempted coal used as industrial feedstock from certain energy consumption controls, easing regulatory pressure on coal chemical projects.

The impact of such measures highlights the degree to which coal chemicals depend on expansive and favourable policy treatment to remain viable.

At the same time, the current expansion is creating new demand for an industry confronting structural decline as China races to renewables in electricity generation.

The cost to China’s climate leadership

Converting coal into fuels and petrochemical products also releases substantially more carbon dioxide than conventional oil- and gas-based alternatives, which themselves are a major source of emissions. 

Proponents argue that coupling production with green hydrogen and carbon capture could resolve the emissions problem, but the arithmetic doesn’t support this. 

Sinopec’s flagship Dalu coal-to-olefins plant, paired with a 10,000 tonne-per-year green hydrogen demonstration, displaces less than 2% of the plant’s annual coal use. Replicating this across the proposed buildout would consume enormous quantities of clean energy just to partially decarbonise an inherently dirty process.

China could instead leverage that same industrial capacity and policy support to lead the development of cleaner chemical pathways, such as green ammonia for fertiliser, bio-based and CO2-derived feedstocks for plastics, and e-fuels or biofuels where liquid fuels are still needed. 

Rather than locking in another generation of coal-dependent infrastructure, China should learn from the lessons of the past and seek a cleaner and more viable industrial future.

The post China’s coal-chemicals boom risks repeating the mistakes of the past appeared first on Climate Home News.

Heat records are again being smashed across Europe as the region is engulfed in another historic heat wave this week. France, Spain, and the United Kingdom face the most severe threat—Monday is on track to be France’s hottest day on record. The heat is affecting millions, as schools are closed, outdoor recreation and festivities are limited, and fatalities are already starting to add up. A recent attribution analysis found that Europe’s record-breaking heat this year “has the fingerprints of climate change all over it.”

In response, Aaron Regunberg, director of Public Citizen’s Climate Accountability Project, issued the following statement:

“Across Europe, millions are suffering from heat that would have been practically unimaginable a generation ago. This isn’t a natural disaster. The fossil fuel industry’s pollution and decades of deception about the impact of burning fossil fuels has spurred this extreme heat, which has already killed multiple people. Decades ago, scientists at Exxon were discussing with other oil companies research connecting climate change with ‘suffering and death due to thermal extremes.’ These companies knew of evidence that their conduct would cause these harms, and orchestrated campaigns of climate denial to undermine that evidence. They should be held accountable.”

In our latest, Scott talks with Hannah Kass and Priscilla Grim, both Stop Cop City activists, and defendants in the campaigns legal struggles. Listen in: Guest Bios// Hannah Kass one…

This is a re-post from The Climate Brink by Andrew Dessler

Last week, I attended a meeting at Columbia University on attribution science and climate law, hosted by the Sabin Center. It was a fantastic event, bringing together scientists and legal experts working at the intersection of extreme event attribution and climate law.

For those unfamiliar with it, extreme event attribution attempts to quantify the contribution of climate change to an extreme event. For example, severalgroupsanalyzed the impact of climate change on Hurricane Harvey’s enormous rainfall totals over Houston, Texas and they found that climate change increased rainfall by 15 to 38%.

One thing that came up again and again was how terrified fossil-fuel interests are of extreme event attribution science. They are acutely aware that this research could land them in court. And losing those cases would leave them legally liable for billions of dollars in climate damages.

Because the legal stakes are so high, the blowback has turned ugly. I spoke with several scientists at the meeting who are facing ongoing harassment over their work.

This blowback is a coordinated campaign to make the entire field look suspect. The goal is to create the impression that attribution science is too uncertain, too political, or too conflicted to be useful in court or in public policy. The strategy is not based on actual science or evidence of misconduct, but on the generation of doubt.

The new Merchants of Doubt

We’ve seen this before. In fact, not that long ago: We only have to go back a year to the Department of Energy (DOE) Climate Working Group (CWG) report to see an example of using doubt as the tool to push back against well-established science.

This strategy is laid out in an email from a member of the CWG, Dr. Roy Spencer, that was released during litigation over the Climate Working Group process.

shameful

The key quote is:

About all I can hope is that what we write will provide sufficient “reasonable scientific doubt” regarding the science claims in the 2009 TSD [technical support document], based upon almost 2 decades of new science, to call into question the original reasoning for the EPA Administrator’s decision that CO2 presents a threat to human health and welfare.

This statement is strong evidence that at least some members of the committee were working to support a particular policy outcome: revoking the Endangerment Finding. The email also explains how they planned to do it: by attempting to generate “reasonable doubt”.

This is going to be hard, Spencer implies. Despite falsely claiming that “2 decades of new science” weakens the case, Spencer explicitly acknowledges that the actual peer-reviewed science of climate change overwhelmingly rejects his position:

But if the science argument is decided upon by a vote, or by the number of published citations, we lose the science argument.

We can go back even further: This CWG email shares unmistakable DNA with the infamous 1969 tobacco memo that declared: “Doubt is our product, since it is the best means of competing with the ‘body of fact’ that exists in the mind of the general public. It is also the means of establishing a controversy.”

equally shameful

The tobacco memo also acknowledges the limit of this strategy: Like the CWG, they knew the science was not on their side.

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The new new Merchants of Doubt

The people attacking the IPCC chapter on extreme event attribution are the newest iteration of the Merchants of Doubt. Their goal, like all Merchants before them, is to introduce doubt into the process.

Because the report is not even out yet, they cannot attack its conclusions. So they are attacking the authors instead. Here is a press release from the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee:

In the letter, the Chairmen express concerns about potential conflicts of interest involving members of the Attribution Committee, stating that “publicly available information suggests a troubling pattern” in which committee members are affiliated with nonprofits that support climate accountability lawsuits, “raising the appearance of impropriety and member bias.”

Merchants of Doubt

To be clear, this is just innuendo. There is no actual evidence of bias. And given the robust process that these reports go through, including multiple lines of peer review, it seems very unlikely that significant bias can survive into the report.

When the report comes out, critics will have the opportunity to make legitimate criticisms of the report — if any exist. If none do, however, they’ll still make criticisms, but they’ll be bogus, simply designed to generate doubt. We’ll see.

A note to the press: Fix your frame

To any journalists reading this: The public debate over extreme event attribution science is not going away. The science is simply too dangerous to fossil-fuel interests for them to stop fighting it.

You very well might be assigned to write an article about this area of research in the future. When you do, do not automatically adopt the framing that climate misinformers want you to use.

They want you to frame the story around questions like: Are climate scientists trying to put their thumb on the scale to achieve a predetermined, politically motivated result? Are climate scientists improperly letting their politics invade the science of the IPCC?

That frame is a trap.

Instead, you need to view this through the historical lens of the Merchants of Doubt. How does the ecosystem of doubt operate? Who funds it? What methods do they use to misrepresent science and slime researchers? What scientific results are they trying to keep people from understanding are legitimate?

Ultimately, you need to focus your article on the generation of doubt as a way to maintain the fossil fuel industry’s social and legal license to keep burning oil, gas, and coal.

If you treat the misinformers’ frame as a legitimate, good-faith scientific critique, you are helping them produce doubt. Don’t do it. Don’t be a Merchant of Doubt.