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Whistling into the existential void

Orcas are fighting back

Author

Brad Johnson
May 24, 2023

PRESENTED BY SUNROCKS

The milkshakes, they have been drunk. Capping and cleaning up California’s oil and gas wells will cost $13.2 billion, but all future profits are only expected to be $6 billion, energy analyst Dwayne Purvis found in a new report from Carbon Tracker. The oil industry has set aside $105 million for decommissioning their wells. Guess who’s on the hook for the other $13.1 billion?

Over 100 members of the U.S. Congress and European Parliament, led by Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) and Member of the European Parliament Manon Aubry, called for Sultan al-Jaber, head of the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company, to be removed as the head of the upcoming COP28 climate talks in Abu Dhabi.

“The last thing we need is the chief executive of one of the planet’s largest oil and gas companies at the helm of global climate negotiations,” Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) argued, whistling into the existential void of dramatic irony.

In Reagan’s name, amen!

What have other people noticed today?

Ryan Cooper notices Republicans sure aren’t interested in fixing the debt ceiling crisis by raising revenues.

Climate envoy John Kerry notices climate chaos around the planet and says it’s “something we really need to take note of.”

David Hondula, Phoenix’s first director of heat response and mitigation, notices that a blackout during a now-typical Phoenix heat wave would kill more than 10,000 people.

AP’s Kat Stafford notices that Black children are more than twice as likely as white children to develop asthma, and eight times more likely to die from it.

Prospective private jet owners noticed the climate protesters who shut down the jet fest in Geneva on Tuesday.

And Alex Hager notices the beauty of Glen Canyon, revealed by the catastrophic fossil-fueled descent of the manmade Lake Powell.

This morning, the Natural Resources oversight subcommittee held a skeptical hearing with western-state officials on the Bureau of Land Management’s proposed Conservation and Landscape Health rule, which would strengthen conservation as a priority for federal lands management.

Reps. Pat Fallon (R-Texas) and Cori Bush (D-Mo.) headed up an oversight hearing on the Department of Energy’s proposed energy conservation standards for cooktops—which would compel gas stoves to become much more efficient and less polluting. Republicans and their called witnesses are in favor of gas stoves continuing to poison our children. Oh look, Kenny Stein is one of the witnesses again!

Even as other committees continue their review of the FY2024 budget, the Appropriations committee is putting together the actual bills. Appropriators are marking up the Homeland Security budget, which includes the Federal Emergency Management Administration (FEMA), and the Department of Agriculture budget.

  • FEMA is fully funded, but the agency’s program to provide emergency care to border-crossing migrants is cancelled.

  • The GOP’s USDA budget is slashed by more than 12 percent from the president’s request, eliminating funding for climate hubs, climate change research, and racial equity programs and rescinding billions in Inflation Reduction Act clean-energy programs for rural America.

Hearings on the Hill:

Finally, it’s Twenty Years After The Day After Tomorrow — Matthew Rosza checks in.

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