Message From the Editor

Parler is fast becoming a conservative echo-chamber but big name climate deniers don't seem to be abandoning mainstream social media for the fringe platform — at least not yet. An analysis by DeSmog to determine how many profiles featured in our comprehensive climate database have accounts on Parler suggests that many prominent science deniers aren’t currently active on the alternative social platform. But experts caution this could quickly change. Phoebe Cooke reports.

And in another investigation, DeSmog reports that the local utility company in San Antonio, Texas, CPS Energy, pays over $250,000 in combined annual membership fees to the American Public Gas Association and the American Gas Association. Both groups lobby for continued dependence on methane gas. This is despite the city’s commitment to transition towards using more renewable energy. Dana Drugmand has the story.

This news comes after two reports released recently found that the U.S. electric utility sector is largely lagging when it comes to responding to the climate emergency, both in terms of rapidly slashing globe-warming emissions and planning for climate impacts like increasingly extreme weather. “Despite the fact that many large U.S. utilities have now set climate goals, the country's largest polluting utilities are stalling on decarbonization,” one expert told DeSmog. Read more here.
Have a story tip or feedback? Get in touch: [email protected].

Thanks,
Brendan DeMelle
Executive Director

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Big Name Climate Deniers Aren't Joining Conspiracy Theory-Friendly Parler — Yet

— By Phoebe Cooke (12 min. read) —

Parler is fast becoming a conservative echo-chamber but big name climate deniers don't seem to be abandoning mainstream social media for the fringe platform — at least not yet.

An analysis by DeSmog to determine how many profiles featured in our comprehensive climate database have accounts on Parler suggests that many prominent science deniers aren’t currently active on the alternative social platform.

San Antonio's City-Owned Energy Utility Is Paying a Quarter Million Dollars a Year to Gas Industry Groups

— By Dana Drugmand (12 min. read) —

Deep in the heart of Texas, by far the nation's top oil producer, the city of San Antonio is starting to grapple with its reliance on fossil fuels.

But the key player in implementing the Alamo City’s energy transition — the local energy utility CPS Energy — remains committed to carbon-based fuels like coal and natural gas, even while it begins to invest more in renewable alternatives. Climate and clean energy advocates in the community have become fed up with the city-owned utility, which is not only stalling in efforts to phase out its fossil fuel portfolio, but is actively funding two gas industry trade associations to the tune of a quarter of a million dollars each year.

Electric Utilities Are Slow to Address the Climate Crisis, Reports Indicate

— By Dana Drugmand (10 min. read) —

The electric utility sector is largely lagging when it comes to responding to the climate emergency, both in terms of rapidly slashing globe-warming emissions and planning for climate impacts like increasingly extreme weather.

This is according to two reports released last week on electric utilities and climate. One assessment by fossil fuel watchdog group, the Energy and Policy Institute (EPI), finds that many electric utilities are on a slow track to decarbonizing the electricity sector over the next decade and are still prioritizing fossil fuels over renewable energy. Another report published jointly by the Environmental Defense Fund and the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia University argues that electric utilities have a legal obligation to be planning for climate-related risks but finds that few utilities are doing this high-quality planning.

New Youth Climate Lawsuit Launched Against UK Government on Five Year Anniversary of Paris Agreement

— By Dana Drugmand (6 min. read) —

Three young British citizens and the climate litigation charity Plan B today announced they are taking legal action against the UK government for failing to sufficiently address the climate crisis.

The announcement comes on the five year anniversary of the landmark Paris Agreement — the international accord intended to limit global temperature rise to below 2 degrees Celsius — and the lawsuit is the latest in a cascade of litigation around the world aimed at holding governments and polluters accountable for fuelling climate change.

Today’s action involves serving a formal letter upon British Prime Minister Boris Johnson and Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak as the first step in the litigation process, with a court filing to come likely in early 2021.

Alaska Drilling Project Squashed By Court Decision Was Touted By Oil-Friendly Former Trump Official

— By Ashley Braun (11 min. read) —

This week, a federal court overturned the Trump administration’s approval for what would have been Alaska’s first drilling project in federal waters, citing faulty analyses of how the Arctic oil and gas facility would affect the climate and polar bears.

The Department of Interior approved Hilcorp’s Liberty project in October 2018. However, months before the agency completed the project’s environmental review and issued its decision, a high-ranking Trump Interior official said he expected it would be approved and went on to praise and defend the company, despite Hilcorp’s checkered environmental and safety record in Alaska.

The official’s comments, alongside the court’s ruling, cast doubt on the integrity of the Trump administration’s approval process for oil and gas development in Alaska.

'The Fossil Fuel Industry Is Terrified': Gas Company Sues to Destroy Small Town's Rights of Nature Law

— By Jessica Corbett, Common Dreams (5 min. read) —

In a clear signal of how the fossil fuel industry feels about efforts to enact Rights of Nature protections that safeguard communities and the environment from the impacts of coal, gas, and oil development, an energy company has — yet again — filed a federal lawsuit challenging a local law in Grant Township, Pennsylvania.

This is the second time that Pennsylvania General Energy Company (PGE) has sued over the 2015 law, which aims to keep fracking waste injection wells out of the community of about 700 people.

Though the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) also previously sued the township, earlier this year—in what Rolling Stone described as a “stunning reversal” — the department cited the law when rescinding PGE a waste injection permit.

From the Climate Disinformation Database: Rebekah Mercer

Rebekah Mercer is one of the three daughters of billionaire Robert Mercer, a major donor for Republican candidates. Rebekah is Director of The Mercer Family Foundation, which has given millions of dollars to conservative causes. According to Politico and The Hill, she oversees the majority of the foundation's political giving. In 2018, she helped launch the alternative social media site Parler as a “free speech” hub and antithesis to the “ever increasing tyranny and hubris of our tech overlords.”

Read the full profile and browse other individuals and organizations in our Climate Disinformation Database and Koch Network Database.