Climate Point: Big Oil battered by lawsuits. America battered by extreme weather.

 

Welcome to Climate Point, your weekly guide to climate, energy and environment news from around the Golden State and the country. In Palm Springs, Calif., I’m Mark Olalde.

Hard to believe it’s been 19 years. Nearly two decades since those planes flew into the Twin Towers, into the Pentagon and into a field in Pennsylvania, we still must pause to reflect on those innocent lives snuffed out on 9/11. I was a youngster in elementary school that fateful day, but I still remember it clearly.

I have no grand, environmental lesson to draw from this yearly, dark milestone. But I do have a question: When tragedy strikes, be it terrorism or slow-moving catastrophes, how do we respond? We’re watching unseasonal snow fall in one part of the country while another part burns. Rising seas chew up the coast, while droughts and floods condemn interior agriculture. How do we respond?

Staring down threats from climate change, a groundswell of citizens, cities and states are taking Big Oil to court. Many of these lawsuits aim to force fossil fuel companies to pay costs associated with mitigating extreme weather, but they’re also an attempt to break the industry’s grip on global politics. It’s been a big week climate litigation.

The Post and Courier reports that Charleston, the largest city in South Carolina, became the first in the conservative South to sue the oil industry for lying about its products’ ties to climate change. The News Journal writes that Delaware’s attorney general has also launched a lawsuit against 31 fossil fuel companies, ranging from Chevron to BP. And internationally, DeSmogBlog writes that other climate lawsuits are picking up steam, including a recently filed attempt from young adults in Mexico to hold their government accountable.

Now, here’s some other important reporting….

MUST-READ STORIES

There will be fraud. Bloomberg’s also out with a new, damning piece that digs into unfilled promises made by oil executives. According to the story, top-level employees at oil and gas company Anadarko have been accused of lying about their potential reserves — and therefore profitability — while taking home handsome golden parachutes. It’s not an isolated case study in the modern oil business.

Grief through the flames. We can rip up, pave over and build on as much nature as we want. Humans will still have a deeply held connection to the natural world. I was on the scene while the Dome Fire was still burning in the Mojave National Preserve, ultimately torching more than 43,000 acres of some of the densest Joshua tree woodlands in the world. Join me as I, for The Desert Sun, explore what this tells us about how climate change fuels catastrophic wildfires and how this doesn’t bode well for iconic species like the Joshua tree.

POLITICAL CLIMATE

Water wars bubble up again. Ian James of The Arizona Republic tracks water in the West as closely as anyone, and he’s out with a new report on a proposed 140-mile-long pipeline in Utah that would draw on Colorado River water. The other six states that touch the river basin are pushing back.

Coal in the Cowboy State. Investigative newsroom WyoFile this week published a new report digging into carbon capture and storage. It’s the process of pulling carbon dioxide out of the air to reduce the greenhouse effect, but it’s pushed less by environmentalists and more by the fossil fuel industry as a way to justify the burning of hydrocarbons. In Wyoming, which produces 40% of America’s coal, a fight is brewing over whether the technology actually has a viable future.

A stark warning. Politico got their hands on a report from the Commodity Futures Trading Commission, an independent U.S. government agency, that acknowledged the dire implications of climate change on the economy. “Climate change poses a major risk to the stability of the U.S. financial system and to its ability to sustain the American economy,” the study concluded.

ENERGY POLICY, IT IS A CHANGIN’

 

Oil facing a major setback. The fight to mandate buffer zones — otherwise known as setbacks — between oil wells and homes, schools and other important infrastructure has been won time and again by the fossil fuel industry. In the last election, massive spending from oil and gas companies led to one such easy victory. But, the Colorado Sun reports, times might be changing in the Centennial State, as “four of the five commissioners (who oversee oil and gas) voiced support for an extended setback to protect public health and safety.”

In the black no more. Even the coal industry itself no longer argues whether King Coal has been dethroned. In the latest example of this fall, Taylor Kuykendall from S&P Global Market Intelligence reports that a bankrupt mining company called Rhino Resource Partners LP asked a bankruptcy court to let it sell its assets for pennies on the dollar. A mine went for $213,366. One preparation plant went for $25,000 with only one bidder.

Back in blackout. Do you question how a state like California — which by itself would be one of the world’s largest economies — could be hit by blackouts from not enough electricity in 2020? You’re not alone. Sammy Roth of the Los Angeles Times recently published a Q&A with Stephen Berberich, president of the California Independent System Operator, which manages most of the Golden State’s grid. It’s an interesting read for anyone wondering what or who is to blame.

AND ANOTHER THING

A hot new destination. This summer has absolutely obliterated many heat records here in the Southern California desert. In Palm Springs, we already hit 55 days of 110 degree weather or hotter by Sept. 1. Maybe I’ll move back to Chicago. Together, Desert Sun business reporter Melissa Daniels and I examined new research that predicts, by the end of the century, rising temperatures will doom a large swathe of local tourism economies if we don’t act soon. It’s an important case study that has implications from California to Florida.

Scientists agree that to maintain a livable planet, we need to reduce the atmospheric carbon dioxide concentration back to 350 ppm. We’re above that and rising dangerously. Here are the latest numbers:

And one last thing before I sign off. If you’re interested, riled up or concerned about what’s going on with climate change, you should learn more. The Cooper Union, a university in Manhattan, will soon be hosting an intriguing week of virtual talks on international climate policy, sustainable agriculture, scientific activism and other inter-sectional subjects.