The Marin and Sonoma Chapters invite you to a special talk on the recent EPA and DOE actions:
Climatologist Dr. Ben Santer:
Denying Reality -- DOE and EPA attempt to reverse 30 years of progress
Saturday, August 9, 2025 at 9 AM Pacific Time
here, just ahead of the national call
Last week, the US Department of Energy and the Environmental Protection Agency released statements aimed at rolling back decades of progress on climate change. A small group of well known climate “skeptics” have again challenged the world’s scientific consensus in a non-peer reviewed report. Simultaneously, the EPA announced its intention to reverse its 2009 “Endangerment Finding,” the legal basis for US regulations limiting GHG emissions, which was based on the 2007 5-4 Supreme Court decision in Massachusetts vs. EPA.
Renowned climate scientist Dr. Ben Santer is not taking this lying down. Having devoted his entire career to better understanding the human impacts of burning fossil fuels, he’s again ready to defend the science, as he’s done many times before. After 30 years working at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, leading IPCC assessment reports, authoring innumerable peer-reviewed publications, receiving numerous awards, being elected to the National Academy of Sciences and receiving appointments at other major institutions, Dr. Santer remains a fierce advocate for the science now under attack -- and he’s still in fight mode.
Come prepared to hear an earful at the Marin/Sonoma California Chapters’ meeting on Saturday, August 9, 2025 at 0900 AM Pacific Time here:
https://us02web.zoom.us/j/84835301244
Then, at 10 AM PT, join the national call, with
Amanda Ripley, Author, Investigative Journalist, and Co-founder of Good Conflict
At CCL’s 2025 DC Summer Conference and Lobby Day last month, we were privileged to hear from Amanda Ripley. Everyone can now hear her powerful message at this month’s meeting.
Amanda is a New York Times bestselling author, Washington Post columnist and co-founder of Good Conflict, a media and training company that helps people reimagine conflict. She has written three award-winning, nonfiction books: High Conflict, The Smartest Kids in the World, and The Unthinkable. Previously, she spent a decade writing about human behavior for Time magazine in New York, Washington, and Paris.
Join here at 10 AM PT after the Marin/Sonoma call.
| | |
Here's much more on the recent dangerous move by the Trump administration:
"A Dagger in the Heart of Climate Change Regulation" -- NYT, The Daily, July 31, 28 min audio
EPA attacks climate science. Here are the facts. -- E&E News. An excellent point-by-point debunking.
"The Trump administration’s proposal Tuesday to revoke the so-called endangerment finding is rife with climate disinformation, scientists say. This is a general theme in the report; they cherrypick data points that suit their narrative and exclude the vast majority of the scientific literature that does not,” Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at the science nonprofit Berkeley Earth, said in an email." Keep reading.
“Today is the greatest day of deregulation our nation has seen,” said EPA Administrator Lee Zeldin, the head of the agency whose mission is to protect human health and the environment, using regulations as a primary tool. “We are driving a dagger straight into the heart of the climate change religion.”
"A new Department of Energy report “fundamentally misrepresents” climate research and leaves out key context, multiple scientists cited in the report tell WIRED."
[Is anyone really surprised?]
| |
Is Decarbonization Dead?
The Ezra Klein Show
July 25, 2025
Trump just shredded America’s most ambitious climate policy. Jane Flegal and Jesse Jenkins discuss what this means for the future of renewable energy in the U.S.
For a long time in climate politics, the question has been: What path do we need to be on to avert absolute catastrophe? And do we have any chance of being on it?
In the last couple of years, the big win in America was the Inflation Reduction Act: $370 billion — the largest renewable energy investment ever to build the infrastructure of decarbonization. Solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles and so much more.
Was it as much as climate advocates hoped? No. Was it more than we’ve ever done before? Yes — by a lot. And was it working to pull investment forward? It absolutely was.
But now it has been gutted in the “big, beautiful bill.” President Trump has slashed into the wind credits, the solar credits, the electric vehicle credits.
So what path are we on now? And what does climate politics need to learn from this loss? Are we courting catastrophe? Or do we actually still have a shot?
Read, watch or listen here.
| | |
"...Act Locally": News from
Climate Future California
California's electric rates are nearly twice the national average.
While national politics continue to frustrate U.S. climate progress, some California-based CCL members are working on reauthorizing the state’s cap-and-trade (carbon pricing) program and using its revenues to bring California’s sky-high electric rates down to earth. This focus on affordability aims to shore up public support for the state’s climate policies and, equally important, promote clean electrification, an essential step for decarbonizing our economy.
Spearheading this effort is a state offshoot of CCL called Climate Future California (CFCa). (Check out its CCL Community page.) This grass-roots organization is uniquely positioned to draw on a large and diverse constituent base to make our climate policy views heard in Sacramento. CFCa is working with several other climate and environmental groups, especially Natural Resources Defense Council, to use about $2.5 billion now allocated for annual “climate credits” to utility customers instead to lower electric rates more than 10%. (A potential vehicle for this effort is Assembly Bill 745, which addresses climate credit reforms but needs to be amended to allow year-round rate reductions.)
To this end, CFCa members have arranged numerous meetings with state legislators and key staffers. When the Legislature returns from summer recess it will address energy affordability and cap-and-trade reauthorization. CFCa plans to mount a major email campaign in late August to influence members of the Assembly and Senate as they craft this legislation. Stay tuned!
|
Clever!
Interior Order Chokes Off Permits for Solar and Wind on Federal Lands
-- Heatmap
The Interior Department released a new secretarial order
saying it may no longer issue any permits to a solar or wind project on federal lands unless the agency believes it will generate as much energy per acre as a coal, gas, or nuclear power plant...
Hypothetically, this could kill off any solar or wind project going through permitting that is sited on federal lands, because these facilities would technically be less energy dense than coal, gas, and nuclear plants. This is irrespective of the potential benefits solar and wind may have for the environment or reducing carbon emissions – none of which are mentioned in the order.
Read more about this preposterous move to choke off clean energy projects on Heatmap.
| |
The oil and gas industry’s windfall -- NYT
Last year, when Donald Trump was running for president, he made a bold pitch to oil executives and lobbyists at a chopped-steak dinner at Mar-a-Lago: Donate $1 billion to his campaign, and they’d save more than that in taxes and legal expenses if he took the White House.
Fossil fuel interests ponied up less than half that much in donations, lobbying and advertising during the election, according to an analysis by the environmental group Climate Power.
Yet, Trump has already more than delivered for the oil and gas industry, according to new reporting by Lisa Friedman.
For the fossil fuel donors who bought into Trump’s promise, the first six months of his second term have delivered a remarkable return on investment.
Here are the details. Do the math. Brilliant investment.
| | |
Europe is breaking its reliance on American science
Reuters
Since his return to the White House, Trump has initiated sweeping budget cuts to the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the Environmental Protection Agency, the Centers for Disease Control and other agencies, dismantling programs conducting climate, weather, geospatial and health research, and taking some public databases offline.
As those cuts take effect, European officials have expressed increasing alarm that, without continued access to U.S.-supported weather and climate data, governments and businesses will face challenges in planning for extreme weather events and long-term infrastructure investment, In March, more than a dozen European countries urged the EU Commission to move fast to recruit American scientists who lose their jobs to those cuts.
Asked for comment on NOAA cuts and the EU's moves to expand its own collection of scientific data, the White House Office of Management and Budget said Trump's proposed cuts to the agency's 2026 budget were aimed at programs that spread "fake Green New Scam 'science,'" a reference to climate change research and policy.
"Under President Trump’s leadership, the U.S. is funding real science again,” an OMB spokesperson, said.
[Right. That says it all, folks.]
| |
Why is Gov. Gavin Newsom Blocking
Rooftop Solar in California?
Mother Jones
California’s green energy transition has been a wild success. Two-thirds of its energy needs are now met by a mixture of renewables like wind and solar, alongside nuclear and geothermal, while the national average is 20 percent. In the last two decades, the state’s green energy output has grown by 43 percent, and adoption of rooftop solar by homes, businesses, and other entities accounts for almost a third of that.
That progress has slowed, however, over the last couple of years. In January 2024, rooftop solar sales were down to their lowest in a decade. The culprit? A series of policies that ranged from disincentivizing to straight-up penalizing homeowners who have embraced rooftop solar.
Read more
| | |
Worth Repeating:
The Tipping Points of Climate Change — and Where We Stand | Johan Rockström
| | |
Should your climate anxiety level need to be further jolted into the stratosphere, tolerate 18 minutes with this world renowned scientist, who explains why earth scientists are "getting nervous" to say the least.
He demonstrates that climate and other environmental tipping points are already here, that the changes are accelerating, buffering systems are weakening, we are way behind and about to lose control....
But there is still hope that if we act really fast we might be able to stabilize Earth's climate in a habitable zone, a great reason to finally harness the enormous power of the global energy economy by deploying CCL's (and the US economics profession's) proposed carbon fee, dividend and border carbon policy to forcibly apply the brakes on fossil fuel demand -- thus supply and emissions -- before it's too late. It's not the only thing we must do, but it's essential. Focus on demand reduction by raising the price in a way people will tolerate --by governments not keeping the revenue -- rather than focusing on throttling supply, which may be inexhaustible if suppliers are motivated to drill deep enough.
Watch it here
| |
|
Do Not Miss This Series!
If you've already seen it, watch it again. You'll then understand how we got into this mess -- Denial, Doubt and Delay -- and what it will take to get us out: Massive popular political pressure supporting robust solutions that this industry and their agents will inevitably oppose.
| | |
You're invited, but...
This is how one behaves inside The Capitol:
Make an appointment. Business attire recommended. Bring nothing that even looks like a weapon.
Long live Democracy.
| | |
Prepared by Peter G. Joseph, M.D.
Peter.Joseph@cclvolunteer.org
Apologies for cross postings.
If you know someone who would like to be added to this distribution list, please suggest they join CCL.
| | | | |
