Climate Point: Another oil player bites the dust

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.

Where to even begin in a week that saw court battles over methane and water, oil companies floundering and broken links in the food chain? How about we begin with $2 trillion?

That's the amount former Vice President Joe Biden proposes spending to create a greener economy while totally transitioning to clean energy by 2035, Paste BN reports. That's, of course, not the whole story, and he has been continuously dinged during the primary for not having a plan as thorough as those from Sen. Bernie Sanders, Sen. Elizabeth Warren and others. But, when compared to the Republican platform's plans to tackle climate change (they don't exist), it stands out.

At the same time, President Donald Trump this week announced a sweeping rollback of the National Environmental Policy Act, which is a keystone environmental regulation, the AP reports. Some environment reporters pointed out that squeezing the law will be necessary to aid renewable energy construction, too, although it's unclear to what extent that factored into the decision.

Here's some other important reporting....

MUST-READ STORIES

Down goes Frazier. If you catch me at a roulette table, my chips will likely be hanging out on the black felt. But my advice on Big Oil? Don't bet on black. Another major petroleum company filed for bankruptcy this week, as they try to make $5 billion in debt disappear. The company, California Resources Corp., would like you to believe their woes are a result of the recent COVID-19-fueled demand downturn. That's simply not true, and I laid all that out in an investigation earlier this year, before the pandemic was a major concern in the U.S. Janet Wilson and I have the scoop on this latest fossil fuel bankruptcy and what it means for an industry that's recently been hammered.

The transition. I've harped on it before, but it's worth another mention. The divestment movement — activists pushing university endowments and public pension funds to invest their dollars far from fossil fuels — is still somewhat scoffed at by the financial sector. But, the Wall Street Journal reports, that might be changing as billions of dollars are being withheld via these movements. At the same time, California recently plugged in the country's largest battery storage system, Bloomberg reports, giving a preview of a future where mega-batteries support widespread renewable generation.

Water agencies step into the ring. Staying in the Golden State, two heavyweights of the water world — the Imperial Irrigation District and the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California — are duking it out for a seat at the Colorado River negotiating table. A fight over political control of the overdrawn waterway also raises concerns about what this means for the ever-shrinking Salton Sea. I've got the details for you here. 

POLITICAL CLIMATE

Frack off. Several indigenous and environmental groups have launched a new lawsuit against the Bureau of Land Management, E&E writes, to halt the controversial decision to sell leases for oil and gas development near Chaco Canyon National Historical Park.

The war on your roof. A secretive nonprofit called the New England Ratepayers Association in April filed a petition to the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission that solar advocates said could've destroyed net-metering and the incentive to install rooftop solar. The petitioners argued that other ratepayers were subsidizing rich solar users, but the feds struck them down, at least temporarily. For The Desert Sun, I've got the details of the ongoing solar wars.

Halting trees at the border. "America needs millions of new trees each year for forests damaged by natural catastrophes, thinned by logging and developed to protect watersheds," Politico reports. But, the people who accept the seasonal jobs planting those millions of trees? Well, they're mostly visa-holders from Mexico and South America, and the Trump administration's aggressive anti-immigration policies have locked them out of the country. Not enough Americans are even accepting these jobs, and the forest's worth of trees might not be planted this year.

WHAT WE EAT

Broken link in the food chain. InsideClimate News reports that since COVID-19 ripped through populations around the globe, "the world's food system has undergone a stress test—and largely failed it." The pandemic has laid bare the fact that there is no global strategy to support food chains. If we think a global economic slowdown has been difficult to manage, just imagine how widespread climate change's impacts will be. The story found that — between poverty, famine, environmental woes and the pandemic — the number of people without adequate food is approaching 1 billion, and the current worldwide shakeup must be used to reassess food supply.

Must be something in the water. Colorado's Water Quality Control Commission on Tuesday unanimously voted to address the amount of PFAS, a carcinogenic class of chemicals, finding its way into waters. Colorado Public Radio has the story of the push to address these "forever chemicals" around Colorado Springs.

AND ANOTHER THING

Birding, nude swimming and Elon Musk. Thanks for joining me for another week of my environmental ramblings. This time, I'd like to leave you with something completely different. A few weeks ago, a fire raged through a small community in Southern California, just east of the Salton Sea. While covering it, The Desert Sun's breaking news reporters and photographers met a fascinating man named Barnacle Snug Luffy, and I headed down to learn more about the 6-acre birding oasis he and his wife Satya had built over the years. Some of Southern California's most well-known birders went there, but very few others knew it existed. Join me for a tale about a fascinating couple who carved out their own, one-of-a-kind slice of the environment.

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:

That’s all for now. Don’t forget to follow along on Twitter at @MarkOlalde. You can also reach me at molalde@gannett.com. You can sign up to get Climate Point in your inbox for free here. And, if you’d like to receive a daily round-up of California news (also for free!), you can sign up for USA Today’s In California newsletter here. Don't forget your masks. Cheers.