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Big Oil Faces Rising Number of Climate Lawsuits: Report (Maria)
The author writes, “Big oil is facing a soaring number of climate-focused lawsuits, a new analysis has found. It’s a sign that more communities are demanding accountability for the industry’s contributions to the climate crisis. For the report, published on Thursday, Oil Change International and the climate research organization Zero Carbon Analytics pulled data from a Columbia University database, focusing on cases in which the world’s 25 largest fossil fuel producers were named as defendants. The number of cases filed against those companies globally each year has nearly tripled since 2015.”
JD Vance’s Catholicism Helped Shape His Views. So Did This Little-Known Group of Catholic Thinkers (Gerry)
The authors write, “By his own account, Ohio Sen. JD Vance’s 2019 conversion to Catholicism provided a spiritual fulfillment he couldn’t find in his Yale education or career success. It also amounted to a political conversion. Catholicism provided him a new way of looking at the addictions, family breakdowns and other social ills he described in his 2016 bestselling memoir, ‘Hillbilly Elegy.’ … His conversion also put Vance in close touch with a Catholic intellectual movement, viewed by some critics as having reactionary or authoritarian leanings, that has been little known to the American public until Vance’s rise to the national stage as the Republican vice presidential nominee. These are not your father’s Catholic conservatives.”
The Rural Americans Too Poor for Federal Flood Protections (Laura)
From Inside Climate News: “On the day he would become homeless, Wesley Bryant was awoken by his wife, Alexis. ‘Get up,’ she told him. ‘There’s a flood outside.’ It was 8 a.m. on a Thursday in late July, two years ago in rural Pike County, Kentucky, and rain had been pouring for days. Overnight, it got heavier. Homes and vehicles were being swept down the narrow valleys of Eastern Kentucky’s mountainous terrain. Dozens of people died after more than a foot of rain fell from July 26 through July 30, 2022, flooding 13 rural counties in Eastern Kentucky. Yet as these communities attempt to rebuild, they’re being overlooked for federal spending that’s protecting wealthier and more urbanized Americans from such weather disasters.”
Elon Musk’s Misleading Election Claims Reach Millions and Alarm Election Officials (Reader Jim)
The authors write, “In the two years since he bought Twitter, now X, [Elon] Musk has transformed it into a primary source of false election rumors, both by spreading them on his own account, which has 197 million followers, and lowering some of the site’s guardrails around misinformation. … Musk’s online utterances don’t stay online. His false and misleading election posts add to the deluge of inaccurate information plaguing voting officials across the country. Election officials say his posts about supposed voter fraud often coincide with an increase in baseless requests to purge voter rolls and heighten their worry over violent threats.”
Junk Science, ‘Shaken Baby Syndrome,’ and the Fate of Robert Roberson (Dana)
From The Texas Observer: “Texas was the first state in the nation to pass a ‘junk science law,’ which allows people to appeal convictions based on outdated or debunked forensic science. But since the law passed in 2013, no Texans on death row have successfully used it to get a new trial. [Robert] Roberson’s lawyers continue to argue he deserves one. But time isn’t on their side: Roberson is scheduled for execution October 17.”
He Told Richard Nixon to Confess (Al)
From Christianity Today: “Most ministers were silent about Watergate. Why was one evangelical pastor different?”
Engineers Discover How To Cool Buildings Without Electricity — Inspired by Beehive Architecture (DonkeyHotey)
The author writes, “As cities across the globe face record-high temperatures this summer, most of us are desperate to do anything for a little reprieve from the heat. Unfortunately, while potentially life-saving, cranking the air conditioning increases energy use (and raises your electricity bill, too). Plus, having access to air conditioning is a privilege in itself. For these reasons, architects and engineers have long been looking for ways to cool buildings without the use of electricity or chemicals.”
