Hill Heat

The climate emergency is here. Has ABC News been reporting like it?

For years, the country’s most-watched TV news outlet stayed mostly silent on climate change. And when it did break its silence, it ran lackluster, incomplete coverage.

However, ABC News recently created a dedicated climate unit and committed to tell a variety of climate stories this November as COP26 got underway. Has it been enough to undo the ignorance and confusion caused by its past silence? Is ABC News now treating the climate crisis like the biggest national and global emergency of our times?

Join our virtual public forum for a discussion on ABC News’ climate coverage. We will dive into what is needed from media organizations at the 11th hour of this climate emergency, and how we can push organizations to report on climate with more accountability, with our featured panelists:

• David Fenton, founder of Fenton: The Social Change Agency (one of the country’s leading progressive communications firms)
• Hanna E. Morris, PhD, researcher of media, culture, and the climate crisis and current postdoctoral fellow at the Annenberg School for Communication, University of Pennsylvania
• Ben Franta, PhD, JD, researcher of climate accountability and current PhD student at Stanford
• Amy Westervelt, founder and executive producer of the Critical Frequency podcast network and the Drilled podcast, and co-host/co-author of the Hot Take podcast and newsletter

We have also invited executives and producers from ABC News and Disney (ABC News’ parent company) to our speaker line-up. We hope that they can join us and present their perspectives and plans on climate coverage.

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Fossil fuel companies learned over 50 years ago that burning fossil fuels would lead to climate change, and were soon predicting “globally catastrophic effects.” Company executives recognized that addressing climate change could require burning fewer fossil fuels — making climate action a threat to industry profits. In order to protect their bottom line, oil and gas companies masterminded a decades-long, multi-million dollar climate denial, disinformation, and deception campaign that stopped climate policy in its tracks. Join leading experts in the field of climate accountability for a deep dive into the documentation of Big Oil’s deception (from past to present). Learn how the fossil fuel industry fits into the larger picture of modern-day corporate deception and how local communities (and U.S. Congress) are using this evidence to hold the industry accountable.

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The hearing will focus on the potential of clean energy to make electricity bills and transportation costs cheaper for families across America. The hearing will also focus on how investments in the Build Back Better Act will help families avoid the volatility of natural gas and oil prices, make long-term progress to reduce energy prices across the board, and help businesses achieve their clean energy goals.

Witnesses:

• Miranda Ballentine, Chief Executive Officer, Clean Energy Buyers Association (CEBA). Ballentine leads a group of nearly 300 energy customers seeking to procure clean energy across the United States, including service providers, businesses, and non-profits. Previously, Ballentine served as Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Installations, Environment, & Energy during the Obama Administration, as well as Director of Sustainability for Global Renewable Energy for Walmart.
• Uday Varadarajan, Principal, Rocky Mountain Institute (RMI); Precourt Energy Scholar, Sustainable Finance Initiative at Stanford University. At RMI, Varadarajan is a Principal in the Carbon-Free Electricity Practice, where his work focuses on how to use cutting edge data and financial, policy, and regulatory analysis to help drive a just transition to clean energy. Previously, Uday served as a program examiner in the Office of Management and Budget, where he helped oversee the $2 billion budget for Department of Energy energy efficiency and renewable energy programs.
• Amy Myers Jaffe, Research Professor and Managing Director of the Climate Policy Lab, The Fletcher School at Tufts University. Jaffe is a leading expert on global energy policy, energy and sustainability, and geopolitical risk. During her career, she has led climate, energy, and sustainability programs at the Council on Foreign Relations, the University of California, Davis, and Columbia University, and she advised the Office of the Chief Investment Officer of the University California, Regents. She has also taught energy policy, business and sustainability courses at Rice University, UC Davis, and Yale University.

Hearing link

Witnesses

Panel I

• Sean O’Donnell, Inspector General & Acting Inspector General, Environmental Protection Agency & U.S. Department of Defense
• Michael J. Roark, Deputy Inspector General for Evaluations, U.S. Department of Defense
• Richard G. Kidd, Deputy Assistant Secretary for Environment and Energy Resilience, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Sustainment, U.S. Department of Defense
• Laura Macaluso, Acting Deputy Assistant Secretary for Force Safety and Occupational Health, Office of the Assistant Secretary for Readiness, U.S. Department of Defense

Panel II

• Anthony M. Spaniola, Co-Chair, Great Lakes PFAS Action Network
• Andrea Amico, Co-Founder, Testing for Peace
• Mark Johnson, Deputy Director for Business and Regulatory Affairs, Environmental Protection Agency, State of Ohio

Hearing page

Witnesses

• Stephen Gardner, President, Amtrak
• David Kim, Secretary, California State Transportation Agency
• Kevin Corbett, President and CEO of New Jersey Transit, Co-Chair, Northeast Corridor Commission
• Julie White, Deputy Secretary for Multimodal Transportation, North Carolina Department of Transportation, Commission Chair, Southeast Corridor Commission
• Donna DeMartino, Managing Director, Los Angeles – San Diego – San Luis Obispo Rail Corridor Agency
• Knox Ross, Mississippi Commissioner and Chair, Southern Rail Commission

On Wednesday, December 8, 2021, the Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works will hold a legislative hearing to examine S. 2372, The Recovering America’s Wildlife Act, introduced by Sens. Martin Heinrich (D-N.M.) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.).

During this hearing, the subcommittee will receive testimony on federal, state, and local efforts to address the nation’s brownfields and other contaminated properties, and how the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act accelerates those efforts.

Witnesses

• Lucy Vinis, Mayor, Eugene, OR
• Michael Goldstein, Chairman, Public Policy, Redevelopment Incentives, and Regulatory Partnerships Committee, National Brownfields Coalition
• Susan Bodine, Partner, Earth & Water Law
• Dr. Sacoby Wilson, Associate Professor & Director, Center for Community Engagement, Environmental Justice & Health, Maryland Institute for Applied Environmental Health, School of Public Health University of Maryland
• Jerome Shabazz, Executive Director, Overbrook Environmental Education Center, Philadelphia
• mark! Lopez, East Yard Communities for Environmental Justice, Commerce, Calif.

Third Act is a new way for people over 60 — “experienced Americans” — to bring their unique skills and resources to bear on the most pressing issues of our time. We invite you to join our upcoming launch event to learn how you can be a part of our movement.

You’ll hear from Third Act Founder Bill McKibben, Lead Advisor Akaya Windwood, and a lineup of visionary elders, experienced organizers, and frontline changemakers as we launch a new way to see your Third Act.

Hearing page

Witnesses

• Dr. Elsie Sunderland, Gordan McKay Professor of Environmental Chemistry, Harvard John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
• Abigail Hendershott, Executive Director, Michigan PFAS Action Response Team (MPART)
• Amy Dindal, Director of Environmental Research and Development, Battelle Memorial Institute
• Dr. Peter Jaffé, Professor, Department Civil and Environmental Engineering, Princeton University

We Don’t Have Time is the name of the world’s largest review platform for climate solutions, and it is now launching in the United States on Thursday, December 2.

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1:45 PM EST — Introduction

• Sweta Chakraborty, President of US Operations, We Don’t Have Time

1:50 PM EST — POST COP26 Reflections

• David Livingston, Senior Advisor to the US Special Presidential Envoy for Climate, John Kerry

2:00 PM EST — We Don’t Have Time

• Ingmar Rentzhog, Founder & CEO, We Don’t Have Time

2:12 PM EST — The Role of Activism

• Alexandria Villaseñor (moderator), Founder, Earth Uprising
• Ebony Martin, Co-executive Director, Greenpeace USA
• Rev. Lennox Yearwood Jr., President & CEO of the Hip-Hop Caucus
• Mustafa Santiago Ali, Vice President of Environmental Justice, Climate, and Community Revitalization, National Wildlife Federation

2:50 PM EST — Keynote

• Tim Kelly, Executive Director, Earth HQ

2:55 PM EST — #DontChooseExtinction

• Boaz Paldi, Global Partnership & Engagement Manager, UNDP

3:00 PM EST — A Climate for Change – The Role of Media

• Dr. Sweta Chakraborty (moderator), President of US Operations, We Don’t Have Time
• Boaz Paldi, Global Partnership & Engagement Manager, UNDP
• Sergio Fernandez de Cordova, Executive Chairman, PVBLIC Foundation
• Ingmar Rentzhog, Founder & CEO, We Don’t Have Time

3:20 PM EST — Media Interlude

3:30 PM EST — The Role of Business

• Joe Romm (moderator), Founder of Front Page Live
• Avi Garbow, Environmental Advocate, Patagonia
• Adheer Bahulkar, Managing Director, NA Supply Chain, Accenture
• Marcus Lovell Smith, Founder & CEO, Neutral

4:05 PM EST — Keynote

• John Podesta, Former White House Chief of Staff to President Clinton, Counselor to President Obama, and Founder of the Center for American Progress

4:15 PM EST — Media Interlude

4:25 PM EST — The Role of Governments

• Nancy Colleton (Moderator), President, Institute for Global Environmental Strategies (IGES)
• Sherri Goodman, Secretary General IMCCS Monica Medina, Assistant Secretary for Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, U.S. State Department

5:00 PM EST — Summary & End of Broadcast