In one of those weird things that you don't hear about until it's a done deal (OK, that we didn't hear about until this morning), it turns out that the $900 billion stimulus bill has a nice chunk of change — about $35 billion — for US climate policy tucked into it, according to the Washington Post. Fact Check: We suspect the Post has that slightly wrong, and that the green provisions are actually part of the great big omnibus spending bill that the stimmy bill was bundled with, which is how GreenTech Media is reporting it. Since Donald Trump is getting all pissy about things in the larger spending bill that aren't in the stimulus part of the bill, the distinction became more important last night. (Grist though also reports that it's specifically in the stimulus bill, not the spending bill, which again are two different things.)

Either way, it's good news for the climate, because in addition to a bunch of spending on various green energy programs and tax incentives, the legislation will outlaw an entire class of chemicals, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), that are seriously bad contributors to the greenhouse effect. As Greenpeace 'splained in a 2009 report, HFCs, used as refrigerants in air conditioners and refrigerators, are "'super-greenhouse gases.' Molecule for molecule, some of them have the capacity to heat the planet thousands of times more than carbon dioxide." If the roughly 300 grams of HFC-134 gas in the average modern refrigerator were released into the atmosphere, that's roughly equivalent to "the carbon emissions from driving a Volkswagen Golf, for example, from London to Moscow."

Or worse, now, seeing as how the 2020 Golf gets seven miles per gallon more than the 2009 model. And you certainly don't want the GTI if you're buying used, because some kid has probably driven the hell out of it, to Moscow and back, and probably crashed into a refrigerator we bet. Kids these days!