Climate
'Clear and Present Danger': US Faces Record Heat as Climate Crisis Intensifies
"As a result of the burning of fossil fuels, heatwaves are becoming more common, and intense heatwaves are more frequent," said one researcher. "We can break the cycle, we can make oil companies stop burning fossil fuels."
More than 120 million Americans from coast to coast were under heat advisories this weekend as large swaths of the United States faced scorching—and in some cases record-shattering—temperatures, extreme conditions that are likely to keep getting worse as long as fossil fuel production and use continues apace.
The National Weather Service (NWS) warned Sunday morning that heat in the West was "extremely dangerous" and humidity was persistent in the East. The current weather pattern is expected to "sustain a heatwave for much of the West Coast states while oppressive heat and humidity will continue along the Eastern Seaboard, down into the Southeast and Deep South."
A 10-year-old boy died after suffering what authorities described as a "heat-related medical emergency" on Tuesday during a hike in Arizona, whose capital saw its temperature hit 118°F on Friday—toppling a record set four decades ago. Extreme heat kills roughly 1,200 people in the U.S. each year, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The California cities of Redding and Palm Springs also saw record-breaking temperatures this weekend as the state attempted to combat devastating wildfires. Death Valley reached 128°F on Saturday, breaking a daily record set in 2007.
Some areas less accustomed to blistering heat have experienced triple-digit temperatures in recent days. In Oregon, Democratic Gov. Tina Kotek declared an extreme heat emergency through Tuesday, saying in a statement that "extreme weather events are now the new normal" for the state.
"Right now, state and local governments are on a path to strengthen our preparedness and response, not only this year but for the years to come," Kotek said, alluding to longer-term warming fueled by the climate crisis. "In the interest of safety and human life over the next several days, I am declaring an emergency due to extreme heat. Both the record-breaking temperatures and the duration of heat present a clear and present danger, particularly for children, elders, people with disabilities, and people who work outside."
Research has shown that the fossil fuel-driven climate emergency has made heatwaves more frequent and intense, slower-moving, and deadlier. Scientists at World Weather Attribution estimated that the climate crisis made the deadly heatwave that hit Mexico and the U.S. South last month 35 times more likely.
Some experts and advocates have recommended naming heatwaves after fossil fuel companies, given their central role in creating the climate emergency and misleading the public about the impacts of their products.
"As a result of the burning of fossil fuels, heatwaves are becoming more common, and intense heatwaves are more frequent," Antonia Juhasz, senior researcher on fossil fuels at Human Rights Watch, said Saturday. "We can break the cycle, we can make oil companies stop burning fossil fuels."
'Insure Our Survival': XR Launches Campaign at British Insurance Industry Awards Night
"We left the leading lights of the industry in no doubt about what they need to do: Stop insuring new oil, gas, and coal and focus on underwriting renewable energy," one activist said.
Key industry players arriving at London's Royal Albert Hall Wednesday night for the British Insurance Awards were met with a warning: Stop underwriting new oil, gas, and coal projects or face direct action from Extinction Rebellion.
Climate activists greeted the insurers with signs, photographs of extreme U.K. flooding, protest music, performance art, and business cards announcing XR's new "Insure Our Survival" campaign to pressure the industry away from backing fossil fuels.
"This is just the beginning," Insure Our Survival spokesperson Alex Penson said in a statement. "Thousands of XR activists stand ready to focus their nonviolent direct action energy on the insurance firms who are greenlighting the climate crisis by providing fossil fuel crooks with the insurance they need to dig and drill for oil, gas, and coal."
"It's time for insurers to use their superpower or be held responsible when all of our children face a future like the children in the photographs we showed at our protest,"
The insurance industry has emerged as a target of the climate movement in recent years, as advocates point out that new fossil fuel projects would not be able to move forward without it.
"The insurance industry has a superpower," Penson said. "At a stroke, it could stop the fossil fuel crooks in their tracks and save the lives of billions of people threatened from the worst-case climate scenarios that scientists are saying are increasingly possible."
However, to date the industry has not chosen to use that power. According to the most recent report from the global Insure Our Future campaign, not one of the 30 major insurance firms it analyzed in 2023 had policies in line with limiting global heating to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels. The insurers included in the U.K.-based Lloyd's market were the leading fossil fuel insurers, Insure Our Future found, earning $1.6-2.2 billion in premiums from oil, gas, and coal in 2022.
"It's time for insurers to use their superpower or be held responsible when all of our children face a future like the children in the photographs we showed at our protest," Penson continued, "struggling to survive in barely habitable countries haunted by crop failures, malnutrition, deadly storms, floods, and heatwaves."
At Wednesday's event, XR activists held up photos taken by photographer Gideon Mendell, showing massive flooding in the U.K. that has been made worse by the climate emergency. They also held up signs reading, "Stop Insuring New Fossil Fuels" and "Insure Our Survival."
(Photo: Extinction Rebellion)
At the sound of a violin, XR's Oil Slickers—activists draped in black cloth to resemble an oil spill—glided around the insurance luminaries as they approached the hall for the industry's annual awards ceremony.
(Photo: Extinction Rebellion)
A choir also sang a song to the tune of "Imagine," including the line, "Imagine all insurers, fighting for us all."
"Last night we challenged insurers having a good time and congratulating each other on their good work at the Royal Albert Hall to face up to some uncomfortable truths—that some of their work leads to flooded homes and wrecked lives for their customers facing more and more climate crisis-driven extreme weather events," Penson said.
The activists also distributed business cards to the attendees warning them that, if they continued to back new fossil fuel projects, XR would target them with direct action designed to hurt both their reputations and their bottom line.
Pension said: "We left the leading lights of the industry in no doubt about what they need to do: Stop insuring new oil, gas, and coal and focus on underwriting renewable energy to speed a just transition to a low or no-carbon economy."
XR's U.K.-based Insure Our Survival campaign emerged from the global Insure Our Future campaign, and in particular an international week of action it organized in late February and early March, including events in London and around the U.K.
About a month after the protests, Zurich Insurance announced that it would no longer underwrite new oil and gas projects.
Sierra Signorelli, Zurich's chief executive of commercial insurance, said at the time that Zurich took the action in keeping with its goal of reaching net-zero emissions by 2050.
"Further exploration and development of fossil fuels isn't required for the transition," Signorelli said. "We think it's the right time to evolve our position."
Insure Our Survival campaigner Lucy Porter said that since the spring, many insurance employees, in both senior and junior positions, had spoken to XR saying they supported a move away from backing climate-polluting projects.
"We intend to work with them to make insurance part of the climate solution, not part of the problem, and we invite other people in the industry to contact us and work with us," Porter said.
Porter continued, "To those who continue to put their profits before a livable planet we say: We will hold you accountable through an escalating campaign of nonviolent direct action across the country."
Thousands Evacuated Amid Northern California Wildfire and Heatwave
"It cannot be stressed enough that this is an exceptionally dangerous and lethal situation," the National Weather Service warned.
California Gov. Gavin Newsom on Wednesday declared a state of emergency in a northern county where a major wildfire has burned thousands of acres and forced the evacuation of thousands of residents amid near-record heat throughout much of the Golden State fueled by human-caused global heating.
The California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CAL FIRE) said shortly after noon local time Wednesday that the Thompson Fire, which began Tuesday morning in Butte County, had burned 3,568 acres with no containment in and around the city of Oroville, home to more than 20,000 people.
Citing an "imminent threat to life," Newsom, a Democrat, issued an emergency declaration and said that "we are using every available tool to tackle this fire and will continue to work closely with our local and federal partners to support impacted communities."
CAL FIRE said that more than 1,400 firefighters using 199 engines, 46 dozers, eight helicopters, and other equipment are battling the blaze. More than 28,000 Oroville area residents have been evacuated.
Red flag conditions are being exacerbated by low humidity and near-record temperatures throughout California. Oroville is expected to hit a high of 110°F on Wednesday, with daytime highs forecast to remain in the 110s through the holiday weekend. Dozens of daily, monthly, and all-time records could be broken throughout the state.
"It cannot be stressed enough that this is an exceptionally dangerous and lethal situation," the National Weather Service's (NWS) San Francisco Bay Area branch cautioned as it extended the red flag warning through Friday while preparing the public for the possibility of further extensions.
Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the University of California, Los Angeles, said during a video briefing, "I'm not so sure that really any of us will have seen this many days at this sustained level of heat, both daytime and most importantly nighttime heat."
Commenting on the wildfire and heatwave, Fossil Free Media director Jamie Henn said on social media that "we need the California Legislature to pass their climate superfund bill NOW to #MakePollutersPay for these fossil-fueled disasters."
Introduced in April by California state Sen. Caroline Menjivar (D-20) but shelved the following month, S.B. 1497—the Polluters Pay Climate Cost Recovery Act—would require major fossil fuel producers to pay for their historic carbon emissions.
The NWS said that as of Wednesday, more than 110 million people across the United States were facing either a heat advisory, watch, or warning. So far, 2024 has been the hottest year on record. Climate Central, a nonprofit news organization focusing on the worsening planetary emergency, said climate change has made the current California heatwave at least five times likelier.
'Apocalyptic Scenes': Hurricane Beryl Leaves 'Complete Devastation' in Its Wake
"What we see here are the consequences of a rampaging climate change," the prime minister of one impacted country said, as the storm now bears down on Jamaica.
Hurricane Beryl—the earliest Category 4 and Category 5 storm to ever form in the Atlantic Basin—killed at least seven people as it tore through the southeastern Caribbean nations of St. Vincent and the Grenadines and Grenada on Monday, leaving behind devastation that the leaders of both countries compared to "Armageddon."
Scientists say that the record-breaking storm intensified so rapidly and so early in the season due to above-average ocean temperatures heated primarily by the burning of fossil fuels.
"What we see here are the consequences of a rampaging climate change," Prime Minister of St. Vincent and the Grenadines Ralph Gonsalves toldDemocracy Now! on Wednesday morning. "We are in the era of the Anthropocene, and the developed countries—the major emitters—are not taking this matter seriously."
"Big Oil must be held to account for worsening extreme weather disasters."
Beryl made landfall on Carriacou Island in Grenada at around 11:00 am EDT on Monday as a Category 4 storm before strengthening to a Category 5 later in the day. With winds blowing as high as 150 miles per hour, it was the strongest hurricane to hit the Grenadines since at least 1851.
The storm flattened Carriacou in half an hour, Grenadian Prime Minister Dickon Mitchell said in a press briefing late Monday.
"Having seen it myself, there is really nothing that could prepare you to see this level of destruction," Mitchell told reporters. "It is almost Armageddon-like. Almost total damage or destruction of all buildings, whether they be public buildings, homes, or private facilities. Complete devastation and destruction of agriculture, complete and total destruction of the natural environment. There is literally no vegetation left anywhere on the island of Carriacou."
The hurricane also pummeled the Grenadian island of Martinique. On the two islands, which are home to around 6,000 people, the storm damaged or destroyed 98% of structures, including Carriacou's marinas, airport, and main hospital, The New York Times reported. It also wiped out electricity and communications on the two islands, damaged crops, downed trees and power lines, and flattened Carriacou's mangroves.
In St. Vincent and the Grenadines, the hardest-hit islands were Canouan, Mayreau, and Union Island, where 90% of homes were flattened or seriously damaged, according toThe Guardian. The outlet said social media footage of the damage showed "apocalyptic scenes."
Speaking on Democracy Now!, Gonsalves compared conditions in the south of the country to "Armageddon."
"Union Island is flattened," he said, adding that everyone on Union and Mayreau were homeless.
One woman who survived the storm described the experience to Vincentian journalist Demion McTair, saying, "Just imagine stoves flying in the air, house flying, lifting up, tearing apart, and just going in the wind. Just like that… Just imagine."
Despite the devastation, the death toll has remained low for now, with three reported dead in Grenada, one in St. Vincent and the Grenadines, and three in Venezuela, according to The New York Times.
However, the task of rebuilding from the storm will be "Herculean," Gonsalves told Democracy Now!, adding that he estimated the damage was in the hundreds of millions of dollars.
"We are in a sense going up a down escalator," he said. "Every time we make some progress, we get hit by these natural disasters and we have to start afresh."
Yet, given the role that the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis plays in supercharging storms and hurricanes, these disasters expose the deep guilt of powerful corporations who have profited from the continued consumption of coal, oil, and gas.
"Seriously, at what point do we get crimes against humanity trials for the fossil fuel execs and economists, like Nobel winner William Nordhaus, who minimized climate impacts for decades?" climate advocate Julia Steinberger wrote on social media in response to the storm's devastation.
Greenpeace International agreed.
"Big Oil must be held to account for worsening extreme weather disasters," the group wrote on social media.
Both Gonsalves and Mitchell criticized wealthier nations for leaving Caribbean countries to bear the brunt of a crisis they did little to cause.
In Monday's press briefing, Mitchell said he expected recovery to cost tens of billions of dollars and called for climate justice:
We are no longer prepared to accept that it's OK for us to constantly suffer significant, clearly demonstrated loss and damage arising from climatic events and be expected to rebuild year after year while the countries that are responsible for creating this situation—and exacerbating this situation—sit idly by with platitudes and tokenism.
Grenada's economy, Grenada's environment, both physically built and natural, has taken an enormous hit from this hurricane.
It has put the people of Carriacou and Petit Martinique light years behind, and they are required to pull themselves by the boot strap, on their own.
This is not right, it is not fair, and it not just.
Mitchell promised to establish a task force to address the issue involving other small island developing states and the international community.
Gonsalves, speaking from his residence late on Monday, said that developed countries who have contributed the most to the crisis were "getting a lot of talking, but you are not seeing a lot of action—as in making money available to small-island developing states and other vulnerable countries."
He also referred to the United Nations climate negotiations, or COPs, as "largely a talkshop."
He expressed hope that seeing such a strong hurricane form so early in the season "will alert them to our vulnerabilities, our weaknesses and encourage them to honor the commitments they have made on a range of issues, from the Paris accord to the current time."
However, he also expressed concern that the climate crisis was not a larger point of discussion in the upcoming U.K. elections, or in other elections worldwide this year.
"The same thing is happening in other parts of the election in Western Europe and the United States as countries move to the right," Gonsalves said. "It's a terrible time for small-island developing states and vulnerable countries."
Meanwhile, Beryl's potential path of destruction is not over, as it approaches Jamaica as a Category 4 hurricane with winds of up to 140 miles per hour, the National Weather Service (NWS) wrote at 2:00 pm EDT Wednesday.
"We are very concerned about a wide variety of life-threatening impacts in Jamaica."
"On the forecast track, the center of Beryl will pass near or over Jamaica during the next several hours. After that, the center is expected to pass near or over the Cayman Islands tonight or early Thursday and move over the Yucatan Peninsula of Mexico Thursday night or early Friday," NWS said.
While the agency predicted the storm would weaken somewhat over the next two days, it "is forecast to be at or near major hurricane intensity while it passes near Jamaica during the next several hours and the Cayman Islands tonight or early Thursday."
"We are very concerned about a wide variety of life-threatening impacts in Jamaica," AccuWeather's chief meteorologist Jon Porter said, adding that Beryl was "the strongest and most dangerous hurricane threat that Jamaica has faced, probably, in decades."
Oliver Mair, Jamaica's consul general in Miami, toldThe Washington Post that the hurricane was "almost like a game-changer."
"To have this size hurricane so early in the season, it's frightening," Mair said.