Recently a “heat dome” settled over the Pacific Northwest, sending temperatures to 113 degrees in the last week of June. The heat dome killed at least 116 people in Oregon and another 78 in Washington State.
Why are we seeing these climate disasters? It’s because since the 1800s we have been burning fossil fuels for energy -- and it is killing our planet. The tragedy is that we have known for a very long time, decades, what to do about it: transition our economy from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources. And what is stopping us? The oil and gas industry -- more specifically, men in leadership positions in the oil and gas industry -- preferred to kill the plant and condemn millions of people to suffer from drought, floods, catastrophic storms and catastrophic heat rather than give up their companies’ profits and their own fat salaries and bonuses tied to company profits.