Report: Americans Face Dangerous Summer of Climate Disasters—Just as Big Oil Predicted
The heat waves, hurricanes, droughts, and wildfires we are likely to experience over the coming months are climate disasters knowingly caused by Big Oil
WASHINGTON, D.C. — As summer begins, Public Citizen today released a report analyzing the extreme weather events likely to hit Americans over the coming months. The report summarizes the climate attribution science that connects global warming and these disasters and shows that they are precisely the kinds of climate harms that Big Oil companies have spent decades predicting. Aaron Regunberg, director of Public Citizen’s Climate Accountability Project and author of the report, issued the following statement:
“Summer has always been a time for fun: family vacations, beach days, block parties. But for millions of Americans, this excitement has shifted to anxiety over the threat of heat waves, hurricanes, drought, and wildfires that continue to get worse every summer.
“These are not natural disasters. They’re exactly the kind of climate harms that Big Oil companies predicted their fossil fuel products would cause, as climate attribution science can demonstrate in increasingly precise ways. And this summer could be dangerous on a whole new level thanks to a climate-intensified El Niño.
“Americans deserve to know that their summers haven’t simply gotten worse. They have been made worse by specific companies that knew their conduct would cause these harms, and spent decades orchestrating fraudulent campaigns of climate denial to cover up this reality.”
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