Summer is just getting started and we’re already facing dangerous extreme heat in Illinois. While some of us are fortunate enough to live and work in places with air conditioning and are bracing for higher energy bills to stay cool, outdoor workers and unhoused neighbors don’t have such respite.
Extreme heat waves are dangerous not only for our health, claiming thousands of lives in the U.S. annually, but also for our economy. Researchers found that between 1990 and 2020, just 111 fossil fuel companies cost the world approximately $28 trillion in extreme heat related losses through their planet-warming emissions. But it didn’t have to be this way.
The fossil fuel industry knew more than 60 years ago about the harmful climate impacts their products would create. Instead of reversing course and sharing their important scientific discoveries, they embarked on a decades-long campaign of coordinated climate disinformation in order to line their own pockets.
Now, we’re all paying the price. That’s why I’m glad that Chicago is one of dozens of municipalities, states, and tribes across the United States seeking to recover the cost of damages caused by Big Oil’s lies.
Like most people, I value fairness and responsibility. If you make a mess, you should clean it up – and the fossil fuel industry has made a bigger mess than most. Yet instead of answering for these actions, it’s turning to its allies in Congress and the Trump administration for a get-out-of-jail-free card.
Earlier this year, U.S. Representative Harriet Hageman (R-WY) and Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) introduced a bill to grant sweeping immunity to Big Oil and waive them of any potential liability for the harms they’ve caused.
So far, our Congressional representatives have been quiet on this deeply concerning development. In defense of our basic rights to seek justice through the courts, they must stand up against Big Oil’s attempt to operate with impunity and exist above the law.
As an environmental scientist with experience managing federal and nonprofit programs, I am all too familiar with the climate harms already impacting people and ecosystems. Here in Illinois, we face an increase in flooding damage due to extreme precipitation, infrastructure damages and farmland disruptions from more severe storms, including the nearly 100 tornadoes this spring, hotter summers and warmer winters.
The consequences of these climate impacts are widespread, including damages to crops, housing and commercial buildings, exacerbating public health problems like heat illness and vector-borne disease from mosquitoes and ticks, and lost learning in poorly air-conditioned schools.
The passage of a liability waiver for the fossil fuel industry would be a profound act of injustice, preventing communities harmed by dangerous and costly climate impacts from having their day in court. It would demonstrate that wealthy, well-connected corporations can evade the law at the expense of our own health, safety and security.
We depend on our representatives in Congress to prioritize and protect their constituents. To preserve our right to justice, we must now call on them to do everything in their power to prevent a liability waiver for the fossil fuel industry from becoming law.
Liana Smale is a Chicago-based environmental scientist with a Masters of Environmental Science from the Yale School of the Environment and a current employee of American Forests.
This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: Heating up and holding big oil accountable | Opinion
Reporting by Liana Smale, Special to the State Journal-Register / State Journal-Register
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By Liana Smale, Special to the State Journal-Register | USA TODAY Network
