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‘Just as Big Oil Predicted’: Fossil Fuel Industry Under Fire as Record Heat Broils Western States
"Extreme heatwaves like the one impacting the Western US this month are one of the catastrophic disasters these companies predicted their conduct would bring about," said Public Citizen.
Mar 19, 2026
Spring has not yet even begun, but as science journalist Rebecca Boyle wrote Thursday for The Atlantic, "it feels like we skipped right to summer" across the Western United States, which is facing record temperatures this week.
As of Monday, 39 million people across California, Nevada, and Arizona were under heat alerts. Temperatures in Los Angeles are reaching "25-35 degrees above normal," records are being "rewritten" in Las Vegas, and Phoenix is facing temperatures of 105°F two months earlier than usual, according to warnings issued by the National Weather Service (NWS) this week.
"This is not normal. Or at least it wasn’t normal in the past," said Boyle, who explained that it was the result of hot air being trapped by "a bizarrely strong ridge of high pressure in Earth’s atmosphere," the kind that would be uncommonly strong even in the summer.
Citing a model created by the nonprofit group Climate Central, she said that human-caused climate change had made these extreme temperatures five times more likely.
The NWS warned that a heatwave in March is "very dangerous, particularly for those not acclimated to the heat and/or traveling from cooler climates.”
Counts by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) show that 1,600-2,400 Americans die each year from heat-related causes, and they've more than doubled since 1999.
Meanwhile, a report from the Federation of American Scientists last year found that "the combined effects of extreme heat cost [the US] over $162 billion in 2024—equivalent to nearly 1% of the US GDP."
The Western United States has recently experienced its warmest winter on in recorded history, leading to a record snow drought. Scientists say this has depleted water supplies and will make the region more vulnerable to wildfires and drought later this year.
Climate scientist Daniel Swain told ABC News 10 of Northern California that this is only the beginning of how the climate crisis will impact the state in the coming decades.
"The hottest hots are already getting hotter, and they will continue to get hotter. We haven't seen the hottest temperatures that we're going to see in the next 20 or 30 years," Swain said. "We'll see an increasing number of years with severe wildfire conditions... We will also see increased risk of major flood events, either as snowmelt becomes more rapid in the spring or as winter storms drop even more rainfall more quickly."
The consumer advocacy group Public Citizen said heatwaves like this one are unfolding "just as Big Oil predicted."
"A relatively small number of major fossil fuel companies are responsible for the majority of all greenhouse gas emissions generated by humanity. Just 100 companies are responsible for 71% of all global greenhouse gas emissions generated since 1854, and just 57 companies are responsible for 80% of the emissions generated since 2016," explained a report published by the group Thursday.
"These companies didn’t just contribute to this heatwave—they did so knowingly," the report said. "For decades, Big Oil companies were internally forecasting exactly these kinds of climate disasters."
However, the report explains, the industry "developed and orchestrated a multidecade, coordinated campaign to defraud the public about the dangers of climate change, and blocked solutions that could have prevented these disasters."
A study published earlier this month by Geophysical Research Letters showed that as more carbon has been pumped into the atmosphere over the past 10 years, the rate at which the climate is warming has doubled.
Following this trend, it may be as soon as 2030 that the globe surpasses 1.5°C above preindustrial averages, at which point many climate risks, such as heatwaves, biodiversity loss, and food insecurity, are expected to be dramatically amplified, according to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.
"Big Oil companies have, indeed, cost this country and the world," Public Citizen said. "Extreme heatwaves like the one impacting the Western US this month are one of the catastrophic disasters these companies predicted their conduct would bring about. They should be made to pay."
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Trump and Israel’s War on Iran Once Again Exposes the Folly of Fossil Fuel Dependence
The world’s leaders should not only condemn US and Israeli aggression that has thrown the global economy into a tailspin but also take action to insulate their economies from this relentless cycle of fossil-fueled violence, volatility, and instability
Mar 19, 2026
As the US and Israeli war on Iran continues into its third week, the human, economic, and ecological impacts are devastating. Some 3,000 Iranians have been killed, including 165 children in one school strike, 10,000 injured, and 3.2 million displaced.
The war has caused a crisis. The World Health Organization has warned that with many oil storage tanks hit, resulting in “black rain” falling on Tehran, there is "danger for the population." The debris contains toxins that can cause respiratory and neurological damage, as well as certain kinds of cancer. For US consumers, who were promised that President Donald Trump would stop foreign conflict, the war is costing more than $890 million a day in direct costs, before we factor in the rising costs of energy. This is money that could be spent on education and healthcare.
The war has also brought chaos to global oil markets. Middle East producers have cut oil production by at least 10 million barrels per day, sending oil prices soaring. With no end to the conflict in sight, oil markets remain jittery and volatile.
Spikes in the price of oil affect billions of working people worldwide. They are forced to pay more to fill up their tanks, heat their homes, and even purchase food, since fertilizer is often made from fossil fuels. Rising energy prices can also cause knock-on inflation in the price of other consumer goods.
It is nonsensical that the global economy is so dependent on a 21-mile strait of water staying open to tanker traffic.
On Tuesday, the price of a barrel of Brent crude, the global benchmark for oil, was close to $104, up almost 50% from before the conflict started. By Thursday, after strikes on Gulf oil and gas infrastructure, oil was $119 a barrel and gas jumped 30%, with industry insiders calling it an “Armageddon scenario.” “The world does not need $120 oil,” said Steven Pruett, chief executive of one Texas-based oil producer, Elevation Resources. “It’s going to cause economic destruction.”
Last week, the global energy watchdog, the International Energy Agency, said that oil markets are suffering “the largest supply disruption in history.” The boss of Saudi Aramco, Amin Nasser, has warned of “catastrophic consequences” for the world economy if the US-Iran war drags on.
The problem lies with the Strait of Hormuz, the narrow waterway between Iran, the United Arab Emirates, and Oman. A quarter of the world’s oil—some 20 million barrels a day—passes through the Strait, which is only 21 miles wide at one point. And now, in retaliation for the US and Israeli aggression, Iran has effectively stopped traffic through the Strait by bombing tankers.
For decades, academics and the oil industry have warned that war in Iran could cut off the Strait in times of conflict. The industry has long feared what would happen if the Strait were to close. Chevron boss Mike Wirth recently said: “We do crisis management exercises… the big one has always been something in the Middle East that shuts the Strait of Hormuz… Markets are very uncomfortable, uncertain, volatile, and unpredictable.”
It has become increasingly apparent that Trump had no plan for dealing with the Strait’s closure after pleading earlier this week with European allies to help keep it open. In a scathing editorial, the New York Times wrote: “President Trump went to war against Iran without explaining his strategy to the American people or the world. It now appears that he may not have had much of a strategy at all.”
It added that he also “failed to plan for a predictable side effect of a war in the Middle East: a disruption of oil supplies that causes a price spike and impairs the global economy.”
The evidence bears this out. The threat of closing the Strait remained unseen by the Trump administration, bloodthirsty for regime change and blinkered by the ease of removing President Nicolás Maduro from power in Venezuela.
Before the strikes on Iran, Trump’s Energy Secretary Chris Wright had told an interviewer he was not concerned that the looming war might disrupt oil supplies in the Middle East and wreak havoc in the markets. Since the crisis began, Wright and Interior Secretary Doug Burgum have appeared “flummoxed” by the surge in prices, according to Politico. One industry official has called Burgum the “Where’s Waldo” of the crisis. Both men have been scrambling, but failing, “to head off a bout of energy-driven inflation.”
After a closed-door briefing to lawmakers last week, one Democratic Senator, Chris Murphy, said on social media that the administration had no plan for the Strait of Hormuz and did “not know how to get it safely back open.”
It's not all bad news for the oil industry, though.
Oil companies are set to make obscene profits. Oil Change researchers recently calculated that if oil prices rise just $20 a barrel, US producers will rake in $280 million in extra revenue every day. That’s over $100 billion a year. Shares in the six oil majors, BP, Chevron, Eni, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies, have soared by more than $130 billion in the first two weeks of the war.
This isn’t the first time global oil markets have been thrown into upheaval by war, and by looking to the past, we can see the dangers and possibilities created by oil shocks. In 2022, oil companies were able to use the invasion of Ukraine to increase their already massive profits.
For long-term economic security and stability, as well as a future safe from climate disasters, there needs to be a radical shift to renewables.
The five Big Oil companies—BP, Chevron, ExxonMobil, Shell, and TotalEnergies—reported combined profits of $196.3 billion the following year, more than the economic output of most countries. Working people around the world, as well as our climate, paid the price for Big Oil’s greed. For example, the war cost Canadians $200 billion over the next three years due to inflation spikes.
After the Ukraine war, Pakistan prioritized renewables. Energy analysts in the country believe that solar expansion has helped insulate the power sector from the spiraling energy costs.
“While we’re certainly seeing some impacts, the expansion of distributed solar in the country has provided a cushioning effect against the impacts [of the energy crisis]” Nabiya Imran, an associate at Renewables First, a Pakistani think tank, told The Guardian.
The world’s reaction to the 1973 oil crisis shows that a different path is possible. After oil prices quadrupled, there was significant investment in renewables and energy efficiency. Back then, the US government worked on a program to promote wind turbines and energy efficiency, which would be antithetical to the Trump administration.
Indeed, the madness of Trump’s current war on renewables is such that the administration is reportedly planning to pay nearly $1 billion to French energy company TotalEnergies to stop further offshore wind development.
Despite this, the chaos in the energy markets has led to renewed calls to get off oil and decarbonize. In the UK, The Guardian editorial board argued: “After Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, Europe swapped Russian pipeline gas for American LNG [liquefied natural gas]. Dependency didn’t disappear. Britain just changed suppliers. That is one reason among many why this crisis must see the government focus like a laser on faster decarbonisation, not more drilling.”
US tech corporation Microsoft, which donated $1 million to Trump’s inauguration fund, has also said the war strengthens the case for investment in clean energy sources and battery storage. “Wind and solar as, as part of that mix, is a huge benefit from the standpoint of price stability, because once you install it, you have more certainty around what that actual cost profile looks like,” the company told the Financial Times.
It is nonsensical that the global economy is so dependent on a 21-mile strait of water staying open to tanker traffic. It is nonsensical that oil prices are so volatile that they whipsaw on a tweet from Trump or even a misleading one from US Energy Secretary Chris Wright claiming the US military had successfully shepherded a tanker through the Strait. And it is deeply unjust that this volatility affects the household bills for billions of people.
As some pundits have pointed out, even if Trump declares victory, it is now up to Iran when they will allow the Strait to reopen. It can close it at any time in the future. Iran has the means to hold much of the global economy to ransom.
So, for long-term economic security and stability, as well as a future safe from climate disasters, there needs to be a radical shift to renewables. Leading pundits agree:
There is evidence that the war in Iran is beginning to cause the same shift in thinking that the 1973 oil crisis did. South Korean President Lee Jae Myung said this week that it was time to prepare major measures to conserve energy as the situation deteriorates. These include promoting energy conservation and “rapidly transitioning away from fossil fuels to renewable energy.”
It's also worth remembering that the US military is the largest emitter of greenhouse gases of any institution on Earth and the US is the largest producer of oil and gas globally. The military uses much of that might to defend US interests in fossil fuels.
The world’s leaders should not only condemn US and Israeli aggression that has once again thrown the global economy into a tailspin but also take action to insulate their economies from this relentless cycle of fossil-fueled violence, volatility, and instability. Moving away from fossil fuels does not guarantee world peace. We are already seeing conflicts over the rare earth minerals needed for solar and other green technologies in places like the Congo.
But it can insulate working people from the shocks triggered by the reckless aggression of powerful nations that consider themselves adequately protected from the consequences of their actions.
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Emergency Lawsuit Filed to Stop Trump Admin Meeting That Could Drive a Whale Species to Extinction
“Burgum’s Extinction Committee is immoral, illegal, and unnecessary,” said the head of the Center for Biological Diversity, which warns it could put the final nail in the coffin of the extremely endangered Rice's whale.
Mar 18, 2026
An environmental organization is suing to stop the Trump administration from illegally convening a meeting that could allow oil and gas companies to drive an extremely endangered whale species to extinction.
On Wednesday, the Center for Biological Diversity filed an emergency lawsuit against Secretary of the Interior Doug Burgum in a federal district court in Washington, DC, seeking to block him from convening the Endangered Species Committee, more commonly known as the “Extinction Committee,” on March 31.
This committee is sometimes referred to as the "God Squad" because its members have the power to grant exemptions to the Endangered Species Act that can result in the extinction of imperiled species.
Led by the interior secretary, it has seven total members who can vote to override regulations. Five of them are senior executive officials: the secretaries of agriculture and the Army, the head of the Council of Economic Advisers, and the administrators of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA). Each affected state also receives a delegate to the committee, but they collectively receive just one vote. Five votes of seven are needed to grant an exemption.
In the federal register, Burgum announced earlier this week that the committee would meet at the end of the month “regarding an Endangered Species Act exemption for Gulf of America oil and gas activities," referring to the Gulf of Mexico by the name preferred by President Donald Trump.
The Center for Biological Diversity said Burgum was seeking to override a requirement for oil and gas companies in the Gulf of Mexico to drive boats at safe speeds in order to protect the nearly extinct Rice’s whale from strikes.
These whales, named after the cetologist Dale Rice, who first recognized them as distinct from other whales in 1965, were not formally recognized as a new species until 2021.
According to the Center for Biological Diversity, only about 51 Rice's whales remain after BP's catastrophic Deepwater Horizon oil spill in 2010, which devastated their population.
Last May, NOAA's National Marine Fisheries Service issued a biological opinion concluding that their continued existence—as well as that of other whale and sea turtle species—was under threat from boat strikes, since Rice's whales spend most of their time in the top 15 meters of water, which often puts them on a collision course with oil vessels.
The agency issued guidance requiring oil industry ships to travel at slower speeds in the eastern Gulf, saying that if they were followed, lethal collisions would be “extremely unlikely to occur” and that the species would be protected.
The Extinction Committee could override this rule, but it has only been convened three times in its history, and not since 1991, when then-President George H.W. Bush used it to open up timber harvests in the Pacific Northwest that endangered the habitats of spotted owls, which were considered threatened under the Endangered Species Act.
The Extinction Committee is invoked so rarely because the circumstances for its use, as outlined in law, are extremely narrow: It can only be convened within 90 days of a biological opinion by the US Fish and Wildlife Service or the National Marine Fisheries Service concluding that a federal action is likely to jeopardize a species. They must also determine that there is no “reasonable and prudent alternative” to the action the government plans to take.
In its lawsuit, the Center for Biological Diversity says that neither of these criteria has been reached, since the Fisheries Service issued its opinion 10 months ago and already established a reasonable alternative: slowing down the boats.
"Slowing boat speeds is not just reasonable, it’s easy, and it’s the absolute minimum the oil and gas industry can do to save Rice’s whales from extinction,” said Kierán Suckling, executive director of the Center for Biological Diversity.
The group said Burgum is also flouting other requirements of the law, including that the meeting be presided over by an administrative judge and have a formal hearing with public comment. No judge has been appointed by Burgum, and the meeting is only scheduled to be livestreamed on YouTube, with no forum for public input.
“Burgum’s Extinction Committee is immoral, illegal, and unnecessary,” Suckling said. “There’s no emergency, no legal basis to convene the committee, and no legal way to approve the extinction of Rice’s whales. This sham is nothing more than Burgum posturing for Trump and saving the fossil fuel industry a few dollars by allowing its boats to drive faster and more recklessly.”
If Rice's whales were to go extinct, they could be the first ever large whale species to be driven out of existence by human activity in recorded history. Earthjustice says that the rollback of boat speed restrictions and other activities by the Trump administration—including the approval of the first BP oil field in the Gulf since the 2010 spill—are putting other species at risk too.
The scheduled March 31 meeting, said the group, "could kick off a months-long process to decide whether to give special treatment to the oil industry by allowing offshore drilling to go forward even if it would lead to the extinction of Gulf species."
“The marine species in the Gulf are our natural heritage. There’s no imaginable justification to sacrifice them,” said Steve Mashuda, Earthjustice's managing attorney for oceans. "It’s beyond reckless even to consider greenlighting the extinction of sea turtles, fish, whales, rays, and corals to further pad the oil industry’s pockets at the public’s expense. Giving carte blanche to industry also takes us further away from renewable energy that is cleaner, cheaper, more reliable, and more efficient than ever before.”
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