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heat dome
Woman Files First Climate-Related Wrongful Death Suit Against Fossil Fuel Companies
"These fossil fuel actors should be held accountable to the victims of their lethal conduct, and this wrongful death suit provides a compelling new approach for climate victims moving forward."
May 29, 2025
Two years after legal scholars wrote in the Harvard Environmental Law Review that fossil fuel companies could feasibly be charged with homicide in cases of people who are killed by climate-fueled extreme weather events, one woman is taking a major step toward holding oil and gas giants accountable for a specific death—that of her mother, who died during an extreme heatwave in 2021.
Misti Leon filed a civil lawsuit against Exxon Mobil, Chevron, Shell, BP, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, and BP subsidiary Olympic Pipeline Company, arguing that their knowledge going back decades that extracting oil and gas would heat the planet makes them liable for the death of her mother, Juliana.
Juliana Leon, who was 65, was making a 100-mile drive home from a doctor's appointment in Seattle on June 28, 2021 when she pulled over and rolled down her car windows. Emergency workers found her hours later having died of hyperthermia, or overheating, with her body temperature having reached 110°F.
A heat dome had settled over the Pacific Northwest, with high pressure trapping hot air over the region, and the World Weather Attribution later found that the heat dome would have been "virtually impossible" without climate change resulting from fossil fuel emissions.
About 600 more people died in Oregon and Washington in late June 2021 than would have been typical for a one-week period, and Leon is arguing that the death of her mother from hyperthermia, or overheating, was the direct result of fossil fuel companies' actions.
Leon is arguing in the case that, as numerous investigations have found, fossil fuel companies have known for decades that extracting oil and gas would cause planet-heating emissions and could result in extreme, potentially deadly weather events like heatwaves, flooding, and wildfires.
"The purpose of criminal law enforcement is to deter future crimes, promote public safety, punish wrongdoers, and encourage the convicted to pursue less harmful practices. All of these public safety goals apply to Big Oil's continuing contributions to climate change."
"Why shouldn't we hold someone legally accountable for this kind of behavior?" David Arkush, director of Public Citizen's Climate Program and a co-author of the Harvard Environmental Law Review paper, told The New York Times. "There would be no question that we would hold them accountable if they caused other types of deaths. This is no different. They foresaw this, they did it anyway, and they hurt people."
Lee Wasserman of the Rockefeller Family Fund called the lawsuit an "important moment for climate accountability."
Although Leon's case is the first, according to legal experts, to attempt to hold fossil fuel giants accountable for a specific death, it is a significant step in a wider effort to bring the industry to justice for its role in causing weather disasters.
Vermont and New York both passed climate superfund laws last year that would allow the states to hold oil companies financially liable for extreme weather events and force them to pay for damages. U.S. Attorney General Pam Bondi has announced lawsuits against the two states over the laws.
In the past decade, dozens of localities and states have also filed lawsuits against oil and gas companies for hiding their knowledge of the impact fossil fuel extraction would have on average global temperatures and the climate.
Aaron Regunberg, accountability project director for Public Citizen's Climate Program, said climate disasters like the one that allegedly killed Juliana Leon "are the foreseeable, and foreseen, consequences of specific actions by fossil fuel corporations, CEOs, and boards of directors."
"They caused the climate crisis and deceived the public about the dangerousness of their products in order to block and delay solutions that could prevent heat deaths like Juliana's," said Regunberg. "These fossil fuel actors should be held accountable to the victims of their lethal conduct, and this wrongful death suit provides a compelling new approach for climate victims moving forward."
"The purpose of criminal law enforcement is to deter future crimes, promote public safety, punish wrongdoers, and encourage the convicted to pursue less harmful practices," he added. "All of these public safety goals apply to Big Oil's continuing contributions to climate change, and prosecutors across the country should take note of this new wrongful death suit and carefully consider how the climate effects their constituents are experiencing fit the criminal laws they are charged with enforcing."
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The Climate Emergency Is Now Turbo-Charged—And This Is What It Looks Like
We can stop this. As the U.N. says, our world is dying before our eyes.
Jul 15, 2023
Leading climate scientists are becoming increasingly alarmed at the daily extreme weather events circulating the globe – from extreme catastrophic flooding to raging wildfires, and unrelenting extreme heat domes.
Our climate emergency is now playing out in turbo-charged time, with records being broken in alarming fashion.
In the U.S., even Joe Biden has now taken to Twitter to warn that Americans are experiencing “devastating impacts of climate change” and advised people what to do in extreme heat.
You can see why scientists and the President are so concerned. Take Vermont, a state not normally associated with extreme weather.
Earlier this week, Vermont was the latest victim of flash flooding, which caused widespread disruption to the capital Montpelier. Over two months worth of rain, some nine inches fell in just two days.
The main river, which runs through the capital, Winooski River, was at heights not seen since the Great Vermont Flood of 1927. And the flooding drew parallels to Hurricane Irene, which hit the state a decade ago. There are even fears a dam could burst due to the pressure of so much water.
The flooding forced Joe Biden to issue a national state of emergency. Vermont’s governor also issued an emergency declaration. It was not just Vermont either, with flash flooding reported in New York state, with New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Maine and Connecticut all at risk too of flooding.
They are not alone, either. Over the past two weeks, many parts of central and northern New England have received 200 to 300 percent of their normal rainfall for the same period. The flooding played out in real-time on Twitter:
Gov. Kathy Hochul of New York, who toured flood damage, said the region was “in the midst of an extraordinary, extraordinary weather event.” “My friends, this is the new normal,” the governor said, referring to the impacts of climate change on flooding. People must “be prepared for the worst,” she said, “because the worst continues to happen.”
As many communities are finding to their cost, the U.S. is unprepared for such catastrophic flooding. As the New York Times said yesterday “This week’s flooding in Vermont, in which heavy rainfall caused destruction even miles from any river, is evidence of an especially dangerous climate threat: catastrophic flooding can increasingly happen anywhere, with almost no warning. And the United States, experts warn, is nowhere close to ready for that threat.”
Of course, the U.S. is not alone.
Meanwhile, in New Delhi, schools had to close earlier this week after heavy monsoon rains relentlessly battered the city. At least fifteen people were killed by landslides and flash floods. There has been other extreme flooding in China and Turkey too.
Six people died, and three others were missing after the “heaviest rain ever” triggered floods and landslides in southwest Japan. “This is the heaviest rain ever experienced” in the region, Satoshi Sugimoto, a meteorological agency official, told the Guardian. “The situation is such that lives are in danger and their safety must be secured.”
And it is only going to get worse as our world warms. According to a recent report by the First Street Foundation, “Flooding from heavy rainfall events is a dangerous phenomenon and has become increasingly more probable and severe in the United States due to climate change.”
The Foundation notes that “As air temperatures increase, 1% increase, 7% more water vapor is carried by the same air volume.” Increasing temperatures have thus created increased intensity, density, and frequency of rainfall events.
The bottom line is that rainfall events thought to occur only once every hundred years are now occurring with far greater frequency. In some places, these formerly rare events are now occurring as often as every 5 or 10 years.
“Sixty-eight degrees Fahrenheit can hold twice as much water as 50 degrees Fahrenheit,” Rodney Wynn, a meteorologist at the National Weather Service in Tampa Bay told Time magazine earlier this week. “Warm air expands and cool air contracts. You can think of it as a balloon – when it’s heated the volume is going to get larger, so therefore it can hold more moisture.”
Brian Soden, professor of atmospheric sciences at the University of Miami, added: “As the climate gets warmer we expect intense rain events to become more common, it’s a very robust prediction of climate models. It’s not surprising to see these events happening, it’s what models have been predicting ever since day one.”
This is why warming matters.
Meanwhile, tens of millions of people in Southern US states are preparing for more heatwaves and heat stress. Miami is experiencing its hottest year on record. Texas, too is struggling under unrelenting heat. Phoenix has experienced temperatures above 110F for 11 consecutive days now, “straining” both the patience and resources of locals.
As the New York Times puts it ”A relentless heat wave is broiling the Southwest, with some 50 million people across the United States now facing dangerous temperatures”.
But again, the U.S. is not alone. Northern Africa is just one region experiencing drought. Africa is seen as a sunny and hot continent,” Amadou Thierno Gaye, a research scientist and professor at Cheikh Anta Diop University in Dakar, the capital of Senegal told Bloomberg. “People think we are used to heat, but we are having high temperatures for a longer duration. Nobody is used to this.”
Bloomberg reports that Burkina Faso and Mali, both in West Africa’s Sahel, are among countries that are set to become almost uninhabitable by 2080, if warming rates continue.
Many scientists and commentators have expressed alarm at how records are being broken at speed and how scientists cannot keep up:
Meanwhile, in an article in Nature Communications, researchers are warning that the risks of harvest failures in multiple global breadbaskets have been underestimated, due to the threat of climate change. They called the research a “wake-up call” about how our food system could be impacted by climate change
Lead author Kai Kornhuber, a researcher at Columbia University and the German Council on Foreign Relations, said by “increasing the concentration of greenhouse gases, we are entering this uncharted water where we are struggling to really have an accurate idea of what type of extremes we’re going to face,”
Their concerns reflect those of United Nations human rights chief Volker Turk who warned earlier this week of a “truly terrifying” dystopian future. Our environment is burning. It’s melting. It’s flooding. It’s depleting. It’s drying. It’s dying,” he said.
We can stop this. In his Tweet earlier today, Joe Biden said that his Administration will keep on delivering on his climate agenda. But that agenda is flawed. The President could stop the Mountain Valley Pipeline once and for all. He could stop oil and gas leasing on federal lands. He could cut all subsidies to the oil and gas industry. Because if not now, then when? As the U.N. says, our world is dying before our eyes.
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Northwestern Heatwave Sparks Calls for Transformative Climate Action
"Making sure our planet is habitable for human life *is* infrastructure," tweeted Rep. Ilhan Omar. "We need a bold package that tackles the climate crisis."
Jun 28, 2021
As the Pacific Northwest and southwestern Canada bake under what's described as a "once-in-a-millennium" heat dome, green groups reiterated the need for transformational change to address the climate emergency on Monday. Progressive U.S. lawmakers underscored the imperative for any infrastructure legislation to center climate action.
"Extreme heat in Portland is literally melting our critical infrastructure. It's yet another striking example of why our infrastructure package must center climate action."
--Rep. Earl Blumenauer
On Monday, temperatures exceeded 110 degrees in Portland, Oregon, for the second straight day—and the third consecutive record-setting day—melting power cables, destroying road surfaces, and shaking some homes.
On Monday, the mercury in Seattle soared to a record-setting 106 degrees, with some surrounding areas expected to reach as high as 115 degrees.
On Sunday, the town of Lytton, British Columbia, broke Canada's all-time high-temperature record, becoming the first place in the country to reach 45 degrees Celsius (113 degrees Fahrenheit).
As groups including 350 Seattle and Defense Fund PDX mobilized to distribute potentially lifesaving hydration and cooling aid in their communities, they also issued urgent calls for immediate climate action.
Valerie Costa of 350 Seattle said that the historic heatwave "is terrifying proof that we have to transform business as usual immediately, to stop the damage that we can still stop. Lives all over the world depend on it."
350 Seattle's Emily Johnston added, "People can get air conditioners and then try to forget how wildly abnormal this is... or they can join us in fighting for the immediate transformation that we need."
\u201cI'm not sure how to process this.\n\nThe normal late June high in Vancouver BC is 21\u00b0C (70\u00b0F). This heat wave will be 25\u00b0C (45\u00b0F) hotter than that \u2014 the equivalent cold wave would mean weather below freezing, colder than Vancouver's normal January.\n\nThis is an entirely new climate.\u201d— Eric Holthaus (@Eric Holthaus) 1624570825
"Other cities around the world have transformed even in just the last few years, dramatically increasing bike lanes, otherwise shifting land use, and rejecting airport expansion," Johnston added. "Seattle has mostly... made pronouncements. We mean to harness people's energy and anxiety to change that."
Meanwhile, Sunrise Movement PDX called out "legislators in Oregon who claim to be 'acting on climate' who voted yesterday to give the [state] authority to spend hundreds of millions of dollars widening freeways in Clackamas County."
Progressive lawmakers echoed some of climate campaigners' calls and concerns.
\u201cThe extreme heat in Portland is literally melting our critical infrastructure.\n\nIt\u2019s yet another striking example of why our infrastructure package must center climate action to halt, reverse, mitigate, and prepare for the worst consequences of the climate crisis.\u201d— Earl Blumenauer (@Earl Blumenauer) 1624916676
Noting Portland's melting power cables, Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-Ore.) called the heatwave "yet another striking example of why our infrastructure package must center climate action to halt, reverse, mitigate, and prepare for the worst consequences of the climate crisis."
Blumenauer, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.), and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in February introduced a bill directing President Joe Biden to declare a national climate emergency and mobilize every resource available to address the crisis.
\u201cThe most severe heat in Pacific Northwest history is underway. Predicted to be \u201chistoric, dangerous, prolonged and unprecedented,\u201d by the National Weather Service, it\u2019s already rewriting the record books. Yes.\u00a0We have to act BOLDLY to address climate change.\u201d— Bernie Sanders (@Bernie Sanders) 1624834267
In a tweet highlighting a Monday rally and march on the White House by the youth-led Sunrise Movement, Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) asserted that "making sure our planet is habitable for human life is infrastructure" while calling for "a bold package that tackles the climate crisis."
\u201cAs we speak, there is a blistering heat wave demolishing records in the Pacific Northwest.\n\nCanada set a record of almost 116 degrees.\n\nMaking sure our planet is habitable for human life *is* infrastructure.\n\nWe need a bold package that tackles the climate crisis.\u201d— Ilhan Omar (@Ilhan Omar) 1624917739
In addition to much of the western part of the continent, much of New England also experienced extreme temperatures on Monday, with heat advisories in effect across the region.
Amid triple-digit heat indexes in Massachusetts, Sen. Ed Markey (D-Mass.) announced he would re-introduce the Preventing Health Emergencies And Temperature-related (HEAT) Illness and Deaths Act "to combat the threat of extreme heat" and "strengthen inter-agency efforts to study and address extreme heat while providing millions of dollars in grants to reduce exposure to extreme heat."
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