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With the federal government abdicating its responsibility, state and local leaders must step up. They have the power and duty to act.
A deadly storm has already claimed at least 120 lives and caused widespread devastation in Texas. Hurricane Erin has now unleashed catastrophic flooding in North Carolina before racing toward the Northeast—and hurricane season has only just begun. Storms are growing more destructive, driven by fossil fuels that warm our oceans and destabilize the climate, while the vulnerable petrochemical infrastructure in their path multiplies the danger. As the storms strengthen, US protections are unraveling, leaving millions exposed.
Every year, hurricanes grow more intense—fueled by warming oceans and a rapidly changing climate driven by fossil fuels. But it’s not just the storms becoming more dangerous. It’s the fossil fuel infrastructure in their path. It’s the toxic pollution released when storms strike. It’s the insurance companies abandoning communities in the aftermath. And it’s the US government retreating from its duty to protect.
The Gulf Coast—home to more than 84% of US plastics’ production and to nearly half of US petroleum refining capacity—is bracing for more than five major hurricanes predicted for the Atlantic Ocean this year. With each hurricane comes the risk of fires, explosions, and toxic releases—not just for these facilities, but for the surrounding communities. More than 870 highly hazardous chemical facilities are located within 50 miles of the hurricane-prone Gulf Coast, and more than 4 million residents and 1,500 schools sit within a 1.5-mile radius of a high-risk chemical facility in the region.
Nationally, 39% of the US population lives within 3 miles of a high-risk chemical facility.
And yet, as we brace for the next deadly storm, US President Donald Trump has axed critical weather forecasting jobs and announced plans to eliminate the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) altogether, leaving communities even more vulnerable in the face of escalating disaster.
But the threats don’t stop there. The US government is systematically dismantling our first line of defense. Since Trump took office in 2024, the administration has:
Fossil fuel infrastructure isn’t just at risk during storms—it supercharges the storms themselves. The industry is a major driver of global warming, accelerating the rising temperatures and warming oceans that exacerbate hurricanes. And even as storms grow more destructive, the industry is doubling down: 80% of proposed new petrochemical projects are sited within 20 miles of a hurricane or tropical storm’s path over the past decade. This means entire corridors already battered by climate disasters are being locked into even greater danger.
When disaster strikes, oil, gas, and petrochemical facilities release hazardous pollutants into the air and water, compounding the crisis for nearby communities, which are often low-income and disproportionately Black, brown, and Indigenous.
When Hurricane Katrina struck, it slammed into 466 facilities that handle hazardous chemicals and petrochemicals. More than 200 onshore releases of hazardous chemicals, petroleum, or natural gas were reported. The storm caused at least 10 oil spills, releasing more than 7.4 million gallons of oil into Gulf Coast waterways—more than two-thirds the volume spilled during the Exxon Valdez disaster, one of the worst in US history. Together, Hurricanes Katrina and Rita, just a month apart, shut down nearly a quarter of the country’s refining capacity.
And during Hurricane Harvey, Houston’s petrochemical plants and refineries released millions of pounds of pollutants. Flooding at the Arkema Petrochemical plant disabled the plant’s refrigeration system, triggering a massive explosion that sent black plumes and toxic fumes into the skies and forced evacuations across a community already on edge. An investigation by the Chemical Safety Board—recently dismantled by the Trump administration—determined that requirements of the Environmental Protection Agency’s Risk Management Program—currently being rolled back by the EPA—could have prevented this very disaster.
As extreme weather events surge, so do insurance premiums—while coverage vanishes for those living in harm’s way.
For many climate-vulnerable communities, home insurance is no longer affordable—or available. Since 2019, US home insurance rates have jumped nearly 38%. Louisiana, Texas, and Pennsylvania—all major fossil fuel corridors—rank among the top six most expensive states to insure a home. Home insurance premiums rose by 10% or more across 40 states from 2021 to 2024. Renters aren’t immune as landlords pass along skyrocketing insurance costs.
Insurance math: Communities facing hurricanes, flooding, and fires? Too risky to insure. Companies driving the disasters? Coverage and cash.
Insurers claim payouts from climate disasters are driving up costs. The truth is, insurers are investing in the very industries making those disasters worse—and raking in profits. In Louisiana, insurance companies are making $55 in profits for every $1 in underwriting losses. This profitability is not unique: NAIC data shows the property and casualty sector made an all-time high of $167 billion profits in 2024—up 91% from 2023, and 330% from 2022.
At the same time, the US insurance industry continues to bankroll fossil fuels, holding more than $500 billion in fossil fuel-related assets as of 2019 (the most recent data set available); a pattern of investing that is unlikely to have substantially changed since. While refusing to insure homeowners in climate-exposed communities, many insurers are simultaneously underwriting new fossil fuel infrastructure. At least 35 insurance companies are backing methane gas (LNG) export terminals across the Gulf South—some of the very same companies, including AIG, Chubb, and Liberty Mutual, that are raising premiums or pulling out of the housing market in vulnerable regions entirely.
Insurance math: Communities facing hurricanes, flooding, and fires? Too risky to insure. Companies driving the disasters? Coverage and cash.
Rather than confronting the crisis, insurance companies are fueling it—protecting profits and abandoning people. This isn’t just hypocrisy, it’s a business model, one built on extraction and shifting costs onto the public.
The system is rigged. Those most responsible are rewarded, while those most vulnerable are left to suffer the storms alone.
We all deserve somewhere safe to live—free from the dread of the next hurricane, the next explosion, or the next rollback of basic protections. But fossil fuel polluters—and the insurance companies profiting from their harm—are robbing us.
We will not accept this endless cycle of crisis. We deserve safety, especially from the governments whose duty it is to protect us. We deserve safety from storms and from toxic spills. We deserve a government that protects its people—and agencies that do their jobs: defending public health and the environment, not doing the bidding of polluters.
With the federal government abdicating its responsibility, state and local leaders must step up. They have the power and duty to act. It’s time for states, especially those in the eye of the storm, to lead where the federal government is failing. States must:
When Hurricane Katrina devastated Louisiana, it left behind a $170 billion bill. The federal government stepped in for $120 billion. But with FEMA on the chopping block, that kind of relief may never come again. If federal protections vanish, the financial and human cost of the next disaster will fall squarely on states—and the people who live in them.
The climate crisis isn’t waiting. The storms are here. Will our leaders meet the moment—or leave us to weather the disaster alone?
"We've got to work fast to end fossil fuel operations near our homes, schools, and hospitals and trade fossil fuel infrastructure for healthy, clean energy," said one co-author.
"The evidence is clear that fossil fuels—and the fossil fuel industry and its enablers—are driving a multitude of interlinked crises that jeopardize the breadth and stability of life on Earth."
That's the first line of the abstract for an article published Monday by top scientists who reviewed "the vast scientific evidence showing that fossil fuels and the fossil fuel industry are the root cause of the climate crisis, harm public health, worsen environmental injustice, accelerate biodiversity extinction, and fuel the petrochemical pollution crisis."
The new paper in the peer-reviewed journal Oxford Open Climate Change highlights the diverse impacts of "every stage of the fossil fuel life cycle" and stresses that the "industry has obscured and concealed this evidence through a decadeslong, multibillion-dollar disinformation campaign aimed at blocking action to phase out" its deadly products.
"The fossil fuel industry has spent decades misleading us about the harms of their products and working to prevent meaningful climate action," said co-author Naomi Oreskes, professor of the history of science at Harvard University, in a statement. "Perversely, our governments continue to give out hundreds of billions of dollars in subsidies to this damaging industry. It is past time that stops."
"The most polluted communities should be prioritized for clean energy investments and removal and cleanup of dirty fossil fuel infrastructure."
While the researchers focused on the United States, "as the world's largest oil and gas producer and dominant contributor to these fossil fuel crises," their review—including proposed "science-and-justice-based solutions" for an economywide effort to "forge a path forward to sustaining life on Earth"—applies to the whole world, which is quickly heating up due to emissions from coal, gas, and oil.
The article features sections on the fossil fuel-driven climate crisis, public health harms, environmental injustice, biodiversity loss and extinction, petrochemical pollution, and industry disinformation. Each section lays out the "problem" and "solutions."
The climate emergency section includes details such as "the production and combustion of oil, gas, and coal are responsible for nearly 90% of human-caused carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions and approximately 79% of total greenhouse gas emissions," and "failures in political will to implement necessary climate action have made the 1.5°C benchmark nearly impossible to achieve without overshoot," referring to a primary goal of the 2015 Paris agreement.
Although the current U.S. administration has demonstrated its alliance to the fossil fuel industry—including with President Donald Trump's recent energy emergency declaration—the scientists still emphasized what's possible in the country.
"In the USA, powerful policy levers are available to governments and civil society at the local, state, national, and international levels to phase out fossil fuels and transition to a clean, renewable energy economy," they wrote. "These levers include regulation (e.g. applying and enforcing existing laws), legislation (e.g. polluters pay laws, fossil fuel subsidy reform, land use laws limiting drilling), and litigation (e.g. holding fossil fuel companies accountable, defending existing law)."
They also warned that "last-ditch efforts to prolong the fossil fuel industry are proliferating. These include counterproductive false solutions, like carbon capture and storage (CCS), which would perpetuate fossil fuel use while capturing only some of the resulting emissions, and hydrogen made from fossil fuels."
The public health section notes that "air pollution from fossil fuel combustion accounts for 8.7 million (equaling 1 in 5) premature deaths per year worldwide and 350,000 premature deaths per year in the USA. In a single year, air pollution from oil and gas production in the USA resulted in 410,000 asthma exacerbations, 2,200 new cases of childhood asthma, and 7,500 premature deaths in 2016."
Co-author David J.X. González, an assistant professor of environmental health sciences at the University of California, Berkeley, said Monday that "we've got to work fast to end fossil fuel operations near our homes, schools and hospitals and trade fossil fuel infrastructure for healthy, clean energy."
"Oil, gas, and coal will continue to condemn us to more deaths, wildlife extinctions, and extreme weather disasters unless we make dirty fossil fuels a thing of the past."
The paper points out that "climate change is increasing incidence of physical and mental health impacts and mortality through multiple pathways: worsening extreme events including heatwaves, severe storms, floods, droughts, and wildfires; shifting ranges of disease vectors; threats to food security; and displacement and forced migration, which restrict access to healthcare and other basic services."
"These harms, though broadly felt, also disproportionately impact marginalized communities which are already disproportionately burdened by other socioenvironmental hazards, as well as susceptible populations including young children, people with certain disabilities, people experiencing homelessness, pregnant people, people with chronic diseases, and older adults," the publication continues.
University of Montana associate professor of environmental studies Robin Saha, another co-author, said that "decades of discriminatory policies, such as redlining, have concentrated fossil fuel development in Black, Brown, Indigenous, and poor white communities, resulting in devastating consequences."
"For far too long, these fenceline communities have been treated as sacrifice zones by greedy, callous industries," Saha added. "The most polluted communities should be prioritized for clean energy investments and removal and cleanup of dirty fossil fuel infrastructure."
The paper's other co-authors are Robert Bullard of Texas Southern University, Boston University's Jonathan J. Buonocore and Mary D. Willis, Trisia Farrelly of the Cawthron Institute, William Ripple of Oregon State University, and the Center for Biological Diversity's Nathan Donley, John Fleming, and Shaye Wolf.
"The science can't be any clearer that fossil fuels are killing us," declared Wolf, the paper's lead author and the center's climate science director. "Oil, gas, and coal will continue to condemn us to more deaths, wildlife extinctions, and extreme weather disasters unless we make dirty fossil fuels a thing of the past. Clean, renewable energy is here, it's affordable, and it will save millions of lives and trillions of dollars once we make it the centerpiece of our economy."
Whether you’re driven by a desire to protect the environment or the need to reduce waste mindfully, dedicating one day each week to a plastic-free lifestyle can have a meaningful impact.
Mardi Gras and Carnival celebrations are coming to an end, and communities are moving towards a time of reflection with the observance of Lent. These communities, and people of any faith looking to make practical changes to protect our planet, should consider embracing “Plastic-Free Fridays” during this time. This simple weekly commitment is a powerful way to make planet-friendly choices that also nurture your well-being. It’s a small step that can lead to a significant change in how we consume products, giving us hope for a more sustainable future.
Plastic production and consumption play a significant role in our present environmental crisis. Production relies heavily on fossil fuels, contributing substantially to greenhouse gas emissions and harming local ecosystems and frontline communities through resource extraction. On the consumption side, single use of plastics generates excessive waste that clogs landfills, litters natural habitats, threatens wildlife, and raises potential health concerns due to chemical leaching and microplastic contamination.
These health concerns are already evident in our bodies and the bodies of those we love. People living near petrochemical plants bear the brunt of pollution, but their often single-use plastic products are everywhere. Plastic is in our food and water—even our breast milk and placentas are polluted with plastic, and the myriad of chemicals in plastics are linked to numerous health problems from cancer to infertility. Furthermore, 36% of plastic produced is for packaging—including single-use items like beverage containers that are discarded after the contents are consumed. We are poisoning communities and trashing our oceans to produce stuff we don’t even need.
It is daunting to turn the tide against plastic pollution, but we can achieve it through collective action.
With a reuse and refill system, we could eliminate over a third of the existing plastic production. It’s imperative that, on an individual and community level, we’re taking steps to reduce the consumption of materials that are so harmful, wasteful, and damaging to our environment.
In 2023, RISE St. James Louisiana was among the first to take steps toward a plastics-free Mardi Gras. We distributed glass beads to Mardi Gras riders—an innovative, vintage-inspired alternative to nonbiodegradable plastic throws. More than ever, there is a growing collaboration among local krewes, more than 25 community organizations, and the City of New Orleans Office of Resilience and Sustainability. We are all working together to reduce plastic waste, champion eco-friendly alternatives, and shield vulnerable areas from unchecked petrochemical expansion.
This year, the Krewe of Freret hosted the first major parade free from plastic beads, setting a strong precedent for more sustainable Mardi Gras celebrations. At RISE St. James Louisiana, we believe these partnerships are essential to safeguarding our environment and preserving our unique cultural traditions for future generations.
As we enter a Lenten season of renewal, join Sharon C. Lavigne, members of RISE St. James, and various civic and cultural leaders in making a difference by embracing “Plastic-Free Fridays” every week through Easter. With simple, practical steps, you can participate in this movement and reduce single-use waste by using reusable bags, containers, water bottles, coffee cups, and utensils. You can further minimize our plastic impact by buying bulk whenever possible and following local recycling rules. Together, we can protect our planet and ensure healthier communities.
Whether you’re driven by a desire to protect the environment or the need to reduce waste mindfully, dedicating one day each week to a plastic-free lifestyle can have a meaningful impact. It is daunting to turn the tide against plastic pollution, but we can achieve it through collective action. Together, we can preserve our region’s vibrant spirit and build a healthier future for all through simple, sustainable actions and a shared commitment to eco-friendly celebrations.