In June 2021, Oregon's Multnomah County experienced three back-to-back days of record-breaking heat, topping out at 108, 112, and 116 degrees Fahrenheit, Inside Climate News reports. That's uncharacteristic of the region, with highs usually in the low 80s — and it came with a death toll.
But Multnomah County isn't just letting it go. According to county officials, there are specific organizations to blame: oil and gas companies.
What's happening?
Oregon's extreme temperatures in 2021 ultimately caused 69 deaths from heat stroke in Multnomah County, Inside Climate News reports. The temperature was due to a heat dome effect, which in turn was linked by scientists to the Earth's rising temperature.
And that, county officials say, was no accident.
"This catastrophe was not caused by an act of God," said Jeffrey B. Simon, a county lawyer, per Inside Climate News, "but rather by several of the world's largest energy companies playing God with the lives of innocent and vulnerable people by selling as much oil and gas as they could."
When burned, fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal produce heat-trapping gases like carbon dioxide. Extensive pollution from these gases raises the average temperatures around the globe, destabilizing the climate and causing more extreme weather. Fossil fuels aren't the only source, but they are the biggest ones, accounting for over 75% of global warming, according to the U.N.
For that reason, Multnomah County has filed a suit in Oregon state court against large oil and gas companies, including ExxonMobil, Shell, and Chevron, to attempt to hold them accountable for the events of June 2021. Multnomah County alleges that fossil fuel companies knew about their harmful effects and continued anyway.
Why is this lawsuit important?
The Multnomah County suit is one of about three dozen lawsuits that Inside Climate News says have been filed by states, counties, and districts against fossil fuel providers. Successful suits could win damages that might help to recover the costs of these disasters.
What's being done about the extreme heat?
Multnomah County is moving forward with its suit, and according to Inside Climate News, it has a higher likelihood of success than most because it focuses on the heat dome effect and the extreme heat wave.
Pat Parenteau, professor of law emeritus at Vermont Law and Graduate School, said, "When it comes to the extreme heat events that affected Portland, the scientists concluded, in looking at that event and then looking at historical records of heat waves in the Pacific Northwest, it would not have happened, but for human-caused climate change," per Inside Climate News. "That's actually the first time I've ever seen climate scientists state a conclusion like that in such absolute terms," he added.
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