The locales say that actions by oil, natural gas and coal companies intensified climate change
Two California counties and a city yesterday sued 37 oil, natural gas and coal companies and trade groups, saying their actions intensified climate change and exacerbated costly sea-level rise.
Wildfires in British Columbia have forced Canadian lumber mills to shut and were edging closer to a Kinder Morgan Inc. oil pipeline as hot, dry weather sparked blazes across swathes of western Canada and the U.S.
Norbord Inc., the largest North American producer of oriented strand board used in residential construction, said Monday it has temporarily suspended production at its mill in 100 Mile House in central B.C. The Toronto-based company, which has 440 million square feet of annual production capacity, said it’s assessing the fire’s impact.
Dry spells are getting drier in the West as temperatures rise, creating a greater risk of wildfires.
Firefighters in the West are starting to see it every year: an earlier start to the fire season and millions of acres of forest and range burned or ablaze as the summer just begins to heat up.
Climate change is out of control. It is already too late to avoid soaring temperatures, scarce water, and extreme weather. But the financial structure of capitalism is tied to fossil fuels. Market-based solutions are ineffectual. John Bellamy Foster, a professor of sociology at the University of Oregon and the editor of Monthly Review, speaks about the kind of program necessary to stop this catastrophe.
This is a guest blog from Brandon Wu, a US-based activist and Director of Policy and Campaigns at ActionAid USA, who has engaged with the UN climate process for many years.
