Our world is becoming an increasingly dangerous place. One study recently found that extreme heat killed nearly 50,000 people in Europe last year. A single county in the United States—Maricopa County, in Arizona—reported 645 such deaths. Eye-popping sea surface temperatures are fueling a historically destructive hurricane season this summer, and lethal, record-breaking storms are lashing states from Texas to Vermont. In California, the climate-driven Park fire continues to burn a path of devastation that has left hundreds homeless, including numerous survivors of previous wildfires—people who have now lost their homes multiple times.

These aren’t “natural” disasters. 2023’s summer heat waves, for example, would have been “virtually impossible,” in one research team’s words, without human-caused climate change. That means these disasters are being driven by particular corporate actors—and particularly Big Oil companies. These companies, by generating a substantial portion of the greenhouse gas emissions that have warmed the planet, while simultaneously deceiving the public about the dangers of those emissions, have created a crisis that is putting millions of Americans at risk.

Existing laws are designed to protect us from such public safety threats. Recently, the victims of manmade climate disasters have started to demand that prosecutors use them.

Two weeks........

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