The Infrastructure Bill Won’t Cut It on Climate
Lately, I’ve struggled to fall asleep. For the past two weeks, I’ve watched unprecedented climate disasters strike day after day, and I’ve feared that people would die.
On the last Monday in June, Seattle hit 108 degrees Fahrenheit—a new record, way above normal temperatures, usually in the low 70s. In Portland, Oregon, it was even hotter—116 degrees—causing roads to buckle and streetcar cables to bend. Across the West Coast, upwards of 800 people died in the heat wave. Later that week, President Joe Biden met with western governors to discuss the once-in-400-years drought scorching the American West. It stretches from Montana through New Mexico and all the way to the coast, affecting almost 60 million Americans.
That same so severe, it turned highways into swamps. The East Coast baked in its own extreme heat, as Hurricane Elsa headed toward it. Fires in California ballooned . The dramatic finish came on Friday, when a fossil-fuel pipeline in the Gulf of Mexico, lighting the ocean on fire.
