The Chilling Question About This Week’s Record Heat Wave

We may soon remember recent record-shattering heat as an historic low temperature mark. But that hasn’t slowed down the oil and gas spin machine.
Opinion
Analysis
authordefault
on
Fiery sunrise over the Tidal Basin in Washington, D.C., with the Jefferson Memorial on the far shore.
โ€œInstead of thinking about this year as the hottest so far, think of it as the coolest and calmest moment of what is to come." Credit: Kevin Wolf/U.S. National Weather Service

This story was originally published by The Energy Mix Weekender, and is republished here as part of Covering Climate Now, a global journalism collaboration strengthening coverage of the climate crisis.

What if this weekโ€™s series of record-shattering high temperatures turned out to be tomorrowโ€™s record low, the benchmark against which future years and decades of global warming will be measured?

Thatโ€™s the chilling, provocative, entirely reasonable question that author and ArcTern Ventures co-founder Tom Rand raised on July 6, after July 3, 4, and 5 set new records for the highest average global temperature in more than 100,000 years.

โ€œInstead of thinking about this year as the hottest so far, think of it as the coolest and calmest moment of what is to come,โ€ Rand wrote. โ€œA very different psychology kicks in, one our brains would normally discount/reject. But one that is much more useful, if alarming.โ€

โ€œCoolest and calmest with higher than average air quality!โ€ added resilient building consultant and former Passive House Canada board chair Deborah Byrne. โ€œThis is the year future records will be set against.โ€

In so many different parts of the world, you can feel the change in the airโ€”in the temperature of the air, the haze hanging in the sky, and in conversations with friends and colleagues who donโ€™t live inside the โ€œbubbleโ€ of climate concern, but are suddenly thinking they might need to hop in.

What isnโ€™t changing, not one bit, is the otherworldly spin from fossil fuel lobbyists and spinmasters, one of whom had the tone-deaf audacity this week to insist it would be โ€œdangerous and irresponsibleโ€ not to increase fossil fuel production into the indefinite future.

The Warmest Itโ€™s Been in 125,000 Years

Itโ€™s either very good or very bad news when you know youโ€™re living through a moment youโ€™ll never forget, that future generations will remember for decades or centuries. I still know where I was when I heard the radio bulletin that South African anti-apartheid icon Nelson Mandela had been released from prison, recall pulling the car over and stopping in a safe place to let the tears flow freely.

Weโ€™ve all just been party to an Earth-shaking, world-changing event that will fall on the other side of the ledger, generating lots of tears of the unhappy kind.

On Monday, July 3, the U.S. National Centers for Environmental Prediction reported an average global temperature of 17.01ยฐC, a record high attributed to a combination of El Niรฑo conditions and climate change. Tuesday and Wednesday, July 4 and 5, set another new record at 17.18ยฐC.

โ€œMonday, July 3rd was the hottest day ever recorded on planet Earth. A record that lasted untilโ€ฆTuesday, July 4th,โ€ wrote University College London earth scientist Bill McGuire. โ€œTotally unprecedented and terrifying.โ€ [Since this article was first published, the hottest midnight temperature on record has been recorded in California’s Death Valley: 120 deg. F from 12 a.m. to 1 a.m. Pacific Time on July 17. – DeSmog Eds.]

โ€œThese data tell us that it hasnโ€™t been this warm since at least 125,000 years ago,โ€ added Paulo Ceppi, a climate scientist at Imperial College Londonโ€™s Grantham Institute. โ€œLooking to the future, we can expect global warming to continue and hence temperature records to be broken increasingly frequently, unless we rapidly act to reduce greenhouse gas emissions to net zero.โ€

Smithsonian Magazine has a small snapshot of whatโ€™s been going on as temperatures rise. โ€œIn Mexico, the heat has killed at least 112 people since March. India and China have also faced deadly heat waves, and a heat dome in the southern United States led temperatures to hit triple digits (Fahrenheit) in late June. On July 4th, 57 million Americans were exposed to dangerous heat.โ€

And of course, closer to home, Canada has been burning for weeks, and the wildfires are expected to continue through the summer and beyond.

But you wouldnโ€™t know it from the way the fossil fuel industry has responded. Because thereโ€™s no indication that the companies responsible for 86% of the worldโ€™s carbon dioxide pollution took notice or broken stride at all.

โ€˜Dangerous and Irresponsibleโ€™

For Shell CEO Wael Sawan, it was just another Tuesday when a BBC interview gave him a platform to call for an increase in fossil fuel production despite mounting climate devastation.

The world โ€œdesperately needs oil and gas,โ€ Sawan declared. โ€œWhat would be dangerous and irresponsible is cutting oil and gas production so that the cost of living, as we saw last year, starts to shoot up again.โ€

Sawanโ€™s argument of convenience was that the shift to energy efficiency and renewable energy will leave behind developing countries that donโ€™t yet have the infrastructure to make best use of it. Left unanswered, of course, was the question of how those countries would fund the infrastructure to make fossil energy available to the 750 million people around the world who currently have no electricity access of any kind, all while covering the monumental human and financial cost of local climate emergencies brought on in large part by fossil fuels.

For one of his examples, Sawan chose Pakistan, where more than 33 million people were affected be record flooding that left one-third of the country under water, where domestic renewables are seen as the best hedge against insecure liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies and uncertain prices. It apparently served his purpose to spin a different story.

โ€œThey took away LNG from those countries and children had to work and study by candlelight,โ€ he said. โ€œIf weโ€™re going to have a transition it needs to be a just transition that doesnโ€™t just work for one part of the world.โ€

โ€œThe idea that itโ€™s a choice between our addiction to fossil fuels or working by candlelight is a gross misrepresentation of reality, when we know renewables are cleaner, cheaper, and better for public health,โ€ retorted Claire Fyson, co-head of climate policy at Berlin-based Climate Analytics.

“We’ve just heardโ€ฆan oil major saying that cutting production would be a dangerous thing,โ€ added United Nations climate secretary Simon Stiell. โ€œThat is neither true, but it is also an irresponsible statement at this time within the broader context of what we are trying to achieve,”

But thereโ€™s no uncertainty about Sawanโ€™s agenda as Shellโ€™s new CEO, Bloomberg News reported last month. His mission is to open up more long-term supply deals for LNG, with higher bonuses on offer for company staff who can close deals in China, India, or other target nations.

โ€œWe have always known that gas is crucial for the energy transition, but our new strategy is built around a new beliefโ€”that gas will continue to play a key role in the energy mix,โ€ said Shellโ€™s executive VP for LNG, Cederic Cremers, in an internal memo seen by Bloomberg.

Whoโ€™s the Grown-Up in the Room?

But Shellโ€™s detailed energy future scenarios show that โ€œthat’s only true if the planet heats to deadly and dangerous levels,โ€ writes climate analyst and communicator Ketan Joshi.

โ€œThere is a culture within [fossil] energy industries, consultancies, and corporate discourse in general where the โ€˜seriousโ€™, โ€˜adultโ€™, and โ€˜rationalโ€™ approach is to fully ignore the raw physical reality of what happens to Earth’s systems when we burn the product these companies are desperately trying to maximize the burning of,โ€ Joshi adds. โ€œI find it very, very useful to show that upโ€”reallyโ€”as an immature, denialist, and deeply emotional approach pretending to be pragmatic and realistic.โ€

As prime examples, Shell and oil supermajor BP are both hell-bent on increasing oil and gas extraction, even if it means planning projects now that wonโ€™t go into production for another 15 years, with BP projecting an increase in its โ€œScope 3โ€ or downstream emissions for the first time in three years.

And theyโ€™re not alone. The common theme from the last week of news clips seems to be that itโ€™s fine to talk about record heat, alarming wildfires, and killer floods as long as no one tries to get at the root of the problem.

โ€ข British Columbia is laying the groundwork to expand its already massive LNG Canada megaproject, even as the province anticipates a doubling in annual extreme heat deaths by 2030 without climate adaptations.

On one side of the split-screen, the Canadian Climate Institute calculates the cost of future deaths and hospitalizations at more than $12 billion per year in B.C. alone. On the other, โ€œCanada is on the cusp of becoming the next big supplier of LNG,โ€ declares LNG Canada CEO Jason Klein, โ€œand we are going to be providing reliable, responsibly sourced LNG to the world at a time when many of our allies and partners are looking for that.โ€ (Except that they arenโ€™t, not in the longer term, and likely wonโ€™t be.)

โ€ข Oil and gas producers in Alberta are โ€œdisappointedโ€ with the Trans Mountain pipeline theyโ€™ve spent the last decade clamouring to support, complaining that a six-fold increase in project costs will increase the price they have to pay to send their oil down the line. (This story was so popular last week that it briefly crashed our website Wednesday morning.)

โ€ข The newly-elected government in Alberta is still treating oil revenue as the ticket to prosperity, even though its โ€œfeel-goodโ€ budget is based on higher oil prices than the province can realistically count on, veteran Alberta freelancer Graham Thomson writes for The Tyee.

โ€ข Internationally, oil and gas companies and ministers from Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) states are trying to persuade governments to tackle oil demandโ€”the incomplete strategy theyโ€™ve been sticking with for decadeโ€”rather than driving down supply, Reuters reports. โ€œWe must invest in the energy system of today as unpopular as it sounds,โ€ declared BP CEO Bernard Looney. โ€œIf we donโ€™t, we will have a mismatch of supply and demand.โ€

โ€ข For oil and gas communicator Bill Whitelaw, it isnโ€™t about following the science or extracting less of the productโ€”everything would be fine if the fossil industry could just learn new language. โ€œThe sector needs to start its own brand-spanking new counter-narratives,โ€ he writes. โ€œThey need to be innovative and carefully thought out. And they need to be cast in terms of a new way of thinking through the language of energyโ€”a vernacular thatโ€™s built on less inflammatory, de-politicized, and more conciliatory and collaborative, linguistics.โ€

Citizens Have Got the Memo

The important grain of truth in Whitelawโ€™s lament is that the oil and gas industry is losing the narrative. Not because they donโ€™t know how to spin a good yarn, but because thereโ€™s no plausible story to tell, and citizensโ€”including fossil fuel workersโ€”are getting the memo. Two recent polls conducted by Abacus Data for Clean Energy Canada add to a growing body of research showing consistently strong public support for climate action, concluding that:

โ€ข 68% of Canadians link the countryโ€™s grimrecord-setting wildfire season to climate change;

โ€ข 71% support or strongly support the federal governmentโ€™s Clean Electricity Regulations, one of the cornerstones of the plan to bring the countryโ€™s power grids to net-zero by 2030.

Iโ€™ve never liked the notion in some corners of the climate community that citizens will โ€œwake upโ€ (I think people are already plenty โ€œawakeโ€), and action on climate pollution will speed up, as soon as things get obviously bad enough. I would have thought we were already far past that point. But with this weekโ€™s record-breaking news, the whole line of thought is being put to the testโ€”and so far, the soundings from the fossil industry are not encouraging.

It’s good to see the UNโ€™s Simon Stiell pushing back on Shellโ€™s greenwashing, Paris Agreement architect Christiana Figueres explaining why sheโ€™s given up on fossil fuel companies to do the right thing, and 130 legislators from the United States and European Union demanding the UN replace oil and gas CEO Sultan al Jaber as COP 28 president, in what one news outlet called a โ€œremarkable rebukeโ€.

But the hard work of building the transition must also continue and scale up in countless smaller actions on both sides of the problemโ€”phasing out fossil fuel production and scaling up the alternatives. Weโ€™ve been progressing on all fronts, but this week is the latest dire reminder that we need to pick up the pace.

Related Posts

Analysis
on

Taxpayers are on the hook as the bitumen extraction industry continues to play by its own rules.

Taxpayers are on the hook as the bitumen extraction industry continues to play by its own rules.
Analysis
on

The province launched its โ€˜scrap the capโ€™ campaign while burdening every Albertan household with $70,000 in oil industry liabilities.

The province launched its โ€˜scrap the capโ€™ campaign while burdening every Albertan household with $70,000 in oil industry liabilities.
Analysis
on

Proposed new rules for CCS projects transfer long-term liabilities to the province.

Proposed new rules for CCS projects transfer long-term liabilities to the province.
Analysis
on

Experts accuse Farageโ€™s party of a โ€˜deliberate campaign of misinformation about climate changeโ€™ in the House of Commons.

Experts accuse Farageโ€™s party of a โ€˜deliberate campaign of misinformation about climate changeโ€™ in the House of Commons.