Wednesday
September 18, 2024 
As someone who follows local and national news reports, I must tell you I am worried about the recent extreme heat and wildfires raging across the country. I feel for people who lose their lives and livelihoods to extreme weather, and it’s only a matter of time until it directly hits me and my community.
Seeing headlines in news outlets covering these climate disasters made me realize that most news stories show no connection between them and the main cause: fossil fuels. This is dangerous, because many people will continue to refuse to see that longer, hotter, and deadlier summers are perpetuated by the fossil fuel industry.
The science is clear — the longer we allow fossil fuel companies to dig and burn, the worse the impacts of the climate crisis will be. But the fossil fuel industry continues to ignore these alerts and to undermine our chances for a safer future.
We all know this is exacerbating the climate crisis, and yet they keep burning and profiting, with little accountability.
Climate impacts — like the recent wildfires — disproportionately affect people and communities that are already marginalized. People who did the least to cause the climate crisis suffer the worst from its impacts — they lose livelihoods, hope, and worse: their lives — while oil companies continue to hit record profits. This is wrong on so many levels.
Media have an important role to play — and a moral obligation to tell the whole truth. It’s time to make one thing about extreme weather very clear: it’s not a “crisis” that just happens to us — it’s a crime, and the fossil fuel industry is to blame.
Media have an important job to do to turn the tide of public opinion, and help the world avoid the worst of the climate impacts.
Please tell the real story about the climate crisis.
Laura Chinofsky lives in Upper Southampton.
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