A review of the marketing of “heat domes”, the history of American heat waves, and the real statistics behind temperature-related deaths.
Posted by Leslie Eastman
The daughter of a woman who died of “overheating” has filed a groundbreaking wrongful death lawsuit against seven major oil and gas companies in Washington State, alleging that their actions led to her mother’s death during a historic heatwave in June 2021.
The lawsuit, considered the first of its kind in the United States, specifically targets ExxonMobil, BP, Chevron, Shell, ConocoPhillips, Phillips 66, and Olympic Pipeline Company.
The New York Times reviews the case, and of course, its coverage makes the fossil fuel companies look like polluting villains.
Numerous independent investigations, including recent inquiries by Congress, have revealed that many major oil companies and their trade groups spread disinformation about climate change and worked to hold back the clean energy industry.
And scientists around the world overwhelmingly agree that fossil fuel emissions have caused significant planetary warming in recent decades.
Average global temperatures in 2024 were more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, higher than those the planet experienced at the start of the industrial age, leading to extreme heat, violent weather, rising seas and melting glaciers.
While the death of anyone during a heat event is sad, I think there is a lot to unpack here for a more complete understanding of the press and its destructive “climate crisis” coverage.
On June 28, 2021, Seattle experienced unprecedented temperatures, reaching as high as 108°F, which marked the city’s hottest day on record. Juliana Leon, a 65-year-old woman, was driving home from a medical appointment when she was overcome by the extreme heat. Her vehicle’s air conditioning was not working, and she had rolled down the windows, but the intense outdoor conditions proved fatal. A passerby found her unconscious in her car, and emergency responders were unable to revive her. Her official cause of death was hyperthermia, or overheating.
Misti Leon’s lawsuit argues that the oil companies named as defendants knew for decades that their products would contribute to climate change and lead to deadly weather events, yet they concealed and downplayed these risks from the public.
It’s worthwhile to point out that globally, Earth’s temperature averages are among the coldest that have been determined for the last 485 million years.
Much of the press coverage is focused on the “historic heat dome”, which is a weather phenomenon in which a persistent area of high atmospheric pressure traps hot air over a large region for an extended period, sometimes days or even weeks. This high-pressure system acts like a lid or cap, preventing the hot air from rising and escaping, which intensifies the heat at the surface.
The press is ginning up more fear about future “heat domes“.
During this historic heat wave, more than 250 people in the Pacific Northwest succumbed to the heat. In Western Canada, more than 400 people perished. Excessive heat is the No. 1 weather-related hazard-yielding fatality in the world. In fact, it kills more people than all other weather-related hazards — including hurricanes, floods, tornados and winter storms — combined.
However, it turns out that moderate cold is even more deadly to humans than excessive heat.
Globally, cold deaths are 9 times higher than heat-related ones. In no region is this ratio less than 3, and in many, it’s over 10 times higher. Cold is more deadly than heat, even in the hottest parts of the world.
Referring to the term “heat dome”, an AI search of the term reveals that “heat dome” first came into heavy use in 2011, according to a New York Times investigation into its growing popularity, which corresponds to the promotion of “global warming”.
The phrase had been used occasionally before then: one analysis found the term appeared 66 times in media between 1980 and 2000, yet its frequency increased dramatically to 700 mentions between 2010 and 2019, and it has remained widely used since. The American Meteorological Society officially added “heat dome” to its glossary in March 2022.
Yes, because marketing and language are important when you have snake oil to sell.
In the old days, long days of high temperatures used to be called “heat wave”, and the most severe heat wave in U.S. history occurred during the Dust Bowl era in the summer of 1936. Temperatures soared above 100°F (38°C) for prolonged periods, with some areas in North Dakota reaching 120°F (49°C) and Illinois seeing temperatures over 110°F.
Fossil fuel usage was not the factor here. Poor land management practices, which are also a contributing factor to the supposed ‘climate’ problems we face today, have played a role.
Several companies named in the lawsuit did not respond to requests for comments from the “impartial media.” A Chevron spokesperson did go on the record with a pitch-perfect remark.
Chevron Corporation counsel Theodore Boutrous Jr. said in a statement: “Exploiting a personal tragedy to promote politicized climate tort litigation is contrary to law, science, and common sense. The court should add this far-fetched claim to the growing list of meritless climate lawsuits that state and federal courts have already dismissed.”
While it is said that a woman died, 100% of all people will eventually do so. The woman also chose to drive on an extremely hot day without air conditioning and to continue to do so despite discomfort (not choosing to pull over into shade). That’s not the fault of the American petroleum industry.
I will conclude that the fossil fuels the energy companies can’t extract, transport, and sell today may make both summers and winters more expensive and potentially lethal tomorrow.
Image by perplexity.ai.
Why not sue the people really responsible, the millions of NW Washington State citizens who knowingly and willingly consume fossil fuels and their byproducts?
Or is this just another act of lawfare against big pocketed defendants.
If an obese person dies as a result of being obese, can they sue the food companies? Especially, if that person mostly ate junk food- sure, go sue them and see what happens.
The lady who died was anything but svelte.
Ironically, the medical appointment was a follow up to her recent bariatric surgery to shrink her gut.
This is normal behavior by a liability lawyer. As the meme has it, 90% of lawyers make the rest look bad.
“a liability lawyer”
I prefer the term: Ambulance chaser.
“Ambulance chasers” would seem more appropriate, I always thought “a liability” referred to a gathering/accumulation of lawyers.
Won’t they have to show some proof that man made carbon dioxide emissions were the cause?
Carbon dioxide is innocent.
There is a legal doctrine called proximate cause. This law suit fails the proximate cause test.
Right. I was going to make the same comment. This might help someone:
65-year-old woman, was driving home from a medical appointment when she was overcome by the extreme heat. Her vehicle’s air conditioning was not working,
If the oil companies were stopped from selling oil based products 10 years ago, would she still have died while WALKING home in this weather? And who would be responsible then?
If she believes that CO2 was the cause of the high temperature (something of which there is, in reality, no proof), why not sue the US Government for allowing people to burn fossil fuels?
Why not sue the animal world for breathing?
Why was she driving a fossil fuel powered car. !!
The AC wasn’t working. What year was the car?
If it was an old one where the AC ran on Freon and the AC was too expensive to convert to the newer stuff, why not sue Al Gore?
So, her cheap ass mother was too cheap to get her AC fixed and died from her own stupidity so she is suing other people for her mother being cheap and stupid. Got it.
More to the point, her mother was at a follow up to a recent serious surgery. No way I would have let my elderly mother do that on her own. The daughter is at fault.
Potentially true, or perhaps the doctor at the post-surgery medical appointment unless he was unaware she had nobody to drive for her. As I pointed out in my dissection of this lawsuit (there’s more to the accusation elements than meets the eye), the filing itself says she was driving to/from the medical appointment just two weeks after a major surgery, where at least one site advises that a person usually can resume normal daily activity 4-6 weeks after such a procedure.
“Average global temperatures in 2024 were more than 1.5 degrees Celsius, or 2.7 degrees Fahrenheit, higher than those the planet experienced at the start of the industrial age, leading to” a return to warmth after the coldest 4-500 years in the last 8000 years.
How can I possibly get money… [posing as a victim…]
A question that only critical theories of money generation can answer. /sarc.
The economic means vs the political means…
https://mises.org/mises-wire/political-means-and-economic-means
If the activists get their way and succeed in shutting down fossil fuels, who does one sue following a loss of a loved one from cold in the absence of heating oil or gas, or the unreliability and expense of wind generated electricity?
(Just asking.)
There are simply too many unanswered questions regarding this event in the many articles written, almost all only state the barest information.
What type of medical appointment did the mother attend? Were there any medications given at the appointment? How was the mother’s health, in general? Was the vehicle parked in shade or sun when discovered?
I’m almost 70 and drive a black F150 here in northern Florida. Not even sure if my AC in the truck works as I never use it. Unless it is raining, the windows are completely open while driving.
“While it is said that a woman died, 100% of all people will eventually do so.” LOL. What a brilliant argument! So anybody who dies now, from any cause, including murder, just tell their families “While it is sad that your mother/father/daughter/son died, 100% of all people will eventually do so.”
This really has to take the biscuit as the most stupid argument ever put forward on this website…
No, every climate alarmunist claim so far has that statement beat. Your own comment that this article is the most stupid argument also has your quoted statement beat.
[died,] 100% of all people will eventually do so.”
An observation I can back up, but then it’s just further glimpses of the bleedin’ obvious.
All life carries a death sentence. It is only a matter of timing and circumstance.
It would be important to note, it hasn’t been nearly that hot in the PNW since then. In fact, last summer was pretty cool. And so far this one is just as cool. June already, and on Whidbey Island (~70 miles north of Seattle), we can’t even get out of the 60sF.
It’s crap lawsuits like this that give lawyers and the judiciary their impressive and consistent reputation as shysters.
The lawsuit should have been rejected by the lowliest of clerks, and the lawyer bringing it should have been disbarred. Failing that, the clerk accepting it should have been fired, and the judge should have sanctioned the lawyer bringing it.
As for the daughter … fine her as much as she wanted from the oil companies, because her claim ought to be considered perjury and abuse of the system.
Anecdotally, on the day mentioned in this article my wife and I needed to take our ailing Dachshund to his vet for an appointment, in the north end of Tacoma, at around 2 PM. As it was during the scamdemic, we were required to wait our turn outside in our Mustang (silver exterior/black leather interior) until we were called in. IIRC, it was near an hour we had to wait in the vehicle, engine running..we did have working AC though. Hung a towel over the driver’s side window to block the sunrays. Car thermometer read 117. We all were able to survive, but we were severely inconvenienced by that ‘heat dome’ event! There were 3 days in a row above 100F that week. So much for a green lawn…just one man’s experience.
FWIW,
Regards,
MCR
The acronym IIRC stands for “if I remember correctly”
Is there some reason besides thinking it makes them
look smart that some people use acronyms that send
me to Google to look up what it is that they are trying
to say?
The alphabet was developed for a reason.
Yes, fie on all these “a.m.” and “p.m.” abbreviations, not to mention N S E W, and who’s the damn fool who invented °? Then there is that damned apostrophe because people are too lazy to spell out the full two words.
Steve Case, my apologies for not spelling out the acronym prior to its use. I should have known better having a career supporting the military. Will do better in the future. Also, years ago in grade school we were required to put the acronym ‘J.M.J.’ atop each written document. It was a few years before I realized it meant ‘Jesus, Mary and Joseph’..
For What It’s Worth (FWIW),
Sheepishly I remain,
Michael Charles Roberts (MCR)
AFAIK most people would understand IIRC.
But YMMV
Learning a new commonly used acronym isn’t a bad thing.
Use of such expressions started back in the 90s with the first HTML chat rooms. with 2400 baud dial up, every character slowed the message down, to minimization became the thing.
Now with cell phone testing and tiny buttons there is a different excuse.
117 on your car temperature display is a normal summer day for Phoenix. Yet on those days a lot of people who have old cars and cannot afford to repair the AC on the cars they drive with their car windows down. Something I had to do when my AC failed and I needed to go someplace on that day, well into the trip I figured I had a AC problem. Yet the mechanics that repaired my car did so without AC, something that still to this day I find amazing. Ditto for the roofers, framers and most trades.
Her death is unfortunate but cannot be blamed on weather, oil companies or anything else other than her or her social economic position. She either elected not to have AC or was in a social economic condition that warranted not having AC. What caused her to venture out in conditions that were directly related to her health that made it dangerous.
The answer to her death is not for her family to sue the oil companies rather sue the anti-oil activist, government in action for not addressing real problems (instead costing and her and us more money for energy then warranted), the lawyers of group that so called aid to the family. Those are the exact ones that created the social economic policies that cause energy and products to be out of her reach that could have allowed her to stay at home.
Oil companies are not causing her health problems but the solution. Cheap energy would have allowed her to afford a common solution called AC. High energy costs are the source of the problem, something oil companies have little to do with. All oil companies are interested in producing a product that can sell at current market rate while addressing real environmental problems. Not mythical CO2 warming. UHI effect and the green revolution had far more to do with her death than any mythical global warming.
Where I grew up (Central India) it was 40C + in the daytime all summer. It was the season when agriculture stopped, so festivals and weddings took over. The hyperthermia death I know about was a sick person who fainted in a sunny spot and was not noticed soon enough.
My dad was into well digging technology and summer was when the water table was lowest, so no trip to Kashmir until the monsoon arrived.
So no one, especially the daughter, knew that this elderly woman’s AC wasn’t working in her car, and realized that hey, maybe having her drive during a heat wave might be dangerous? That maybe a taxi would have been a better idea? My guess is that the daughter most certainly knew, and this 100% bogus lawsuit is just her ill-conceived way of compensating for her own guilt.
I wonder how many lives were saved in this warm weather through fossil fuel powered air conditioning, ambulances, hospitals, police cars, fire trucks etc etc etc?
Another bogus lawsuit built around a bogus theme must fail.
Someone(s) is obviously bankrolling these lawsuits just to get them on the compliant MSM or ….. the attorney has no business and wants to get name recognition.
Average global temperatures cannot cause heat domes. Heat domes are high pressure systems caused by the earths rotation.
Heat domes are easily fixed by spending $250 dollars on an air conditioner.
Skip the Taylor Swift ticket and save your life.
She won’t succeed.
I seem to remember an analysis by a meteorologist on that 108°F temperature event (I could’ve sworn it was here at WUWT) where he analyzed the combination of the: time of year and day (summer solstice was only a few days in the past), cloud conditions, angle of the solar rays, etc.
He concluded that: (1) the temperature was totally explained by the factors he analyzed and (2) that was, from a theoretical POV, the absolute highest temperature that could be expected in Seattle during the year…
Now, maybe he made some computational errors but those are always subject to correction by other scientists but the gist of his approach seemed like solid science to me.
What I don’t understand is why that work hasn’t been given more visibility in discussions on maximum temperatures.
It’s impossible to ascribe CO2 to individual weather events as a cause. The best they can manage is assigning a probability to cause. That shouldn’t fly in a court of law where actual evidence matters. Imagine the downstream legal carnage if probability was allowed in terms of providing evidence!
Too lazy to even try to find reasonable numbers, but I doubt that the CO2 generated by the total products of these companies represent even 10% of the total CO2 generated by humans. The atmosphere is not restricted in their locality! Even if a jury found in her favor, a miscarriage of justice, they could not justify assigning more culpability than that to the defendants. And that’s generous. People continue to burn fossil fuels, including the ‘victim’, despite warnings. They would need to share that culpability. Those suing would end up with a $25 gift card to Starbucks even if they won.