The climate crisis is a crime story

Fossil fuel companies lied for decades about climate change, and humanity is paying the price. Shouldn’t those lies be central to the public narrative?

Every person on Earth today is living in a crime scene. This crime has been going on for decades. We see its effects in the horrific heat and wildfires unfolding this summer in the American West; in the megastorms that were so numerous in 2020 that scientists ran out of names for them; in the global projections that sea levels are set to rise by at least 20 feet (6 metres). Our only hope is to slow this inexorable ascent so our children may figure out some way to cope. This crime has displaced or killed untold numbers of people around the world, caused billions of dollars in economic damage and ravaged vital ecosystems and wildlife. It has disproportionately affected already marginalised communities around the world, from farmers in coastal Bangladesh, where the fast-rising seas are salting the soil and slashing rice yields, to low-income residents of Houston, Chicago and other cities, whose neighbourhoods suffer higher temperatures than prosperous areas across town.