Our Healthy Climate Program Director, Samantha Hernandez, was recently featured in two powerful interviews highlighting the urgent need to transition away from fossil fuels. She spoke with Climate Reality’s Isabella Garcia about the unprecedented 2021 Heat Dome—now four years behind us—that claimed the lives of over 1000 people in the PNW region, including 100 Oregonians. As we face yet another summer of record-breaking heat, this conversation highlights the growing impact of the climate crisis and underscores the importance of a just energy transition.
Transcript
Isabelle Garcia, Center for Climate Integrity
It's raining right now here in Portland, but four years ago we were breaking heat records during the 2021 heat dome. What was your experience like during that time?
Samantha Hernandez, Oregon PSR
It was honestly really traumatic. It got up to 98 degrees Fahrenheit in my second story apartment and my power ended up going out that same day because the heat had put such a strain on Portland General Electric's equipment. I wasn't able to unfortunately even go to my nearest cooling shelter just because it was so hot outside.
The third day of the heat dome, Oregon Physicians for Social Responsibility co-organized a webinar about the health impacts of wildfire smoke and ways to protect your health. We had a guest speaker who was a pulmonologist and she was running late because she was too busy treating patients with heat stroke in the ICU and so it was just really hectic and really surreal to realize that the climate crisis is here.
Isabelle Garcia
Did you know Big Oil knew and lied about their product's role in fueling extreme weather like heat waves as early as the 1950s?
Samantha Hernandez
I had some idea but I actually found out that they did when I read this book called They Knew by James Gustav Speth and in that book I learned that the fossil fuel industry conducted their own internal research about the impacts of burning fossil fuels and no surprise they found that changing the concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere would result in disastrous consequences for human civilization and all living things.
It's really sad that they knew and now we are experiencing those consequences.
Transcribed by TurboScribe.ai.