Originally published by Deceleration
,
a nonprofit online journal producing original news and analysis responding to our shared ecological, political, and cultural crises.
When Donald Trump and Kamala Harris faced off for their first — and likely only — debate before the November election, they offered next to no reflection on the climate crisis. A habitable planet just
hasn’t become a top-shelf concern
for most voters even as
and
temperatures hurtle headlong into unprecedentedly hot territory thanks to the continued accumulation of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere, primarily caused by the burning of fossil fuels.
Increasingly, the cost of our fossil fuel dependence is showing up in city and county morgues. Recent research suggests that there has been a 117 percent rise in heat-related deaths in the United States since 1999, most noticeably since 2020, as the Earth returns to sweltering temps that likely haven’t been seen in more than 125,000 years .