{"id":783785,"date":"2026-07-06T12:05:13","date_gmt":"2026-07-06T12:05:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/783785\/"},"modified":"2026-07-06T12:05:13","modified_gmt":"2026-07-06T12:05:13","slug":"heatwaves-accountability-profit-by-will-lockett-jul-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/783785\/","title":{"rendered":"Heatwaves, Accountability &#038; Profit | by Will Lockett | Jul, 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Press enter or click to view image in full size<img alt=\"\" class=\"bd hw hx hy\" width=\"700\" height=\"467\" loading=\"eager\" role=\"presentation\"\/>Photo by <a class=\"z id\" href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/@iguanaphoto?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Luis Graterol<\/a> on <a class=\"z id\" href=\"https:\/\/unsplash.com\/?utm_source=medium&amp;utm_medium=referral\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">Unsplash<\/a>The deadly problem staring us in the face.<a rel=\"noopener follow nofollow\" href=\"https:\/\/wlockett.medium.com\/?source=post_page---byline--c20c935ed8b4---------------------------------------\" data-discover=\"true\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"Will Lockett\" class=\"e fh bu bv bw db\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/10\/1*V0qWMQ8V5_NaF9yUoHAdyg.jpeg\" width=\"32\" height=\"32\" loading=\"lazy\" data-testid=\"authorPhoto\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p id=\"1b27\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph od oe ij of b jd og oh oi jg oj ok ol om on oo op oq or os ot ou ov ow ox oy hi bg\">Britain and Europe have just experienced one of the worst heatwaves in living memory, with temperatures climbing over 40 degrees Celsius (104 Fahrenheit). However, unlike the last record-breaking single heatwave from the \u201970s, this was no anomaly; it was the result of a stark upwards trend. The <a class=\"z id\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/weather\/articles\/c93p5kz9elro\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">summer of 2024 was the hottest ever recorded<\/a> until <a class=\"z id\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.co.uk\/weather\/articles\/c1kz18d3wjro\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">2025 smashed that record<\/a>, and now 2026 is set to possibly top that too. This is why scientists have found that this recent heatwave was <a class=\"z id\" href=\"https:\/\/www.worldweatherattribution.org\/\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">impossible without man-made climate change<\/a>. We also know that this heatwave has <a class=\"z id\" href=\"https:\/\/www.bbc.com\/news\/articles\/cn4d2vv935lo\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">killed well over a thousand people<\/a> and dealt serious damage to infrastructure, economies, and society. But hold on, we know who is responsible for, and profits hugely from, climate change: fossil fuel companies. In a just world, they would be made to pay for the damage their goods cause. But that isn\u2019t happening. Why? Truth be told, there are a lot of reasons. This is a complex topic. But there is one glaringly obvious reason \u2014 taking accountability would destroy them. Let me explain.<\/p>\n<p id=\"b0b6\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph od oe ij of b jd og oh oi jg oj ok ol om on oo op oq or os ot ou ov ow ox oy hi bg\">But first, how much damage does climate change-induced extreme weather cause? Well, there are a few different ways of calculating that.<\/p>\n<p id=\"1e3f\" class=\"pw-post-body-paragraph od oe ij of b jd og oh oi jg oj ok ol om on oo op oq or os ot ou ov ow ox oy hi bg\">The charity Christian Aid found that the <a class=\"z id\" href=\"https:\/\/www.christianaid.org.uk\/resources\/our-work\/counting-cost-2025\" rel=\"noopener ugc nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">ten worst climate-related disasters of 2025 caused<\/a>\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Press enter or click to view image in full sizePhoto by Luis Graterol on UnsplashThe deadly problem staring&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":783786,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[22],"tags":[49,48,295,66],"class_list":["post-783785","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-environment","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-environment","tag-science"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783785","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=783785"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/783785\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783786"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=783785"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=783785"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=783785"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}