In a foretaste of a warming world, a “heat dome” settles over the Pacific Northwest, bringing scorching record temperatures. Portland, Oregon, hits 116°F. Quillayute, Washington, reaches 110°, 45° above average. The British Columbia town of Lytton, which endured the highest temperature ever recorded in Canada for three days in a row—121°—burns down in a subsequent wildfire. Scores and possibly hundreds of deaths are reported in the US and Canada. 

Oregon governor Kate Brown commutes the sentences of 23 inmates who helped battle last year’s wildfires in the state and reduces the sentences of 18 more.  

Maricopa County, Arizona, investigates the deaths of 53 people in connection with a mid-June heat wave. 

Drought in Madagascar leaves 400,000 people in danger of starvation. 

Detroit has a 500-year flood—the second one in seven years. 

In a Greenpeace sting operation, a senior lobbyist for ExxonMobil confirms that the oil giant supports a carbon tax only because it believes such a tax “is not gonna happen.” He admits that the corporation “aggressively” disputed climate science and funded “shadow groups” to do so, all because “we were looking out for our investments; we were looking out for shareholders.”

By 2035, all cars and light trucks sold in Canada must be zero-emission.  

More dead gray whales have washed up on San Francisco Bay Area beaches this year than at any time in the past 20 years.

A California couple who bulldozed and buried 36 protected Joshua trees in order to build a house near Joshua Tree National Park are fined $18,000.

The Biden administration bans solar panels and other goods made by a Chinese company accused of using forced labor by Uyghurs and other minorities in Xinjiang Province.

Climate change and competition with hatchery fish are causing Yukon River salmon to decline in size—Chinook by nearly 20 percent in just a few decades. 

Congress votes to reinstate tough Obama-era limits on methane emissions from oil and gas drilling that had been rolled back by Trump. President Biden’s support is assured. Only six of the 64 members of the House’s new Conservative Climate Caucus vote for the tougher regulations on methane, a powerful greenhouse gas. 

The Biden administration defends the permits issued to Enbridge Energy to construct its Line 3 tar-sands oil pipeline across Minnesota and Wisconsin. Minnesota sheriffs block access to Namewag, one of several encampments of water protectors protesting the pipeline.

Norway issues licenses to drill for oil in the Barents Sea, the most northerly ever. 

The Supreme Court, in a 6–3 vote, further weakens the Voting Rights Act. 

The Supreme Court refuses to allow Montana and Wyoming to sue Washington for denying a key permit for a giant coal terminal that would have shipped Powder River coal to Asia, which means that the Millennium Bulk Terminal is dead dead dead.