‘Good Morning America’ features CCI study on how climate change is overheating U.S. schools

While oil companies rake in record profits and fuel the climate crisis, school systems are struggling to afford the air conditioning needed to keep students safe in the face of more extreme heat days.

As students across the United States head back to school, a growing number of school systems are struggling to keep classrooms at safe temperatures in the face of more extreme heat days caused by climate change. 

A study last year from the Center for Climate Integrity and Resilient Analytics estimated that schools across the country will face more than $40 billion in new air conditioning costs by 2025. Many districts that did not need air conditioning decades ago are now experiencing a dramatic increase in school days over 80 degrees — often needing to send students home early on dangerous “heat days.” 

ABC’s “Good Morning America” interviewed Paul Chinowsky of Resilient Analytics and the University of Colorado about those findings for a story about how climate change is turning classrooms into a public health issue. 

While students suffer learning loss as a result of extreme heat, and districts are forced to allocate millions toward air conditioning and away from other pressing needs, the oil and gas corporations that knowingly caused the climate crisis and continue to fight against solutions are raking in all-time record profits. Just five major oil companies made $55 billion in combined profits in three months of 2022 alone. 

Big Oil turned up the heat in these classrooms. It’s time that corporate polluters are held accountable to pay their fair share to cool them down.