the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
the Voice of
The Communist League of Revolutionary Workers–Internationalist
“The emancipation of the working class will only be achieved by the working class itself.”
— Karl Marx
Jun 23, 2025
Millions of people across the central and eastern U.S. are under a “heat dome” that began on the first day of summer and is supposed to extend through the end of the following week. The National Weather Service is predicting temperatures reaching 100 degrees and above, and more than 200 million people are expected to be affected.
Heat domes form when high pressure from the earth’s atmosphere compresses warm air and pushes it down to the surface. They have become increasingly common in the U.S. in recent years amid rising global temperatures.
Extreme weather events have become more frequent and more severe. Not from any “Mother Nature” reason, but because we live in a system where industries burn a massive amount of fossil fuels to produce energy while at the same time, causing massive carbon dioxide emissions.
And while national and local news stations continuously warn people about the high temperatures, nearly 60% of the United States’ population are on their own to deal with its effects.
People are told to stay home, but what about the fact that people have to work? And when people are at work, how about all the workplaces that have no air-conditioning—including major factories?
People are told to put on their air conditioning—but what if they have none?
Large apartment complexes in working class neighborhoods are heat traps, and even when these buildings have air conditioning, often it goes out—and these heat traps become death traps. Even if you have air-conditioning, what about power outages, that are widespread, especially in the summer time?
People are told to go to a cooling center—but if you are an elder and have no means of transportation, or don’t even know about these centers—how is that possible? And where are there such places in rural areas, in the first place?
All of these proposed measures are, at best, Band-Aid measures to a problem that is so widespread; it can only be tackled by widespread solutions.
We live in a capitalist system that creates the conditions for everything from poverty, war, racism, and—you got it—global warming. It is a system that puts profits first—and ordinary human beings be damned.