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By Amy Moas
Greenpeace USA's Climate Campaign Director
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This has been one of the most dangerous summers on record and experts have been warning about it for decades.
We’re not talking about pool accidents or shark bites—we’re talking about now two deaths linked to the outbreak of cyclospora, which continues to spread in the U.S.
Scientists have traced where the lettuce carrying the parasite came from, but they stopped short of identifying the actual cause of this outbreak*.*
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It’s by creation, not circumstance.
Cyclospora season typically runs May 1 to August 31, but with a month to go, the CDC has already confirmed 10,000 cases and is testing another 12,000. For comparison: They usually only report on average 2,800 cases for the entire season.
It’s easier to associate loss of life with extreme weather when it’s tied to a singular event–a hurricane, flood, fire. But you can “contact-trace” this now fatal outbreak back to the ongoing climate crisis.
It makes sense, considering heat speeds up the process that makes Cyclospora infectious to humans, which is why we see more cases in summer. And if summer gets longer and warmer, we’ll see a longer, hotter mechanism for the parasite to thrive.
It’s not just the heat—it’s our water, too.
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The higher temperatures are leading to extreme drought, which forces farmers to get creative with water, often reusing or recycling it to irrigate. Some experts point to this being the most likely route for the Cyclospora spread.
The recovery is just as dangerous as the problem: a warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture. That extra water vapor means storms can drop more water in shorter periods of time and make dangerous floods more likely.
That kind of cycling between drought and drenching creates runoff that sweeps dangerous parasites across multiple environments. Research tells us foodborne illnesses like Salmonella and E.coli can thrive in these cyclical, extreme conditions that are being created and fueled by the climate crisis.
The spread of this outbreak has been aided by record-breaking extreme heat that has killed thousands globally, with nothing on the horizon that signals a slowdown. 2024 was the hottest year ever across the globe. We are now living through the first three-year stretch to average above 1.5°C of warming. And 2025 set a record for fossil fuel emissions released into the atmosphere.
As cases climb, the very systems built to catch outbreaks like this are being dismantled. Cyclospora reporting to the CDC was made optional just last year, as the parasite spreads to now 47 states.
The danger that currently exists in our food supply can’t be traced back to one farm or even poor food handling–it originates with a set of decisions. Rollbacks of environmental protections, tracing, and regulation keep us from catching big problems early. Rollbacks on Big Oil regulation without any clear path toward renewables are directly contributing to increased emissions fueling climate chaos.
Climate change is exacerbating conditions that can make extreme weather events more frequent and catastrophic.
But that’s not happening outside of our complete control. Attribution science continues to improve, allowing scientists to determine with greater confidence the extent human caused warming contributed to specific instances of extreme weather.
The oil and gas industry is making huge profits from people’s suffering—reportedly over a billion a day for the past 50 years— drilling for fossil fuels that experts say we cannot afford to burn. We have seen example after example of extreme weather causing people to lose lives, homes, and livelihoods.
From an early age we’re taught which foods are safe and which should be taken in moderation. Lettuce has never shown up on the latter watchlist. But an increase in foodborne illness has nothing to do with food handling safety or what produce you choose at the store. It has everything to do with rollbacks on environmental protections meant to guard the fields that grow our sustenance.
International oil and gas companies have known for decades that they are fueling climate chaos, but have used political influence and lobbied for climate rollbacks that delayed solutions. The solution is achievable: the government must reimplement EPA protections and force an accelerated transition to decentralized renewable energy. We must change course, choosing a different path and making polluters, not people, pay.
Amy Moas, PhD, is Greenpeace USA's Climate Campaign Director, where she drives the organization's campaign to phase out fossil fuels in order to halt the climate crisis and build a clean energy economy.
The views expressed in this article are the writer's own.
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