This toolkit provides key talking points, social media content, and a guide to writing “Letters to the Editor” to help frame the discussion around extreme weather events, their increasing frequency due to climate change, and the need to make polluters pay for the damage they’ve caused.

Make Polluters Pay Messaging

• Historic and deadly wildfires are what happens when decades of corporate greed collide with climate reality.
• For example, the 2025 Los Angeles wildfires, $57 billion in damages, are now one of the most expensive fire disasters in U.S. history. 
• While California burns amid a staggering $46 billion budget deficit, the fossil fuel companies who created this crisis are counting record profits.
• ExxonMobil and Chevron made $57 billion in profits last year alone, all while exploiting tax loopholes worth hundreds of millions. These same companies spent decades burying climate science and funding disinformation campaigns. They knew this future was coming. They chose it for us.
• Their profits come at a devastating human cost. Insurance giants are abandoning California communities – State Farm alone canceled 69% of policies in fire-prone areas. This leaves working families facing impossible choices: pay skyrocketing premiums or go without coverage. 
• California families are already at their breaking point – one in eight households can’t pay their water bills due to drought and rising costs. Now these same communities face skyrocketing insurance premiums or no coverage at all as companies flee fire-prone areas.
• New York just showed us a better way, passing groundbreaking climate superfund legislation requiring major polluters to contribute $75 billion toward climate damages. California has similar legislation.
• The choice is simple: make polluters pay their fair share to build resilient communities, or watch as climate chaos bankrupts our state while fossil fuel executives collect bonuses.

Letter to the Editor

Letters must be directed to one news outlet that published the story and should be written within a few days of the publication date.

• Familiarize yourself with the talking points above.
• Pick a story in your local newspaper to respond to. It could be about Hurricane Helene, Milton, climate change, or extreme weather. 
• Choose an LTE template.
• Draft and proofread your letter.
• Submit your letter to your local paper.
• Once your letter has been published, forward it to cassidy@fossilfree.media so we can amplify through our networks.

Graphics