We need to solve climate crisis

Tucked inside the Black Friday sales advertisements in The Gazette's Thanksgiving edition was an important warning from Jerry Schnoor, former chair of the Iowa Climate Change Advisory Committee (“We must adapt as planet warms”). If you didn't see this column, find it and read today.

For years scientists have warned us that burning fossil fuels messes with our climate. Now millions of us are suffering the consequences. Extreme droughts, record heat temperatures, the melting of the Arctic icecap, widespread wildfires and Sandy-style super storms are but a few of the disastrous results of federal legislative indifference and inaction.

Despite this, a growing global citizens movement is joining together to confront climate change. Ending federal fossil fuel subsidies to the oil companies and divestment from the fossil fuel industry are two important new campaigns begun to help solve the climate crisis. In wake of superstorm Sandy, we can no longer wait to take action. We gotta end this before it ends us.

Tom Mohan

Cedar Rapids