Elect leaders who will address climate change

During the past several hundred years, society has extracted all the carbon it could from the earth, carbon that had accumulated underground as coal, oil and natural gas during a billion years of earth history. It has been burned and is in the atmosphere.

The increased atmospheric carbon is playing havoc with the earth's climate and contributing to the extreme weather described in the Feb. 17 article “Extreme Iowa.” This is occurring all over the world, not just in Iowa. We need a meaningful and informed discussion about climate change, what it means to stop it, and what it means to continue on the current path.

I urge readers to familiarize themselves with what science is saying about our climate. I also urge them to make the climate-change position of candidates for elected office an important consideration when casting their vote.

Bob Libra

State Geologist of Iowa

Iowa City