Learn the facts about climate change

Want to know more about climate change, but stumped about where to start?

I'd recommend the recently published book “America's Climate Century: What climate change means for America in the 21st Century and what Americans can do about it,” by Sen. Rob Hogg, D-Cedar Rapids.

Hogg has been active in environmental issues for a quarter century; he started working on the book last year. He'll officially release the book on Monday at the State Capitol, with proceeds from sales at that event going to the non-profit Iowa Interfaith Power & Light.

Saturday, May 4, he'll be signing copies at Prairie Lights in Iowa City at 2 p.m. and at New Bo Books in Cedar Rapids at 7 p.m. I got my hands on an advance copy last week.

It's a call to action, but it's also an evenhanded look at what we do know about climate change - a 120-page overview of the science, politics and potential that will help you get from zero to well-informed in a matter of hours.

Hogg outlines steps that anyone can take beyond “reduce, reuse, recycle.” He suggests we write letters to the newspaper and to our legislators, asking friends to do the same. That we support climate groups and disaster relief and recovery organizations. That we educate ourselves and work to spread accurate information and dispel persistent myths.

Hogg and I talked earlier this month about the misperception out there that tackling climate change would mean giving up our Xboxes and otherwise reverting back to horse-and-buggy days. The truth is, he said, we've made far greater sacrifices in this country than the kinds of lifestyle tweaks it would take to reverse the warming trend.

That misunderstanding is one reason Hogg said he thinks climate change deniers have their heels dug so far in, even though the science is irrefutable. The book's got a nifty eight-page appendix containing responses to common questions raised by these “doubting Thomases,” including many this paper has run in letters to the editor responding to my recent columns.

Take that often-cited 1970s fear that we were entering a new ice age, which deniers use as proof that scientists have a poor grasp of our ever-changing climate.

Or the idea that current warming trends are natural, or caused by solar variation, or that it will be good for us or that we can adapt. Hogg refutes all these skeptics' arguments and more. If I could make it required reading, I would.

But I'll have to settle for a strong endorsement.

The science of and solutions to climate change may be complex, but this is not an issue about which we can afford to be ignorant. Climate change is at least as important as the issues - such as fiscal responsibility and the economy - that demand legislators' near-constant attention.

We owe it to ourselves, our children and all the generations to come to get smarter.

l Comments: (319) 339-3154; jennifer.hemmingsen@sourcemedia.net