In this op-ed, I wanted to make the science and the stakes of climate heat, climate fire, and climate breakdown exceptionally clear. We have a cosmic choice to make.

I wrote it while breathing smoke and under fire evacuation warning. https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2020-09-12/climate-change-wildfires-california-oregon-heat

I saw too many people still wondering if this really was climate change. Answer: yes, it is. Very, very much so.

I saw too many reporters failing to connect this inferno to climate. Well, I hope this op-ed makes it easier. We are available to provide comments for your stories.

"Global heating makes heat waves more extreme and more than 3x as frequent as they were in the 1960s. Heat records are being shattered everywhere. Even talking about records is starting to feel pointless when every year is practically guaranteed to be hotter than the last"

"Hundreds of millions of dead, dried-out trees throughout the western United States don’t just burn more easily, they explode. We may be experiencing an irreversible ecological tipping point, with forests in the West dying, to be replaced by scrub and grass."

"It no longer seems possible to limit global heating to 1.5°C, though even a few years ago we could have achieved that goal. At a 2°C, hot extremes over the West are projected to increase by 350%. By midcentury, annual burned areas in the West are projected to increase up to 6x."

"Similar changes are occurring throughout the world, and climate impacts are, of course, not limited to infernos of heat and fire.... Ice sheets and glaciers are melting, and sea-level rise will inundate many of our coastal cities, forcing us to abandon parts of them."

"Less clear, but looming in the climate future, are synergistic impacts on human systems, such as water, food, infrastructure and geopolitics. These systems may not have the resilience to withstand intensifying climate shocks and support modern life as we know it much longer."

"In the face of this tragedy, we take hope in two facts. 1st, this is a problem of human making; we can solve it if we choose to. 2nd, the grassroots climate movement has gotten so strong that climate is rapidly becoming the deciding factor in major elections around the world."

"Each one of us can contribute by adding our strength to this movement. As humans on the only place in the universe known to have life, we should think of this task as one of cosmic importance."

Don't sit this out. Each and every one of you is needed.