David Voigts.

In 1979, when Jimmy Carter was President, the National Academy of Sciences convened a panel to look into recent studies that indicated that emissions of carbon dioxide could warm the planet. They concluded, “If (atmospheric) carbon dioxide continues to increase, … climate change will result and … these changes will (not) be negligible. A wait-and-see policy may mean waiting until it is too late.”

By 2014, thirty-five years later when Barack Obama was President, carbon dioxide emissions had soared from about 18 billion metric tons per year to almost 34 billion metric tons per year, and according to an article in Audubon magazine, the predicted changes were happening. The number of severe wildfires had increased, Arctic ice had shrunk by nearly half, coastal storms had become more destructive, millions of acres of forest in the American West had been killed by warming-related pest infections, many species had extended their ranges northward, and a growing number of species were threatened with extinction.

Now, another 10 years later, carbon dioxide emissions have reached about 38 billion metric tons per year, and the warnings of 1979 and the findings of 2014 have gotten worse. Still, we wait-and-see. Our leaders need to act before it is too late.

David Voigts is a retired ecologist and the current Conservation Chair for the Prairie Rapids Audubon Society. He is a Tama County native, graduating from Dinsdale High School, and lives in rural Jesup on his wife’s family farm.