In Phoenix, as people go about their business and make conversation, climate isn’t likely the top water cooler topic, much less that we are facing an existential climate crisis of our own making: drastically altered climates, extreme heat and weather, relentless and extreme loss of biodiversity, vanishing forests and catastrophic wildfire threats. And that’s just here in Arizona.

Why should I care!? That is a question that I often hear when I speak with others about climate change. It is not an easy one to answer but it must be answered. The truth is that climate change affects every one of us, daily. It is hard to grasp the idea of climate change if one does not see the affects directly; however, this is far from the truth.

It would be great if climate change science was, as many people wish, unproven or uncertain. Alas, it is neither unproven nor uncertain and the impacts on our state, our country, and our planet are disastrous, certain, and growing ever more dangerous each year that we ignore the need for responsible, common-sense approaches to reduce emissions.

Pima County Superior Court Judge James Marner rejected arguments by attorneys for the Board of Regents that disclosure of the documents would be "contrary to the best interests of the state.''

Making the switch to renewable energy is clearly not a partisan issue. According to the Post-Election National Clean Energy Survey conducted by the Republican polling firm Public Opinion Strategies, 75 percent of Trump voters support taking action to accelerate the development and use of clean energy in the United States. Altogether, 64 percent of the 1,000 voters surveyed say they’d even pay more to support renewables.

All three Republican candidates for the Arizona Corporation Commission today said man-made global warming was real, two of them contradicting their earlier answers on the topic.

Four of the five Republican candidates for Arizona Corporation Commission said Monday night they’re not convinced that human activity contributes to climate change.

A forum in Phoenix aimed at gathering grass-roots voices to help shape the Democratic Party platform drew calls on June 17 for a tax on carbon emissions to curb climate change and for an end to the practice of fracking in natural gas production.

An organization that is questioning the research behind climate change will get another chance to demand to see the emails of two University of Arizona scientists.

The Clean Power Plan will be costly, but it seems no one is considering the cost of being reactive rather than proactive about climate change and the health issues that ensue because of it.