IF YOU WERE A BIRD SOARING OVER the American landscape in 2022, you would be hard-pressed to find any part untouched by climate change. A Western Sandpiper, in its journey down the Pacific Coast, would have suffered through a historic heat wave in California that brought triple-digit temperatures to the Hollywood Hills. A Burrowing Owl hunting under the red buttes of Arizona and Utah may have noticed that years of drought have driven Lake Powell and Lake Mead to dangerously low levels. In the relentless summer rains that flooded central Appalachia, an Indigo Bunting might have fled an inundated Kentucky holler for higher ground. A Bald Eagle pair in southern Florida could have found their nest blown away from Hurricane Ian’s ferocious winds.
These disasters, which killed hundreds of people and cost billions of dollars in damage to homes and critical
