Category: Environment

Supporting the environment has changed since the first Earth Day. Then the president was aware of public support for protecting the environment and took concrete action. Now, the president couldn’t give two hoots in a holler about it, as evidenced by his support for copper mining in the Boundary Waters. Times have changed, even as the climate crisis knocks on our door daily with some new deviation from what used to be normal conditions.

I wrote about my personal progress in an unpublished memoir:

From Earth Day to Climate Reality

My advocacy for environmental causes came in two time periods: one that began in high school with the first Earth Day, and the second after joining the Johnson County Board of Health. Two and a half years after leaving the board of health, I joined the Climate Reality Project.

The first Earth Day on April 22, 1970, was part of a cultural phenomenon which got the president’s attention. I participated in the event while in high school. When the Council on Environmental Quality and the Environmental Protection Agency were created soon after, I felt a palpable relief. Government was taking responsibility. These actions assuaged my high school concerns about the environment. With the government now involved, I could turn my attention to other things.

While on the board of health, Maureen McCue and I were active advocating for regulation of toxins in the environment, especially for better air quality. This was a combination of my family’s history of working in coal mines, my grandfather’s suffering and death from black lung disease, and new concerns about air quality raised while I was on the board of health. The main work was to advocate against the use of coal for electricity in Iowa. Planned coal-fired power plants were held back in Waterloo and Marshalltown by a coalition of environmental groups of which we were a part.

The film An Inconvenient Truth was released in 2006 and won the Academy Award for best feature-length documentary of the year. It featured former Vice President Al Gore presenting the science and risks of climate change to a mass audience. Inspired by the force and clarity of that narrative, I traveled to Chicago in July 2013 and participated in the Climate Reality Leadership Program which trained us to present climate science and promote solutions in our communities.

Gore gave his Inconvenient Truth presentation twice, once as he had in the film, and then once on the second day with explanations about each point. During the training we learned about the latest science of climate change, best practices in public speaking, and connecting with an audience, communication strategies, social media, leadership skills, and community outreach and organizing.

The goal was to teach attendees to give the presentation ourselves and advocate for the environment in our home communities. In return for the training, I agreed to make 10 presentations using course materials. I would go on to attend training three more times, serving as a mentor to others. Importantly, I gave presentations where I could attract an audience: at an event at the Solon Public Library, and on farms, and throughout the region. Being a Climate Reality Leader helped me feel like I was part of something bigger than myself. I particularly enjoyed sitting with Al Gore and a small group of leaders at the Cedar Rapids training, talking about issues of the day.

Increased awareness of climate science helped me reinterpret a lifetime of weather. As a child, my father took me to the bank of the Mississippi River to see the record flood of 1965. The flood water seemed endless then and was unforgettable. At the time, it stood out as a singular event.

Singular events accumulated.

In April 1973, more than twenty inches of snow fell across Iowa in what should have been spring. In 1993, as we were building our home in Big Grove Township, a flood described as a 500-year event delayed construction by a month. In 2008, another “500-year” flood backed water into the watershed of a nearby 900-acre lake, stopping barely a hundred yards from our front door. The change in intensity of events was noticeable, particularly the flooding which had been commonplace when I was in grade school.

Precipitation was extreme, yet there were also heat waves. Farmers still talk about the 2012 drought. It was so hot and dry for such a long period that corn leaves curled upward to preserve moisture, and yields dropped sharply. Drought returned from 2020 through 2024, described by the state climatologist as the longest since the 1950s.

In 2019, I measured thirty-five degrees below zero at home as the foundation creaked and a lower-level window broke. On August 10, 2020, I watched a derecho tear through the neighborhood, damaging all but one tree on our lot and uprooting three entirely. Cleanup became routine. Repairs were expected.

Straight line winds, derechos, droughts, tornadoes, Iowa has always had severe weather. What changed was the frequency and the scale. Individually, each event could be dismissed as weather. Together, they formed a pattern. Climate Reality offered a way to address causes rather than consequences—to work upstream instead of continually rebuilding downstream. That was hopeful.

Politicians and industry were slow to respond to our advocacy. All the same, we kept at it. I had an opportunity to talk about coal-fired power plants with Bill Fehrman, then president and CEO of MidAmerican Energy, at an event at Old Brick in Iowa City. To say it politely, he knew how to handle me, pointing to their expansion into wind generated electricity and said they would eventually eliminate coal from their electricity generation mix. I made several trips to lobby in Des Moines with both Republicans and Democrats. With Democrats, I was preaching to the choir. Republicans appeared to listen.

I wrote letters to the editor and guest opinions, I was interviewed by radio and television reporters, I participated in large conferences and my own scheduled events. One time I gave an abbreviated version of the Inconvenient Truth lecture to three farmers while helping them plant crops at a nearby vegetable farm. I did what I could to raise awareness of the ongoing climate crisis.

The work is unfinished on April 22, 2026.