Back in 1990, I attended a talk by Jim Hansen, a lead climate modeler and director of the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies. He concluded that the models were working well and could now reasonably predict global warming trends. An audience member asked when the public would believe the results of climate modeling. My recollection is that his response was “never,” before adding, “They won’t believe it until they personally experience it.” 

Thirty-six years later, nearly all climate scientists believe that climate warming has occurred as the result of human activities, but do you see it and feel it, plainly? Do you believe it?

Even before the multiple climate crises of 2026, majorities of Minnesotans surveyed in 2025 agreed “that global warming is caused mostly by human activities,” and they were “somewhat or very worried about global warming.” Majorities of Minnesotans also responded that global warming affects sea levels, flooding, droughts, wildfires and extreme heat.

In the past few years, the soot has hit the fan. Minnesota has been smothered by smoke produced by wildfires in Canada and the western U.S. for several years. Smoke from the 2026 Canadian wildfires caused the air quality index in Grand Portage to reach the highest level ever recorded in Minnesota (800, on June 2). For young children and Minnesotans with respiratory diseases — including 5% with COPD and 8% with asthma — this is a crisis. Many who are less vulnerable still suffered for our affected friends and families. Have you seen the smoke? Have you heard the coughing and wheezing? Did you take someone to an emergency room? Did you buy an air filtration device? 

Do you think wildfires in recent years have become more severe because of climate warming? Older readers: Do you remember smoke events as severe as our recent events 20 or 50 years ago? Probably not. More than half of the total acres burned by wildfires in the US over the past 41 years occurred in the most recent 15 years. The trend is less clear in Canada, but the area of wildfires in the memorable 2023 season was more than twice as high as any prior year since 1983.  

In Europe, the wildfire situation this year was far worse. As of mid-July, an estimated 300,000 people had been evacuated from wildfire areas. An estimated 440 deaths were attributed to the fire, either directly or indirectly.  

Do you remember the vivid photos of the 2025 Los Angeles area fire? It forced the evacuation of 200,000 people and destroyed 17,000 homes and businesses. Minnesota’s wildfires earlier this year forced “only” 8,000 evacuations because the 2026 wildfires were in sparsely populated areas. But what about future years? Perhaps in outer ring suburbs on the edge of combustible wildlands? Many Minnesotans grew up learning about the 1893 Hinkley fire, which virtually destroyed the city and killed more than 400. 

Extreme heat in Europe has also caused a surge of deaths in recent years, mostly in cities. Heat waves in 2025 caused 24,400 estimated heat deaths, with climate change being responsible for 16,500 of these. 

Should this be a cautionary tale for Minnesota? Maybe. Throughout Minnesota, the number of days per year with a heat index (a measure of how heat feels) over 90 increased between the periods 1986-1995 and 2016-2025. For example, in Hennepin County, it went from 18 days to 30 days. Several counties in southern Minnesota now have 35 days with heat indexes over 90. Have you felt the summers get hotter in recent years? Do you avoid going out for a walk on these hot days? Do you start to feel overheated doing a half hour of light gardening? Are your kids’ soccer games being canceled? Remember when the Twin Cities marathon was canceled in 2023? 

The high death rate during Europe’s 2025 heat wave occurred in part because most Europeans do not have air conditioning, which would have prevented many of these deaths. In contrast, about 95% of Minnesotans have air conditioning. This gives us a false sense of security — our power supply could be interrupted at the time it is most needed. Would some of our most vulnerable Minnesotans, especially the very young and very old, die in a heat wave, as they did in Europe? Should we be upgrading our electrical grid to improve its reliability?

Is this the year that the soot hit the fan? Thirty-six years after Hansen’s talk, have our eyes and ears and our experiences finally shown us that climate warming is very real and very dangerous, even in Minnesota?