Americans are a rarity in the world in that they identify themselves not by human categorization but by an idea forged 237 years ago in the Declaration of Independence. A state of mind as much as a state of being is what enables the United States to be the premier nation of nations.

The harbingers of a warming planet vary across the American landscape. In the Gulf states, it's monster hurricanes. In the Midwest, swarms of tornadoes. In the East it's those killer heat waves and blizzards. But in the West, we just burn.