The effects of climate change are not far off problems for future generations. They are existential problems for everyone alive today. That’s one big takeaway from the U.S. federal government’s latest roundup of climate science, the National Climate Assessment, now in its fourth iteration. Released the day after Thanksgiving, the newest report is unequivocal. In heavily footnoted, short declarative sentences it urgently tells readers that climate change is happening, it’s human-caused, and it could make life in the Western U.S. increasingly difficult.