“According to a report released this week,” the Onion reported on November 10, 2010, “… climate change, the popular mid-2000s issue that raised awareness of the fact that the earth’s continuous rise in temperature will have catastrophic ecological effects, has apparently not been resolved, and may still be a problem.”

America’s Finest News Source, indeed. Yet many Americans hardly feel the impact of the climate crisis on a daily basis. While rising average global temperatures might cross one’s mind during a triple-digit summer day, the climate crisis is hardly a present, daily crisis for most. You can flip on the A/C when it’s hot, crank up the heat when it’s cold, and buy any type of produce at the grocery store year-round. No wonder it takes record high heat waves or catastrophic storms to put climate into the headlines.

To truly see the impact of the climate crisis, head south to Bolivia. With nearly as many known mammal species and more known bird species than India in a country with one-third the land, Bolivia is among the world’s most biodiverse countries. Tourists traveling in Bolivia might find themselves in temperatures ranging from tropical to below freezing all on the same day. And, for Bolivians, the climate crisis is a very present crisis. (It was the first country I’ve visited, out of 20 countries on five continents I’ve been to, where I was confronted about the climate crisis because I was American.) Bolivia is not so much the proverbial “canary in the coal mine” — the canaries of climate crisis were dead over a decade ago — but it is giving us a preview of how the climate crisis can impact humans.