I completely agree that news outlets are in the business of fear-mongering. For this reason, I actually don't consume a lot of news and very much limit my time on social media. I made a very conscious choice to be on a news/social media diet for the sake of my mental health. If anything, when it comes to the news, I think climate change has been under-reported. What I express here in this story has very little to do with what I'm reading in the news and much more to do with what I'm experiencing and seeing around me. I grew up on the West Coast and there were occasional wildfires. Now we have wildfire season. Growing up, I never once was unable to venture outside because of wildfire smoke; now hazardous air quality levels are an annual occurrence. In Portland, OR we spent an entire week in our home because the air outside was unbreathable. (It was a number not even accounted for on the air quality index.) This past summer, I experienced 115 degrees for the first time in my 40 years on this planet -- in the Pacific Northwest (the hottest it's been in this region in recorded history.) This is happening in front of my eyes. There are far too many records being broken to chalk it up to anomalies and fear-mongering.