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The current drought, increased prevalence of wildfires and rising temperatures all pose a serious threat to Arizona as we know it. For a while now, I have observed the damage that climate change wreaks upon my personal garden, the desert, the rangeland and the farms that I work with as executive director of Native Seeds/SEARCH.

I would like to draw attention to another, lesser-known effect of climate change: growing conditions favorable to "invasive species," which are nonnative plant species that threaten our native plants. Especially troubling is that when African grasses like bufflegrass become established in desert areas, wildfires will occur where they never have before. The result is that an important part of our landscape, including the iconic saguaro cactus, will potentially burn away forever — and our picture postcard desert will become an African savannah.

The wildfire threat in general was recently examined in a study published on ScienceExpress.org. It confirmed that higher temperatures and earlier spring snowmelts associated with global warming have contributed to the rise in larger and more destructive wildfires in the Western United States.

The University of Arizona's Thomas Swetnam, who is a member of the study's research team, stated, "I see this as one of the first big indicators of climate-change impacts in the continental United States." Furthermore, researchers foresee no reprieve in the practical future.

An overwhelming majority of scientists have attributed the unprecedented and dangerous climate changes measured in recent years to global warming. For this reason, and for the sake of our precious landscape, we must start taking global warming seriously.

Global warming is caused by the unprecedented amount of greenhouse gases that have been released into our atmosphere in recent decades. Our growing usage of vehicles and fossil-fuel-burning power plants has created a layer of these gases around our planet, which trap in the sun's heat. Temperatures have subsequently risen at alarming rates and droughts have worsened during the past several decades.

Temperatures rose more steeply during the 20th century than at any other time during the past 1,000 years. The concentration of atmospheric carbon dioxide has also grown by more than one-third since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution, and the magnitude and rate of this increase remains unrivaled in the past 20,000 years.

However, it's not yet time to despair. We can still fix this climate problem. Every citizen can reduce his or her personal contributions to global warming by conserving energy, becoming more efficient and utilizing renewable energy sources whenever possible. Gardeners can reduce water and energy use by converting to native plants and natural landscapes. Farmers can adopt energy-saving practices as well.

Arizona is poised to lead other states in the nation by enacting legislation that will significantly curb greenhouse gas emissions. Gov. Janet Napolitano commissioned the Climate Change Advisory Group to assess the extent of damage that global warming has already wrought upon the state, to predict future levels of damage if nothing is done, and to develop recommendations to prevent this damage by reducing the state's greenhouse gas emissions.

It is imperative that all of us, including our government, act in a manner that helps Arizona's agricultural community as well as its native plant life. The state's plant species and crop output are essential to its economy (agriculture is a $6.3 billion industry here), its identity (our landscape draws both residents and tourists alike), and its way of life.