Members of Congress should support the Clean Energy Jobs & American Power Act of 2009.

Hopefully, that is a fairly easy conclusion for any politician representing Minnesota, a state that has come to embrace the renewable energy sector.

But it should also be an easy conclusion for anyone who has taken notice of the bird ranges in the Upper Midwest. Cardinals in mid-winter are as far north as Duluth. The purple finch, pine siskin and boreal chickadee have retreated north to the Canadian boreal. We could go on and talk about mergansers, ducks, meadowlarks and other birds.

Climate change is happening.

Audubon Society President John Flicker notes: “The birds are giving us yet another warning that it’s time for urgent action.”

Dependence on fossil fuels threatens the U.S. national security, its economy and its environment. Many opponents of the Clean Energy Jobs & American Power Act are quick to throw up red-herring arguments to distract the public from the true issues of protecting the planet we live on for future generations.

Enough delays. Enough heat-trapping emissions in the atmosphere.

A cap on carbon pollution that builds on the successes of the Clean Air Act and bolsters the Environmental Protection Agency is no doubt a good plan. And the bill provides plenty of time — reduction of 20 percent by 2020 and 83 percent by 2050 — for polluters to get their acts together.

Moreover, any growth to the renewable energy sector tends to add jobs to the Upper Midwest and subtracts jobs from fossil-fuel-extraction locations.

Support the Clean Energy Jobs & American Power Act.

If you don’t take it from us. Take it from the Union of Concerned Scientists: “Failing to act on climate change is prohibitively expensive — from flooding to health care costs to agricultural losses. Unchecked climate change could saddle taxpayers with hundreds of billions of dollars in damages.”