Angel Portillo doesn’t think about climate change much. It’s not that he doesn’t care. He’s just got other things to worry about. Climate change seems so far away, so big.

Lately though, Portillo says he’s been thinking about it more often.

Standing on the banks of a swollen and surging Arkansas River, just upriver from a cluster of flooded businesses and homes, it’s easy to see why.

“Stuff like this,” he says, nodding at the frothy brown waters, “all of the tornadoes that have been happening – it just doesn’t seem like a coincidence, you know?”

A string of natural disasters has hit the central U.S. in recent weeks. Tornadoes have devastated communities, tearing up trees and homes. Record rainfall has prevented countless farmers