Coloradans will go to extraordinary lengths to keep our marvelous environment, endless vistas, magnificent mountains, lakes and streams and livable urban spaces, a well-guarded secret.

Yet over the 13 years I have practiced as a lung specialist and intensive-care physician in Denver, the tangible and evolving impact of climate change has become all too apparent, threatening the unique lifestyle and opportunities for wellness that endear our state to those not fortunate enough to live here.

While working to diagnose and treat lung diseases and critical illnesses, I’m regularly reminded of the increasing impact that climate change is having on my patients’ well-being.

Episodes of unusually severe viral illnesses causing epidemics of respiratory infections and breathing failure, severe asthma exacerbations and environmental heat exposure have become more common in Colorado in just the years I have lived and worked here.

And as a physician-scientist, it is clear that there is indisputable and robust research evidence that demands our action if we are to mitigate and reverse the clear trends in climate-change related illness.

Without bold and immediate action on climate change, our state and the world environment will inexorably become more hostile, and the secret delights of Colorado, a thing of memory.

Compared with my patients today, a girl born in 2015 will have a three-fold higher chance of extreme heat exposure and critical illness than her parents.

And associated with that will be many more bad-air days while playing outside that are clearly associated with increased risks of chronic respiratory diseases like asthma and even cardiovascular disease. Accompanying that will be a greatly increased probability of worsening asthma symptoms and allergy attacks triggered by high ozone and environmental particulate matter.

A recent study found that as the world warms, there will be an even more significant risk of new, potentially deadly infectious diseases leading to critical illness, widespread mortality, hunger, population shifts and sociopolitical instability.

We can’t protect ourselves from every threat in the world, but there are steps we can take to make it better — and one step that serious scientists and large numbers of the health professions endorse is to urgently tackle the source of carbon emissions that are directly fueling global warming.

That’s why, as a matter of immediate priority and public health, our state and nation need to transition away from burning the polluting fossil fuels that threaten our communities’ and patients’ health and begin the shift to a clean, renewable energy future.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Clean Power Plan would help us do just that. It would cut carbon pollution 30 percent by 2030 and give states the chance to replace some of their fossil fuels with wind, solar, and energy efficiency.

With wind now generating enough electricity to power more than 16 million American homes, and more solar panels going up every three weeks than in the entire year of 2008, clean energy is ready for the opportunity. Here in Colorado, solar alone has the potential to produce more than 360 times as much electricity from solar as the state consumes each year.

The Clean Power Plan enjoys broad support. Americans have submitted more than 8 million comments supporting these limits on carbon from power plants, 200,000 from Colorado residents in 2014 alone.

And I provided oral testimony to an EPA panel highlighting the immediacy of the need for action to reduce the negative health consequences of global climate change. My testimony is supported by numerous polls that consistently shown majority support for EPA action, even in the face of special interest lobbies questioning the validity of indisputable scientific evidence.

The entrenched fossil fuel lobby is willing to spend millions to protect its profits, and their allies in Congress, who contrive to refute the overwhelming science demonstrating the current catastrophe being wrought by global climate change.

It should be no secret, therefore, that we Coloradans cherish our natural and healthy environment, unique lifestyle and desire for healthy communities and children. Our Colorado communities, healthcare providers and leaders must therefore demand that congressional leadership and their coal allies acknowledge the incontrovertible science on climate change.

And we must support climate champions like our senator, Michael Bennet, who speak up in favor of the Clean Power Plan and ensure that attacks on the plan in Congress don’t succeed. Our communities and kids’ future depends on it.

Dr. Ivor Douglas specializes in internal medicine and practices at the Denver Health Medical Center and the University of Colorado Hospital. He was named a Top Doctor in Denver last year by 5280 Magazine. The views expressed in this commentary are his own and don’t reflect the views of Denver Health or the University of Colorado.