By Deron Davis, Executive Director, The Nature Conservancy
The City of Atlanta, Camden County and other Georgia municipalities are pursuing projects to address the immediate and future challenges that climate change will inflict on communities and economies across the state. From Atlanta’s Clean Energy Plan to Camden County’s innovative coastal resilience pilot project, forward-looking policymakers realize that now is the time to enact policies and programs to mitigate and prepare for accelerated erosion, flooding and extreme weather events with the potential to change life on Earth as we know it.
The Nature Conservancy supports practical solutions to create a low-carbon future that is cleaner, healthier and more secure for all Georgians, including rural and urban communities, people of color, and other marginalized groups disproportionally impacted by climate change. We work with business leaders, government agencies and at the community level to create and deploy science-based climate change adaptation and mitigation solutions.
We are a proud supporter of the Georgia Climate Conference, hosted by the Georgia Climate Project. Nature Conservancy staff will be among nearly 400 leaders and experts from the public, private, non-profit, and academic sectors assembling to collaborate, raise awareness of work across the state and highlight progress. Together, we will address what a changing climate means for Georgia and what we can collectively do about it. Ashby Worley, our Coastal Resilience Manager, and Healthy Cities Director Ayanna Williams will speak at the conference. Amy Gutierrez, our Climate and Lands Coordinator, will present a poster on the importance of siting solar energy projects in ways that are less harmful to the environment.
Public awareness of the reality of climate change is increasing, but it remains an uneasy topic for many individuals to discuss. In fact, even though 7 in 10 Americans believe climate change is happening, and 6 in 10 are at least somewhat concerned about it, two-thirds of Americans rarely, if ever, talk about climate change with the people in their lives. Research shows there are typically four reasons people don’t want to talk about climate change:
- I don’t know enough.
- I don’t want to talk about scary things.
- I don’t think I can make a difference.
- I don’t want to cause an argument.
Silence is no longer an option in Georgia. If you would like tips on how to have meaningful, authentic conservations about climate change, visit nature.org to request our free e-book, “Let’s Talk Climate.”
