Posts by Kristen Wraith, Senior Project Manager at the Local Government Commission

Making a Difference in Local Communities While Launching Careers in Sustainability

In order for California to meet its ambitious climate adaptation goals and to prevent significant, negative impacts on California’s economy and environment, we must build the capacity of critical change agents to take aggressive action. Local governments—California’s cities, counties, and other regional public agencies—are critical to addressing these goals, yet they lack the capacity needed…

Engaging Students to Act on Climate with Environmental Literacy

“The students of today will be the architects of future climate strategies and our champions for achieving greenhouse gas reduction targets.” – State Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Torlakson 2015 was a big year for environmental and sustainability education, and a critical pivot point. Superintendent Torlakson’s Environmental Literacy Task Force had spent all of 2014…

Breaking Down Climate Adaptation Silos

I was drawn to climate adaptation because I wanted to think holistically. I wasn’t satisfied by addressing systemic problems within any single sector, such as energy or water. I wanted to examine through a wide lens the ways in which we currently meet human needs, and how our approach must shift in order to continue…

Climate Kids: Science-Art-Storytelling-ACTION

Now, more than ever, our communities and livelihoods are vulnerable to the imminent consequences of climate change- but there is still time. If we are to manage and restore our life support system, we must foster a new culture. We must think differently, we must act differently, and we must engage differently. Addressing these challenges…

Building Tribal Climate Resilience Across Generations

Virgil Dupuis, Extension Director for Salish Kootenai College in Montana, speaks to tribal high school students from the Flathead Reservation in the SKC garden at the Native Waters on Arid Lands Youth Day event, May 3, 2018. On a sunny Thursday morning in early May, twelve students from local high schools from the Confederated Salish…

Leveraging Local Health Departments to Address Climate Impacts

Climate change has been called “the biggest global health threat of the 21st century.” It creates public health emergencies, worsens existing environmental conditions that contribute to poor health, and widens existing health disparities. These impacts are felt not just in distant locales, but also here in California. While all of us will feel these impacts,…

Climate Change Action as a Catalyst for Healthy and Equitable Communities

Photo Credit: Ghetty Images “For public health, climate change is the defining issue for the 21st century.” —Margaret Chan, Former Director-General of the World Health Organization Climate change threatens the health and well-being of California’s diverse population of nearly 38 million people and poses immense challenges for achieving health equity. Climate change impacts health through…

Killing Planet Earth & Ourselves, What Are We Doing?

I’m a young Mexican immigrant who happens to be an environmentalist.  Or in today’s political climate, a recipe for “Shut up, because you have no voice”. But I do, so here we go. We like to think that we, as humans, are a highly evolved species capable of anything the mind can imagine. Wheelbarrow? Check.…

Resilient Communities Are Healthy Communities…What’s good for health is good for climate!

Climate change directly threatens the health and well-being of California’s nearly 40 million people. Without intervention at the local, regional, and state scales, these dangers will only become more pronounced in coming years. The Safeguarding California Plan devotes an entire public health chapter to these risks, stating: “Climate change threatens public health, as it is…