Climate Change

"Preparing for Climate Change: A Guidebook for Local, Regional, and State Governments" can be accessed by clicking here.

The Conservation Leaders Network is the new home for Cool Counties. Moving from the King County WA website, which was its original home, the Cool Counties web pages will be kept up-to-date as more and more counties endorse the Cool Counties Climate Stabilization Declaration.

See the Cool Counties Climate Stabilization Declaration and help get your county to endorse it! 

Launched at the National Association of Counties' annual conference in Richmond  VA in July, 2008, it calls for a commitment to reduce global warming emissions 80 percent by 2050. Click here to read the Declaration. Click here to read about the Launch.

The newest Cool Counties are:

• Broward County  FL
• Wakulla County  Fl
• Orange County  NC
• San Miguel County  CO
• Lackawanna County  PA
• Boulder County  CO
• Benton County  OR

“The time to put global warming solutions into place is now.

We can't wait any longer. Scientists say we need to turn the corner on global warming within 10 years to prevent very dangerous impacts from becoming inevitable. Each year that passes without tackling global warming head-on makes the problem more difficult and expensive to solve.

But at the same time, global warming has finally gotten our attention -- Americans are increasingly aware that a warming climate is a real threat to our way of life, and that we have a choice about how bad it will get.”  The Natural Resources Defense Council

This is a message that we believe county officials will respond to right now.  But before they will respond, they need to hear the message, they need responses and solutions placed before them in ways that resonate with county officials, they need help advocating for the changes that need to take place.

While we believe this should be handled at the federal level, we also know that it isn’t going to happen.  Some states have begun to address the issue but many county officials recognize that they need to step up to the plate and take a leadership role.  The Conservation Leaders Network can help them do just that.

The Conservation Leaders Network works with county officials to protect America’s natural resources.  It has become clear that as important as the many individual resource protection issues are, they pale in comparison to the effect global warming will have on America’s natural resources.

The National Association of Counties finally adopted a position on global warming at the Legislative Conference in March.  The Conservation Leaders Network was instrumental in its success.  Three county commissioners from three different states were planning to introduce resolutions unbeknownst to each other.   But we knew about each of them and were able to bring them together to develop a strategy and language that succeeded.

The Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC) has very informative material on their website.  NRDC uses law, science, and the support of more than 1 million members and online activists to protect the planet's wildlife and wild places and to ensure a safe and healthy environment for all living things.  NRDC's website provides a wealth of environmental information as well as state-of-the-art online activism tools.  You can find information about and global warming on the NRDC website by clicking on this link.

To see the handout, Global Warming Impacts on Forests, that we passed out at the NACo Conference, click here.

The Conservation Leaders Network is working hard to raise the money needed to get global warming information out to counties.  To join or make a donation, click here.
 

Join The Conservation Leaders Network!

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Masthead photo credits left to right--Rolf Sklar, Curtis J. Carley FWS, NOAA

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