Path to Positive Communities

Join Us At The American Climate Leadership Summit 2020

The realities of climate change are upon us and the 2020 elections are existentially critical. How can we win in 2020 and ensure our new leaders will pass and implement policies that ensure a healthy, just, and prosperous future? The 9th annual American Climate Leadership Summit (ACLS 2020) “Ambition • Restoration • Justice” will be bigger and bolder than ever, designed to build political will for climate solutions and a broader, more inclusive movement. Join over 500 attendees, leaders, and CEOs, from all sectors of America’s society. See past partners, speakers, and participants in the ACLS19 recommendations report and session videos. Register today!

New Community Toolkit Available!

The realities of climate change are upon us and the 2020 elections are existentially critical. How can we win in 2020 and ensure our new leaders will pass and implement policies that ensure a healthy, just, and prosperous future? The 9th annual American Climate Leadership Summit (ACLS 2020) “Ambition • Restoration • Justice” will be bigger and bolder than ever, designed to build political will for climate solutions and a broader, more inclusive movement. Join over 500 attendees, leaders, and CEOs, from all sectors of America’s society. See past partners, speakers, and participants in the ACLS19 recommendations report and session videos. Register today!

Highlights Resources About

The Local Government Commission and Path to Positive Communities have partnered on a toolkit to help LGC members engage their communities around energy and climate solutions. Our goal is to support you as you advance sensible solutions, while encouraging cities and towns to build civic engagement into the work they do on resiliency and sustainability. When you engage your citizens, you help grow lasting public support for climate solutions. This toolkit includes several components, ranging from a communications guide, called Let’s Talk Climate, to a Moving Forward Guide, to a study on Mental Health and Climate. All the components can be found here.

Even if you are well on your way to resilience and sustainability, the toolkit has a checklist of possible solutions and additional climate actions that you might consider to go farther. Be sure to also sign up for our Path to Positive Communities newsletter and monthly talking points here, which provide helpful guidance for engaging citizens and countering negative detractors. We hope you find these useful for building support in your community for positive changes for a better, more sustainable tomorrow!

Helpful Resources

Checklist: Local Actions to Mitigate and Build Resilience to Climate Change
- A comprehensive checklist that builds on the basic list in the Moving Forward guide, with concrete steps for climate preparation/resilience and mitigation, plus links to additional resources.
Sample Climate and Clean Energy Declarations/Resolutions
- Real declarations and resolutions from Utah, Charlotte, and the Mississippi River Towns and Cities Initiative to use as templates to customize for your community, to advance policy engagement with city councils and mayors.
Sample Letter to the Community About Your Local Climate and Sustainability Initiative
- This letter provides a template for announcing your community commitment to climate action, whether through your website, community newsletters or blogs.
Let’s Talk Communities & Climate
- This tool provides guidance for empowering and effective messages and communications on climate change that have been proven to move Americans toward support for climate solutions and action.
Blessed Tomorrow Moving Forward Guide
- A guide to provide you with information and resources to reduce energy use, to build resilient houses of worship as refuges from a changing climate, and to encourage support for policies that better care for creation.
Let’s Talk Faith and Climate
- A guide similar to the Let’s Talk Communities and Climate Guide, but instead including research-based, tested messaging that is proven to resonate with people of faith.
Let’s Talk Health and Climate
- A guide similar to the Let’s Talk Communities and Climate Guide, but instead including tested messaging on health and climate that is proven to resonate with a broad swath of Americans.
Mental Health and Our Changing Climate
- Created by ecoAmerica in collaboration with the American Psychological Association, this guide reviews the implications of a changing climate on personal and public health, and offers guidance for community leaders in preparing for and addressing climate impacts.

American Attitudes on a Green New Deal

The Green New Deal has been making headlines for a while and is a significant talking point among the 2020 Democratic candidates for president. Although the GND has been portrayed as an extreme solution, recent polling indicates that most Americans support many aspects of it. ecoAmerica has done research with national polling firm Lake Research Partners to analyze American attitudes further, so that policy makers can better understand what solutions the public wants to see.

This Local Government Commission/ecoAmerica webinar discusses where the debate on the GND — and American support for clean energy and green job creation — may be leading us, and how local communities are responding.

Additional Resources

Leadership and Action on Climate & Sustainability

Communities large and small across America and the world are taking up the mantle on energy, sustainability, and climate solutions. Solutions are ever more viable and the imperatives ever more pressing. Benefits span the gamut from healthier, more livable and prosperous communities, to property values and reduced costs.

It’s Time To Act

Local climate solutions require visible leadership, practical policies, and robust community engagement of citizens and stakeholders from all sectors of the community. You can begin by choosing visible, clear actions to mitigate pollution, reduce risk, and build public support and political will for local climate and sustainability solutions. Here’s how:

1 — Review the Getting Started guide.

Learn the essential steps of good local engagement, and to explore how our tools and resources can help in your town.

2 — Review the “Let’s Talk Climate and Communities” guide and other resources.

Visit the Path to Positive Communities website to learn more about American climate values and best practices for effective climate communications and engagement.

3 — Join us online and at LGC conferences for Path to Positive Communities briefings and webinars.

Delve more deeply into the program and recieve answers to questions you might have about effective local climate action and engagement.

4 — Stay in touch by subscribing to the Path to Positive Communities monthly newsletter.

As we continue to build the program over the next couple of years, we’ll steadily build up more resources, and keep you posted on peer leader successes.

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