Author: Christina Mills

Building Resiliency in Missoula County

Missoula County, the City of Missoula and Climate Smart Missoula, a local climate focused non-profit have worked together over the past 18 months on a climate resilience planning process they christened Climate Ready Missoula.

The process was “inspired by, and generally followed, the guidelines of the Geos Institute’s Climate Ready Communities program.” This is one of the first county level climate resilience plans that has been completed using the Climate Ready Communities Practical Guide to Building Climate Resilience, which was released in 2018. The plan and prior documents (Climate and Community Primer, Vulnerability Assessment) created by the Missoula team showcase many of the core approaches suggested in the Guide; within the Guide’s framework, the team shaped the process and documents as needed for local requirements and added innovations such as the 12 Guiding Principles “to guide the process of prioritizing and implementing the climate adaptation goals and actions”.

The plan has been approved by the Missoula Consolidated Planning Board as of March 3 and will be reviewed in a county and city joint public hearing of City Council and the Board of County Commissioners on April 6. Assuming it’s approved there, an implementation team will then be formed to begin tackling the plan’s priority strategies and actions.

Access the plan here, and the Climate Ready Missoula website here, where you can find links to the other documents as well.

After a year of advocacy from climate change organizations across the country, the federal government released Volume II of the Fourth National Climate Assessment late last year.

The National Climate Assessment is made up of two volumes. The first is a science report – very dry and nearly incomprehensible for local governments. For them, the important part is the second report, which assesses the impacts of climate change on resources and populations around the country.

In late 2017 a strategy session was held in Washington DC by organizations working to protect the National Climate Assessment from the climate deniers in the Trump Administration.

Yes!! And actually we MUST have fun from time to time. It’s psychology – our brains are hardwired to help us avoid long-term pain and suffering and to instead seek pleasure and enjoyment. If we want to stay in the fight against climate change, we have to figure out how to enjoy doing it.

Unfortunately, many climate events are depressing. It’s the nature of the topic. Those of us who stare down the impacts of climate change on a daily basis know that we are facing a grim future if massive collective action is not taken very soon. But most people are not staring down climate change on a daily basis – and these are the people we need to help take action.

Our team is seeing an increasing number of Requests for Proposals (RFPs) coming from local governments across the nation seeking help building climate resilience. It’s great to see this forward motion for community-based climate resilience!

At the same time, we recognize that in many cases these community leaders and government staff need guidance if they are to include the critical components of adaptation planning and implementation in their Requests for Proposals (RFPs). As a field we are not at the point where there is a credential system and the process of climate resilience planning is still new for local government professionals.

The Climate Ready Communities program provides an assisted do-it-yourself option for small-medium sized communities that don’t have the resources to hire a consultant or the technical capacity to do the planning entirely by themselves.

November 30 marks the completion of the Climate Ready Communities pilot program. We are glad to report that during these first 6 months of operation, our pilot communities have begun their resilience planning processes by utilizing our Annual Support services, website, and other resources alongside the Practical Guide to Building Climate Resilience.