One overcast week in January, Government Relations Director Andrew Condia, Research Associate Dominick Dusseau, and I found ourselves driving along the banks of the Mississippi River. Our road trip took us through Tennessee, Mississippi, and Arkansas to speak with leaders in four small towns about their climate risk. Representing Woodwell’s Just Access program, we wanted to understand what information communities most need to help their towns envision a thriving future in the face of climate change.
The small towns of the Mississippi are interconnected in the challenges they’re facing, but also in their resolve. They are looking for solutions that will help them preserve their way of life, while readying their communities for a changed future. Like patchwork squares in a quilt, our conversations in each town formed a larger pattern: America’s small towns want to adapt. They just need the resources to do so.
Wilmot, Arkansas: population 400
We arrived in Wilmot around midday and were welcomed by Mayor Carolyn Harris, her team, and a spread of baked chicken, green beans with ham, rolls, sweet tea, and her special-recipe salad.
“When I say, ‘let’s do lunch’, we do lunch,” says Harris.
Wilmot’s pink-fronted town hall sits on the old main street facing Lake Enterprise, next to faded or abandoned buildings. Main Street used to have two movie theaters, a drug store, and a grocery, all of which shuttered as the population declined. The town is surrounded by farms, and agriculture drives the economy, though not as much as it used to.
This is a pattern across the Delta. Rural towns have shrunk dramatically over the years as the small family farm became a much harder economic proposition. According to Water Operator Theodis Kitchen, a fourth-generation resident, Wilmot is at its lowest population in decades.
The four communities we visited that week are all members of the DRIVE program, an initiative at the University of Memphis that helps Delta region towns pursue economic revitalization on their own terms. Mayor Harris is envisioning a new economy for Wilmot that will attract newcomers to the town through its recreation opportunities; the natural lands around Lake Enterprise offer fishing, hunting, and camping. But the impacts of climate change could complicate that picture.
The challenge, Water Operator Apprentice Derrick Jackson points out, is pollution from surrounding farms. Industrial agriculture makes common use of pesticides and defoliant sprays, and when it rains or floods, those chemicals travel. While this is already a concern, climate change could make it worse as more extreme floods or wildfires carry harmful chemicals into new areas.
“We would like to know the risk,” says Harris.
Jackson says that kind of information will help more than just Wilmot. Climate change is a shared burden here in the Upper Delta.
“[Climate change] doesn’t just affect this town, you know,” says Jackson. “It goes all the way down [Highway] 165. Pretty much every town has the basics of what we have. So anything that we are able to find that could help us, could help the next towns over.”
Eudora, Arkansas: population 1,700
The next town over is Eudora, Arkansas, led by Mayor Tomeka Butler. Butler assumed office on March 11, 2020. The previous mayor’s assistant introduced her to the office, handed her the keys, and wished her luck.
“I’m looking around like, that’s it? There’s no manual or anything?” says Butler.
Her first day on the job was the day COVID-19 was declared a pandemic. The year that followed, Butler learned quickly that the best way to keep her people safe was to share information and ask for help. Now, she approaches Eudora’s climate challenges in a similar way, joining networks like DRIVE and the Arkansas Black Mayors Association (ABMA) to broaden Eudora’s access to resources.
“I’m not an expert, but I love surrounding myself with the people who are,” says Butler.
Technical expertise on climate adaptation can be hard to come by in towns like Eudora, whose population is largely elderly or aging.
But small towns face the same climate risks as larger municipalities—regardless of whether or not they have the resources to address them. Eudora is the warmest populated area in Arkansas, and heat stroke is a major hazard for outdoor workers during the summer. Flooding also plagues the town.
“Most of the time it doesn’t matter if it’s a little rain or a big rain, particular areas are going to flood, and sadly, these areas are mainly where the elderly people live,” says Butler. “There’s been times where it has rained and I’ve literally had to put people on standby who have boats, because that will be the only way we’ll be able to get to them.”
But Butler tends to focus more on what assets Eudora does have, rather than what they’re lacking. As she drove us through town, pointing out neighbors’ houses that were built over creeks and streets that become impassable during light rain, she told us how the town is making progress because of the networks they’re a part of. Through ABMA, Eudora is participating in a watershed revitalization project, which will help the town abate flooding with green infrastructure. Mutual aid agreements with nearby towns’ fire departments have helped with emergency response. And, with help from a local researcher, the town will be piloting a vertical agriculture system in its old school building.
Woodwell is now also part of Butler’s ever-growing expert network. She hopes information from a risk assessment will inform her plans for a growing Eudora, giving her the information she needs to not only keep her people safe but help them thrive.
“I just be concerned about the people,” says Mayor Butler.
Tunica, Mississippi: population 1,000
With a close-knit community, yearly festivals, and a cheery mural across from town hall welcoming visitors, Tunica, Mississippi resembles what Main Street Program Director Laura Withers calls a “Hallmark movie town.” A few blocks from town hall, there is a central playground with slides and monkey bars. Right now, in the middle of a winter day, it’s pleasantly sunny. In the summer though, the combined heat and humidity make it a dangerous place to play.
“If you want to take your kids to play on the equipment, you can’t. It’s too hot to the touch. Mom cannot stand out there in the dead of summer. It’s too hot,” says Withers. “The bummer is that it’s hottest in the summertime when kids aren’t in school.”
Like much of the region, Tunica struggles with extreme heat. For Withers, whose job involves programming Tunica’s social amenities like the annual Rivergate Festival, extreme heat poses a risk to the features that make the town an inviting place to live.
“When people think about where they want to move or where they want to raise their family, at the end of the day, people want good education, nice parks, you know, quality-of-life type things,” says Withers.
Withers also handles grant-writing for Tunica. She says she’s noticed many applications now place an emphasis on infrastructural sustainability to make sure the money granted represents a long-term investment in the town’s success. Without concrete data on climate risks like flooding or extreme heat, Withers says her applications are not as competitive. For a town of Tunica’s size, grants are an important funding source for municipal projects.
“Anytime you can get the tiniest bit of a crystal ball into what you’re dealing with moving forward, whether it be climate or jobs or the school system or healthcare, whether it be good or bad, you can benefit from it,” says Withers.
Stanton, Tennessee: population 400 and growing
The longer we spent in the region, the more we saw the traditionally agricultural fabric of the Upper Delta interweaving with budding pockets of renewable energy infrastructure.
The uniformity of fallow fields was broken here and there by a towering range of wind turbines or bright rows of solar panels. As we pulled into the town of Stanton, Tennessee, about 50 miles northeast of Memphis, we passed BlueOval City—a 4,000-acre Ford manufacturing facility. The plant was originally established to be a center for electric vehicle manufacturing, but the company has since pulled back those promises, opting instead for “higher-return opportunities” in response to regulatory changes. Ford now plans to manufacture gas-powered trucks there as well as batteries.
Despite the pullback, the plant will still generate a massive influx of people—with some estimates up to 10,000—and accompanying development. Mayor Norman Bauer is trying to navigate the new future it represents.
“That is going to be the economic driver if we let it be, but my intent is for Stanton to grow on its own merit,” says Bauer.
DRIVE cohort members are encouraged to develop tailored solutions to the unique challenges facing their communities. For Stanton, that means getting the town “shovel ready,” as Bauer calls it, with the infrastructure to support a growing population. Stormwater management is top of that list. Flooding is already a concern where a drainage ditch cuts through town and frequently overflows.
“The first of the past dozen 100-year floods was in 1996 and they just kept coming,” says Bauer.
Without an updated land-use plan in place, development could worsen that. And without data on flooding and extreme rainfall risk, it will be much harder for Stanton to develop a plan that carries the town through what the future holds.
“We don’t know how it’s going to change, but we do have to look at the common fact that it is going to change. We do have to have a plan in place. This is one of those things where you can’t be reactionary,” says Bauer.
Chelsea, MA, did everything right. The city had identified flooding as a major climate threat, sought out data on it, mobilized the community, and secured funding to design a solution. They were on their way to building climate resilience, until the change in federal administration forced them to regroup.
In April, 2025, the federal administration announced it was illegally canceling the Building Resilient Infrastructure and Communities (BRIC) program—a FEMA initiative that funded local infrastructure projects to protect communities from hazards like flooding and wildfire—on the grounds that it was “wasteful spending.”
The Island End River Flood Resilience Project was among the projects de-funded in the sweep. The project reenvisioned the shoreline of Chelsea and neighboring Everett, MA, with the construction of a flood barrier, tidal gates, and salt marsh restoration to protect both cities from extreme flooding.
The cities are vulnerable to two forms of flooding—storm surge coming up from Boston Harbor and extreme rainfall events.
“This district is already flooding at least once a year to the extent that trucks can’t always pass down the road,” says Chelsea Housing and Community Development Deputy Director Emily Granoff.
Climate change will exacerbate this. According to a 2022 risk assessment conducted by Woodwell Climate’s Just Access program on behalf of the city and local non-profit GreenRoots, over 20% of the city will be at risk of flooding by 2050. Extreme high-intensity rainfall events could become three times as likely by mid-century and become an annual occurrence by 2080.
The irony of the cuts, Granoff says, is that this project was designed to save the cities of Chelsea and Everett millions of dollars. A cost-benefit analysis conducted for the project found that for every dollar spent on flood prevention, they would save more than $30 of repair and recovery spending in the wake of a major disaster. Several pieces of vital industrial infrastructure sit in the floodplain, including a busy commuter rail line, major truck corridors, and the New England Produce Center, which distributes fruit and vegetables to most northeastern U.S. grocery stores.
In addition to the $50 million BRIC grant, the project also lost a $20 million matching grant from the state, which was contingent on the federal funding. Without the project, the city will suffer $3.7 billion in direct damage, in addition to hundreds of millions of dollars in lost wages from employees who can’t get to work, lost sales from businesses forced to close, and health care costs from food insecurity.
“It’s important to realize how one federal program being cut like this can affect so many other things downstream,” says Eli Fenichel, director of communications and environmental policy in the office of Chelsea’s State Senator, Sal DiDomenico. “These projects are so important to protect businesses, communities, people, and save us—taxpayers, cities, states—so much money in future damage costs.”
The Island End River project was in the design phase when the BRIC grant was cancelled. After processing the loss, Granoff says project partners regrouped and identified two paths forward. The first would be completing the design and then putting it on the shelf, waiting for a more favorable funding environment. But that option comes with risks.
“The biggest risk is that we get unlucky,” says Nasser Brahim, director of climate resilience for the Mystic River Watershed Association, a partner on the project. “It’s just a matter of time before that area floods again. Every time there’s a nor’easter, every time there’s a king tide, we roll the dice. The odds are not in our favor in the long run.”
The second option would be to take a phased approach and seek out smaller chunks of funding for each stage. This strategy would still take longer to complete, but would allow the most critical flood mitigation measures to proceed—starting with a floodwall and culvert reconstruction. The later phases would bring in marsh restoration and more waterfront access.
The drawback to a phased approach is that pure infrastructure projects are less attractive to funders than nature restoration. Mystic River Watershed Association identified a possible opportunity to request funding for phase one from the Army Corps of Engineers, under the Water Resources Development Act, which is being re-authorized this year. According to Roseann Bongiovanni, executive director of the Chelsea-based community organization GreenRoots, the data in Woodwell’s Risk Assessment has helped the cities and their partners continue making the case for support for the Island End River project.
“The Woodwell report gave us the science-backed data that helped give weight to our advocacy around coastal resilience. We’ve noticed a change in the response of decision-makers since we were able to provide data about the risks,” says Bongiovanni.
Whether the project takes a phased approach or waits for full funding, the federal cuts represent a delay to a project that could save both lives and money.
“Every year we go without completing this project is another year where our people and critical infrastructure are at risk,” says Bongiovanni.
What keeps Woodwell Climate Director of Government Relations, Laura Uttley going day to day?
Uttley leads the Center’s domestic policy advocacy, and it’s been a hard year for domestic policy. In the past, her work has involved building relationships with members of Congress, tracking climate-relevant legislation, and planning Hill visits and briefings with Center scientists. This year, it’s been all that plus an exhausting gauntlet of crisis response, as climate science falls under attack from an antagonistic presidential administration. It is a federal policy landscape that makes advancing climate research, mitigation policy, and adaptation efforts harder than perhaps at any point in U.S. history.
But waiting for easier times is not an option.
Since the start of the new presidential administration in January, federal funding and support infrastructure for science has been slashed, and many laws, court rulings, and Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regulations that form the foundation of the U.S.’s climate and environmental policy have been targeted or overturned to make way for an agenda that prioritizes fossil fuels. Protecting as much environmental policy as possible has become an urgent priority for Uttley and the rest of the Government Relations team at Woodwell, but despite the chaos and uncertainty, they aren’t flagging.
“What gets me going on a day to day basis, is that I have a job to do,” says Uttley.
Holding back the floodwaters
At the beginning of the year, Uttley and the Government Relations team were bracing themselves for the new administration to “flood the zone.” The tactic, which involves mounting as many attempts as possible to repeal legislation, cut funding, and stymie regular governmental proceedings in a short timespan, is designed to overwhelm potential opposition and the media.
“It is done very intentionally,” says Uttley. “To distract. To exhaust. To cloud your judgment on things, and get you too focused on one area, so that you’re unaware or unable or too limited in terms of resources to work in a different space.”
And that’s exactly what newly appointed officials did—from pulling the U.S. out of the Paris Agreement, to proposing the sale of public lands, to firing staff from key agencies like the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), to changing regulation around how the EPA implements signature environmental legislation.
The instinct, Uttley says, for individuals and organizations that care about diversity, the environment, or public funding for science, is to react to everything because every attack feels like a devastating loss. But that is exactly what drains motivation and resources the fastest.
“I don’t have the luxury of outrage right now,” says Uttley.
So she and others have had to stay focused on the most significant policy battles, concentrating resources on the areas most aligned with Woodwell Climate’s mission and expertise.
“You could make the argument that we should be in any number of fights and policy debates,” says Uttley. “But if we go too far afield, the impact of our voice changes in those dialogues that are so core to our mission. Staying focused can be really hard to do when everything feels so deeply important.”
Top Priority: The Endangerment Finding
Among the fights the Center’s Government Relations team has engaged in, protecting the infrastructure of American climate policy has been a chief priority. In July, the administration announced its intent to revoke the Endangerment Finding, which underpins the majority of U.S. climate action. This finding from the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) affirms that the emission of six greenhouse gasses into the atmosphere— including carbon dioxide and methane— represents a threat to human health and wellbeing, giving the agency authority to regulate them. The decision was based on rigorous science, and was re-affirmed in a 2018 study, led by then-president of Woodwell Climate, Dr. Phil Duffy, who wrote that in the intervening years evidence in support of the finding had only accumulated.
The current administration has attempted to call into question the scientific basis of the finding by releasing a report from the Department of Energy (DOE) that challenges consensus on the damaging impacts of carbon emissions. The suggestion that regulating emissions has caused more harm than the effects of climate change, according to Dave McGlinchey, who served as Woodwell Climate’s Chief of Government Relations between 2016 and 2025, is a blatant dismissal of scientific fact.
“We built an operation here at Woodwell that is very non-partisan, but the idea that the Executive Branch of the U.S. federal government just doesn’t engage with evidence, or moves forward despite clearly contravening evidence, is a real challenge,” says McGlinchey.
It also dismisses the fact that the EPA’s ability to regulate things like tailpipe and power plant emissions has improved air quality for millions of Americans. The finding has made our skies clearer, lungs healthier, and contributed meaningfully to reducing the U.S.’s emissions.
Legal challenges to the proposed repeal began to roll in almost immediately after its announcement, and the opportunity for public comment on the rule was extended to September 22. The Woodwell Climate team developed an organizational comment in support of the Finding to throw more scientific weight behind the efforts to keep it in place.
Climate risk spans political divides
While the political landscape around climate mitigation remains contentious, opportunities to advance resilience projects on the local scale remain. Communities across the political spectrum are feeling the acute impacts of climate change and need information to protect themselves.
“Risk is a bipartisan issue,” says McGlinchey. “Unfortunately, in this country, we have repeated, catastrophic reminders of what climate change impacts look like, so people are attuned to that. They want to understand risk and they want to understand how to become more resilient.“
Andrew Condia, External Affairs Manager, leads the Center’s primary climate adaptation project, Just Access. The initiative connects climate scientists with communities both in the U.S. and around the world to provide assessments of current and future climate risks at no cost to the communities. With a better understanding of how variables like flooding, drought, heatwaves, and fires will impact their communities in the coming years, leaders in municipal governments have been able to have climate-informed conversations about planning, infrastructure, and public health. Even in overwhelmingly conservative areas.
“We work with some Democratic mayors, some Republican mayors, and they are lined up and equally as engaged in the process,” says Condia. “They understand the importance of this information and know that it’s a critical tool to help them as their communities grow and change in the future.”
The sweeping nature of cutbacks on the federal level has meant that municipalities are now one of the only places these conversations are able to move forward.
“I think local governments recognize that in the absence of federal leadership, it’s up to them to step up to make progress on these issues. It’s the only climate action in the country that is really making meaningful progress right now,” says Condia.
Bigger picture, longer term
At higher levels of government, McGlinchey says the current top priority is to maintain relationships with policymakers and lay the groundwork for long-term changes while momentum in the short term has been halted.
“We can’t look at how bleak the landscape appears to be and throw our hands up and give up. Because political winds shift frequently in this country, and fairly dramatically, and when they shift again, we don’t want to start at zero,” says McGlinchey.
For the past three years the Government Relations team has organized “fly-ins”, which bring Woodwell Climate scientists to Washington D.C. for meetings with Members of Congress and their staff. The fly-ins are key to how the Center stewards relationships on Capitol Hill and raises issues like permafrost thaw or flood insurance risk to the attention of legislators. Despite this year’s political changes, Uttley was still able to bring 12 scientists, board members, and staff for meetings with 15 congressional offices this September.
Woodwell has also remained active in coalition groups, which combine the power of many organizations to push for common goals.
“We’re engaged in the Adaptation Working Group, Friends of NOAA, the Coalition for National Science Funding, and more,” says Uttley. “From a policy perspective we have really seen the advocacy community rally together this year.”
And while the U.S. regresses on climate action, the rest of the world continues forward. Woodwell Climate is helping to propel important climate policy on the international stage, forming a delegation to the annual UN Conference of Parties (COP) in Belém, Brazil in November. Given its location, tropical forests will feature heavily on the agenda this year, and the Center will be showcasing emerging work on tropical regenerative agriculture, sustainable development in the DRC, and financing for forest protection. The Center is also collaborating with the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) to provide technical support for countries submitting biennial transparency reports on their progress towards climate goals.
Momentum on climate means telling climate stories
Still, facing down the urgency and magnitude of climate change, these incremental wins and slowly unfolding plans often don’t feel like enough compared to swift federal actions. Especially for individuals who don’t have their hands on the levers of power. But Uttley says the local level is where most change has always started, and individuals can make a difference.
“While I’m working to make systemic change on the federal level, one of the most powerful things each of us can do to keep up momentum on climate is to tell stories about local impacts,” says Uttley. Whether it’s about soccer practices canceled for heat or commuting lanes flooded, stories that connect climate change to our daily lives help change minds and motivate action.
Working on climate policy in times like these is a careful balance of hope and disappointment, Uttley says, but in order to move forward hope always has to win out. Not wishful thinking, but the kind of hope that springs from facing down the obstacles and getting to work.
“I’ve been in public policy and advocacy for 15 years,” says Uttley. “If I didn’t have a strong sense of optimism and hope, I would not be able to do this job.”
This year, Las Vegas, Nevada broke its all-time heat record, reaching 120° F.
The temperature was recorded at Harry Reid International Airport on July 7, 2024. That week, between July 6 and July 12, was the new hottest 7-day period on record, with an average high temperature of 117.5° F.
This is the daily reality for Vegas residents in the summer. Record-breaking temperatures are hard to bear, but so were all the hot days and nights that came before. Commuters frequently see temperatures above 120 flash on their vehicle dashboards, and outdoor workers struggle to do their daily tasks under the hot sun.
“There’s a disconnect between climate science and the people who live here,” says Woodwell Climate Research Associate, Monica Caparas. “Vegas residents know our summers are hot and unbearable. Understanding climate change is driving the extreme weather we’re experiencing is where the disconnect lies. ”
Caparas moved to Las Vegas as a child. She grew up there, left for college, and returned to settle into her adult life. Today, she works for Woodwell Climate’s Risk team remotely from her home in the city. Caparas knows the ins and outs of local life. These include Vegas’s rapid population expansion, the groups of people experiencing homelessness sheltering in underground stormwater infrastructure, and the heat that was unbearable before it started making headlines.
Experiencing climate change without shelter
Caparas’s work with the Risk team aims to provide communities like Las Vegas with an accurate picture of the climate-driven changes in their future. These “risk assessments” are provided through Woodwell Climate’s Just Access program, which uses the most accurate climate models, in collaboration with local knowledge, to anticipate future community safety threats. The analyses have brought to light growing threats from flooding, heat, storms, and more. The team provides assessments, free of charge, to states, cities, and countries across the world.
Just Access serves what Risk Program Director Christopher Schwalm calls “frontline communities.” The term describes groups of people who are over-exposed, under-resourced, underserved, historically marginalized, and therefore the most at-risk to the repercussions of climate change. In the risk assessment for Las Vegas, people experiencing homelessness are front and center.
“Between May 20th and the first week in July, about 20 people who were experiencing homelessness died of heat,” says Dr. Catrina Grigsby-Thedford, Executive Director of the Nevada Homeless Alliance (NHA) and community partner in Las Vegas.
The NHA estimates that almost 8,000 people are experiencing homelessness on any given night in southern Nevada. The number is only growing. Grigsby-Thedford says that this year’s unhoused population is up 1,300 people compared to 2023.
“Often our shelters are full,” Grigsby-Thedford says, “We’re limited by shelter beds and space.”
The NHA’s shelters do open all day in extreme heat, but so many people packed tightly together is still unsafe.
With nowhere to go, some seek shelter underground in Las Vegas’s stormwater infrastructure. While the tunnels are cooler out of the sun’s reach, they are at risk from flooding. Across the region, extreme precipitation is expected to increase by 12-14% by 2050, raising flood risk in the city and especially within the tunnels.
To combat lack of space and shelter, the NHA hosts 4-8 one-stop resource fairs per month. The events, called Project Homeless Connect, serve both people experiencing homelessness and low-income residents in Las Vegas. Grigsby-Thedford says these events “fill in gaps”—offering housing assistance, medical care, hygiene care, and other resources.
Despite all of this work, many unhoused people are hesitant to engage with organizations like the NHA. Grigsby-Thedford says “choice is often a challenge,” and that when people grow accustomed to the way things are, they often accept it and choose to stay.
Picturing risk
Building trust with communities, especially those predisposed to mistrust outside actors, is essential in this work. Which is why, Schwalm says, Woodwell Climate approaches risk work with the goal of “meet[ing] people where they are.”
That means “scoping,” the team’s word for listening to what community and government leaders want out of the risk analysis—what concerns they have, weak points they’ve identified, and what help might be needed post-analysis.
“Two-thirds of the time we spend from start to finish falls into this scoping idea, rather than doing analysis itself,” Schwalm says.
Scoping frames the data the risk team collects, as well as who their partners will be during the risk analysis process.
“We find people who are practical and recognize that there’s a problem,” Schwalm says, “We only work with communities who want to work with us.”
Following the scoping process, the Risk team compiles an analysis of extreme weather events and subsequent risks each community will face as climate change progresses.
“We perform a stress test of that particular geography to identify weak points,” Schwalm explains.
Then, the Risk team uses the most up-to-date climate models possible to predict changes in extreme weather and regional climate. By using predictive models, the team focuses efforts on what the future will hold, as opposed to using past strategies.
“We need to use the future to predict the future,” Schwalm says simply.
Making climate risk data accessible to all
Over the past three years, Just Access has provided 50 communities—that’s about a quarter billion people—with risk analyses. These communities span the U.S., Central and South America, Africa, Asia, and Oceania. They’ve worked with countries, like the Democratic Republic of Congo, where they helped update the country’s National Adaptive Plan, states like Chiapas in Mexico, groups like Cree Nation in Canada, and other communities, now including Las Vegas.
Despite all of this work, though, Schwalm says there is still room to grow.
“Fifty communities is kind of only a drop in the bucket,” he says, “We’re not going to make a huge dent in this unless we move beyond working community-by-community.”
Two major roadblocks for Just Access are finite resources: time and money. Individual risk analyses require a lot of time and communication to address risks in relatively small areas.
The other obstacle, money, is something climate research could always use more of. Grants and donations are crucial in order for analyses to remain free, and those sometimes come with limitations.
“There’s a tension from the funder to work in a specific geography sometimes,” Schwalm says, “It’s a juggling act.”
Climate change can also be a politicized topic. In order to meet people where they are, sometimes the Risk team implements changes in language used to communicate with community leaders. This can be a change as simple as using “extreme weather” instead of “climate change.” As long as everyone in the room is ready to confront what the future holds, they’re all working on the same page towards the same goal.
“We’ve done red states, blue states, rural, urban,” Schwalm continues. “We’ve learned how to read the room.”
Creating the foundations for change
Woodwell Climate’s involvement in Las Vegas brings to light the way justice issues, like homelessness, interact with growing threats from climate change.
“In the Las Vegas risk assessment, we are focusing on the disproportionate impacts of the climate crisis on communities already facing systemic socio-economic inequity,” says Caparas. “We must think about intersectionality in order to address climate justice.”
Not only does climate change represent a current crisis for those experiencing homelessness, communities with fewer resources are now at greater risk of being made homeless by future climate-related disasters. Accurate climate risk information can support organizations like NHA as they develop strategies to serve people experiencing homelessness in a more extreme future.
Grigsby-Thedford says that NHA members, especially those with lived experience of homelessness who work as Lived X Consultants, are always looking to be involved in projects like the one Caparas leads.
“We always talk about weather in our meetings,” she says, “So this is perfect, someone’s actually doing research about this. Anything that impacts [Las Vegas’s homeless population], we want to make sure we’re involved in that.”
For the Las Vegas risk assessment, Caparas is working with the NHA and Southern Nevada Lived X Consultants to understand climate risks around cooling stations in public buildings, which are a vital, air-conditioned shelter when the heat index is too high. Grigsby-Thedford says there were many more cooling stations in 2023 and 2024 compared to previous years.
Caparas also forged a connection with Miguel Dávila Uzcátegui, Southern Nevada’s Regional Transportation Commission (RTC) Senior Planner and board member of Help Hope Home. Together, they are developing a database of flooding infrastructure and updating the city’s flooding model with future climate projections. The RTC will integrate the Risk team’s model into regional planning work, updating Las Vegas’s flooding and transportation infrastructure for community safety.
None of this work would have been possible without Caparas’s diligent bridge building between the scientific resources of Woodwell Climate and the needs of people in her own community. Those connections allow science to be informed first and foremost by those most affected by climate change.
“The people closest to the problem are the people closest to the solution,” says Grigsby-Thedford.
