La Crosse receives $50000 for youth-led climate initiatives - WXOW.com
La Crosse receives $50,000 for youth-led climate initiatives | News | wxow.com
LA CROSSE, Wis. (WXOW) - The city of La Crosse has been awarded $50,000 to distribute as microgrants to fund a variety of youth-led climate initiatives.
This funding aims to empower young residents, aged 15 to 24, to take an active role in combating climate change within their community.
The Youth Climate Action Fund, supported by Bloomberg Philanthropies, is designed to inspire and enable the next generation of environmental leaders.
The microgrants will support a diverse array of projects, including:
- Awareness, Education, Research, and Development Initiatives: This includes youth-led climate education programs, climate surveys, research projects, clubs, curriculum development, and public art and awareness campaigns.
- Climate Mitigation and Adaptation Projects: These projects may involve community gardening, tree planting, reforestation, urban farming campaigns, recycling and waste reduction programs, and climate resilience workshops and disaster preparedness programs.
- Co-Governed Youth Climate Action Plans: This category emphasizes collaboration between city leaders and youth groups to shape climate-related policies, decisions, and actions, including the formation of youth climate ambassadors or advisory boards.
"We're already experiencing some impacts of climate change through increased temperatures especially in the summer it's more noticeable", says Lewis Kuhlman, Environmental Planner for the city of La Crosse. "We have to work on being more resilient to the impacts of heat and flooding, and then also try to mitigate the future impacts."
For more information on the Youth Climate Action Fund and to submit project ideas, young residents can visit the city’s dedicated webpage here.
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”