Island Press Staff Picks

This week's pick is from the Managing Editor of CAKE, Livia Kent: Every day more devastating news emerges about the impacts of climate change, particularly during this summer of extreme weather events and the subsequent media frenzy around new floods, wildfires, infrastructure damages, biodiversity loss, sea level rise—the list goes on. As the managing editor of the Climate Adaptation Knowledge Exchange (CAKE) this kind of stuff spackles my screen constantly. It would get extraordinarily depressing if it wasn’t for the innovative work being done across disciplines and sectors in the nascent but fast-growing field of climate change adaptation. Local Climate Action Planning, my staff pick, reminds us that climate action planning is “an opportunity for communities to control their destinies in the face of global change, to achieve energy security, to sustainably develop their economies, and to ensure a high quality of life.” Although it’s aimed specifically at planners and policymakers tasked with preparing a local climate action plan, students and concerned citizens should also find it interesting—or at the very least, comforting to know this book brims with practical approaches, techniques, and strategies as well as case studies from US communities leading the way in their efforts to achieve resilience and sustainability. For more inspiring climate change planning information, keep an eye out for Island Press’s upcoming publication of the regional technical inputs reports for the 2013 National Climate Assessment. These regional reports from a broad range of experts integrate new climate science and information from multiple sources and sectors. They highlight key findings so US citizens, communities, and businesses can create more sustainable and environmentally sound plans for the future.