Climate Action Planning: A Guide to Creating Low-Carbon, Resilient Communities

In Climate Action Planning: A Guide to Creating Low-Carbon, Resilient Communities, Boswell, Greve, and Seale achieve their goal of providing a user-friendly guide for practitioners and students on how to initiate and carry out local climate planning.For the last five years, I've used the first edition (Local Climate Action Planning) as the core text in a graduate-level course on planning for hazards and climate change. Students found the first edition extremely useful and I am highly confident that they will find the updated second edition even better. A few of the best aspects of the book include:- The clear writing and organization make it easy to read through, but also to pick up and flip to the particular topic of the moment.- Lots of easy-to-digest images and tables, including infographics and what amount to checklists to consider at each stage of climate planning.- Numerous case examples from a wide variety of cities, not just the west coast leaders in sustainability efforts, but places around the country and world.- Especially valuable will be the across-the-board updates in the fast-moving world of climate science and planning.- Increased attention to climate vulnerability and resilience is critical, as the immediate impacts of the climate crisis are undeniable.In addition to having my own copy, I've also purchased a copy to share with our local government officials leading climate change planning in my own community. Numerous items in this version will be especially useful to practitioners, such as the table on page 61 showing typical ranges of staff hours and consulting fees for different aspects of climate planning efforts.

I am using this book in my Climate Change Planning class at Cal Poly Pomona and find it an excellent foundation for the course. It provides a structure around which instructors can add supplemental readings and resource links. The writing is clear and provides a rare balance of academic grounding and practical, actionable advice. One way that I am using the book is to have students read a chapter and then examine/critique a local climate action plan using the book as a framework. As another review states, the book is also useful for community groups and elected officials.