On Thursday Pope Francis released his 184-page encyclical on the environment.  This release has once again brought the topic of climate change into the global spotlight.

A primary goal of ICMA’s Center for Sustainable Communities (CSC) is to provide consulting services, offer training and education, and conduct research to help promote sustainable resilient communities. This blog post highlights some useful resources about the topic of climate change in the Knowledge Network. 

1. Climate change is a global issue, and the CityLinks program has developed numerous resources and partnerships to help limit the impact of climate change. This primer on climate resilient development was built around examples of best practices in cities in developing countries, where the term cities applies broadly to government levels below the national level, including regional, state, provincial, district, and city levels.
2. ICMA and Arizona State University developed a report, with a two-year grant from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, which describes the current activities and leading practices of local governments that have prioritized social equity strategies as part of their approach for creating more sustainable communities.
3. The CSC’s sustainability blog is a good place to access information on how to create resilient and sustainable communities.  This post from the blog discusses an interesting solar technology innovation in South Korea.  Solar technology can help reduce harmful emissions that impact our climate.
4. The root of many water issues is climate change, and ICMA has identified 15 resources to help manage one of those issues, namely, drought.
5. This In the Know blog post discusses how community gardens can combat climate change and provide healthy foods for impoverished families.  
6. The ICMA Annual Conference will be featuring multiple sessions on the topics of sustainability and resiliency, such as the Fostering Resilient Cities session led by Andrew Salkin, chief operating officer of 100 Resilient Cities.
7. To access all the great ICMA resources on climate change, check out the Knowledge Network climate change topic page.

If you want to learn more about the connection Pope Francis makes between environmental stewardship and social equity, check out this article from the Washington Post outlining 10 key excerpts from the encyclical.

How is your community innovatively bolstering its environmental sustainability?  Share your comments below.

Douglas Shontz         

Knowledge Network Intern