Don't say climate change.

I've put together a one pager to try and distill down my Fulbright research project. The project is essentially best practices in responding to transition, and change. I hope this document helps folks in Greece understand what the heck I am doing there. I also post it here as a place holder.

What Is The Project?

The project takes me to Greece, where, because of climate change, both sea levels and environmental threats are rising, which, in turn threaten key industries such as fishing and tourism, which combine to nearly 30% of their economy. I've written about the people in the port city of Linaria on the island of Skyros, who responded  to these threats by embracing model sustainable policy, and finding that this has attracted more tourism, and expanded fisheries. 

My research starts there, and expands to many other coastal communities which may have very different experiences. I'll be based outside of the second largest city in Greece, Thessaloniki, who's beaches are among the many categorized as Blue Star Beaches, which has conditions not only on water quality, but also on public accessibly options such as clean public bathrooms, and safety.

These policy choices were informed by local data, and the policy themselves are valuable documents. I hope to collect these individual data sets to present authentic policy challenges as lessons, providing opportunities to use a level of data analysis as a tool for decision making.

This conversation about how to adapt to change is always an essential skill, including for todays students. For my students, climate change is leading to more rain which can be tracked across the region in terms of public money spent on stormwater management. But, the biggest impact from climate change in Western Pennsylvania is economic. With fossil fuel extraction industries shifting, and shrinking, our students are adapting to change here in Indiana County. 

One region in Greece I hope to visit is Kozani, where a non-profit called The Cluster of Bioeconomy and Environment of Western Macedonia (CluBE) has been partnering with governments and school districts to adopt sustainable policy. It is my hope to provide opportunities for students to understand these policy choices through the lens of math.