Growing up here in Louisiana, I’ve found that it can be difficult to take an optimistic view on climate issues. I was five years old and living in Shreveport when Hurricane Katrina hit and sent a slew of displaced kids to my kindergarten class. I was sixteen and living in Baton Rouge when the flood of 2016 brought waist-deep water to my neighborhood street.
The unique circumstances of living in Louisiana, and especially southern Louisiana, were all I really knew for most of my life. It wasn’t until I left to go to college in New York that I fully realized how much I loved and missed my home in Baton Rouge. Often I would find myself giddily explaining Louisiana’s native phrases to my northern friends, or making them try Tony Chachere’s for the first time, or bringing them back to visit for Mardi Gras. And, as I began to find my passion in environmental policy, I realized how called I felt to come back and apply that passion in my home state, where I felt it was truly needed.
Returning to Louisiana, I found that I was far from alone— there’s a large and growing community of people in Baton Rouge and the rest of the state that are driven and dedicated to helping Louisiana combat the effects of climate change. Still, no matter how passionate we are about these rising climate issues, there’s no denying how massive they are in scale, or how complicated they are to tackle. Living here in Louisiana increases our proximity to a lot of these problems, in the form of our disappearing coastline and the prominence of industry pollution along the Mississippi River. In short— these problems are big, and their size can be really, really daunting.
So what is there to be done as an individual? Most of us desperately want to help, and though we may get the idea of collective action, sometimes it’s hard to appreciate the results. How much are my paper straws really doing to fight the 12 million tons of plastic that gets dumped into the oceans every year? Facing challenges of this magnitude, trying to make a difference as an individual can start to feel futile.
But then I started working at CPEX and got to be part of the Smart Growth Summit— a collection of people from across the state (and beyond) who are all dedicated to doing their part. By listening to the wisdom and expertise of our various speakers, I was able to see all of the work that is being done collectively. From city planners to policymakers to energy experts, people are doing their part to remedy the climate issues that threaten our future.
The theme of this year’s Summit was “Inspire Action and Ignite Change,” and I believe that it did just that. Events like the Summit show us that even if change doesn’t happen all at once, it is still happening. The actions taken aren’t always on a grandiose scale, but they are steps in the right direction and they add up to big changes. Each time a street gets a new bike lane, we create an opportunity to lower emissions. Each time a new solar panel begins operations, a percentage of our energy portfolio gets cleaner. These little battles aren’t always gratifying, but they are the correct and necessary path to create a cleaner environment in years to come. The Smart Growth Summit brings us together to remind us of that, to reinvigorate our efforts, and to give us hope for the future.