OUR HISTORY: MOVING BEYOND THOUGHT TO THOUGHTFUL ACTION

In 2007, the George Washington University hosted its first Climate Action Conference.  Its theme was "Implementing Solutions to Climate Crises: Strategic Actions for Businesses, Communities, Citizens, and Consumers."  The conference offered informative and inspiring sessions to foster ongoing climate-related collaboration among attendees and to promote effective methods of reducing harmful human-induced climate changes.

Based on the powerful response to that conference and the growing demand for more information on what we can do about climate change, GW decided to make this an annual conference.

In 2008, the conference theme was "Small Is Sustainable."  A celebration of E.F. Schumacher's famed book Small Is Beautiful , the conference focused on small-scale actions that individuals and organizations can take to make a positive difference for the global climate.  That conference's three goals were:

2) to share our strategies for social, environmental, and economic sustainability related to climate action

3) to map out ways we can continue to collaborate to advance the vision that micro-decisions and actions can have macro-implications for our planet’s climate crises

This year's conference builds on the last two events.  The theme for our 2009 conference is "Managing for Climate Change:  Global to Local Approaches."  As before, our focus is on multiple stakeholders - business, government, NGOs, families, individuals - because all of us can make a positive difference to reduce the human impact on climate change.  Our focus on multiple scales acknowledges the fact that through our actions we affect not only our local environments but also regional and global ecosystems.  How we work together to minimize our negative impacts and enhance our positive ones is of crucial importance.