Two weeks ago, we wrote about the EXPLORE Act — an expansive piece of legislation aimed at expanding and improving outdoor access, focusing on public parks, which passed Congress unanimously in 2024. What the EXPLORE Act’s success seemed to show was that a love of nature transcends party lines, even in our current climate where just about everything feels politicized. That can translate into climate solutions everybody can get behind. In today’s newsletter, we’ll look at this on a community level, exploring how investing in neighborhood parks has transformed climate resilience in some at-risk areas — just one example of how a focus on parks, green spaces, and public amenities can lead to popular climate action. In a few weeks, we’ll take it all the way down to the personal level, with a look at how to proactively cultivate this connection to nature in (or rather, outside of) your own home.

“Climate change has become politically divisive,” Mike Bybee, senior director of federal relations at the Trust for Public Land, told me when we spoke a few weeks ago. “What’s not divisive are those impacts of things like flooding and fires and drought and heat.” Everyone agrees that the weather is changing, Bybee said — they can see that with their own eyes, in their own communities, whether it’s stronger and more frequent storms, floods, heat, or wildfires.

And, he said, the popularity of creating and preserving parks and outdoor spaces creates an opening for doing something about it. In the 2024 election, state and local ballot initiatives passed across the country, in both red and blue states, that supported building parks or restoring natural areas. In some cases, those initiatives even specifically mentioned climate resilience. “The work of protecting open space, creating parks and playgrounds that provide stormwater mitigation and rainwater runoff in the face of these storms — everyone agrees on that,” Bybee said.

Read the full article about public parks and climate resilience by Claire Elise Thompson at Grist.