Resources for Understanding and Responding to the Climate Crisis

Resources to Help You Act on Climate

Climate Science

We Each Start from a Different Place

To fully appreciate the importance of climate solutions, one must first grasp, or at least accept, certain facts of climate science:

Our planet is heating up.
It is caused by human activity -- primarily burning fossil fuels and clearing forests -- creating a build up of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide (CO2), methane (NH4), and nitrous oxide (N2O).
Because the planet is warming, our climate is changing, increasing the likelihood and intensity of extreme weather events like heatwaves, droughts, flash floods, wildfires, and major hurricanes.
These impacts are being felt now in many parts of the US.

If you're already alarmed or concerned about the effects of human-caused climate change, you have accepted the science. You're probably here looking for solutions. If so, feel free to jump ahead. But if you are unsure or skeptical that climate change is happening, is human-caused, and/or that it is impacting your family today, click on these images to view non-technical explanations of the science from the non-profit Climate Central.

Climate Change: Key Facts.pptx

Understanding Attribution Science

The sheer number and intensity of extreme heatwaves (and, more recently, "heat domes") in the US and around the world has generally put an end to anyone denying that our planet is heating up. But there are still persistent claims from some deniers that this warming is due to "natural causes" like solar activity, the Earth's rotation, or volcanic eruptions.

Scientists have proven that claim is false. Today scientific consensus on human-caused climate change is greater than 99%. For an extensive inventory of common climate myths and the evidence to refute them, see Skeptical Science.

A Smoking Gun

The most compelling proof that burning fossil fuels is causing global warming (and thus climate change) comes from the oil companies themselves, who were warned by their own scientists in the 1970s that this would happen.

In 2023, researchers from Harvard and the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research compared internal papers from Exxon to current scientific data. In their final report, they wrote that "What we found is that between 1977 and 2003, excellent scientists within Exxon modeled and predicted global warming with, frankly, shocking skill and accuracy only for the company to then spend the next couple of decades denying that very climate science." Details about what Exxon and other oil companies knew but withheld from the public was first uncovered in 2015, through investigative reporting by the Center for Climate Integrity, the Los Angeles Times, and the Columbia Journalism School.

Preserving the Evidence

Until recently, one of the key resources we would point to for objective, trustworthy information about human-caused climate change would have been NOAA's climate.gov website. Sadly, that website was taken down following an executive order from President Donald Trump on June 24, 2025. Thankfully, a large number of the climate scientists formerly managing that website for the federal government have resurrected much of the lost data on a new website at climate.us. One particularly valuable resource they have preserved is the Fifth National Climate Assessment -- the US Government’s preeminent report on climate change impacts, risks, and responses. The report is congressionally mandated to be published every four years through an interagency effort, but that team was disbanded by the Trump administration also in June 2025. The fifth assessment was published in 2023 and contains the contributions of hundreds of US climate scientists.

Climate Solutions

We're Alarmed about Climate Change, and You Should be Too, But We're Not Helpless

We didn't found Sustainable Newton to simply share worries. We came together to act. As our mission says, "We drive solution-oriented local responses to the global issues of climate change and sustainability."

Effective climate action is about selecting the right climate solutions from an array of of possibilities and narrowing it to what works in our state, in our county, and in your home, business, or community. No two journeys are the same. We start in different places and travel different paths, but the end goal is the same: to reduce climate pollution and preserve a world where our children and their children can prosper and live good lives. The resources presented here can help you plan your journey.

Drawdown Georgia Toolkits: Written by Experts, Made for Georgians

On our Action page, we explained how the Drawdown Georgia Climate Solutions Framework helped us focus our efforts shaping Sustainable Newton. But the resources available go far beyond just the solutions framework. Drawdown Georgia Climate Solution Toolkits are written by experts who provide you with step-by-step guidance for adopting those solutions in your own home or business. Whether you are interested in an electric vehicle, wanting to improve energy efficiency in your home, or considering installing rooftop solar, there's something there for everyone. (We even wrote the toolkit on how to take climate action in your Georgia community.)

Dive Deeper with the Drawdown Explorer from Project Drawdown

The Drawdown Georgia Climate Solutions Framework is based on global research and analysis started by the climate scientists and policy experts at Project Drawdown. Building upon thousands of hours of analysis by scientific experts from around the world, they published the Drawdown Explorer to provide detailed information on technologies and practices proven or proposed to effectively reduce greenhouse warming pollution in the atmosphere.

While not tailored to a Georgia focus like Drawdown Georgia, the Drawdown Explorer provides great backup data on the feasibility, potential benefits, and relative priority for each solution.

How to Use the Drawdown Explorer

Gain Confidence by Realizing You Are Not Alone

The Yale Program on Climate Change Communications has been tracking US public opinions about global warming and climate solutions since 2008. When you drill down to state and county level data you find that"

64% of Georgians are concerned about climate change, but only 31% talk about it at least occasionally.
In Newton County, 73% of adults believe global warming is happening, 59% are worried about it, but only 28% talk about it.

As a result, we greatly underestimate how many of our friends and neighbors worry about climate change. But just because people are not discussing climate change does not mean it isn't on their minds.

On the policy front, you will also find overwhelming support for actions that promote clean energy, put restrictions on carbon emissions, hold polluters accountable, and invest in climate solutions like solar panels and electric vehicles. Dig deeper by downloading the latest climate opinion factsheets for Georgia and Newton County. Yale also publishes a daily newsletter, Yale Climate Connections that provides insightful analysis and useful examples of climate solutions in action. Subscribe here.

Climate Myths

To Tackle the Climate Crisis, We Must Get Past Myths Meant to Stop You

Record breaking heat waves, flash floods, wildfires, tropical weather systems, and droughts are making it impossible for average Americans to deny the realities of human-caused climate change and its impacts on our lives. As more of us experience impacts directly and/or endure the financial implications in our insurance premiums, food costs, etc., climate denial is no longer an effective disinformation strategy. But fossil fuel propagandists are turning to other strategies -- namely, attacking climate solutions themselves -- to sow doubts about the benefits of clean energy, renewables, and electrification of homes and transportation.

In his book, Still No Miracles Needed: How Today's Technology Can Save Our Climate and Clean Our Air, Stanford professor Mark Jacobson takes on some common climate myths and shows how we can meet the climate crisis with tools already at our disposal. We've embedded some clips below featuring professor Jacobson confronting myth with facts.

Myth: Transitioning to 100% renewable energy will use up our available land for solar panels and wind turbines?

Myth: Because batteries require mining for minerals, EVs are no cleaner than vehicles burning fossil fuels.

Myth: Adding more renewable energy sources like solar and wind to the grid is causing electricity prices to go up.

Myth: The United States doesn't need to act on the climate crisis until China does its part to clean up emissions.

Myth: We can only meet growing electricity demand from data centers by building more fossil fuel power plants.

Myth: Wind turbines kill whales & raise electricity prices. We shouldn't use them to generate electricity.

We Won't Get Fooled Again

It's highly likely you recognize every one of these myths, because they are everywhere -- in social media posts, emails from friends and family, print adds, podcasts, and even public comments from politicians and elected officials. And that's no accident. The fossil fuel industry has waged a disinformation campaign since the 1970s, when scientists working for oil companies first informed executives about the greenhouse gas effect of oil, gas, and coal, and those executives decided to hide those findings.

To better detect, understand, and diffuse the disinformation strategies and tactics employed by the fossil fuel industry, read the report America Misled: How the fossil fuel industry deliberately misled Americans about climate change, published in 2019 by researchers from George Mason University, Harvard University, and Bristol University. Studying their work will make you more able to recognize and capable of resisting the effects of manipulative climate disinformation.