CLEAR Miami is a 12-week training program focused on climate resilience education and leadership. The program offered me the opportunity to develop my civic leadership skills while providing me with a deep understanding of climate science and the threat it poses to our communities. Additionally, CLEAR Miami introduced me to solutions while increasing my advocacy skills so that I could effectively support practices, programs, and policies that strengthen the resiliency of Miami communities to the effects of climate change.

Climate change is one of the greatest challenges our generations will encounter and an imminent environmental threat to us all. We know Global Warming refers to an increase in the earth’s average atmospheric temperature which causes corresponding changes in climate and that may result from the greenhouse effect. The greenhouse effect is a natural process that warms the Earth’s surface and impacts climate change. The problem we now face is that human activities – particularly burning fossil fuels (coal, oil, and natural gas), agriculture and land clearing – are rapidly increasing the concentrations of greenhouse gases.

We are presented with the unprecedented challenge of balancing Earth’s natural processes by reducing greenhouse gases. As my final project with CLEAR Miami I proposed incorporating a Climate Change course into FIU’s curriculum to provide students with the knowledge and tools to create meaningful change in the world. These students are our future leaders, our scientists, our politicians, our grassroot activists—those that will be in a place of power to bring about proper legislation and shift us in a viable direction. The need for informing the public on the gravity of the impacts of climate change on human existence across the globe has never been greater.