Joyce Coffee - Climate Resilience Consulting
Download MP3Joyce Coffee heads up Climate Resilience Consulting, advising cities and states and others on resilience to climate change. She explains to Ted that she learned early on in Chicago, that the impacts of climate change can be unpredictable and fierce. After 750 souls there lost their lives there in a heat wave, mostly black and brown citizens, she knew that she was going to focus on adaptation, and making people more resilient to the ravages of climate change.
Joyce grew up in Colorado and then moved to the East Coat for her education at Tufts -- to focus on public health -- and then MIT where she was a student of Urban Studies and Planning. She talks about her first career step, working for an engineering firm that worked on the Three Gorges Dam project in China. The firm was helping China leap from a second world country to a first world country. Joyce's work surrounded relocating well over a million people whose land would be flooded by the dam. That prepared her for advocacy of relocating communities and towns to steer clear of the most threatening aspects of climate change.
Ted and Joyce dig in on adaptation, a sorry reality. Why not cut greenhouse gases and avoid the need for adaptation? Joyce's climate action planning in Chicago made clear that even a city with a progressive mayor and populous, was falling short of its climate goals. Like it or not, citizens there -- and globally -- will have to adapt to rising CO2. Thus for nearly ten years, Joyce's firm has been providing consulting for cities and states... helping them prepare for floods, fires, droughts, windstorms, coastal inundation, and sea level rise.
The conversation shifts to the brand-new guide that Climate Resilience Consulting has developed for small businesses. Sadly, one in three small businesses in climate change events have suffered financial losses. Data confirms that 26% of small businesses have resilience plans and fully 94% feel that they are prepared. But in areas ravaged by climate change events, 40% of small businesses are forced out of business. Not good. Joyce explains as small businesses employ half of all American workers and contribute 40% of our nation's gross domestic product.
By helping small businesses -- with a practical guide complete with checklists and AI prompts - they can be more profitable, able to fare far better than ill-prepared others. They also "bounce back" more quickly... having moved to higher ground, or away from extreme fire risk areas. They are part of what Joyce calls the solution set... ripe with innovation and smarts in determining how to get "more crop for the drop," and formulating new kinds of exterior house paint that is more resistant to wildfires. Joyce gets great satisfaction in helping business and communities prepare for and reap the benefits of her grandmother's oft-stated view that "a stitch in time saves nine."
Joyce grew up in Colorado and then moved to the East Coat for her education at Tufts -- to focus on public health -- and then MIT where she was a student of Urban Studies and Planning. She talks about her first career step, working for an engineering firm that worked on the Three Gorges Dam project in China. The firm was helping China leap from a second world country to a first world country. Joyce's work surrounded relocating well over a million people whose land would be flooded by the dam. That prepared her for advocacy of relocating communities and towns to steer clear of the most threatening aspects of climate change.
Ted and Joyce dig in on adaptation, a sorry reality. Why not cut greenhouse gases and avoid the need for adaptation? Joyce's climate action planning in Chicago made clear that even a city with a progressive mayor and populous, was falling short of its climate goals. Like it or not, citizens there -- and globally -- will have to adapt to rising CO2. Thus for nearly ten years, Joyce's firm has been providing consulting for cities and states... helping them prepare for floods, fires, droughts, windstorms, coastal inundation, and sea level rise.
The conversation shifts to the brand-new guide that Climate Resilience Consulting has developed for small businesses. Sadly, one in three small businesses in climate change events have suffered financial losses. Data confirms that 26% of small businesses have resilience plans and fully 94% feel that they are prepared. But in areas ravaged by climate change events, 40% of small businesses are forced out of business. Not good. Joyce explains as small businesses employ half of all American workers and contribute 40% of our nation's gross domestic product.
By helping small businesses -- with a practical guide complete with checklists and AI prompts - they can be more profitable, able to fare far better than ill-prepared others. They also "bounce back" more quickly... having moved to higher ground, or away from extreme fire risk areas. They are part of what Joyce calls the solution set... ripe with innovation and smarts in determining how to get "more crop for the drop," and formulating new kinds of exterior house paint that is more resistant to wildfires. Joyce gets great satisfaction in helping business and communities prepare for and reap the benefits of her grandmother's oft-stated view that "a stitch in time saves nine."
