Finding hope in rural Florida: What I learned from conversations on climate change

Lacey Lingelbach Over the past few months, I have been talking with groups of people in small-town North Florida about the impacts of climate change and how they might get involved in resiliency efforts. Despite the perception that many rural residents are climate change deniers, my interactions revealed a surprisingly large awareness and interest in this critical issue.  As an environmental science student at the University of Florida, I wrote my undergraduate thesis on ways to overcome climate planning challenges in rural inland Florida. My two main research findings were: (1) Rural attitudes towards climate change and environmental conservation are misunderstood, and (2) Rural