For climate leadership, look to cities.

With climate progress under attack, local government action is key.

Hello Substack!

We’re Urban Ocean Lab, a think tank for the future of coastal cities. We’ve moved our newsletter over here (including our archive) so that we can better engage with you all. Hi! We’re glad to be here.

We’re launching this newsletter amidst a sweeping reversal of decades of climate progress. In the last few weeks alone, the Trump administration has announced plans to cut 20% of NOAA’s workforce; eliminate the EPA’s research arm and shutter it’s environmental justice offices; leave cities and states holding the bag on disaster recovery; and roll back more than 30 foundational environmental regulations.

Meanwhile, U.S. coastal cities are dealing with escalating climate impacts like intensifying storms and sea level rise—and the resulting threats to lives, livelihoods, and economies.

It’s abundantly clear that local action—for adapting to climate change impacts and implementing climate solutions—has never been more important.

For those new to our work, a little introduction. Our lens for climate action is coastal cities. That’s where more than 47 million people in the U.S. live (1 in 7 people), facing a similar set of ocean-climate challenges. A lot of good change is possible at the local government level. If we can get it right in these 195 cities, that would make a significant difference.

To be clear, this is not a “coastal elite” issue. Almost 16% of coastal city residents are living in poverty; 59% are people of color; 54% are renters; and 12% aren’t citizens—all higher than the national average.

So, what can be done? A lot. Our work on solutions nests in 5 core themes:

Expect to hear from us on all that — popping into your inbox monthly-ish with policy recommendations, case studies, data visualizations, etc. That nitty gritty, nerdy, juicy, wonky, weedy stuff about how we get from here to climate-ready coastal cities. And if you want to catch up on our work so far, you can find all our publications in our open access Resource Hub, which (in addition to our own documents) hosts 300+ vetted resources (and counting) from other experts.

We’re excited to share more soon. And, for now, we’ll leave you with this recent opinion piece in Rolling Stone by our co-founder, Ayana: What now for climate under Trump? Act locally.

Thanks for being with us.