History

How this site got started, via Founder and Exec Director Dr. Annette Olson, 2017:

“Shortly after the 2016 US Presidential election, due to my posting my climate worries on Facebook and my having worked as a scientist in the environmental field for decades, friends took me to lunch to drill me for answers to help save the planet. With many in the current administration planning to reverse “every” climate- and environment-saving action that has been made – there would be no way to prevent the global temperature from rising more than 3.6 Fahrenheit (!) degrees in the next couple of decades. Translation – sea level rises of 6 feet (also !) by 2100.  Never mind that Earth’s fever is not going to stop rising after that without strong action – it will continue and ice will melt and droughts will strike for generations to come.

So I went over some possible things we can do with my friends – especially ones that could spread the word, i.e., have a multiplier effect.  We talked about leasing roofs to solar panels, supporting bike shares, working on local and state politics, etc.  And they suggested I should start a blog, i.e., Climate Steps™.  Thank you Amy and Kim for changing my life, but especially for caring about the planet!”

As it takes time to research and write an article, and because often all us volunteering now on CSteps have little quick articles to share, etc – a Facebook group was soon paired to the CSteps website as a place to exchange and discuss ideas.

Now, with 6000 folks on FB (and growing rapidly), plus another 3000 on Twitter, Instagram and Linked In, we have a great group for sharing ideas and discussing priorities for climate action. We summarize some of these discussions and articles into articles and resource pages here in the website, adding in additional research with the help of several volunteers. Invited authors also contribute. We then share articles published here with the broader community for feedback. We are also beginning to add in planning tools with the help of interested partners.

 Climate Steps™ Workaholics

The Board:

Dr. Annette Olson,

Founder and Executive Director. Annette is a displaced Texan who has lived and worked in Washington, DC, for almost 30 years. Besides renovating her 100+ year-old house during this period, she has worked as a researcher, strategist, scientific liaison, and outreach specialist for federal agencies and nonprofits. In 2016, she decided to focus her spare time into fighting climate change and related environmental issues via a blog called Climate Steps (but see Amy’s story below). In 2017, she also formed the CSteps Facebook community, followed by Instagram, Twitter, etc. With rapid growth in followers, readers, guest authors, and collaborators, she realized it was time to make a choice. She quit her job at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) in 2020 to formally turn Climate Steps™ into a nonprofit organization.

Annette received her doctorate in biology from the University of Miami in 2001, studying the behavioral ecology of the long-nosed mongoose in West Africa and at the National Zoological Park, in DC/  She became a researcher and scientific liaison for the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of Natural History, including serving on the team creating the Behring Family Hall of Mammals. She went on to advise the World Wildlife Fund, the U.S. Geological Survey, NOAA, the National Technical Information Service, the Encyclopedia of Life, and the EPA on various scientific data and outreach projects over the years, mentoring almost 50 volunteers and interns in the process. She followed this by spending seven years at AAAS leading expert panels to assess and promote scientific research programs nationally and internationally, as well as creating symposia to outline new trends in research.  Besides growing Climate Steps, she is a Co-Founder and Board Member of EarthHero.org (a global action app), and is the Lead for Green Neighbors DC, a locally oriented climate action group in Washington, DC.

Ms. Amy Copeland, Instigator and Founding Member of the Board. Amy was the one who originally pushed encouraged Annette to start the Climate Steps™ blog back in 2016 and she has helped strategize and pull together resources as it began to resolve into an organization. In 2020, Amy totally agreed with Annette that it was time to take it to the next level, but we’re not sure she realized that, due to her honest and valuable advice, she would be asked to serve on the Board when it was formed in December 2020. Amy has 20 years of professional experience in program management and technical support for domestic and international health programs, most recently in cancer care and patient advocacy nonprofit organizations. Her current work focuses on qualitative research and resource development for healthcare providers, and she has worked in the field of behavior change. In previous positions, she has worn most of the nonprofit hats, including but not limited to proposal-writing, staff and volunteer supervision, and strategic planning. Amy has a Bachelor of Arts in Sociology from The College of William and Mary and a Master of Public Health from The George Washington University. She also has an Executive Certificate in Nonprofit Management from Georgetown University. She lives in Washington, DC, and when she is not serving as a consultant, she is eagerly awaiting the next time she can safely (post-Covid) go scuba diving again. She also has an addiction to seed-saving, a project which has taken up most of the lower drawer in the refrigerator but hasn’t yet resulted in a bountiful garden. She remains hopeful.

Dr. Shaaretha Pelly, Founding Member of the Board. Shaaretha was a close colleague of Annette’s at the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS). She recalls the day Annette started the Climate Steps™ blog, and they both saw the dire need for it then as they see now.

Shaaretha’s area of scientific expertise is Tuberculosis and Tropical Medicine. She holds a Ph.D. in Pathobiology from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and a Certificate in Tropical Medicine from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. Shaaretha has worked to build research and scientific capacity at the Center for Tuberculosis Research at Johns Hopkins University, the Nanyang Technological University (NTU) of Singapore, and at AAAS. She enjoys working at the intersection of policy and science – working on grants, managing scientific reviews and evaluations, and establishing partnerships to strengthen interdisciplinary collaborations across the Sciences.  Having had the opportunity to work and build networks across the US and Singapore research enterprises, and through overseeing research at the NTU, Shaaretha is currently a consultant based in the DC-Metro area. While trained in the biomedical sciences, she saw the immense value in addressing global health through a One Health [1] approach – recognizing that human health is intricately connected to the health of animals and our shared environment. Shaaretha’s personal interest has also always been in the study and protection of wildlife, so she very much looks forward to fostering this in working to establish Climate Steps, the organization.

Dr. Ann Paterson, In-Waiting Member of the Board.  Ann Paterson, PhD, met Annette in graduate school at the University of Miami, where she completed her doctorate on lizard behavioral ecology. She has worked as a professor since 1999 and has been very active in professional societies. She has been a board member, treasurer, and participant on other committees for the Society for the Study of Amphibians and Reptiles. She is a governing board member, officer, and general herpetology section editor for the peer reviewed journal Herpetological Conservation and Biology. Being constantly aware of the biodiversity crisis and interrelated effects of climate change on species led her to feel an increasing obligation to do anything she could to make a difference at multiple scales. She has a particular interest in efforts to include rural residents in discussions as it can lead to disengagement when so many examples of what people can do focus on things like taking public transport that simply aren’t realistically possible for many people in rural areas at this time. She attended COP26 in Glasgow in 2021 and had a chance to hear a variety of perspectives from well known climate leaders and to gain insights and motivation from concerned and alarmed individuals from all over the world, some of whom made great sacrifices to attend and be heard.