Community Spotlight: Kate Hagemann, Miami-Dade County’s Office of Resilience
Kate Hagemann is a Sustainability Initiatives Coordinator within the Office of Resilience at Miami-Dade County, where her work focuses primarily on climate change and adaptation to sea level rise. She also worked on coastal climate adaptation during the post-Sandy Rebuild by Design and National Disaster Resilience competitions. While earning her Master of Environmental Science at the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Science, she studied how cities use grey and green infrastructure to adapt to sea level rise.
Kate joined us for our kickoff workshop in July. She presented an overview of the latest climate science, and we discussed the growing impact of climate change and sea level rise on coastal communities. She also shared how youth in Miami have made an impact by speaking out and demanding that their elected officials and city government take action on climate change.
We asked Kate what she would want today’s students to know about what she does. Her response was simple and poignant. “That climate change is real, and sea levels are rising, and will continue in an irreversible way for our generation and the next. We have to change the way we think about the coast and recognize that coastal areas will become increasingly dynamic over our lifetimes.”
Thank you, Kate!
To read more about the impact sea level rise is having in Miami, this article provides great insight:
https://newrepublic.com/article/123216/miami-sinking-beneath-sea-not-without-fight
This is our first ‘Community Spotlight! Through our work, we’ve connected with professionals from New Orleans and around the world. They inspire us with what they’re doing each day to deepen our knowledge of land and water, strengthen their communities, or empower youth. This include designers, planners, policy makers, artists, scientists, and community advocates. We are excited to share their stories and what they’ve taught us.
We will ask each of them a variation on one simple question: “What is one thing every child growing up today should know?”