I avoid thinking about climate change. It’s overwhelming and scary, and I don’t know what to do about it besides stuff I’ve already been doing for years, like recycling, using cloth shopping bags, keeping the thermostat low in winter, driving a smallish car for good gas mileage (since I can’t afford a hybrid). Otherwise, I’d just as soon put my head in the sand as mull over the possible effects of a 5-degree rise in average temperature throwing the ecosystem and our food supply off-kilter.

A recent trip through Wisconsin with the Institute for Journalism and Natural Resources changed my thinking. On visits to research sites, state forests, a paper mill, and other locations, I met people who are not only taking climate change seriously, they’re also doing something about it.

One of the country’s tallest TV towers, in the wilds of northern Wisconsin, supports sensors that sample air ten times per second year-round, measuring carbon dioxide, methane, moisture, temperature, and other parameters. Using data from sampling instruments around the world, a network of scientists are tracking the carbon cycle, seeking to understand the mechanisms that discharge temperature-raising carbon into the environment or sequester it in plants, soil, and bodies of water.

Government agencies are also using the data as they consider how to manage forests, which keep carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere. In state forests around the country, management plans are aimed at maximizing the ecosystem’s diversity and flexibility so it will be able to respond to temperature increases over the coming decades.

In timber-rich Wisconsin, paper mills have been a major industry since the 1800s. Small mills, suffering from the recession, are now shutting down, creating economic devastation. When William “Butch” Johnson bought a bankrupt mill in Park Falls three years ago, he realized that to make Flambeau River Papers viable, he had to reduce energy costs. Banks would not make loans on an unproven venture. Despite Johnson’s Republican roots, he decided to reach out for government loans and grants to fund conversion of the mill’s power plant, which is now fueled by biomass from woody debris left behind after timber harvesting. Further conversion will enable the system to reuse waste energy that is normally released into the atmosphere through cooling towers. By 2015, Flambeau expects to have a zero carbon footprint. All of the mill’s 310 jobs have been preserved, a big relief for Park Falls, population 2371.

I could go on, if I had the space, but you get the idea—scientists, policymakers, and businesspeople are working on the problem, and if we all do our part in small or large ways, there is hope of reducing and surviving climate change—especially if government policies support innovation and planning.