Lisa never set out to become a climate advocate. For years, the former high school math teacher poured her energy into local campaigns to protect recess time at the state level and preserve school play space in Decatur, Georgia. She was that neighbor who showed up at school board meetings, built coalitions from scratch, and refused to let decisions be made without community voice. But everything changed when her daughter Melissa – then just in middle school – decided that learning about climate change wasn’t enough.
“She told us she had read enough,” Lisa recalls. “It was time to act.”
Melissa threw herself into climate advocacy – volunteering with the Sierra Club, helping make clean energy a top priority in the city’s 10-year strategic plan, launching a Sunrise Movement hub in Decatur, and organizing peers to elect climate champions. Her early realization: individual efforts matter, but decades of delay mean we need faster, bigger, systemic change.
Inspired by her daughter’s determination and clarity, Lisa shifted her organizing experience into high gear – rallying not just parents, but neighbors, students, and voters across Georgia.
Her main focus: the Georgia Public Service Commission.
Together with pediatrician Preeti Jaggi, Lisa co-founded Decatur Cares About Climate, a grassroots group focused on what few Georgians even realize exists: the Georgia Public Service Commission (PSC).
“These five elected commissioners decide whether our electricity comes from clean or dirty sources. Not many people know that 25 percent of all greenhouse gas pollution comes from how we generate electricity,” Lisa says. “Local climate goals are meaningless unless the PSC requires utilities to provide cleaner energy.”
Getting that message out takes time, but convincing people to act on it is even harder.
“Most people think they need to be experts before they speak up. But writing a simple 3-4 sentence publiccomment is all that’s needed,” Lisa says. “All it takes is saying: ‘I care about this. Georgia Power must transition away from dirty planet warming fossil fuels to clean energy sourcing now.’ Boom. Hit send. Then ask a friend to do the same.”
That’s why Lisa has made it her mission to meet people where they are. She’s had personal conversations with hundreds of Georgians – in grocery stores, at community events, in parks, coffee shops, even the DMV. She staffs booths at farmers markets, helps lead student testimony drives, and works on campaigns that turn complex PSC energy policy into accessible public calls to action.
In 2024, Lisa supported 17 high schooland college students to deliver powerful public comments at the Georgia PSC’s Integrated Resource Planning hearings. “They were nervous, but they did an incredible job,” she says. “They walked out energized.” Preeti followed by organizing a dozen physicians to testify too.
Lisa and her family have also committed to clean energy at home. They’ve installed high-efficiency heat pumps, upgraded insulation and windows, and adopted battery-powered yard tools, composting, and induction cooking. “It’s easier and better than gas,” Lisa says.
“We’ve switched so many things over, and we love it.” Despite doing so much personally and in her community, Lisa is clear: it’s not enough on its own. Rapid systemic change is needed, and that will only happen if our elected leaders support and require climate action.
“The most powerful thing any of us can do is take a little time to raise our voices together,” she says. “Our elected officials won’t act unless they hear from lots of us. And the truth is, we don’t need everyone to make a huge commitment – we just need more people to make a small one.”
Lisa doesn’t do this work for recognition. She’s fueled by the same urgency that first drove her daughter into action: the understanding that the future hinges on what we do today. And she knows that change doesn’t happen all at once – it’s built person by person, comment by comment, conversation by conversation.
“It’s a numbers game,” Lisa says. “We don’t have them yet. But when we do, our leaders will get the message that people are watching – and they’ll understand that people who comment at these PSC hearings also vote.”
“Almost everyone I speak with is worried about the climate crisis, but most feel that as an individual they can’t do anything about it. What people need to unde
rstand is that movements are a numbers game. Together, we are very powerful. When a lot of us take just a few minutes to raise our voices, our elected leaders notice. They’ll realize that people are watching, and they know that people who take the time to write a comment will also vote.”
“Everyone wants to know: what can one person do?” she says. “Well, it turns out, quite a lot – especially when you realize you’re not alone.”
This post was produced by Generation180, sharing the stories of local leaders driving climate action and clean energy solutions across the country. Lisa was a participant of Amplifiers: Atlanta in April 2025, a joint program between Generation180 and Rewiring America to inspire more clean energy advocates in the greater metro region.
Photos provided by Lisa Coronado
