Nowadays, Paul Thompson lists his occupation as “climate changer.” Interviewing the retired Minneapolis teacher, you don’t really have to ask questions. Mention climate change and he’s off, memories and opinions bouncing from south Minneapolis to New Guinea to the Maldives, talking of green living and floods and biodigestion.

“It’s all so intricately interwoven, and all of it revolves around having a healthy planet,” he said. “It’s about fulfilling the promise of what it means to be alive.”

This week, Thompson, 61, has carried his enthusiasm to Copenhagen, where he is an official delegate to the United Nations Climate Change Conference . The meeting started Monday and runs through Dec. 18. He’s there not only as a representative of Edina’s Energy and Environment Commission but also because of connections to a group called ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability , which made him a conference delegate. Thompson paid for his trip himself, with some support from donors, and Thompson is posting updates at http://ptfydisc-onecoolplanet.blogspot.com/

He hopes to talk with people from around the world about climate change and give a presentation on what Edina has done to try to protect the environment. He’s staying with Danish hosts in a suburb of Copenhagen, where he will try to build connections with the city and schools that become sister relationships for Edina and its public schools.

“We have to get out of this 'right now’ mentality,” Thompson said last week, a day before he departed for Denmark. “Think about the children and our grandchildren. What are we leaving? This is the first time we could leave the world in worse condition than what we found.

“So much can be done.”

Thompson’s passion for environmental issues dates to the early 1970s, when he was a Peace Corps volunteer in East Malaysia on the island of Borneo. That work, and travel to places like India, Afghanistan, Myanmar and Nepal — he hiked 28 days to visit the base camp at Mount Everest, something he’d wanted to do since he was a boy — fueled an awareness of how rich and wasteful Americans were.

He carried his global perspective into classrooms when he became a teacher in Minneapolis public schools, inviting speakers from other countries to talk to students. He set up groups to try to fight hunger and poverty. In 1989, he won the Sargent Shriver Award for Distinguished Humanitarian Service , given to a retired Peace Corps volunteer whose activities carry on the Corps’ ethos.

Thompson retired from teaching in 2008 and now devotes most of his time to working on “healthy planet” projects. That includes serving on Edina’s Energy and Environment Commission, helping to organize events that focus on climate change and working with schools. He’s a member of the Edina public schools’ “Go Green” committee, which is trying to make schools more environmentally sensitive. Thompson said every school now is composting and using compostable service ware.

“Now, the big move is to finish the compost, bring the compost back to school and start community gardens so kids get the connection between their behavior and the end result,” he said.

“Let’s close the circle.”

Thompson flew to Copenhagen with banners made and signed by schoolchildren whom he calls “the walking, talking eyes and ears of Edina and Minnesota.”

“The kids got the concept that this is not about saving the earth,” he said. “The earth is powerful — if we’re not here, the animals and the planet will be, and they will adapt. It’s about saving people and doing the right thing.”

In his mind, that means connecting people with nature and thinking about energy use and how it affects climate. In Edina, he said, it means getting the city to consider sustainability in its decisions about development.

And he said it means getting people to think about the effects of climate change when one-third of the world’s people will run out of water if snow and ice in mountains continues to melt.

“It’s a justice issue,” he said. “We need to do our part to clean up the planet and find a better way of living.”

Mary Jane Smetanka • 612-673-7380