TUPPER LAKE -- A wide-ranging conversation about Adirondack climate change began with the simplest example of what to do.

Alicia Ashe, a senior at Keene Central School, spoke to an auditorium filled to capacity about green efforts at their school community of 169 students.

Since she was in kindergarten, the school has composted lunchroom leftovers.

School Superintendent Cynthia Ford-Johnston said the program started as an effort to save money.

"Approximately 27 pounds is diverted from the landfill each day," Johnston said.

The uneaten food takes four to 10 months to compost and then goes back into the school garden, where students grow more food.

The first inclination to save money on trash grew into a long-term teaching program that has since become a habit for students, Johnston said.

Ashe believes one town can make a difference to combat climate change, even in composting lunch leftovers from 169 kids a day.

It adds up to more than 35 tons of reused waste in 13 years.

"If you start in small towns, one town means a lot," Ashe said.

Keene's message, Johnston said, was offered as a "ray of hope," amidst a more harrowing outlook.

Some 191 stakeholders, from scientists to students, signed up for the two-day Adirondack Climate Change conference at the Wild Center.

The first presentations framed the larger problem, and by 1 p.m., planning groups were busy talking in every corner of the museum.

Carter Bales, director emeritus of economic advisers at McKinsey & Company, recapped economic goals derived from a national summit held here last summer.

Total U.S. greenhouse gas emissions -- the collective American carbon footprint -- was 7.2 gigatons (billions of tons) of carbon dioxide in 2005.