Adaptation! at America.gov?

Did you know that the U.S. State Department has a blog dedicated to climate change adaptation? Yes, it does! Well, did! Read posts from August 2009 - April 2010.

Apparently the science writer who runs it, Cheryl Pellerin, is moving her operation over to Facebook. I hope she leaves this blog up so I can poke around the blogroll, where I see she has a link to the ACT-Adapt team at Simon Fraser University, whose executive director has caught my eye as someone with an interesting analysis. (And who I am scheduled to interview on Friday.)

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Update: The U.S. State Department blog that covered climate change adaptation in its final post pointed to a new Facebook group the authors were starting: "Global Conversations: Climate." It looks like that group lasted a year or so.

In Wine There is Truth

Adaptation planners who know the predicted impacts on the world's food supply and civil conflicts are not losing sleep over possible climate impacts on vintners. However, this article makes an interesting point-- grapes are so sensitive that they can be the canary in the coalmine for climate change. And, vintners are often thinking more long-term than your average for-profit business, since they tend to be handed down for generations.

Grapes of Wrath
Apr 26, 2010
Mark Hertsgaard
Writing for the Atlantic's "Climate Report"

Because wine grapes are extraordinarily sensitive to temperature, the industry amounts to an early-warning system for problems that all food crops -- and all industries -- will confront as global warming intensifies. In vino veritas, the Romans said: In wine there is truth.

The World in 2035 - NOAA report in Slate

Warming in America: Mass migrations, water wars, and insect plagues. How will climate change reshape the electoral map? By Jim Tankersley
... Both major political parties could see their power bases erode as Americans, responding to warming temperatures and rising seas, flee the Republican-dominated South and Democratic-friendly coasts.


"Scenarios for 2035" - the NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) report the article is covering-- 40 pages of predictions.
... “Scenarios for 2035” presents two ways of looking at the world of 2035. The first is through the narrative text, which provides short stories of the forces, dynamics, and outcomes within each scenario. The second view of the future is provided in the table at the end of the document, which compares the major forces and trends across each of the scenarios. Readers are encouraged to review the three scenarios in this document with an open mind, using them as a point of departure for  thinking about the challenges and opportunities facing NOAA and its extended stakeholder community.

Welcome to my research blog!

I am a climate change adaptation researcher, and this is such an exciting area of emerging policy I decided to start a blog. I hope I can document my research in a way that might be useful to others interested in the neglected step-child of climate change policy: adaptation.

What is climate change "adaptation"? Adjusting systems to respond to the changing climate.

So far, most research on climate change has gone into mitigation strategies, projects to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. Adaptation to the inevitable changes to our climate has been put on a raft behind the mitigation yacht.

However, in the past five years there has been an increasing volume of literature on the need to both mitigate GHGs and adapt to the coming changes. I got on the adaptation raft in late 2008 after attending a presentation by Isabel Hilton on the melting Himalayan glacier. Here's a Jan. 2010 article by her on how insufficient research is being done on that glacier.

My area of interest for the moment is the way adaptation is being grappled with by countries around the Pacific Rim. Enjoy!