"Adaptation Futures" is here!

This week hundreds of climate change adaptation planners and researchers are convening for Adaptation Futures, the second international climate change adaptation conference, being held in Tucson, Arizona. It's going to be 100 degrees F and the conference organizer has warned us to dress for the heat. He wrote, "Tucson is famously casual and hot. Not used to either of those? Take a cue from the conference – adapt!" (I think I'm going to enjoy this conference. They are using imperative verbs in the orientation e-mail telling us to leave our pretensions at home.)

Here's the current program. I'm scheduled to present about my scenario planning case study in a panel with robust decision-making folks from Rand on Thursday (2:45 - 4:00 PM, Session C, in Gallagher). After that I should be answering questions at my poster in the poster session room (4:00 - 4:45).

Watch the plenary sessions streaming online here.

Some of the adaptation researchers I'm looking forward to hearing speak are Saleemul Huq, someone who has been writing about adaptation in the developing world for a decade or more, now a Senior Fellow in the Climate Change Group at the International Institute for Environment and Development in the UK, Patrick McCarthy of the Southwest Climate Change Initiative, and, from the West Coast, Susi Moser, one of California's top climate change adaptation thinkers/researchers, and -- representing the Climate Impacts Group at the University of Washington -- Amy Snover  and Lara Whitley Binder, who brought us the famous 2007 guidebook used by governments all over the U.S. "Preparing for Climate Change, A Guidebook for Local, Regional and State Governments."

Right now it is 54 degrees F in Oakland, so packing for 100 degrees is an exercise in imagination. Truly, this is one of the biggest challenges in climate change adaptation planning-- trying to imagine and sufficiently prepare for a completely different climate from the one you know! I'm packing my bathing suit, sandals and a paper fan--  and a sweater just in case.