Congratulations Oakland on your new Climate Action Plan!

Congratulations Garrett Fitzgerald, Oakland's Sustainability Coordinator, and the rest of Oakland's Public Works Sustainable Oakland Department, and the Oakland Climate Action Coalition (now the Local Clean Energy Alliance) and the rest of the active community supporters, for the unanimous passage of the "Oakland Energy and Climate Action Plan" at the Oakland City Council meeting last night. Read the draft version here, which will be the same as the final, I presume, unless the CEQA process changed something. Sustainability maven Rebecca Kaplan moved for its passage and, except for the one person excused from the meeting (Jane Brunner), it was all ayes.

The eight people giving comments before the passage of the plan all had praise to offer, but also a few constructive criticisms, including the need for the plan to address the need for more trees in Oakland with a master plan for planting. That comment came from a representative of Urban Releaf, from Richmond, CA. After the plan passed, Garrett and the Urban Releaf contingent reconnoitered in the hallway, and I got to hear Garrett tell the woeful tale of how a few years ago Oakland was up for $50,000 in matching funds for urban greening from CalFire, but it was lost because the expenditure, approved at the City Council, was misclassified by a clerk and therefore disappeared along with the opportunity for the matching funds. City layoffs have left the Public Works Department with no institutional memory about the original plan for those funds.

On a positive fiscal note, I learned at the meeting that $35 million in unexpected revenue from economic growth has shown up in Oakland's coffers, and the City Council is gearing up to allocate it. Trees won't be on the priority list before basic infrastructure maintenance and safety, but it's just to say that Oakland should not despair of its ability to renew itself.

Collaboratory for Adaptation at Notre Dame

I've been remiss in updating this blog for a few weeks while the election season has been rolling on, adamantly ignoring climate chance until Sandy suddenly put it on the agenda. I've been fascinated watching how people are using or misusing science to link Sandy with climate change. I'll hopefully get back to exploring that in another blog post. But for now... look! Shiny!

A new research collaboration resource! Check out the Collaboratory for Adaptation to Climate Change, apparently launched in April 2011 and put into active use in August 2011, housed at University of Notre Dame. It's funded by the university and the NSF.

It took two seconds to start an account, and now I'm going to start exploring the events listings, online resources, and taking their "who are you?" poll. It seems to have a very fast, user-friendly interface, and all my favorite tools and trainings seem to be featured. I wonder if they are coordinating with CAKE?

The Human Right to Water Affirmed in California

Congratulations, staff of the Community Water Center! You have worked long and hard to win yesterday's victory, when California Governor Brown signed the Human Right to Water Bill, AB 685 (see AB 685 with recent markups), introducing into the Water Code this language:

"It is hereby declared to be the established policy of the state that every human being has the right to safe, clean, affordable, and accessible water adequate for human consumption, cooking, and sanitary purposes."

This could be an important leverage point for rural and unincorporated communities as California warms and becomes more arid.

Before now domestic use of water was prioritized in California water policy; however, that included all domestic use, including watering lawns and filling swimming pools.

In 2011 Governor Brown signed other legislation recommended as part of a Human Right to Water Bill Package:

• AB 983, the Access to Safe Drinking Water Act, to better serve communities lacking safe, affordable water;
• AB 938, about public water systems;
• AB 1221, about the State Water Quality Control Fund and the State Water Pollution Cleanup and Abatement Account; 
• SB 244, about local government, land use, general plans, and disadvantaged unincorporated communities

California's Adaptation Planning Guide Officially Out!

The announcement just hit my inbox-- the California Adaptation Planning Guide (nee Policy Guide) has been officially released! The announcement text:

The California Climate Adaptation Planning Guide (APG) has been finalized and is now available to the public through the California Natural Resources Agency website.  The APG, developed through a partnership between the California Natural Resources Agency, the California Emergency Management Agency, with technical support from California Polytechnic State University – San Luis Obispo (Cal Poly) and funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency, provides guidance to support regional and local communities in addressing the unavoidable consequences of climate change.

As a member of the APG Advisory Committee, I have been eager to see this finished and released. This is apparently the very first adaptation guidance funded by U.S. FEMA. If it proves useful, hopefully other states will apply and get funded to do the same.

Congratulations to everyone at Cal-EMA, Natural Resources and Cal Poly who worked hard on this for the past year.

More studies showing species having unexpected responses to climate change

UC Berkeley's Grinnell Resurvey Project has generated data which allows researchers to assert some unexpected truths about species' responses to climate change.

The general wisdom is that species will move upslope/north to retreat from warming conditions. But that isn't how some species are responding. Two new studies -- "The push and pull of climate change causes heterogeneous shifts in avian elevational range" (Tingley, Koo, Moritz, Rush, and Beissinger) published Aug. 6, 2012, in Global Change Biology, and "Anthropogenic refugia ameliorate the severe climate-related decline of a montane mammal along its trailing edge" (Morelli, Smith, Kastely, Mastroserio, Moritz, and Beissinger) from Aug. 15, 2012, in the Proceedings of the Royal Society B -- look at this puzzle. The first study found as many as 25% of species have shifted in ways not predicted, considering temperature changes. Lead author Morgan Tingley says, "We find that precipitation changes can have a major, opposing influence to temperature in a species’ range shift." The second study looks at Belding's ground squirrel, an animal perceived to be relatively common in the Sierras which has apparently disappeared from 42% of the places where it was recorded in the early 1900s by the original Grinnell survey. Local extinctions appeared more likely where winters are warmer and rain more frequent. UC Berkeley's Toni Morelli elaborates, "[T]he rate of decline is much greater than that seen in the same region for the pika, a small mountain-dwelling cousin of the rabbit that has become the poster child for the effects of climate warming in the contiguous United States."

Eerily, Tingley pointed out in this Aug. 15 article announcing the two studies' release, "More worrisome are the species that have not shifted. How are they adapting? Are they moving, but we just can’t detect it? Or are they slowly declining as environmental conditions gradually become less ideal where they live?"

Meanwhile, the ground squirrel seems to be doing particularly well in places modified by humans-- artificial oases like Mono Lake County Park. In the end, human land management choices might play a bigger role in the survival of a species than global changes in temperature or rain. It should make our state and local governments reconsider the importance of preserving open space-- you never know what species is making its last stand against climate change there.

California State Vulnerability and Adaptation Study Released at Long Last

The California State Vulnerability and Adaptation Study is finally out! Seven months after it was due to be released, it was launched yesterday (July 31, 2012). I'm not entirely sure what the delay was, but I'm relieved it's out. My component was done almost a year ago, with research centering on an event that took place in January 2011-- the Future of Wild Marin, a scenario planning workshop.

• Read my report on decision-making tools for resource managers facing climate change (167 p. , 2 MB)  
• The V&A Study's 14-page summary document 
•  See a list with links to all 35 studies that comprise the State V&A Study

 Yesterday's press release calls this the "third assessment," so I asked the project coordinator for links to the first two:

• Read the first assessment's non-technical summary from July 2006;  
• See a list with links to the documents comprising the second assessment, which was not peer-reviewed, from 2009 - called the "Climate Action Team Biennial Report to the Governor and Legislature" or "CAT Report"

Go California climate researchers!

The Award for Best Use of a Pogoism in Climate Change Journalism Goes To...

...Bill McKibben for "we have met the enemy and they is Shell" in Global Warming's Terrifying New Math (Rolling Stone, published online July 19, 2012, coming out in the Aug. 2, 2012, print edition). A really great piece of journalism, hopefully not falling on deaf ears in Washington as the summer brings about one superlative after another (hottest/ dryest/ biggest heatwave/ drought/ wildfire/ etc.).

This is a tweak on the 1970 Pogoism "we have met the enemy and they is us" by Walt Kelly. It is a parody of "We have met the enemy, and they are ours" (authored by U.S. Navy Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry after the Battle of Lake Erie in 1813). In 1953 Walt Kelly first parodied this phrase in the Pogo Papers' forward ("A Word to the Fore"): 

...it remains true that those things which make us human are, curiously enough, always close at hand. Resolve then, that on this very ground, with small flags waving and tinny blasts on tiny trumpets, we shall meet the enemy, and not only may he be ours, he may be us.

(From Wikiquote)

It was later used on a 1970 Earth Day poster.

After you read what McKibben says -- that we can't control climate change until we put a price on carbon -- it's something of a relief to read Walt Kelly, reminding us of all that makes us human, bad and good. As much as Shell is the enemy, Shell is also a company of people, and we are people. It is just as true, therefore, by my lights, that we are the ones who can make this right-- put a price on carbon and make the fossil-fuel industry as a whole internalize the externality of climate change. Hopefully not after the focusing event that I fear will be required to motivate the people at Shell and ExxonMobil and BP-- the catastrophic flooding of an economic center like lower Manhattan.

The Adaptation Fund commits $50 mill+ to seven projects, but what is it exactly?

A June 29, 2012, press release from the Adaptation Fund just drifted into my inbox. It is committing over 50 million dollars for seven projects. The Adaptation Fund's brief FAQ tells me it issues decisions about funding four times a year. The footer on the press release says:

The Adaptation Fund is a self-standing fund established under the Kyoto Protocol of the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change, which receives most of its funding from a two percent share of proceeds of all Certified Emission Reductions issued under the Protocol’s Clean Development Mechanism projects. The Fund is designed to finance concrete climate change adaptation projects and programs based on the needs, views and priorities of developing countries. The Global Environment Facility provides secretariat services to the Adaptation Fund and the World Bank serves as its trustee, both on an interim basis.

I confess I still feel in the dark about this fund and how it works. 
Well, poking around a bit more, I realized that I had heard about it as a theoretical funding instrument with terms under negotiation. It was proposed in 2001, but has been issuing grants only since Sept. 2010.

Poking the internet a little, I found a nice break-down of the working parts of the Adaptation Fund, housed on the Climate Funds Update, a really user-friendly site with information on climate change action funding that's updated twice a month, a joint project of Heinrich Böll Stiftung and the Overseas Development Institute.

As with the Adaptation Fund, I can't tell from their site when they actually started functioning. More internet poking.

Aha! A 12-page briefing issued by Heinrich Böll Stiftung, dated May 2012, reporting on the work of the Climate Funds Update, says:  

CFU was launched in 2009 and seeks to monitor 22 dedicated public climate change finance initiatives from the point when donors pledge funding, through to the actual disbursement of climate finance. 

I wish the authors of these helpful sites would be a little more explicit and up front about who they are, what they do, and when they started doing it! In the meantime, adaptation funding mechanism watchers should add the AF and CFU to their bookmarks.

New Birch Trees in Arctic Speeding Climate Change

Growing up in the foothills of the Adirondacks, and having spent other formative times of my life in Russia, I have a deep, abiding love for birch trees, and so it comes as VERY unwelcome news that their northward expansion into the Arctic tundra may contribute to climate change.

"[U]sing a novel methodology based on measuring the radiocarbon content of the carbon dioxide being released, the researchers found that the birch trees appeared to be stimulating the decomposition of soil organic matter. Thus, the research was able to identify a mechanism by which the birch trees can contribute directly to reducing carbon storage in soils."

(Found through "Expansion of Forests in the European Arctic Could Result in the Release of Carbon Dioxide" - Science Daily, June 17, 2012)

Retiring the term "no regrets" - Optimal solutions instead

Yes, yes, a thousand times yes. Thank you Shaun Martin,WWF Managing Director of Conservation Leadership and Capacity Building, for this article on the problems of the term "no regrets" on the WWF ClimatePrep site.

He suggests avoiding "low regrets" as an alternative, instead offering "optimal solutions" - actions which "maximize benefits while minimizing negative consequences."

I couldn't agree more that we need to stop focusing on the amount of "regrets" and focus on the appropriateness -- optimality -- of the action to respond to the known climate threat. Besides being a syntactically clearer word, for me using the word "optimal" also serves to turn towards the desire for sufficient preparation and away from all that we fear in adapting to climate change-- whether it be spending too much money or planting the wrong thing in a threatened landscape.

"The World Daily" - cool new iPhone app for tracking climate impacts

Kirk Klausmeyer, my friend and fellow climate change researcher over at the San Francisco office of the Nature Conservancy -- author of this cool 2009 map showing drought and heat stress for California under climate change -- has just come out with the World Daily for the iPhone, the first app to display near real-time satellite images of any location on the planet ($1.99, not yet available for Android).

Kirk writes of the app:

[Its] images are from MODIS and are medium-resolution so you can see cities, landforms, weather patterns, wildfires, and snow cover, but not smaller things like houses.  ... It is a great way to watch the effects of climate change in real time. You can monitor hurricanes, typhoons, super cells... The app also has an option to view non-visible light bands to track changes in wildfires, even through thick smoke.  The [app's] facebook page has a time series album that shows the progression of the New Mexico wildfire in the Gila National Forest.  There is also another sensor on the satellites that show snow and ice, so you can track shrink[ing] glaciers all over the world.  Keep an eye on Greenland and be the first to report the loss of the ice shelf!  So while this may not help with adaptation, you can at least monitor climate change in the comfort and safety of your own home.  

Comfort and safety, unless of course you live somewhere like the Gila National Forest or Greenland, I suppose...

"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.

When the Climate Tells You It's Time to Go

In "Addressing Climate Change and Migration in Asia and the Pacific," an 80-page report released March 13, 2012, by the Asian Development Bank, researchers attempt to tease out climate change factors from the many other factors driving migration and displacement in the region expected to sustain the worst population impacts from climate change.

[I]t [is] hard to predict with any degree of certainty the number of people who will be displaced by climate change. However, it is possible to identify the processes by which these migrations will occur, as well as the places where they are most likely to happen. This is what this report aims to do, focusing on extreme weather events, water stress and land degradation, and sea-level rise.

Based on one report I read from the International Organization on Migration (Migration and Climate Change, from Oli Brown, 2008), those who STAY worry me more than those who GO. The ADB report addresses this in their chapter "Strengthening Adaptation Through Migration" (from page 46):

At the same time that an increasing number of populations find themselves forced to move because of climate change, significant numbers of populations often find themselves forced to stay. Climate change could indeed prevent the most vulnerable from migrating, as their resources will be reduced [...]. 

I like that this report (a) doesn't raise alarms about invading hoards of poor climate migrants sweeping up on rich countries' shores (which Brown calls out as a myth in his 2008 report) and (b) points to the need to anticipate and plan for wise migration rather than waiting for it to happen on its own, possibly in ways that leave people in greater danger.

Basically, where Asian Pacific countries are concerned, good migration policies make good neighbors! This has always been true, but the pressure is on to strengthen these policies now. The report ends on this note:

Governments at all levels, regional bodies, and international organizations have a responsibility to act with urgency on this issue. They have before them an opportunity to shape a future of human mobility that promotes better, more inclusive living conditions for the people of the world’s most populous region. 

You can't force a person to move out of harm's way, but you can-- and governments must-- create the conditions that allow for safe passage to a better place when the climate tells you it's time to go.

New study: the low price of carbon puts brakes on innovation

A former professor from my public policy graduate school, Margaret Taylor (now at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory), has just published a new study in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS) with her findings about how the low price of carbon in current cap-and-trade programs is leading to a slow-down on technological innovation to reduce greenhouse gases. Read it here: Innovation under cap-and-trade programs (March 12, 2012).

New Sea Level Visualization Tool Launched by Climate Central

On March 14, 2012, Climate Central, a climate science and climate communications-oriented NGO based in Palo Alto, CA, and Princeton, NJ, launched a new report with an on-line interactive tool for analyzing the risk from US coastal sea level rise-- Surging Seas. Its map is searchable by US postal code or city name.

Read the press release about the launch of the report and on-line tool.

Here's Climate Central's compendium of news coverage about the Surging Seas on-line tool.

And here's the scientific report published on March 14 whose methods form the basis for the Surging Seas map outputs: Tidally adjusted estimates of topographic vulnerability to sea level rise and flooding for the contiguous United States (Strauss, Ziemlinski, Weiss and Overpeck, in Environmental Research Letters).

The first thing I notice is that Alaska and Hawaii aren't included in this map. When I searched "Alaska" it said "No affected location found." Looking back at the title of the methodological basis... "contiguous United States." Aha. (I hope someone is creating a tool like this for those states' extremely vulnerable coasts!)

Searching my hometown of Oakland, CA, it tells me: "Over 1 in 6 chance sea level rise + storm surge + tide will overtop +1ft by 2020 at nearest flood risk indicator site: San Francisco - San Francisco Bay, 13.4 miles away." 

I like that it spells out in a sentence the meaning of what you see in the map that is generated. However, with any tool like this I have to wonder if someone is going to misuse it in an actuarial capacity, or use it to refuse financing to someone looking for a mortgage. The 1 in 6 risk (that's 16% -- we're not told how much over that percent, just that it's over that percent) is for a location 13 miles away; will the sea rise and overtopping happen exactly the same way all the way around the San Francisco bay? If not, that 16% might be only a VERY rough estimate. As with any simplified tool like this, we can't see the error bars or caveats. 

Curious, I looked at their disclaimer. It includes this:

You are cautioned that Content should NOT be used:

• to assess actual coastal or other hazards, insurance requirements, or property values.

• in lieu of Flood Insurance Studies and Flood Insurance Rate Maps issued by the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

• for navigation, permitting, zoning or other legal purposes.

I hope people heed those words! In the meantime, it's a very accessible tool to provoke thinking (and hopefully motivate policy action) to protect our coasts' future under climate change.

And also... perhaps is has already provoked a little tongue-in-cheek future history of San Francisco after catastrophic sea level rise... From "San Francisco Archipelago" on the blog Burrito Justice, March 20, 2012: "While the submerged ruins of the Sunset and the Mission have always been popular diving attractions, many have already forgotten the locations of long-flooded streets and avenues."

The award for the best-ever 3rd-grade pun utilization in a response to a climate change impact question goes to...

...Conrad Anker -- in his interview on NPR's Science Friday today. Conrad is a mountaineer who is about to re-summit Everest, and he responded to host Ira Flatow's question about whether he's seen evidence of climate change on Everest with this:

"How does a mountain hear? Mountaineers!"

And then segued into describing what he's seen changing on the mountain. (Paths used in the 1970's have melted, the cryosphere is breaking up at high elevations, etc.)

Best non-shocking, non-alienating, 3rd grade pun-utilizing response to a question about climate change. Ever.

Bay Area Climate Planners Respond to the New York Times

On February 17, 2012, the New York Times published an article by local Bay Area journalist John Upton entitled "Bay Area Climate Change Plans Lack Regional Cooperation." In it, the Joint Policy Committee (JPC), a multi-agency policy coordinating committee which tackles many regional issues, including climate change, is characterized as "dysfunctional" and "a waste of public money that should be disbanded" in the opinion of many local lawmakers and committee members.*

Today, Bruce Riordan, the Climate Consultant for the JPC, issued this response to Upton's article, pointing to some of the good local projects and agencies benefiting from Bay Area-level coordination (excerpted from an e-mail sent to local Bay Area climate planners):

---

A number of you have asked about our reaction to the New York Times piece last Friday, "Bay Area Climate Change Plans Lack Regional Cooperation." [...]

On climate adaptation/resilience—preparing our communities for the impacts from sea level rise, extreme storms, water shortages, etc.—is the Bay Area moving at the speed and scale required? No. Are we moving ahead on adaptation planning? Yes, and some of the best work is around regional cooperation. Here are three good examples.

The two-year Adapting to Rising Tides project is doing the hard work from Emeryville to Union City, learning how how cities, counties, special districts, community organizations, and the private sector should best work together to assess risk and create strategies on sea level rise and extreme storm events. Not flashy headline material, but BCDC, NOAA and the local partners are learning many valuable lessons that will eventually help all 50+ cities and 9 counties that touch the bay. By the way, have you seen the [California] King Tides Initiative photos? Fascinating.

Bay Area water agencies—we have a bunch of them for water supply, wastewater, stormwater, flood control, water quality—are currently developing the latest Integrated Regional Water Management Plan, will include a major section on climate impacts on water for the bay region. You can keep track of the IRWMP (aren't we good at catchy names?) [here at the website of the Bay Area Integrated Regional Management Plan].

The JPC's Bay Area Climate and Energy Resilience Project [...] is developing the commitment, resources and leadership that will be critical for long-term Bay Area-wide collaboration. To be completed in late May, our project will bring together the latest science with important learning on potential strategies, decision-making structures and financing approaches. The information is actually the easy part—as the NYT said we already have lots of plans and reports. We think the real work is creating great working relationships and trust, and building a structure for decision-making on the impacts like sea level rise and water shortages that MUST be made by all 101 cities and 9 counties working together. [...]

Finally, while we definitely need more coordination, not everything about climate adaptation must be done regionally. [There are] many [...] wonderful climate adaptation projects and stakeholders [happening] RIGHT NOW in the Bay Area. [...] We need to encourage more of this type of innovation and experimentation—a hallmark of the Bay Area's great history. Those of us in the "coordination business" need to focus 100% on where we can add real value to these efforts.

---

* Bruce Riordan responds specifically to this characterization by Upton noting "Scott Haggerty and a few others right now are calling the JPC 'dysfunctional' and a 'waste of public money that should be disbanded.' ... I would suggest it is more accurate to say that SOME local lawmakers and committee members... not MANY."

Not climate-change specific, but still important: 8th Environmental Justice Symposium at Berkeley Law

Check it out-- the UC Berkeley School of Law is hosting the 8th Annual Environmental Justice Symposium, sponsored by the Center for Law, Energy and the Environment (CLEE). The theme this year is "Overcoming Invisibility: Environmental Justice in Rural America."

I was born and raised in a rural, isolated, economically depressed area in Northern New York, and I am always mentally testing proposals for climate change adaptation as to whether they are designed only for city-dwellers, or whether they might be adopted to benefit rural populations. Laurel Firestone from the Community Water Center in the Central Valley is someone I respect greatly as someone thinking beyond city-oriented interventions for access to water under climate change in California. She is presenting at this conference on March 1.

I'm not sure why the schedule of events isn't posted on CLEE's site, but it was circulated by means of a semi-private mailing list I'm on, so here you go (note that the closing talk on March 2 is already full, though a wait list has been started):

---

-- This EJ Symposium at the Berkeley Law School is free, including food. --

WHAT: THE 8TH ANNUAL ENVIRONMENTAL JUSTICE SYMPOSIUM
WHEN: February 27th - March 2nd, 12:45-2:00pm each day
WHY: Rural communities and the environmental justice issues that impact these areas are often overlooked. We are bringing together organizers, attorneys, and community members who work in these areas to drop some knowledge, share their experiences, and kick off what we hope will be great ongoing discussions.

Save the date for SEEJ's upcoming Environmental Justice Symposium! The topic this year is "Overcoming Invisibility: Environmental Justice in Rural America." Join us for a week of lunchtime panel discussions on important environmental justice issues impacting rural communities. Lunch will be provided each day and all events are free and open to the public. See below for a description of events and speakers each day. We look forward to seeing you there and please pass on the information to your networks!

Schedule for the Week:

*Monday, February 27, 2012. 12:45-2:00pm. Room 105.*
KEYNOTE EVENT: THE STRUGGLE FOR CLEAN ENERGY ON TRIBAL LANDS
Leaders from the Navajo Nation-- Anna Rondon (New Energy Economy), Wahleah Jones (Black Mesa Water Coalition), Brad Bartlett (Western Energy Justice Project), and Caitlin Sislin (Women's Earth Alliance)—will discuss the struggle against mining and towards clean energy alternatives on tribal lands.
~~~Lunch provided from Cafe Gratitude~~~

*Tuesday, February 28, 2012. 12:45-2:00pm. Room 295.*
GENDER, RACE, AND POWER IN THE EJ MOVEMENT
This event brings together female attorneys, advocates and organizers of color to explore ways gender and race have impacted women's experiences and strategies leading struggles for environmental and economic justice in rural America. Come participate in a conversation with Anna Rondon (New Energy Economy) and Felicia Espinosa (California Rural Legal Assistance), moderated by Tracy Perkins (U.C. Santa Cruz).
~~~Lunch provided from Cheeseboard~~~

*Wednesday, February 29, 2012. 12:45-2:00pm. Room 105.*
WASTING THE VALLEY: DISCRIMINATORY SITING OF HAZARDOUS WASTE DISPOSAL
While cities produce most of California's waste, rural areas bear the brunt of it. All three of the state's Class I hazardous waste dumps are sited near low-income, unincorporated communities. Ingrid Brostrom, an attorney with the Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment, and Maricela Mares-Alatorre, a community activist and organizer, will discuss the ongoing struggle in Kettleman City, a rural community near a 1,600-acre hazardous and municipal solid waste dump that has experienced a rash of severe birth defects and infant deaths over the past several years.
~~~Lunch provided from Mandela Food Cooperative~~~

*Thursday, March 1, 2012. 12:45-2:00pm. Room 105*
NOT A DROP TO DRINK: THE STRUGGLE FOR POTABLE WATER IN THE CENTRAL VALLEY
Veronica & Joanna Mendoza, a mother and daughter from Cutler, who are also representing the AGUA Coalition and Vecinos Unidos will join Laurel Firestone and Carolina Balazs from the Community Water Center on a panel to discuss disparities in access to clean drinking water in the Central Valley.
~~~Lunch provided from Sunrise Deli Falafel~~~

*Friday, March 2, 2012. 12:45-2:00pm. Dean’s Conf. Rm.*
A CALL TO ACTION IN RURAL AMERICA
Leaders from major organizations in the Central Valley such as California Rural Legal Assistance and Center on Race, Poverty and the Environment will engage in a dialogue with students and professors about Boalt’s current and future commitment to rural issues. Lisa Pruitt from UC Davis Law will moderate.
[LIMITED SEATING. PLEASE RSVP TO: shainahyder-- at --fulbrightmail.org]
~~~Lunch provided from Gregiore~~~

---

13 Days Until Abstracts Due! -- 2nd International Climate Change Adaptation Conference 2012

I wasn't able to attend the first International Climate Change Adaptation Conference held in Queensland, Australia, in 2010.

But I have hopes to make it to the second one, due to be held in Tucson, Arizona, USA, May 29-31, 2012.

The conference is being called "Adaptation Futures" and will be held at the University of Arizona, organized by the Institute of the Environment. They extended the deadline for abstracts to Feb. 15, 2012.

Here's a two-page summary about the conference, including a confirmed list of plenary speakers:
Climate Adaptation Futures: Second International Climate Change Adaptation Conference 2012.

I'm glad to see that "[s]tudents/early-career scholars and participants from developing countries have an opportunity to apply for financial assistance." Full price early (by March 31) registration is $500.