California's Adaptation Clarion Call - the California Adaptation Forum

Check out my new contribution to the WWF ClimatePrep blog:
California's Adaptation Clarion Call - about my experience at the California Adaptation Forum (CAF), held Aug. 19-20, 2014, in Sacramento.

For more vicarious enjoyment of the CAF:

Check out the PowerPoint presentations from the Forum.

You can also buy the audio recordings of all the Forum sessions - $200 for all the recordings, otherwise $10 a pop. Audio clip #CAF14-204 will get you the recording of the session I moderated,
"California Coastal Fog: An Untapped and Little-Known Water Resource?" although it can't be fully appreciated by audio - we had fog special effects and fog collectors. But you can see our 124-slide fog presentation here.

Here are the video recordings of the four plenary sessions (free!):

Aug. 19 Morning Welcome - various state officials and representatives
Kate Meis - Local Government Commission and state government representatives Mike McCormick and Ken Alex - Office of Planning and Research, Mary Nichols - Air Resources Board, Ken Pimlott - CalFire, and Fran Spivy-Weber - State Water Board.

Aug. 19 Lunch - the role of the for-profit private sector in climate change
Kish Rajan - Office of Business Development, John Makower - GreenBiz Group, Christopher Benjamin - PG&E, Kathy Gerwig - Kaiser Permanente, Stephanie Rico - Wells Fargo.

Aug. 20 Morning  (the best of the bunch) - on partnerships
The inimitable Jack Mackenzie from the City Council of Rohnert Park moderating a discussion including: Salud Carbajal - Santa Barbara County Supervisor, Rick Cole - City of Los Angeles Deputy Mayor for Budget and Innovation, Nicola Hedge - Alliance of Regional Collaboratives for Climate Adaptation (ARCCA) Vice Chair and Director of the San Diego Foundation's Climate Initiative, Alice Hill - Senior Advisor for Preparedness and Resilience to the President's Assistant for Homeland Security and Counterterrorism (White House National Security Council). John Laird, the head of the state's Natural Resources Agency, finished off the morning plenary with a moving speech about the lessons he's learned on making the right - if unpopular - decision in a position of political leadership.

This is the one plenary I would like to re-watch, especially for the contributions of Rick Cole, Alice Hill, and John Laird. And the antics of Jack Mackenzie, with his warm Scottish humor.

Aug. 20 Closing - Keynote by Mayor Rex Parris
Featuring Wade Crowfoot - Deputy Cabinet Secretary and Senior Advisor to the Governor introducing the keynote speaker R. Rex Parris, the Mayor of the City of Lancaster, a Republican who believes in climate change preparedness.

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Update: WWF's ClimatePrep blog apparently went defunct in 2018 and may not be revived.  I'm updating this blog's links to ClimatePrep to snapshots on Archive.org (where available). Some articles look OK there, some not so OK. For a readable version with images intact, see my ClimatePrep articles as reconstructed on this blog:

• Head in the Clouds: The Dream of Harvesting Water from Fog
June 08, 2017

• Story Maps: A Rising Star of Climate Change Communication
April 10, 2017

• The Sea Level Rise Solution that is as Charismatic as Mud
February 17, 2017

• The Internet of Water - October 31, 2016

• Sea Level Rise Seen with New Eyes: the OWLs of San Mateo
August 30, 2016

• California: The Rebeavering
May 22, 2015

• Government Folly in the Face of Climate Change
March 19, 2015

• In the Heat of the Moment
December 02, 2014

• California’s Adaptation Clarion Call
September 02, 2014

• Farmland in Flux
July 8, 2014

• Honest Conversations: Climate Change and Uncertainty
December 12, 2013