This year I had the privilege of being a guest on the podcast "Warm Regards," hosted by Jacquelyn Gill, Andy Revkin, and Eric Holthaus, speaking on the topic of climate trauma. In the course of preparing for the podcast recording I started making a list of all the climate change adaptation-related podcasts out there. Eventually I came up with 13.
For those curious about trends over time: one each came out in 2012 and 2013, none in 2014, three in 2015, five in 2016, and three in 2017. We're averaging two new climate change adaptation-related podcasts a year over the past six years! There are 26 podcast hosts (going by the official podcast descriptions that I could find), 9 of whom appear to be women (35%). Hopefully that will balance out over time.
I don't expect this is an exhaustive list, but it's a start. Some of these podcasts appear to cover both adaptation to impacts and GHG mitigation.
Let me know if you see an error below, or if the list is missing a juicy podcast. I'm linking names with personal Twitter accounts where I can find them, listing podcast Twitter accounts separately.
Enjoy!
1. America Adapts - hosted by conservation ecologist Doug Parsons; started in July 2016; comes out weekly. Follow the podcast on Twitter.
2. Blue Streak Science - featuring the "Climate Lounge" - hosted by enologist J.D. Goodwin with biologists Sophie McManus and Nevena Hristozova; Climate Lounge hosted by Tom Di Liberto (NOAA NWS Climate Prediction Center scientist, El Niño–Southern Oscillation [ENSO] specialist); started in May 2015; comes out weekly. Follow the podcast on Twitter.
3. Citizens' Climate Radio - podcast of the Citizens' Climate Lobby, hosted by CCL volunteer/storyteller Peterson Toscano; started in June 2016; comes out monthly.
4. CLIMAS Southwest Climate Podcast - produced by anthropologist Ben McMahan at the University of Arizona's Climate Assessment for the Southwest; started in May 2013; comes out monthly-ish. Follow CLIMAS on Twitter.
5. The Climate Workshop - hosted by film producer/public speaker Peter Bowden and fossil fuel/prison abolition activist Tim DeChristopher
started in Dec. 2017; how often it comes out is unclear. (It just started.) Follow the podcast on Twitter.
6. ClimateX: Climate Conversations - developed at MIT, hosted by mathematician/cognitive scientist Rajesh Kasturirangan, engineer/producer/musician Curt Newton, and transportation engineer Dave Damm-Luhr; started in June 2017; comes out weekly. It looks like they are focusing on climate justice-related topics for the current season. Follow ClimateX on Twitter.
7. The Elephant Podcast - hosted by radio producer Kevin Caners and journalist Charlotta Lomas; started in July 2015; comes out irregularly. It's currently supported by the EU's Climate-KIC (Knowledge and Innovation Community).
8. Forecast - hosted by Earth systems scientist Michael White, Senior Editor for Physical Sciences (AKA "editor for climate science") at Nature; started in Dec. 2015; comes out every two weeks. "Long format interviews."
9. Generation Anthropocene - hosted by geochemist Mike Osborne, geomorphologist Miles Traer, and documentarian/producer Leslie Chang; started in 2012; comes out weekly (more or less), but hasn't had a new episode since June 2017. Developed as part of a course on the Anthropocene at Stanford Earth, it has featured student work in the past. Follow the podcast on Twitter.
10. Hot and Bothered - hosted by sociologist Daniel Aldana Cohen and journalist Kate Aronoff; officially started in April 2016 (after a pilot in Jan. 2016); comes out irregularly. A project of Dissent Magazine.
11. No Place Like Home - hosted by campaigner/storyteller Anna Jane Joyner and campaigner Mary Anne Hitt (Director of the Beyond Coal Campaign at the Sierra Club); started in Sept. 2016; comes out every two weeks or monthly. Focuses on personal stories. Follow the podcast on Twitter.
12. Terrestrial - hosted by journalist Ashley Ahearn; started in April 2017; comes out every two weeks or monthly. Produced at KUOW 94.9 "Puget Sound Public Radio," an NPR affiliate in Seattle, Washington. "Stories about people making personal choices in the face of environmental change." New season due out in the spring.
13. Warm Regards - hosted by meteorologist/journalist Eric Holthaus, paleoecologist Jacquelyn Gill, and journalist Andy Revkin; started in June 2016; comes out every two weeks. Follow the podcast on Twitter.
Follow them all!
Tuesday, December 26, 2017
Monday, November 27, 2017
The Columbia River Treaty - A Watery Snarl
The 53 year-old Columbia River Treaty (CRT), dictating terms of water management for the U.S. and Canada across the Columbia River Basin, is up for renegotiation. So far things are proceeding slowly, with formal negotiations only initiated on the U.S. side thus far. Here's a quick brief on the treaty, its main issues, and what has happened so far in negotiations to read while everyone is waiting for the Canadian side to come to the table.
If you work on salmon ecosystems or the impacts of hydropower (environmental, energy, climate change, etc.) and this treaty hasn't been on your radar, I recommend you read on: the CRT has water and ecosystem management, GHG emissions, and power supply implications for the entire U.S. Pacific Northwest.
(Scroll to the bottom for a fascinating historical side-note about how Woody Guthrie took a temp job as a shill for hydropower in the Columbia River Basin in 1941.)
The Basics
The treaty was ratified in September 1964 and has no expiration date. However, the treaty provides that parties can terminate the agreement in 2024 (though no earlier than September 16, 2024). If termination is desired, that action requires a 10-year advance notice. As of 2017 neither side has given notice of intent to terminate, though parties on both sides are urging their governments to do so, if only to motivate the other side to move towards modernization of the treaty. Outright termination would be bad for both sides, but politics might require threatening gestures. The likeliest outcome is there will be a modernization of the treaty. But will this modernization only change the terms of U.S. payments to Canada for help with flood control, or will other factors be given consideration?
Places to read more on the CRT basics:
The most hotly debated topic is whether the U.S. has been underpaying or overpaying for flood control benefits on the Canadian side of the river basin. In the worst case scenario (for ecosystem management and climate change concerns) this will be the only thing negotiated in the treaty's modernization.
In 2024 the flood control terms change to "called upon" flood control, meaning that the agreement providing U.S. rental of flood storage space behind Canadian dams expires. This means the U.S. would be responsible for its own flood storage space behind its own dams, allowing the Canadian side to use its dams and reservoirs primarily (exclusively?) for power production instead of flood storage for the U.S., allowing the U.S. to "call upon" extra storage on the Canadian side only after it had carried out its own flood control measures, and then on a case-by-case basis, paying as it goes. Canadian-side treaty reservoir levels would be dictated solely according to Canadian needs for the first time since 1964.
Some of the problems this upcoming renegotiation needs to address:
What Happened with CRT Negotiations Oct. 2016- Oct. 2017?
A year ago, on the doorstep of the 2016 presidential election, the U.S. took the formal steps necessary to officially begin negotiations on the CRT.
As of this date the Canadian side has not yet formally engaged in CRT negotiations.
The Columbia Treaty: Treaty between Canada and the United States of America relating to Cooperative Development of the Water Resources of The Columbia River Basin - 62 pages, ratified Sept. 16, 1964.
Official Government Websites Pertaining to CRT Negotiations
British Columbia's stakeholder engagement process in the CRT review:
Meeting materials from the Columbia Basin Regional Advisory Committee's only 2017 meeting so far (June 20-21, 2017). Includes: BC Hydro PowerPoint "Climate Change in the Columbia Basin" - by Stephanie Smith, Manager of Hydrology, BC Hydro, presented at a Columbia Basin Regional Advisory Committee meeting, June 20, 2017, 39 pages. (See p. 22: "What does this mean for the Treaty Review?" - "Same or more water available, particularly in Canadian Columbia; Timing of runoff is changing.")
Official website of Katrine Conroy, BC's Member of the Legislative Assembly for Kootenay West, appointed in 2013 as opposition critic for the Columbia River Treaty (CRT) review. She also oversees the Columbia Basin Trust and Columbia Power.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Northwestern Division official CRT page - under the Columbia Basin Water Management Division.
U.S. Government official site on the CRT - managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Bonneville Power Administration (BPA).
More Useful CRT Resources
An Interesting Pre-CRT Historical Moment Involving Woody Guthrie Shilling for Hydropower (!)
Roll on Columbia: Woody Guthrie and the Bonneville Power Administration (56:29) - the story of how in 1941 Guthrie took a temp job with the BPA writing songs to promote using dams for cheap electricity. In 30 days he wrote 26 songs, the most prolific period of his career.
If you work on salmon ecosystems or the impacts of hydropower (environmental, energy, climate change, etc.) and this treaty hasn't been on your radar, I recommend you read on: the CRT has water and ecosystem management, GHG emissions, and power supply implications for the entire U.S. Pacific Northwest.
(Scroll to the bottom for a fascinating historical side-note about how Woody Guthrie took a temp job as a shill for hydropower in the Columbia River Basin in 1941.)
 |
| Image from Northwest Division U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (2017) Source |
The Basics
Places to read more on the CRT basics:
- Wikipedia article on the Columbia River Treaty- appears updated to ~2013-2014.
- "Columbia River Treaty: Review of landmark deal could have big implications for county: Pact between Canada, U.S. manages flood control, power" - 2013, by Eric Florip for The Columbian.
- The Columbia Basin Trust's CRT summary - including a timeline updated to 2014.
- U.S. Congressional Research Service report: "Columbia River Treaty Review" - Dec. 5, 2016, 17 pages.
The most hotly debated topic is whether the U.S. has been underpaying or overpaying for flood control benefits on the Canadian side of the river basin. In the worst case scenario (for ecosystem management and climate change concerns) this will be the only thing negotiated in the treaty's modernization.
In 2024 the flood control terms change to "called upon" flood control, meaning that the agreement providing U.S. rental of flood storage space behind Canadian dams expires. This means the U.S. would be responsible for its own flood storage space behind its own dams, allowing the Canadian side to use its dams and reservoirs primarily (exclusively?) for power production instead of flood storage for the U.S., allowing the U.S. to "call upon" extra storage on the Canadian side only after it had carried out its own flood control measures, and then on a case-by-case basis, paying as it goes. Canadian-side treaty reservoir levels would be dictated solely according to Canadian needs for the first time since 1964.
Some of the problems this upcoming renegotiation needs to address:
- Calculating the fair value of the Canadian contribution to the system (the "Canadian Entitlement," 50% of the value of the water in hydropower that crosses the border): as noted above, the U.S. thinks it has been overpaying for the benefit from flood control and hydropower on the Canadian side of the river basin; Canada thinks the U.S. has been underpaying.
Also:
- Climate change impacts: increasing drought (frequency, severity, and length) is causing lower hydropower output with reduced flow, greater flood risk from higher rainfall coming in shorter periods (e.g., associated with atmospheric rivers) requiring greater flood control capacity, and reduced snowpack with more precipitation coming as rain rather than snow potentially exacerbating both floods and late season drought (since the snowpack will be contributing less meltwater in the summer). The changes to the water regime also have implications for irrigation and migrating salmon.
- First Nations/ Native American cultural and environmental concerns: these were neglected in the 1964 treaty. In particular the cultural and environmental value of salmon needs to be taken into account.
- Greenhouse gas (GHG) implications of increased water storage if new dams are built: new studies are showing that hydropower, long considered a "clean" or GHG-free power source, produces significant GHGs, mostly coming from methane from rotting vegetation behind dams.
- For more on this, check out the 2012 study by marine scientists Bridget Deemer and Maria Glavin that shows how interruption of the downstream flow of organic carbon contributes to climate change, specifically documenting a 20-fold rise in methane emissions as Washington's Lacamas Lake reservoir was drawn down.
- Other environmental concerns associated with the hydropower dams governed by the treaty, including terrestrial wildlife impacts, sediment loss downstream, and implications for recreation, transportation, and economic development.
What Happened with CRT Negotiations Oct. 2016- Oct. 2017?
A year ago, on the doorstep of the 2016 presidential election, the U.S. took the formal steps necessary to officially begin negotiations on the CRT.
- Oct. 7, 2016: U.S. State Dept. "finalized Circular 175, authorizing talks with Canada to modernize the treaty." (Press Release U.S. Senator Maria Cantwell [D-WA], Oct. 7, 2016)
- June 21, 2017: Letter sent to President Trump from "bipartisan group of Northwest House members" urging him "to 'take any and all necessary actions' to initiate negotiations with Canada over the future of the Columbia River Treaty, including sending a notice of termination so as 'to incentivize Canada to come to the table.'" (NW Fishletter, July 3, 2017)
- July 2017: Term ended for U.S.-side CRT negotiator (Brian Doherty). (NW Fishletter, July 3, 2017)
- August 16, 2017: New U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson talked to Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau about the CRT. (U.S. State Dept. Press Release, Aug. 16, 2017)
- September 2017: Premier of British Columbia John Horgan met with Canada's Minister of Foreign Affairs Chrystia Freeland, agreeing to advance negotiations toward formal engagement in the fall. (Based on e-mail from expert source, see * below.)
- "Mid-September" 2017: Jerry Rigby, legal counsel for a committee representing water storage holders in Idaho’s Upper Snake reservoirs, together with other officials representing Idaho water users met with Trump Administration officials in D.C. One source reporting on this meeting said, "Administration officials are [...] sympathetic with Idaho’s position on the proposed inclusion of 'ecosystem' considerations in the treaty, regarding minimum flows for endangered fish..." (Capital Press :"The West's Ag Website," Oct. 4, 2017)
- October 16, 2017: New U.S.-side CRT negotiator appointed: Jill Smail. (NW Fishletter, Nov. 6, 2017)
From the NW Fishletter: From 2009 through September 2017, Smail served as a water advisor in the State Department's Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs for Environment, Science, Technology, and Health, where she negotiated transboundary water issues in the Middle East. She joined the U.S. Department of State in 2001.
Read the Save Our Wild Salmon article about Smail's appointment (Oct. 27, 2017), which gives a little more about her background. (I was unable to find the announcement of her appointment on the U.S. Dept. of State website itself.)
- "Mid-October" 2017: New Canadian-side CRT negotiator appointed: Sylvan Fabi. (Trail Times, Nov. 2, 2017).
Taken from coverage of Fabi's appointment as Canadian High Commissioner to Jamaica in 2015: Sylvain Fabi [...] worked in sales and marketing for pharmaceutical multinationals before joining a consulting firm specialized in small and medium-sized enterprises. He joined the Trade Commissioner Service of External Affairs and International Trade Canada in 1992 [...]. He then worked as a trade commissioner at the Canadian embassy in Moscow from 1995 to 1998. [...] From 2005 to 2009, he was senior trade commissioner and counsellor at the Canadian embassy in Santiago. [...] Since [2013], he has directed the North America Policy and Relations Division. (Source 1; Source 2)
- Nov. 2, 2017: The U.S.-based Columbia Basin Development League annual meeting was held in Moses Lake, Washington. At this meeting Washington state’s agriculture department director Derek Sandison said, "British Columbia recommended modernizing the treaty, but Canada has not yet formally engaged. [...] Signs indicate they’re prepared to engage soon. [...]." And, "[Sandison said he] expects movement on the treaty by the end of the year." (Chinook Observer, Nov. 14, 2017)
* On Oct. 3, 2017, I asked the Research Director of the Climate Adaptation Team at Simon Fraser University, Jon O'Riordan, one of the co-authors of The Columbia River Treaty: A Primer (Sanford, Harford, O'Riordan, 2014), for an update on where things stood on the Canadian side. He wrote:
"My understanding is that Premier Horgan and Minister Freeland met in September and agreed that a Cabinet Note on the Canadian mandate for the Treaty negotiations would go to Cabinet this fall. I am not aware that this has yet happened. The change in the BC Government extended the time frame for seeking Federal approvals."I followed up with Mr. O'Riordan on Nov. 27, 2017, to see if there was any progress, and he alerted me to Sylvain Fabi's appointment and added, "Canadian officials have drafted a mandate for the Treaty negotiations and this is to be discussed by federal cabinet in the fall."
As of this date the Canadian side has not yet formally engaged in CRT negotiations.
Treaty Text
The Columbia Treaty: Treaty between Canada and the United States of America relating to Cooperative Development of the Water Resources of The Columbia River Basin - 62 pages, ratified Sept. 16, 1964.
Official Government Websites Pertaining to CRT Negotiations
Canadian positions:British Columbia's official site on the CRT.
British Columbia's stakeholder engagement process in the CRT review:
Meeting materials from the Columbia Basin Regional Advisory Committee's only 2017 meeting so far (June 20-21, 2017). Includes: BC Hydro PowerPoint "Climate Change in the Columbia Basin" - by Stephanie Smith, Manager of Hydrology, BC Hydro, presented at a Columbia Basin Regional Advisory Committee meeting, June 20, 2017, 39 pages. (See p. 22: "What does this mean for the Treaty Review?" - "Same or more water available, particularly in Canadian Columbia; Timing of runoff is changing.")
Official website of Katrine Conroy, BC's Member of the Legislative Assembly for Kootenay West, appointed in 2013 as opposition critic for the Columbia River Treaty (CRT) review. She also oversees the Columbia Basin Trust and Columbia Power.
U.S. positions:CRT 50th Anniversary Press Release from U.S. Government (Sept. 16, 2014). It clarifies the nature of the U.S.-side CRT management entity:
"The U.S. Entity, which consists of the Administrator of the Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Northwestern Division Engineer, is charged with formulating and carrying out the operating arrangements necessary to implement the Columbia River Treaty in concert with the Canadian Entity."Bonneville Power Administration (BPA) official CRT page.
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Northwestern Division official CRT page - under the Columbia Basin Water Management Division.
U.S. Government official site on the CRT - managed by the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers and Bonneville Power Administration (BPA).
More Useful CRT Resources
- Universities Consortium on Columbia River Governance
- Especially this page of links - Columbia Basin Trust
- Simon Fraser University's Adaptation to Climate Change Team (ACT) resources on the Columbia River Treaty
- "Columbia Basin Treaty History" (9:15), posted in 2010 but with an unclear provenance/date, based on video quality possibly 20+ years old, and based on the narrator's text probably of Canadian origin ("the United States pays us..."). It includes the perspectives of people flooded out by CBT dams.
- Columbia Basin Trust's animated history of the treaty and the trust (3:59), posted in 2016.
- The Columbia River Treaty, Climate Change, Tribal Rights and Water Scarcity (1:27:00), posted in 2015. This is a recording of a forum organized by the League of Women Voters of Seattle-King County featuring panelists Scott Simms (Secretary to the U.S. Entity for the Columbia River Treaty), Paul Lumley (Executive Director at the Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission) and Rachael Paschal Osborn, (public interest water lawyer at the Center for Environmental Law and Policy).
An Interesting Pre-CRT Historical Moment Involving Woody Guthrie Shilling for Hydropower (!)
Roll on Columbia: Woody Guthrie and the Bonneville Power Administration (56:29) - the story of how in 1941 Guthrie took a temp job with the BPA writing songs to promote using dams for cheap electricity. In 30 days he wrote 26 songs, the most prolific period of his career.
Thursday, September 28, 2017
When Armageddon is Your Day Job: The Discussion Continues
I was invited to write an article as a result of the workshop "When Armageddon is Your Day Job: Coping Strategies" -- a workshop I coordinated/co-led at the National Adaptation Forum back in May -- and it has finally, after months of back and forth, gone live on Ensia, the independent publication supported by the Institute on the Environment at the University of Minnesota:
Is Climate Change Driving You To Despair? Read This. (Sept. 19, 2017).
While my mind has since wandered to other things (the parade of deadly hurricanes competing for headlines with the current U.S. administration's exhausting parade of bad decisions), I still often wonder if people are taking this seriously, the question of how to cultivate hope. It turns out people are ready to dig in. In the last few days I've been invited to participate in a conversation on the podcast Warm Regards, meteorologist Eric Holthaus' biweekly production, co-hosted by paleoecologist Jacquelyn Gill and ProPublica journalist Andy Revkin. I've also been contacted by the host of the podcast America Adapts, conservation ecologist Doug Parsons (formerly of the NPS Climate Change Response Program and Society for Conservation Biology). I'm not sure where this will all lead, but hopefully the discussion will continue after the recording mics are turned off.
If you are on the West Coast and looking for places to talk about preparing our communities for the psychological shock of climate change, take a look at the two upcoming conferences being organized by the International Transformational Resilience Coalition:
Is Climate Change Driving You To Despair? Read This. (Sept. 19, 2017).
While my mind has since wandered to other things (the parade of deadly hurricanes competing for headlines with the current U.S. administration's exhausting parade of bad decisions), I still often wonder if people are taking this seriously, the question of how to cultivate hope. It turns out people are ready to dig in. In the last few days I've been invited to participate in a conversation on the podcast Warm Regards, meteorologist Eric Holthaus' biweekly production, co-hosted by paleoecologist Jacquelyn Gill and ProPublica journalist Andy Revkin. I've also been contacted by the host of the podcast America Adapts, conservation ecologist Doug Parsons (formerly of the NPS Climate Change Response Program and Society for Conservation Biology). I'm not sure where this will all lead, but hopefully the discussion will continue after the recording mics are turned off.
If you are on the West Coast and looking for places to talk about preparing our communities for the psychological shock of climate change, take a look at the two upcoming conferences being organized by the International Transformational Resilience Coalition:
- Nov. 15-16, 2017, in Portland Oregon: Preparing People for Climate Change in the Pacific Northwest (registration is still open but it is expected to sell out).
- Jan. 24-25, 2018, in Oakland, California: Preparing People for Climate Change in California (early bird registration ends Oct. 15).
I am planning to attend both: look for my report-back summaries here!
Friday, June 16, 2017
Head in the Clouds: The Dream of Harvesting Water from Fog
My new blog post at WWF's ClimatePrep blog is live! Check it out:
Head in the Clouds: The Dream of Harvesting Water from Fog (June 2017)
The hardest part of this article was winnowing down the examples and lessons-learned for people who might want to start a fog water-collection project. I had so much fun exploring the history of fog water use and learning about new cutting-edge projects such as the fog water aquaponics project in Falda Verde, Chile (read more about the fog-water-->fish farm--> agriculture plan here - in Spanish) and of course the Hangar 1 "fodka" (fogwater vodka) being made practically in my back yard, in Alameda, California, to benefit fog collection research.
I hope I did justice to the many facets of fog collection research!
I took special pleasure in the coincidence that my last article for WWF was on Story Maps as a tool for climate change education and my first point of entry in my research for this article was a fog water collection research Story Map.
-
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
Head in the Clouds: The Dream of Harvesting Water from Fog (June 2017)
The hardest part of this article was winnowing down the examples and lessons-learned for people who might want to start a fog water-collection project. I had so much fun exploring the history of fog water use and learning about new cutting-edge projects such as the fog water aquaponics project in Falda Verde, Chile (read more about the fog-water-->fish farm--> agriculture plan here - in Spanish) and of course the Hangar 1 "fodka" (fogwater vodka) being made practically in my back yard, in Alameda, California, to benefit fog collection research.
I hope I did justice to the many facets of fog collection research!
I took special pleasure in the coincidence that my last article for WWF was on Story Maps as a tool for climate change education and my first point of entry in my research for this article was a fog water collection research Story Map.
-
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
Friday, May 19, 2017
The Aftermath of "Armageddon:" Reporting back from NAF
I want to give a report-back on my May 10, 2017, National Adaptation Forum session "When Armageddon is Your Day Job: Coping Strategies." I co-organized this with Amber Pairis (Climate Science Alliance) and Kristen Goodrich (Tijuana River NERR). We had about 33 people (with some people sneaking out the back early and some sneaking in late). We wanted to give people something to put on their badges so we could find each other to continue the discussion after the session, so Amber brought wonderful color-your-own-sticker stickers and colored pencils, which yielded some really lovely art. I was afraid everyone would be too professional to color stickers, but someone Tweeted from the session as it was starting "Join us in Sticker Club, Room 11!" People were way into coloring.
We started by stating our intention (to share coping strategies for adaptation professionals and frontline communities) and hearing more about Amber's work with her Climate Kids program, where she finds hope and inspiration in a new generation taking hold of environmental conservation and climate change. We were hoping to steer the workshop in the direction of ways to find hope and inspiration.
Then we reviewed some relevant concepts and research, including:
One more "resilient communities" resource
Transition US - "Growing a Movement for Resilient Communities" - this is an organization recommended by one of our workshop participants. It is an NGO that works closely with the UK-based Transition Network. It "seeks to build community resilience in the face of such challenges as peak oil, climate change and the economic crisis."
We started by stating our intention (to share coping strategies for adaptation professionals and frontline communities) and hearing more about Amber's work with her Climate Kids program, where she finds hope and inspiration in a new generation taking hold of environmental conservation and climate change. We were hoping to steer the workshop in the direction of ways to find hope and inspiration.
Then we reviewed some relevant concepts and research, including:
- "Mental Health and Our Changing Climate: Impacts, Implications, and Guidance," EcoAmerica's new report released March 29, 2017, authored by its Climate for Health staff working with the American Psychological Association, which outlines some of the acute and chronic ways climate change is affecting the mental health of both individuals and communities.
- The principles of "Presencing" and "Purposing," from Bob Doppelt's Transformational Resilience approach to climate change-induced trauma and toxic stress. In preparation for this session I listened in on a series of talks he gave over the month of April, and also watched the recording of the California Department of Public Health's Climate Action Team Public Health Working Group meeting held on Oct. 18, 2016, entirely dedicated to the theme of mental health and climate change, which included a talk by Mr. Doppelt. The recording is available here (IE browser recommended) and you can jump to Mr. Doppelt's talk at 1:20:00 (running to 1:37:38). See the PowerPoint presentation he shared with that talk.
The idea of "presencing" is to meet the basic human need of feeling safe and OK in your body (i.e., meditation, breathing exercises, taking walks), and "purposing" is to meet the basic human need of feeling like you are part of something bigger, that you matter (i.e., connecting with organizations and communities that support your core values). I've been thinking about these concepts almost every day since I learned about them. I think most self-help mechanisms fall into one or the other category.
We also introduced the term "pre-traumatic stress disorder," coined by Harvard psychiatrist Lise van Sustern. (Read an article by Daniel Oberhaus that quotes her on this topic from Feb. 2017.)
Next, we elicited from participants some reactions to the questions:
- What keeps you up at night?
- How do you foster optimism?
- Where do you find opportunities for growth?
- Do you have any examples of where you found new meaning or opportunities in an adverse situation?
Then we asked participants to add their contributions to flip chart sheets posted in each corner titled respectively:
- Greatest fears
- How you are coping right now
- Ideas for coping that are working for you and can be maintained
- Greatest hopes
At the outset of the talk we had given everyone two index cards, and asked participants to write their greatest hope on one card and take it with them, and to write their greatest fear on the other card and leave it with us in a special box we brought to collect them (asking them to imagine they are leaving those fears behind, for someone else to carry and take care of). 13 people left cards in that box. I read them later. People are grappling with issues on the scale of being afraid we've killed God. This is not something that a garden-variety work-life balance workshop will treat.
I rang a bell every 5 minutes to cue people to move on to the next sheet. A lively discussion was in progress at each station every time I rang the bell. During this time a participant came up to me and suggested the next time we do this workshop we shouldn't ask people to look for hope, essentially saying there is no hope, the best we can look for is "peace."
I've been sitting with that thought.
An alternative view that I heard later from a friend who was sitting outside the session and overheard some of it was that we shouldn't despair, we should "fight harder."
That's another thought with which I've been sitting.
I wonder which perspective is most helpful to whom and at what point in their struggle to make a difference.
Next we asked participants to return to their sticker coloring stations and I and my co-organizers read out some things that were written on the various lists. The "how I'm coping now" sheet included a fair range of different types of alcohol and other routes of escape. The sheet we intended to be for "sustainable" coping mechanisms had some interesting items like:
- Release the need to be right
- Stay offline after work
- Talking to friends, hugging friends
- Humor
- EMDR
- Walking dogs for the Humane Society
- Contemplative practices (including ceremony, quiet retreats, chanting, lectio divina, walking, prayer)
- Outdoors activities like gardening, hiking
- Yoga
- Sleep
 |
| One person's response to how s/he's coping |
I remarked that most of these things were solitary, more about "presencing," not necessarily connecting to a larger community, so I asked for some more suggestions in the "purposing" category, and someone said:
"My mom always said that if you're feeling bad go do something for someone else."
... I noted that this lined up with things I learned in the Science of Happiness, a MOOC run out of the UC Berkeley Greater Good Science Center. (Read more here: Kindness Makes You Happy and Happiness Makes You Kind [2011].)
Lastly we discussed the possibilities for creating a community of practice around supporting climate change practitioners' mental health. More to come on that, I hope!
Further resources:
- Read more about Bob Doppelt's International Transformational Resilience Coalition (ITRC)
- Watch Dr. Susanne Moser's keynote address Hope: A Bridge Without Railing at the 2015 Conference on Communication and Environment" about the importance of active hope in the face of climate disruption and other threats to life on the Earth" (1:27). Susi starts speaking at 10:15.
- Read the article on which this lecture is based (Moser & Berzonsky 2015, still in peer review? apparently?)
- When the End of Human Civilization Is Your Day Job by John Richardson, the 2015 Esquire article that inspired the title for my session at NAF.
- Is This How You Feel? - Letters from climate scientists about their fears.
- More Than Scientists - Video clips of climate scientists talking about why they do their work.
- The Art of Empathy: Honoring Your Emotional Ecosystem by Karla McLaren, M.Ed., a 2-page handout we gave to session participants.
...Even further resources (added 24 May 2017):
More reading
Beyond Storms and Droughts: the Psychological Impacts of Climate Change (51 pages, EcoAmerica 2014) - the report on which EcoAmerica based its 2017 report.
The Psychological Effects of Global Warming on the United States: and Why the U.S. Mental Health Care System is Not Adequately Prepared (60 pages, National Wildlife Foundation 2012)
Climate Depression is for Real. Just Ask a Scientist. (Thomas 2014) - a short article in Grist about the emerging problem of climate scientists experiencing trauma from their work. It includes a link to Gillian Caldwell's 2010 Grist piece 16 tips for avoiding climate burnout, which goes more in depth into climate trauma survival tips from psychiatrist Lise van Sustern.
Resources associated with the book Active Hope: How to Face the Mess We're in without Going Crazy (Joanna Macy & Chris Johnstone 2012)
More on Bob Doppelt's "Transformational Resilience" Movement
Webinars & workshops - on the right-hand sidebar find links to webinar recordings.
Upcoming Workshops
- Lane County Resilience Summit, Eugene, Oregon, June 6, 2017 (registration is almost closed- 10 spots left)
- Pacific Northwest Conference on Building Human Resilience for Climate Change, November 15-16, 2017, Portland, Oregon (registration opens June 1, 2017)
- California Conference on Building Human Resilience for Climate Change, January 24-25, 2018, Oakland, California (registration opens July 1, 2017)
Order "Transformational Resilience: How Building Human Resilience to Climate Disruption Can Safeguard Society and Increase Wellbeing" (300 pages, Doppelt, 1st ed. 2016)
One more "resilient communities" resource
Transition US - "Growing a Movement for Resilient Communities" - this is an organization recommended by one of our workshop participants. It is an NGO that works closely with the UK-based Transition Network. It "seeks to build community resilience in the face of such challenges as peak oil, climate change and the economic crisis."
Tuesday, May 2, 2017
One week until NAF! Join me in my session "When Armageddon is Your Day Job"
The third biannual National Adaptation Forum (NAF) is starting next Tuesday in St. Paul, Minnesota. I'm excited to see colleagues and friends from around the country!
There will be a American Society of Adaptation Professionals (ASAP) daily digest covering the NAF and I *believe* I'll be writing for it: click here to subscribe.
Find out more about the ASAP member meeting - Mon. May 8 in St. Paul (2:45 - 5:15 PM) - we've met up at the previous NAFs but this time we have an agenda.
Follow me on Twitter (@stripeygirlcat) - I will be Tweeting the conference as usual.
While I've presented or facilitated at the California Adaptation Forum and the International Adaptation Futures conferences, this will be my first time organizing a session at NAF! I'm putting this together with two colleagues who have a lot of experience with practitioner training and climate change communication - Amber Pairis (Climate Science Alliance) and Kristen Goodrich (Tijuana River NERR):
When Armageddon is Your Day Job: Coping Strategies
Wednesday, 2:30pm to 4:20pm, Meeting Room 11
We'll be talking through some of the research on primary climate trauma (e.g., from watching your house fall into the ocean) and secondary trauma for practitioners (e.g., from mapping out the erosion projections for that coast but not being able to get the government to do managed retreat in time). We'll walk participants through some exercises to help us suss out good coping strategies. Look, we made a flier for it!
I'll do a separate blog post with the interesting research links from our prep work for this session.
There will be a American Society of Adaptation Professionals (ASAP) daily digest covering the NAF and I *believe* I'll be writing for it: click here to subscribe.
Find out more about the ASAP member meeting - Mon. May 8 in St. Paul (2:45 - 5:15 PM) - we've met up at the previous NAFs but this time we have an agenda.
Follow me on Twitter (@stripeygirlcat) - I will be Tweeting the conference as usual.
While I've presented or facilitated at the California Adaptation Forum and the International Adaptation Futures conferences, this will be my first time organizing a session at NAF! I'm putting this together with two colleagues who have a lot of experience with practitioner training and climate change communication - Amber Pairis (Climate Science Alliance) and Kristen Goodrich (Tijuana River NERR):
When Armageddon is Your Day Job: Coping Strategies
Wednesday, 2:30pm to 4:20pm, Meeting Room 11
We'll be talking through some of the research on primary climate trauma (e.g., from watching your house fall into the ocean) and secondary trauma for practitioners (e.g., from mapping out the erosion projections for that coast but not being able to get the government to do managed retreat in time). We'll walk participants through some exercises to help us suss out good coping strategies. Look, we made a flier for it!
I'll do a separate blog post with the interesting research links from our prep work for this session.
Monday, April 10, 2017
Story Mapping to Get Beyond Boring Bad News
My new post at WWF's ClimatePrep blog is live! Check out Story Maps: A Rising Star of Climate Change Communication, featuring an interview with the father of Story Maps at Esri, Allen Carroll. Story Maps are a set of applications (templates for different kinds of stories) available for free at the Esri Story Maps website that help turn maps into storytellers using web links, video, audio, and images.
Credit where it is due: I lifted the phrase "boring bad news" to describe climate change information from a 2014 article on Story Maps by public media outlet KCET's Environment Editor Chris Clarke.
He was covering the Stanford course on using Story Maps for global change communication, I believe one of the first courses of its kind. The course came about when the California Office of Planning and Research (OPR) went to Stanford paleobiologist Elizabeth Hadly and asked if she could get her students to produce a Story Map on climate change in California that they could use in their outreach efforts. Specializing in storytelling as a communication tool (her Twitter profile says, "Using stories told by the past to illustrate our choices for the future..."), she obliged by sending two of her Ph.D. students out to teach a course. Now courses on using Story Maps to talk about climate change (or global change) seem to be popping up at higher education institutions across the country.
Omitted from my article was Allen Carroll's response to my question about what has surprised him in the deployment of Story Maps. He said that coming from National Geographic (where he was Chief Cartographer for 27 years, "we were big on stories") he was naive, thinking people would just know how to tell a story. By "people" I understood him to mean "map-making software engineers." It sounds like his biggest ongoing struggle is to make technicians step back from dazzling new builder functions and the ease of adding data layers and other content to edit out anything that doesn't support the narrative. Simplicity and creativity are what he's looking for in a good Story Map.
Explore the gallery of exemplary Story Maps curated by Allen Carroll and his team.
My favorite Story Map at the moment: Forest Management, Gender and Climate Change: A Story Map from the Mexican Forest States (2016) by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), featuring engaging video and photographic content.
-
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
Credit where it is due: I lifted the phrase "boring bad news" to describe climate change information from a 2014 article on Story Maps by public media outlet KCET's Environment Editor Chris Clarke.
He was covering the Stanford course on using Story Maps for global change communication, I believe one of the first courses of its kind. The course came about when the California Office of Planning and Research (OPR) went to Stanford paleobiologist Elizabeth Hadly and asked if she could get her students to produce a Story Map on climate change in California that they could use in their outreach efforts. Specializing in storytelling as a communication tool (her Twitter profile says, "Using stories told by the past to illustrate our choices for the future..."), she obliged by sending two of her Ph.D. students out to teach a course. Now courses on using Story Maps to talk about climate change (or global change) seem to be popping up at higher education institutions across the country.
Omitted from my article was Allen Carroll's response to my question about what has surprised him in the deployment of Story Maps. He said that coming from National Geographic (where he was Chief Cartographer for 27 years, "we were big on stories") he was naive, thinking people would just know how to tell a story. By "people" I understood him to mean "map-making software engineers." It sounds like his biggest ongoing struggle is to make technicians step back from dazzling new builder functions and the ease of adding data layers and other content to edit out anything that doesn't support the narrative. Simplicity and creativity are what he's looking for in a good Story Map.
Explore the gallery of exemplary Story Maps curated by Allen Carroll and his team.
My favorite Story Map at the moment: Forest Management, Gender and Climate Change: A Story Map from the Mexican Forest States (2016) by the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), featuring engaging video and photographic content.
-
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
Friday, February 17, 2017
It's Sedimentary, My Dear
My newest blog post The Sea Level Rise Solution that is as Charismatic as Mud was published today on WWF's ClimatePrep blog, featuring interviews with Larry Goldzband and Brenda Goeden, respectively Executive Director and Sediment Program Manager at BCDC - the Bay Conservation and Development Commission, and Doug George, an oceanographer at the Bodega Marine Laboratory, with additional input from an interview with Nate Kauffman, of LEAP - the Live Edge Adaptation Project.
In the post I delve into the latest news on sediment management for sea level rise in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the hot topic of BCDC's lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (read the 2-page BCDC brief about the suit here, read the entire filing here), filed Sept. 22, 2016, by California's then-Attorney General Kamala Harris.
Here is the full list of SF Bay sediment/sea level rise-related pilot projects that appears in my WWF ClimatePrep article in truncated form:
In the post I delve into the latest news on sediment management for sea level rise in the San Francisco Bay Area, including the hot topic of BCDC's lawsuit against the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (read the 2-page BCDC brief about the suit here, read the entire filing here), filed Sept. 22, 2016, by California's then-Attorney General Kamala Harris.
Here is the full list of SF Bay sediment/sea level rise-related pilot projects that appears in my WWF ClimatePrep article in truncated form:
A SF Bay Wetlands
Restoration Project Roll Call
There are many pilot projects involving sediment in various
stages of development in the SF Bay.
Bel Marin Keys/
Hamilton Airfield
This ACE/
California Coastal Conservancy project is celebrated as a successful
transformation of a military site into a wetland. Click here
to see a 1:38 video with images of the breaching of the levee, opening the
land to the SF Bay waters in 2014. This
project benefited from beneficially reused sediment.
Oro Loma Horizontal
Levee Project
This,
the first horizontal levee in the SF Bay, using vegetation on a slope to slow
waves rather than a vertical wall, was set to be fully operational in 2016. It
might be the first levee of its kind in the world. After more than four years
in the permitting process it took six months to build (per Nate Kauffman in Save the
Bay, 2016).
Cullinan Ranch
This
project in the North Bay, now near completion in the Napa River Delta, came
out of a movement to block fill and residential development on the former
wetlands. Read about its return to recreational use in “Into the Breach:
Paddlers and Ducks Return to Cullinan Ranch” (2016).
South Bay Salt Ponds
This is “the
largest tidal wetland restoration project on the West Coast.” It is fully
underway, and will convert 15,100 acres of commercial salt ponds at the south
end of SF Bay into mud flats and tidal marsh. It will rely mostly on natural
sedimentation processes rather than reused dredged material.
Montezuma Wetlands
Restoration Project (Suisun Marsh)
Now completed, this is an interesting project because it used
“slightly more chemically challenged” dredged material than what is usually
used in restoration projects: it is designed to safely make beneficial reuse of
material that otherwise would be dumped in the open ocean. Scroll to the bottom
of this
page for a brief description of this project by the SF Bay Regional Water
Quality Control Board. A
3-page description of the project written during its initial stages.
Living Shorelines
This
subtidal restoration demonstration project in San Rafael and Hayward was
begun in 2012, is ongoing and now expanding to a new location in Richmond,
California. It focuses on eelgrass and oyster habitat restoration.
Bothin Marsh
This project is intended to enhance Bothin Marsh for habitat
and sea level rise protection through beneficial reuse of dredge sediment from
Coyote Creek. Although Marin County has received a grant
to develop a feasibility assessment, it remains in
the conceptual design stage.
Sediment
self-distribution in the South Bay?
A 2014 study (Bever
et al.) showed through modeling that dredged material dumped south of the
southern-most bridge across the SF Bay (Dumbarton) could result in the
nourishment of “mudflats, marshes and breached salt ponds through natural
sediment redistribution.” Any actual experiments with this kind of dumping
would have to wait for BCDC to change its bay fill policy.
-
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
-
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
Sunday, January 22, 2017
Climate Change Communication Resources for Teachers
Yesterday I was marching in the Women's March Oakland with a friend who teaches 4th grade in a local public school, and found out she was in the middle of starting a unit on climate change. My ears pricked up and I started rattling off resources she might want to check out while she scrambled for her smart phone to jot things down in the drizzle. It occurred to me just now that it might be more convenient if I just put up a blog post with my favorite climate change teaching resources available for free online.
"What is Climate Change" in under 6 minutes
First, the Consensus of Evidence summary description of climate change from the free online course Denial101x Week 1 is the best, most concise presentation I've found on the subject.
Concepts you might want to cover/review before watching this video with kids:
See all the excellent "Denial101x" resources listed in order in a helpful post by a blogger who advocates for climate science. Otherwise, you have to enroll and click through the module to find what you're looking for.
Denial101x is a free online course (a MOOC- "massive open online course") designed to help people analyze and combat climate change denialism by John Cook, the Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, and Bärbel Winkler of Skeptical Science.
Enter the Denial101x MOOC module for the full experience.
Helpful Graphics
XKCD's Timeline of Earth's Average Temperature. Comic #1732 (September 12, 2016), by Randall Munroe. The data used is cited as being from 2012 and 2013. If you love this graphic you might enjoy the "Explain XKCD" wiki entry about it.
The Temperature Spiral by University of Reading climate scientist Ed Hawkins, first shared via Twitter on May 9, 2016, with the description "Spiralling global temperatures from 1850-2016 (full animation)," and since updated. It takes about 20 seconds to run. You might want to pause it and point out the last big swerving loop that represents 2016's record heat.
Or you can just leave it on your screen in an infinite loop. It's very relaxing to watch if you don't think about its ominous implications. Click here for another relaxing-if-you-don't-think-about-it spiral, this one going inward, describing Arctic sea ice loss.
Climate change impacts summarized in 19 haiku: some beautiful watercolors and haiku giving the main take-aways of the 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Summary for Policymakers, by NOAA researcher Gregory C. Johnson. You can poke around the full set of IPCC "Fifth Assessment" reports released in 2013-2014 here. The 32-page Summary for Policymakers can be read here.
Someone made a nice 2:28 Youtube video of the haiku.
After reviewing the main impacts with your kids, you might want to circle back to the last line in the haiku in panel #15:
Repositories of Excellent Materials
Climate Access - Tips and Tools - Climate Access is a North American climate change communications NGO that has lots of useful resources on its site (although the search feature doesn't seem to be functioning-- you'll have to use Google site search).
- Poking around their site I found a link to a 52-min. video of a webinar on how to engage youth on climate change by the Climate Advocacy Lab, and the Alliance for Climate Education (ACE). The webinar is more geared toward people planning education campaigns than teachers facing down a couple dozen bored teenagers in a classroom, but it does provide interesting public survey data on how teens are accessing information. They present an analysis of ACE's Get Loud Challenge, now called Power Forward.
The Alliance for Climate Education has a 45 min. presentation for high school students featuring the video "Our Climate Our Future" - available for cheap ($5 for 2 days' access) here. You can see the first 8:30 of the full presentation as it was given at the White House in 2015 here.
The Climate Literacy and Awareness Network (CLEAN) has 650+ middle and high school lesson plans free online.
Climate Central - simply the best source for well-written/presented pieces on current climate science. Its content is not necessarily for the younger set, but is generally designed to be accessible.
Two Climate Central articles you might check out before teaching a curriculum on climate change:
- "Should We Tell the Whole Truth About Climate Change?" - an opinion piece by one of their senior science writers
- "Think You’re a Climate Whiz? Take the Quiz" - a 12-part multiple choice quiz. Note that it was written in 2014, so the question "What was the warmest year on record for the globe?" might need a 2016 correction. NASA and NOAA agree 2016 was the warmest year on record globally (NASA).
Games
Game of Floods - See if this award-winning game taking on the challenge of planning for sea level rise might work for your kids. You could probably get tips for how to adapt it for different age groups from one of the creators, the county's Planning Manager Jack Liebster, at +1 (415) 473-4331 or jliebster -at- co.marin.ca.us.
- UPDATE - I just ran into Jack at a conference and he said they have used Game of Floods in a classroom context as part of the "Youth Exploring Sea Level Rise Science" (YESS) project, a SF Bay Area curriculum.
The Grid - if you've got an Amazon gift card to burn, this is a fabulous board game that lets the players make their own conclusions about the relative benefits of different energy sources.
The U.S. EPA's game "Generate" - Free! Download it while you still can! It was launched in May 2016 as a teaching tool for classrooms- it looks like a more instructional version of The Grid.
Things You Can Do
The BioBlitz - an event idea created by National Geographic where you try to document as many species as possible in a given place within a short period of time. The U.S. NPS has a page dedicated to BioBlitzes in the National Parks - including a map where you can click to see what parks near you are involved. The NPS works with iNaturalist, which puts together apps to help document nature. Check out the totals from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area's April 1, 2016, BioBlitz on iNaturalist here. If we don't measure biodiversity we can't measure how it shifts with climate change.
The National Phenology Network's "Nature's Notebook" program - where you sign up to be an "observer" and report on changes in plants and animals around you. Check out their Nature's Notebook curriculum and activities page. The data collected here is actually used by scientists! The NPN has documented earlier springtime leafing-out and blooming dates for keystone plant species, shifts linked to climate change. The more we know about these shifts, the better we can prepare.
Rain gardens - the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network (SPAWN), based in Marin County, did a great project with the Marin Municipal Water District called "10,000 Rain Gardens" - here's their 2010 report on the project. Although the project is long-finished, MMWD staff are continuing to support community rain gardens - see their resources here. Slowing, spreading, and sinking rainwater helps protect wildlife habitats, reduces hazardous flooding, and recharges groundwater, all helpful under conditions of climate change. From the Rain Garden Network - 10 steps to creating your own rain garden.
Plant native plants to help endangered butterflies - Here in California the California Native Plant Society provides resources for schools that want to plant native plants to support our endangered butterflies and other pollinators. Changes in climate are threatening already endangered species and moving other otherwise healthy wildlife populations toward endangerment. Every little bit of native plant gardening helps maintain sources of food and habitat for our most vulnerable creatures.
ACE's Power Forward - a youth-oriented campaign for clean energy. It recruits 13-24 year-olds to engage in their interactive digital platform through which "participants are able to seamlessly share national climate content on social media and get updates about opportunities to attend local actions in person."
"What is Climate Change" in under 6 minutes
First, the Consensus of Evidence summary description of climate change from the free online course Denial101x Week 1 is the best, most concise presentation I've found on the subject.
Concepts you might want to cover/review before watching this video with kids:
- Climate - as something that covers more than just weather, not measured in hours/days but decades/centuries
- Evidence - fancy word for "facts"
- Atmosphere - that it has a structure above the earth's surface, with upper and lower layers
- Infrared radiation - fancy words for "heat"
- Satellites - what are they, what do they do
- Internal variability - how things change within the usual cycle
- Why we use the word greenhouse to describe climate changing gases
- Climate models show us the results of math that predicts the future, they don't describe past observations, but their math is based on past observations (you might want to mention the phrase oft-repeated by climate modelers: "All models are wrong but some are useful")
For audiences not accustomed to hearing an Australian accent you might want to turn on the closed captions (click on the "CC" glyph at the bottom of the video window).
See all the excellent "Denial101x" resources listed in order in a helpful post by a blogger who advocates for climate science. Otherwise, you have to enroll and click through the module to find what you're looking for.
Denial101x is a free online course (a MOOC- "massive open online course") designed to help people analyze and combat climate change denialism by John Cook, the Climate Communication Fellow for the Global Change Institute at the University of Queensland, and Bärbel Winkler of Skeptical Science.
Enter the Denial101x MOOC module for the full experience.
Helpful Graphics
XKCD's Timeline of Earth's Average Temperature. Comic #1732 (September 12, 2016), by Randall Munroe. The data used is cited as being from 2012 and 2013. If you love this graphic you might enjoy the "Explain XKCD" wiki entry about it.
The Temperature Spiral by University of Reading climate scientist Ed Hawkins, first shared via Twitter on May 9, 2016, with the description "Spiralling global temperatures from 1850-2016 (full animation)," and since updated. It takes about 20 seconds to run. You might want to pause it and point out the last big swerving loop that represents 2016's record heat.
Or you can just leave it on your screen in an infinite loop. It's very relaxing to watch if you don't think about its ominous implications. Click here for another relaxing-if-you-don't-think-about-it spiral, this one going inward, describing Arctic sea ice loss.
Climate change impacts summarized in 19 haiku: some beautiful watercolors and haiku giving the main take-aways of the 2014 Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Summary for Policymakers, by NOAA researcher Gregory C. Johnson. You can poke around the full set of IPCC "Fifth Assessment" reports released in 2013-2014 here. The 32-page Summary for Policymakers can be read here.
Someone made a nice 2:28 Youtube video of the haiku.
After reviewing the main impacts with your kids, you might want to circle back to the last line in the haiku in panel #15:
Repositories of Excellent Materials
Climate Access - Tips and Tools - Climate Access is a North American climate change communications NGO that has lots of useful resources on its site (although the search feature doesn't seem to be functioning-- you'll have to use Google site search).
- Poking around their site I found a link to a 52-min. video of a webinar on how to engage youth on climate change by the Climate Advocacy Lab, and the Alliance for Climate Education (ACE). The webinar is more geared toward people planning education campaigns than teachers facing down a couple dozen bored teenagers in a classroom, but it does provide interesting public survey data on how teens are accessing information. They present an analysis of ACE's Get Loud Challenge, now called Power Forward.
The Alliance for Climate Education has a 45 min. presentation for high school students featuring the video "Our Climate Our Future" - available for cheap ($5 for 2 days' access) here. You can see the first 8:30 of the full presentation as it was given at the White House in 2015 here.
The Climate Literacy and Awareness Network (CLEAN) has 650+ middle and high school lesson plans free online.
Climate Central - simply the best source for well-written/presented pieces on current climate science. Its content is not necessarily for the younger set, but is generally designed to be accessible.
Two Climate Central articles you might check out before teaching a curriculum on climate change:
- "Should We Tell the Whole Truth About Climate Change?" - an opinion piece by one of their senior science writers
- "Think You’re a Climate Whiz? Take the Quiz" - a 12-part multiple choice quiz. Note that it was written in 2014, so the question "What was the warmest year on record for the globe?" might need a 2016 correction. NASA and NOAA agree 2016 was the warmest year on record globally (NASA).
Games
Game of Floods - See if this award-winning game taking on the challenge of planning for sea level rise might work for your kids. You could probably get tips for how to adapt it for different age groups from one of the creators, the county's Planning Manager Jack Liebster, at +1 (415) 473-4331 or jliebster -at- co.marin.ca.us.
- UPDATE - I just ran into Jack at a conference and he said they have used Game of Floods in a classroom context as part of the "Youth Exploring Sea Level Rise Science" (YESS) project, a SF Bay Area curriculum.
The Grid - if you've got an Amazon gift card to burn, this is a fabulous board game that lets the players make their own conclusions about the relative benefits of different energy sources.
The U.S. EPA's game "Generate" - Free! Download it while you still can! It was launched in May 2016 as a teaching tool for classrooms- it looks like a more instructional version of The Grid.
Things You Can Do
The BioBlitz - an event idea created by National Geographic where you try to document as many species as possible in a given place within a short period of time. The U.S. NPS has a page dedicated to BioBlitzes in the National Parks - including a map where you can click to see what parks near you are involved. The NPS works with iNaturalist, which puts together apps to help document nature. Check out the totals from the Golden Gate National Recreation Area's April 1, 2016, BioBlitz on iNaturalist here. If we don't measure biodiversity we can't measure how it shifts with climate change.
The National Phenology Network's "Nature's Notebook" program - where you sign up to be an "observer" and report on changes in plants and animals around you. Check out their Nature's Notebook curriculum and activities page. The data collected here is actually used by scientists! The NPN has documented earlier springtime leafing-out and blooming dates for keystone plant species, shifts linked to climate change. The more we know about these shifts, the better we can prepare.
Rain gardens - the Salmon Protection and Watershed Network (SPAWN), based in Marin County, did a great project with the Marin Municipal Water District called "10,000 Rain Gardens" - here's their 2010 report on the project. Although the project is long-finished, MMWD staff are continuing to support community rain gardens - see their resources here. Slowing, spreading, and sinking rainwater helps protect wildlife habitats, reduces hazardous flooding, and recharges groundwater, all helpful under conditions of climate change. From the Rain Garden Network - 10 steps to creating your own rain garden.
Plant native plants to help endangered butterflies - Here in California the California Native Plant Society provides resources for schools that want to plant native plants to support our endangered butterflies and other pollinators. Changes in climate are threatening already endangered species and moving other otherwise healthy wildlife populations toward endangerment. Every little bit of native plant gardening helps maintain sources of food and habitat for our most vulnerable creatures.
ACE's Power Forward - a youth-oriented campaign for clean energy. It recruits 13-24 year-olds to engage in their interactive digital platform through which "participants are able to seamlessly share national climate content on social media and get updates about opportunities to attend local actions in person."
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