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?
Monday, November 5, 2012
Thursday, September 27, 2012
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:
"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
Wednesday, September 12, 2012
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:
Congratulations to everyone at Cal-EMA, Natural Resources and Cal Poly who worked hard on this for the past year.
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.
Wednesday, August 22, 2012
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.
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.
Wednesday, August 1, 2012
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
- 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"
Monday, July 23, 2012
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 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.
...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.
Sunday, July 8, 2012
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:
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:
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.
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