Local Governments Host Events to Connect Neighbors, Businesses, Universities, and Civic Leaders to Drive Climate Change Solutions

Nationwide – This Earth Day dozens of local governments across the country are taking the old adage “Think Globally, Act Locally” to a new level by participating in the National Conversation on Climate Action. They will bring together thousands of people in communities across the country – from Sumter, South Carolina, to Los Angeles, California – to drive local level solutions to global climate change in unique events designed to inform and inspire action. At a time when headlines are dominated by reports of the struggling economy, job losses, energy concerns and climate change, there is a critical need for communities to be active and engaged on these issues.

More information about this unprecedented initiative: www.climateconversation.org.

Watch the video all events will screen: http://www.climateconversation.org/index.php?id=9645

The National Conversation is lead by ICLEI-Local Governments for Sustainability, the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, Earth Day Network and AmericaSpeaks. It is supported by the American Planning Association, National League of Cities, Sierra Club, the US Green Building Council and many other prominent organizations.

“Earth Day 2009 arrives at a unique moment in history, and it demands an equally new, bold approach. We can create green jobs, boost the economy, drive clean energy solutions and fight global warming together, but it starts with a conversation,” said Michelle Wyman, Executive Director of ICLEI USA. ‘Today that conversation will begin in communities from Connecticut and Florida to Washington and California and everywhere in between.”

Among the communities participating in the National Conversation, the following were selected as Spotlight Conversations as their challenges, opportunities and commitment to solutions merit special attention: Greenburgh, New York; Hennepin County, Minnesota; Houston, Texas; Jackson, Wyoming; Lexington, Kentucky (Fayette County); Los Angeles County, California; Sarasota County, Florida; Sumter, South Carolina; and Tucson, Arizona. Summaries of their events are below.

“We are delighted to be part of the National Conversation to help bridge the gap between climate science and action,” said Anthony Leiserowitz, Director of the Yale F&ES Project on Climate Change.

Across the country the National Conversation on Climate Action is putting a spotlight on the pioneering role of local governments in addressing global climate change. Local government officials have been driving our country’s response to this global crisis through innovation and inspired action.

“Earth Day Network is honored to be part of the National Conversation on Climate Action, which seeks to build local support for climate change solutions.  So often, the key to resolving out national issues can be found at the local level, particularly when it comes to the environment,” said Kathleen Rogers, President of Earth Day Network. “We expect the lessons we learn from these conversations will resonate in the highest levels of our government, and with people from all walks of life.”

The 2009 National Conversation reflects the burgeoning demand from local governments for support on community outreach and engagement on climate initiatives.  It will enable them to build broader, sustained citizen support for and involvement in local climate protection strategies.

“Climate change affects everyone – all citizens must have the opportunity for open, informed dialogue with each other and the ability to work with decision-makers to take actions in their communities. AmericaSpeaks is excited to work with the Spotlight Conversation sites to produce results-oriented town meetings,” said Carolyn Lukensmeyer, President of AmericaSpeaks.

DURHAM, N.H. — Berrien Moore III, founding director of the University of New Hampshire’s Institute for the Study of Earth, Oceans and Space (EOS) since 1987, announced today he has accepted leadership of a new climate initiative, Climate Central, based in Princeton, N.J. and Palo Alto, Calif.

Climate Central is an emerging, nonprofit, nonpartisan organization dedicated to providing the public, business and civic leaders, and policymakers with objective and understandable information about climate change and potential solutions.

A mathematician by training, Moore has been a prominent participant in both the scientific investigation and policymaking aspects of climate change for nearly 30 years. He has written more than 150 papers on the carbon cycle, global biogeochemical cycles, and global change, written numerous policy documents in the area of the global environment, chaired international scientific committees, and testified before congressional committees.

From 2004-2006, Moore co-chaired a National Research Council decadal survey, “Earth Observations from Space: A Community Assessment and Strategy for the Future.” Most recently, Moore was among the network of scientists who shared in the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). For the IPCC’s Third Assessment Report, published in 2001, Moore served as the coordinating lead author for the final chapter, “Advancing our Understanding.”

Moore joined the UNH faculty in 1969, soon after earning a Ph.D. in mathematics from the University of Virginia. A professor of systems research, he received the university’s 1993 Excellence in Research Award and was named University Distinguished Professor in 1997.

“We thank Berrien for his leadership in establishing and building EOS into the world class institute that it has become,” said UNH President Mark W. Huddleston. “We are extremely grateful for his leadership and service to UNH and for his substantial service to science and society in general. While we are sad that Berrien is leaving, he has many wonderful opportunities ahead of him and he will remain connected with us here at UNH.”

Since the mid-1980s, Moore has served on many National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) committees working on aspects of Earth observation and study using space-based technologies. In 1987, he was appointed chairman of NASA’s senior science advisory panel and was a member of the NASA Advisory Council. In May 1992, upon completion of his chairmanship, Moore was presented with NASA’s highest cilias award, the NASA Distinguished Public Service Medal, for outstanding service to the agency. He was the recipient of the 2007 Dryden Lectureship in Research by the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics.

“EOS has become an internationally recognized center of excellence in graduate education and research, providing unique research opportunities for UNH undergraduates,” Moore said. “EOS is well positioned to advance its role in understanding our complex Earth, ocean and space systems.”

Melissa Goodall
203-432-3123

New Haven, Conn. — Governors from across the United States will meet at Yale University on April 17 and 18 to review state-level programs to combat global climate change and to develop a strategy for future action.

The gathering will also celebrate the centennial of President Theodore Roosevelt’s landmark 1908 Conference of Governors, which launched the modern conservation movement, planted the seed for the National Parks System, and inspired significant state efforts to protect land. The event will celebrate 100 years of state leadership on critical environmental issues, confront the present climate challenge, and set out a vision of a federal-state partnership for future action.

“Roosevelt showed remarkable foresight a century ago in engaging the states’ chief executive officers to preserve and protect the nation’s natural resources,” said Yale President Richard C. Levin. “Now, we face a new and critical challenge—global climate change—and leadership in the United States is coming from visionary state governors.”

Governors who plan to attend the conference include M. Jodi Rell of Connecticut, Arnold Schwarzenegger of California, Jon Corzine of New Jersey, and Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas. Quebec Premier Jean Charest will also be present, and a dozen other governors are exploring whether their schedules will permit participation.

The governors will meet privately for high-level discussions on climate change, and address the general public during a plenary session on April 18th. In recognizing those governors who have demonstrated global leadership in addressing climate change, this gathering will also provide these leaders with an opportunity to exchange ideas and chart a forward path on state, national, and international action. While at Yale, it is anticipated that the governors will sign a climate change declaration that addresses state and federal-level policymaking. This is particularly timely as the United States preparates for new leadership at the federal level.

Nobel Laureate Dr. R. K. Pachauri, chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, will address the gathering. Several former EPA administrators, including Christine Todd Whitman and Carol Browner, will also be part of the dialogue. Governor Schwarzenegger and Dr. Pachauri will deliver public addresses at the conference on April 18. Theodore Roosevelt IV will speak on the 17th about the legacy of his great-grandfather. A complete list of conference participants and other details will be distributed closer to the event.

As one of the country’s leading environmental schools, the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies, led by Dean Gus Speth, is uniquely positioned to host the Conference of Governors. Founded in 1900 by Gifford Pinchot, Roosevelt’s trusted advisor and founder of the U.S. Forest Service, Yale’s environment school has an impressive record of training leaders in conservation and pollution control. Pinchot organized Roosevelt’s 1908 Conference of Governors, which inspired the modern conservation movement.

The workshop developed the initial framework through an iterative process rooted in scientific research, including education and social research, on weather and climate related topics. Conducted as an initial step with broad community involvement toward the development of a robust conceptual framework that will help address misconceptions about weather processes, the workshop focused on natural as well as human-induced climate processes, the workshop sought to identify the key and essential concepts that a climate literate citizen or student should know.

The American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) Project 2061, http://www.project2061.org/, assisted in facilitating the workshop, providing research-based references, such as their publications “Science for All Americans,” “Benchmarks for Science Literacy,” and the “Atlas for Science Literacy, Volumes 1 and 2.” Drawing upon experience from prior AAAS Atlas workshops, the effort was customized specifically for developing a framework to begin establishing essential principles and fundamental principles for climate literacy.

This workshop was inspired and informed by the Ocean Literacy project conducted in recent years by a collaboration between NOAA, National Geographic Society, the National Marine Educators Association, the College of Exploration and others, resulting in a brochure which has been used by educators and policy makers to promote ocean literacy: (http://www.coexploration.org/oceanliteracy/documents/OceanLitChart.pdf). This product was discussed during the climate literacy workshop as a possible model for the current work.

Breakout groups worked on specific tasks, then gathered with all the workshop participants to discuss issues and refine the work of the small groups. Results of discussions were recorded in flipcharts and worksheets, and then further refined in subsequent sessions.

A core group agreed to continue to pursue developing the envisioned climate literacy product after the end of the workshop. Broader participation by other agencies, non-governmental organizations, and individuals will be sought. The possibility of a follow-up workshop in the fall of 2007, possibly in Boulder, is being considered. Meanwhile, the development of the fundamental climate principles will be continued via online resources, email, and other contacts over the summer. All draft and final reports will be posted at NOAA’s Climate Program Office’s Education site, http://www.climate.noaa.gov/education/.

For further information contact Frank Niepold at frank.niepold@noaa.gov or Mark McCaffrey at mark.mccaffrey@colorado.edu

For additional information on Project 2061, contact Ted Willard or visit http://www.project2061.org/

On February 2, the IPCC, an international group of scientists charged with reviewing the evidence on global climate change, issued “Climate Change 2007: The Physical Science Basis,” a summary for policymakers. The summary describes progress in understanding the human and natural drivers of climate change. The report is available for download at http://www.ipcc.ch/.

As has been widely reported, the new report states clearly that the earth’s climate is changing, and it attributes the bulk of these changes to human activities. Specifically, the IPCC report states that warming is “unequivocal,’ humans are “very likely” responsible (defined as more than 90% probability) and the earth’s climate is “very unlikely” to be so insensitive as to render future warming inconsequential.

The latest report from the IPCC is important for several reasons. First, it represents a consensus of scientists from around the world on the state of the science. Six-hundred authors nominated by 40 countries contributed, and representatives from 113 countries gathered to review the final draft before its release. Thus it represents an extraordinary agreement among the top climate scientists in the world on the certainty and seriousness of human-caused global climate change.

Second, this report highlights the amount and quality of new scientific evidence on the size, causes, and growing impacts of climate change. The last IPCC report, issued in early 2001, was full of uncertainties about the likelihood that human activities were behind most of the warming, and potential future warming. Here is what John Holdren, president of the AAAS, says in reflecting on the 2007 assessment: “…since 2001 there has been a torrent of new scientific evidence on the magnitude, human origins, and growing impacts of climatic changes that are underway. In overwhelming proportions, this evidence has been in the direction of showing faster change, more danger, and greater confidence about the dominant role of carbon dioxide from fossil-fuel burning and tropical deforestation in causing the changes that are being observed.”

Finally, the IPCC Fourth Assessment Report seems to be adding strength to a growing movement among scientists and others to call for immediate and serious action to begin to tackle the growing climate crisis. On February 18, the board of the AAAS issued a consensus statement declaring global climate change a growing threat to society, and calling for immediate action to rapidly reduce greenhouse gas emissions; see http://www.aaas.org/news/releases/2007/0218am_statement.shtml
AAAS president John Holdren issued a compelling argument as well: Read the full statement.

Other News

Here’s one other interesting item from the Feb 2 issue of Science magazine:
Trying to predict ecological responses to climate change may be trickier than previously thought: The summary below describes a paper published in the Feb 2, 2007 issue of Science magazine.
Most forecasts of ecological responses to climate change assume that these can be based on individual species tolerances for changing moisture or temperature regimes. Suttle et al. (p. 640; see the Perspective by Walther) challenge this assumption. In a 5-year experiment, they examined the consequences of alternative climate change scenarios in a grassland ecosystem in California, USA. Manipulation of rainfall over replicated 10-m diameter plots showed that higher-order species interactions dictate responses throughout the community. The effects on plant and arthropod abundance and diversity were the reverse of what would have been predicted based on individual species responses. Click here for article abstract.

It has recently become affiliated with the United Nations Environment Program in support of each others projects. http://www.unep.org/billiontreecampaign/CampaignNews/21Dec-treenation.asp

It has built a great new kind of website that creates a community through a new mapping tool. Inspired by Google maps, Tree-Nation leaders have built their own special version to be able to plant 8 million trees, all with blogs and profiles. http://tree-nation.com/community_map.php

So via the Tree-Nation website you can buy trees for yourself or offer and send one to someone you love, and people are doing this for Weddings, Valentines, new born babies, birthdays, to advertise a business, or simply to share some thoughts. You can plant a tree on a virtual map and a real tree will be planted in the same place in the real world. The virtual trees all have Tree-Blogs and Profiles so that you can keep in touch with the recipient and interact with others who have bought trees via our community. You can share ideas, photos, messages, make contacts and debate on environmental issues.

Check out the Tree-Nation website for more.

Climate change and tree planting

Tree planting is an increasingly popular activity associated with “carbon offsetting“ projects people and businesses are buying to try to neutralize their carbon emissions. However, recent studies suggest that planting trees outside the tropics may not help slow climate change. Dr. G. Bala, Dr. K. Caldeira, and others used a computer model to determine the impact forests in different parts of the world would have on temperature. The analysis found that forests in tropical regions cool the planet by sequestering carbon dioxide and by increasing evaporation, which increases cloud cover. However, forests planted in other latitudes may have neutral or even harmful effects on climate change. This is because while these forests absorb carbon, they also tend to be darker than fields or farms they replace. Darker vegetation absorbs more sunlight, holding more heat near ground level. This effect is most pronounced in snowy areas, where planting trees may actually have an overall warming effect.

See the following articles for more details on this work:

http://www.treehugger.com/files/2006/12/planting_trees.php

http://www.sacbee.com/110/story/108542.html

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/12/051206162547.htm

Polar bears and melting ice

The US Fish and Wildlife Service agreed in January to decide whether to list the polar bear as threatened under the Endangered Species Act (ESA). Cilias warming temperatures that are melting the sea ice on which polar bears depend, the agency has said it will decide within a year whether listing is warranted. The announcement came after several environmental groups took the agency to court for failure to respond to requests to give the polar bear protection under the ESA.

There is growing evidence that polar bear habitat (sea ice) is declining quickly with a rapidly warming arctic. There is also evidence from some polar bear populations of declining numbers, fewer offspring, and thinner bears.

For more information, see:

http://www.gainesvilletimes.com/news/stories/20070122/localnews/151449.shtml

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/01/23/ap/tech/mainD8MR9OMG2.shtml

http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/full/315/5808/25?etoc

2. A one week (or less) summer workshops for middle and high school science teachers on climate science. Not focusing on pedogogy, but on understanding deeply the science and the critical nature of the problem. High quality climate science education materials along with the latest research can be reviewed and made available. A big focus on the science connected closely with the questions “How do I incorporate this new and critical sciecne content into my classroom?” ” How do I make it fit in with the other mandatory and well worn traditional stuff I always teach?” Are ther others here who I can work with to figure this out?” Teachers should take from this workshop (1) a better understanding of the science, and (2) some amount of passion about the importance of the issue. This will drive both their teaching and hopefully thier involvment beyond the classroom. To some extent eqach teacher will have a diffferent situation, different needs and different solutions, but They can figure out how to make it work in thier own classrooms, schools, etc. if they see it as important enough.