The Geos Institute has been working in our own backyard and helping the residents of Ashland, Oregon address climate change. We are currently focused on three endeavors:
As names for concepts go, climate change “adaptation” and “mitigation” are terrible choices. When we think of responding to climate change, “adaptation,” while uninspiring, makes some sense. But “mitigation” is a head scratcher – not because it is incorrect (technically to mitigate is to make something less severe, serious, or painful), but because in everyday conversation it brings to mind building a new wetland to “mitigate” the damage done by a housing development.
But for climate change, it means something entirely different. And it is important that we understand the difference between these two strategies and how they are both necessary to create a holistic and effective response to climate change.
Leveraging Esri’s data driven pages functionality with custom python scripts, we created a series of twelve maps to show the intrinsic potential of Coho salmon in the Rogue River Basin.
[widgetkit id=”10″ name=”GIS: Coho Intrinsic Potential Map Book”]
As a companion to the book Temperate and Boreal Rainforests of the World: Ecology and Conservation, we created an interactive web mapping application to give readers a virtual tour of the ten biogeographically unique regions of the world featured in the book.
Climate change is a complex issue, with many interconnected pieces. The New York Times has created a resource that provides quick and understandable explanations to 16 questions about climate change. It’s a great resource for those just learning about the issues and those who want to know how to more easily talk about climate change.
Go to the New York Times: Short answers to hard questions about climate change
Local leaders often obtain local projections as the first step in understanding their vulnerabilities to climate change. At the Geos Institute, our staff scientists prepare local climate change projections based on the best available climate change science, presented at scales that are appropriate for local decision making.
[widgetkit id=”7″ name=”Local Projection Maps”]
Marni Koopman
On November 15th, the Geos Institute and Rogue Climate put on the Ashland Climate Challenge Kickoff at the Historic Armory in Ashland, Oregon. This event was the “kickoff” for a year of both planning and action to reduce our community’s greenhouse gas emissions. The purpose of the event was to engage people in a community-wide planning effort that is just beginning, while also motivating local residents to reduce energy use throughout 2016. It was funded by the City of Ashland, Clif Bar, local foundations, business sponsors, and local donors.
Working with Geos Institute scientists is a great experience. They are reliable, flexible, committed to their work, and assure the best outcomes using their technical expertise.
Susan Roothaan, A Nurtured World
Tonya Graham
Major infrastructure projects, such as highway systems, bridges, and ports, are critically important to our health and safety and need to be built with future climate conditions in mind. The following article was first published in collaboration with the Institute for Sustainable Infrastructure, which created the Envision rating system for large infrastructure projects in conjunction with the Graduate School of Design at Harvard University. Similar to the LEED rating system for buildings, Envision works to help infrastructure developers create more sustainable projects. We are happy to help ISI provide information about how to incorporate climate change projections into infrastructure projects.
Marni Koopman
I recently went on a trip with my daughter to Canada. It was a LONG trip because we live on the west coast of the U.S. and traveled all the way to the Bay of Fundy in New Brunswick. We traveled for over 17 hours each way. We highly recommend the Bay of Fundy! But this story isn’t about that….
We had a 3.5 hour layover in LAX between our first and second flights. I planned that we would leisurely stop and eat, get through customs, and easily make it to the next flight. Instead we walked down long empty hallways with no idea about whether we were going the right way, made numerous wrong turns, got sternly reprimanded because we were “supposed to go through the purple door,” and barely made it to our flight, feeling hungry, rushed, and confused. As I was looking for the purple door, I thought “THIS is exactly what its like right now for communities wanting to plan for climate change.”