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ClimateWise Enews Summer 2013

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Geos Institute

 

Summer 2013 ClimateWise Enews

Lessons from the National Adaptation Forum:

  • Climate Change and Historical Injustice (Op-Ed in the Ashland Daily Tidings)
  • Amazing Adaptation Professionals and Their Work

Snapshots of ClimateWise communities with a quiz question:

  • Greetings from the Kuskokwim River Watershed, AK
  • Plus, can you name the 1948 movie with a hurricane? (See below for clues)

 
 

Historical Injustices Surface Due to Climate Change

by Marni Koopman Ph.D., climate change scientist, Geos Institute

Published in the Ashland Daily Tidings

I recently attended the first nationwide meeting on climate change adaptation, called the National Adaptation Forum, in Denver, Colorado. This was a meeting of people from diverse backgrounds, all working on the same global issue — how to plan for and respond to the accelerating and inevitable impacts of climate change. There were sessions on biodiversity, water resources, tribal lands, coastal areas, social equity issues, infrastructure, coastal property rights and many other topics.

I attended a powerful session on social equity and an eye-opening session on impacts to Native American tribes. Here is what I learned…

Read the rest of Marni’s article here.

 

 
 

Meeting Amazing Adaptation Professionals

By Keith Henty, ClimateWise Project Developer

 
More than 500 people attended the National Adaptation Forum in Denver, and I wish I could have talked to them all. I did get to chat with dozens of fascinating, super-smart people and mention a few here. Those brief conversations plus excellent workshops sparked my imagination for dream jobs and potential partnerships.

The Geos Institute participated as a sponsor, presenter, and exhibitor (see our poster Creating ClimateWise Communities).

Read more highlights from the National Adaptation Forum.

 
 

Partnering in Alaska

By Ken Margolis, Geos Institute Development Director

 
Among other services, the Kuskokwim River Watershed Council provides training for village-based technicians who are responsible for many aspects of resource and environmental management. Thanks to their new partnership with the Geos Institute, KRWC will now add preparation for climate change impacts to its training elements.

KRWC will run a pilot Discovery Voyage in 2013. Staff members and volunteers will travel the length of the river by canoe, stopping at every village to collect demographic information.  They will install water monitoring stations at selected points along the river. If this initial journey goes well, it will become the template for an annual Discovery Voyage, collecting and sharing information each year.  The voyage is also symbolic of the way the river unifies all the people who make their home along it.

Council website
Read their current newsletter

 

 
 

In a previous ClimateWise enews we mentioned the National Estuarine Research Reserves and we want to highlight them again. They are fast becoming primary movers in the adaptation field and are notable conveners and catalysts for their communities.

 

 
 

Thanks for reading!  We’d be interested in your work in adaptation—don’t hesitate to write marni@geosinstitute.org or call 541.482.4459 x303. Please keep in touch by signing up for ClimateWise News and “liking” the Geos Institute on Facebook.

 

 
     
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Our Continuing Series: Snapshots of ClimateWise Communities

By Keith Henty, ClimateWise Project Developer

 

Community #1

The Geos Institute is collaborating with planners in the Kuskokwim River Watershed in Alaska!
 
Kuskokwim River, Alaska, after the rain

Who: Our partners at the Kuskokwim River Watershed Council (KRWC) serve and are governed by the 39 indigenous communities located along the river.

Where: See the Kuskokwim River Basin map
 
Welcome from KWRC Executive Director John Oscar:

The Kuskokwim River is the longest free flowing river in the USA.  It flows through a rich region that Yup’ik and Athabaskan peoples rely on for their subsistence activities. There are few places on earth where the relationship and dependence between a river, the land that drains into it, and its residents is so intense and crucial as it is along this mysterious and beautiful river. The Kuskokwim and the people that live along this river can’t be understood separately. We are all interconnected…
-Quyana!

  

 

Community #2

Can you name the 1948 movie with a hurricane? It was directed by John Huston and starring some of the biggest stars of that time. Sound familiar?

More clues: At one point, as a hurricane outside grows stronger—the bad guy, Rocco, played by Edward G. Robinson, shows his anxiety. Humphrey Bogart does his famous sneer, and says, “You don’t like it, do you Rocco, the storm?  Show it your gun, why don’t you…?”
 
The name of this movie is the name of our project location. Click here to find out if your guess is correct and read more about the project!

 

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