Transcript Climate Change Strategy for the Pacific Northwest

Climate Change Strategy for
the Pacific Northwest Region,
USDA Forest Service
Tom DeMeo
Regional Ecologist
Acting Climate Change Coordinator
USDA Strategic Plan
 Strategic Goal 2 – Ensure our national forests and private
working lands are conserved, restored, and made more
resilient to climate change, while enhancing our water
resources.
 Objective 2.2 – Lead efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate
change
 Performance measure 2.2.3- Percent of National Forests in
compliance with a climate change adaptation and mitigation
strategy.
National Roadmap for Responding to Climate Change
USDA Forest Service
July 2010
Agency Capacity
1. Employee education
2. Designated climate change
coordinators
3. Develop program
guidelines and training
Mitigation and Sustainable
Consumption
9. Assess and manage carbon
10. Reduce environmental
footprint
USFS
Response
to
Climate Change
Adaptation
6. Assess Vulnerability
7. Set Priorities
8. Monitor Change
Partnership and
Education
4. Integrate science and
management
5. Develop partnerships
Regional strategy with
seven major points:
• Improving climate change awareness and literacy
• Vulnerability assessment
• Adaptation strategy
• Monitoring
• Guidance to field
• Collaboration
• Sustainable Operations
Strategy with seven major points:
• Improving climate change awareness and literacy
Survey: 42% of Forest Service employees either don’t
believe the climate is changing, or that there is nothing we
can do about it
This probably reflects
views of the general public
Strategy with seven major points:
• Improving climate change awareness and literacy
Social science tells us:
1. Public is arrayed in groups from “urgent action needed” to
“active opposition”
2. You can influence the groups in the middle
3. Environment is never a top issue with the public at large
4. Interest in the climate change issue waxes and wanes
(Credit: Suzanne Moser, consultant)
Strategy with seven major points:
• Improving climate change awareness and literacy
Social science tells us
DON’T
1. Scare people. They will give up.
2. Think providing more information is sufficient (the
information deficit paradigm). People receive information
through cultural, political, and experience filters. Don’t
underestimate how strong these are.
Strategy with seven major points:
• Improving climate change awareness and literacy
Social science tells us
DO
1. Embrace “reasonable hope”
2. Move the discussion away from
“them, there, then” to
“us, here, now”
2. Show people a reasonable pathway
to success
Strategy with seven major points:
•
Improving climate change awareness and literacy
Examples of reasonable hope:
Consider recycling, hybrid cars, organic gardening, reusable grocery
bags, and the local food movement
Not so long ago all these were considered fringe ideas; now they are
mainstream.
Practical education and incentives brought this about.
Strategy with seven major points:
•
Reasonable hope for climate change:
1. Show people they can save money. Example: home solar panels
in Oregon
2. Show the numbers for carbon saved by using local food
3. Show how land use laws improve their quality of life
….Making it “us, here, now”
Strategy with seven major points:
• Vulnerability assessment
• Adaptation strategy
• Monitoring
Wildlife Population
Vulnerability
Vulnerability of Current
Landscapes (5th Field HUCs)
Departure from Historic Range
of Variation (HRV)
Existing Vegetation Condition
Seral Stages by Potential
Vegetation Type
FRCC
Disturbance
Fire Frequency and Severity
Insects and Disease
Invasives
Fire Vulnerability Assessment
Fragmentation Analysis
Forested Patch Size
GIS analysis?
Strategy with seven major points:
• Vulnerability assessment
--Development underway
--Interim products by the spring of 2011
--Final products in the fall of 2011
Strategy with seven major points:
• Vulnerability assessment
--Terrestrial
--Aquatic
--Socio-economic
DRAFT Terrestrial
Wildlife Population
Vulnerability
Vulnerability of Current
Landscapes (5th Field HUCs)
Departure from Historic
Range of Variation (HRV)
Existing Vegetation
Condition
Seral Stages by Potential
Vegetation Type
FRCC
Disturbance
Fire Frequency and Severity
Insects and Disease
Invasives
Fire Vulnerability Assessment
Fragmentation Analysis
Forested Patch Size
GIS analysis?
Climate-Informed
Vegetation
Vulnerability
Climate-Informed
Wildlife Population
Vulnerability
Climate-Induced
Vegetation Shifts
Species Ability to
Adapt
Neilson, USGS
Models, Veg
Synthesis
Data source
By Subregion:
Current threats to these
ecosystems identified
Special Habitats:
Alpine
Whitepark pine
Meadows
Shrub-steppe
Aubry-Erickson assessment
method
Vegetation Vulnerability
Special Habitat Condition
Alpine
Whitepark pine
Meadows
Shrub-steppe
Departure from HRV
Alpine
Whitepark pine
Meadows
Shrub-steppe
Disturbance
Existing Vegetation
ClimateInformed Special
Habitat Condition
Predicted
Vegetation Shifts
Neilson, USGS
Models, Veg
Synthesis
Strategy with seven major points:
• Adaptation strategy
• Monitoring
--Following the vulnerability assessment, develop these two
together
--Will probably involve expert panels
Strategy with seven major points:
• Adaptation strategy
The best adaptation strategy is
a well-thought out and
defensible restoration strategy
--Need (active or passive)
--Efficacy
--Public support
Strategy with seven major points:
• Guidance to field
--Field wants to know:
-What do we do about climate change?
- Show us the game plan.
Strategy with seven major points:
• Guidance to field
--”What’s the plan?”
--Carbon accounting
--Vulnerability assessment
--Restoration priorities
Strategy with seven major points:
• Collaboration
--Necessary but not sufficient
--Moving beyond talk to specific projects can be difficult
--People protect their interests; reduce anxieties
--Be specific about what you are asking them to contribute,
and what they will gain
Strategy with seven major points:
• Sustainable Operations
--Reducing fleet fuel use, more energy-efficient buildings,
teleconferences.
Any mule can kick a barn down, but only a
carpenter can build one.
--Sam Rayburn