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Credible climate action plans: How you can help make them a reality

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Bill Hafker

Climate change, and the impacts that it can, is, and will likely have on almost every aspect of our lives, and the lives of all other living things, is the most all-encompassing environmental challenge humankind has faced.  As Master Naturalists we well know its implications for our natural world–the oceans, plants, animals, forests, water supplies, weather, etc.  As informed global citizens, we also know the economic and social implications climate change has for our infrastructure, coastal cities, agricultural output, fires, droughts, and even migrations of people.

As the world struggles to find the way and the will to identify and take the steps needed to try to keep temperature rise from exceeding 2 degrees Celsius, as agreed to in the Paris Climate Agreement, what can we as Master Naturalists do to help to increase the likelihood of success of efforts to address climate change?  With our knowledge of the severity of the issue, and the criticality of ensuring that efforts taken to address it are done in a rigorous, and sound scientific and economic manner, and are properly documented and shared with the public, we can help ensure that climate plans, regardless of who prepares them, are credible documents that are likely to achieve what they purport to do.

Whether we are part of helping develop a climate plan for an organization we belong to (e.g., a faith community or homeowners association), submitting comments solicited in the preparation of county or state energy, environmental, or climate plans, or responding to plans offered by others (e.g., companies, municipalities), we can provide input that helps ensure that the plan actually stands a chance of doing what it claims to.  Just this past July, the Fairfax County Board of Supervisors adopted the Fairfax County Operational Energy Strategy which is “intended to further the objectives of the Board’s Environmental Vision”.  Prior to that adoption, a draft of that Strategy was available for comment.  The State of Virginia is in the midst of taking input on the 2018 Virginia Energy Plan (comment period closes 8/24) because “The Plan is intended to provide a strategic vision for the energy policy of the Commonwealth over the next 10 years”.

These are just two very significant opportunities for Master Naturalists to review and evaluate what is being proposed and offer comments in support of what they find good in the draft plans, and suggestions for how they should, or even in some cases must, be improved if they are to actually deliver climate risk reduction.

I recently presented a paper at the Air & Waste Management Association Annual Conference:  “A Framework for Credible 2 Degree Celsius Climate Planning”.  For those interested in preparing a credible climate plan that will pass muster with those who would challenge its completeness, or who seek a yardstick against which to evaluate strong points and shortcomings of climate plans they wish to review and comment on, this paper offers  a checklist of 11 elements that are needed in a credible climate plan.  The 11 elements of the planning framework are described, and their relationship to each other is presented in a flow diagram, allowing users to compare plans they are helping to develop, or ones they are assessing, for completeness.  The flow diagram also shows how the elements interact with each other, and over time, to deliver results.  With 36 years as an environmental engineer with ExxonMobil, I used  the petroleum industry as the source of examples of how such planning can be effectively done; however, the framework presented is equally applicable to any climate planning activity.

Bill Hafker is a graduate of the Spring 2017 Fairfax Master Naturalist class.

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Caterpillars Count! Join new citizen science project

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Caterpillars Count! is a citizen science project sponsored by the National Science Foundation for measuring the seasonal variation and abundance of arthropods like caterpillars, beetles, and spiders found on the foliage of trees and shrubs. Arthropods are an important food source for birds and other wildlife.

Climate change is affecting the timing of spring leaf out, insect activity, and bird migration and breeding. But are the plants, insects and birds all responding to the same degree? If either insects or birds are not keeping up with the shifts of the other organisms that they depend on, then further climate change may have negative consequences for their populations.

Caterpillars Count is part of a multi-university study of phenological mismatch across three trophic levels in eastern North America. The lead universities are University of North Carolina, Georgetown University, and University of Connecticut, with co-investigators from University of Florida, Institute for Bird Populations, Penn State, Evergreen State College, and Ontario Forest Research Institute.

Participants will monitor a site at the Walker Nature Center in Reston for Georgetown University. We will examine 50 leaves on each of 10 trees weeklyor bi-weekly thoughout the spring and summer.  We will count and classify the arthropods we observe. Each monitoring session will take about one hour. There will be approximately 16 monitoring sessions. Volunteeers are not required to participate in every session and the timing is up to the volunteers who are participating. Volunteers must sign-up in advance for training and schedule coordination.

This project is eligible for credit for master naturalists under code C-254.

Learn more

Attend the Sustainability Showcase and Awards event

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Faith Alliance for Climate Solutions (FACS) Sustainability Champions Awards celebrate and recognize the contributions of individuals, congregations, businesses and local elected officials/public sector employees in Northern Virginia. These individuals and organizations work tirelessly toward improving the environment; contributing to a healthy, livable climate, in our community.  Awards will be presented in four categories: individual, congregation, local business, and local elected official/public sector employees.

The day’s schedule follows:

3-4:00 PM Showcase “Expo” featuring local organizations’ sustainability initiatives. Email [email protected] to reserve a table.

4-5:00 PM Keynote and presentation of 2018 FACS Sustainability Champion Awards

All are welcome to this event! Please email [email protected] with any questions or visit Faithforclimate.org.

Rock Spring Congregational United Church of Christ

5010 Little Falls Road, Arlington, VA 22207

Sunday, 10 June 2018

3.00 – 5.00 pm

 

Get involved in Audubon’s Climate Watch citizen science work

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Audubon’s Birds and Climate Change Report predicts that over half of North American bird species will lose more than 50 percent of their current climatic range by 2080.

To test these predictions, Audubon has been running a new community science project, Climate Watch, since January. Climate Watch aims to document species’ responses to climate change by having volunteer community scientists in the field look for birds where Audubon’s climate models project they should be in the 2020’s, giving us an understanding on how birds respond to a changing climate.

There’s still time to get involved. If you would like to find out more about being a volunteer or how to coordinate in 

your area, please contact the Audubon Climate Watch Team at [email protected]

Attend NVCC Green Festival, April 26th

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Towards Environmental Resiliency in a Changing World

Thursday, 26 April ● 9.15 am to 4.00 pm
 
Northern Virginia Community College, Annandale Campus
CE Building, Forum, Gym, and Theatre
 
Free and Open to the Public

Festival Highlights:

Screening of the 2016 Film The Age of Consequences
Keynote Address by Michelle Wyman, Executive Director, National Council for Science and the Environment
Free Gifts
Drawings for a Chance to Win a Kayak or a Bicycle
Information Booths for Environmental Organizations

Information at http://www.nvcc.edu/green-festival/2018/index.html.

Review of Climate of Hope: How Cities, Businesses, and Citizens Can Save the Planet, by Carl Pope and Michael Bloomberg

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Reviewed by Wendy Cohen

Climate of Hope (2017, 277 pp) avoids the usual gloom-and-doom discussion around climate change by offering up two premises: First, if we shift the focus from international treaties to projects in local municipalities, much work can be done to mitigate climate change. Second, rather than view the multiple causes of climate change as problematic, seeing them as numerous opportunities for solving the problem of rising earth temperatures can help us make headway with the problem. Every sector of society can help with climate protection. In other words, “think globally, act locally,” and above all, act. These two tenets are also at the core of the work of master naturalists.

Citing example after example of actions that have had a proven positive impact, Michael Bloomberg, former mayor of New York City and current head of Bloomberg Philanthropies, and Carl Pope, longtime environmental activist and former executive director of the Sierra Club, give the reader cause for hope in the fight against environmental threats causing rising temperatures. In addition to showing how innovative public/private partnerships have helped fund greener technologies, Climate of Hope points to the natural world as “an enormous, largely unread library of solutions.”

Bloomberg and Pope show examples of something naturalists have long known: investing in more sustainable agriculture and forestry practices is key to combating climate change. In their words, maintaining healthy ecosystems allows them to “do what they are equipped to do–suck carbon out of the atmosphere and turn it into soil and vegetation”(p. 178). One example they give is mangroves: According to their research, if half of what has been lost of the mangroves found mostly in Asia were restored, 6 billion tons of carbon dioxide could be stored, a number that matches total U.S. emissions each year! An additional advantage would be greater protection of the tropical coastline from typhoons.

Climate of Hope demonstrates how local efforts to protect our ecosystem can have a ripple effect. Promoting environmental stewardship goes a long way in helping to counter rising global temperatures. This book validates the work of master naturalists.

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Review of Act on Climate, by Michaela Zint, on Coursera

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Reviewed by Tami Sheiffer

I’d taken a lot of Coursera classes for fun and personal edification before I was a Fairfax Master Naturalist and could get continuing education credit for them. Act on Climate, taught by Michaela Zint of the University of Michigan, is the Coursera class I would recommend to the broadest audience because it encourages students to put what they learn from the class into practice. I’ve found that it has had more impact on my daily life than other classes have—by encouraging lifestyle changes like eating less meat, and introducing me to new groups and volunteer opportunities in my community. I would recommend this class to family or friends who may be interested in living in a more environmentally friendly way, without getting bogged down in heavy climate science.

The first week’s introductory material briefly covers the science of climate change, and introduces the concepts of mitigation and adaptation. But it quickly turns to the focus of the course, which is not the science of climate change but steps to take action.

The next four weeks of the class are topical, covering food, energy, transportation, and the built environment. For each topic, material about climate impact is covered, as are steps to reduce the climate impact. The solutions suggested for each topic are divided into type of action: individual, community, political, and adaptation. The solutions are all ones that students can put into action themselves, individually or together with others in their community. So political action may be something like attending a town hall or writing a letter to a representative, not the larger political actions that a state or country should take.

For example, we learn that we can act individually to reduce our energy usage with energy efficient appliances or by minimizing drafts in our homes, and act in our community by seeking out community-supported agriculture and community gardens. We can take action politically by attending a transit authority meeting, and we can practice adaptation actions by planting trees.

Even if much of the information was not new to me, I appreciated that this class prompted me to look into resources and opportunities for action in my community, and to make a plan to act. Because of this class, I discovered resources and groups in this area that I was previously unaware of. I learned that Fairfax County Libraries have thermal cameras available for residents to borrow to check for drafts and hot spots in their homes. I discovered Arcadia Center for Sustainable Food & Agriculture near me–I had unknowingly driven past it many times because it is not visible from the road—and I began volunteering there. And I came across the Fairfax Master Naturalists website, which led me to fill out an application.

Act on Climate has short quizzes to check understanding, and at the end of each unit the student is asked “What Actions Did you Take?” The culmination of the class, during the sixth week, is the creation of a peer-graded “Personal Climate Action Plan.” The class wraps up with a conclusion in the 7th week. Discussion in the forums is encouraged but not required to pass the class. The Personal Climate Action Plan makes up 40% of the final grade, and quizzes compose the rest of the grade. As with other Coursera classes, you may take the class and receive a grade for free as long as you don’t need the Statement of Accomplishment.

This class counts toward Master Naturalist continuing education credits.

Want to review a resource? We’d love to hear from you. Instructions for submission await your click and commitment.

Learning opportunity on climate change, sponsored by Sierra Club

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Scientists have been researching and studying climate change for over 100 years and have come to a near-unanimous consensus that the burning of fossil fuels is the major contributor.  The Climate Reality Project presents Climate Reality Leader Paula Clements, whose slide show presentation will depict the urgency for climate action but is really a message of hope.

When:  Tuesday, January 30, 7:00-8:30 PM (snacks 6:30 PM)

Where:  Oakton Library, 10304 Lynnhaven Place, Oakton VA

Contact and RSVP:  Susan Weltz at [email protected]

Sponsored by:  Sierra Club/Great Falls Group, 350.org Fairfax, Herndon Environmental Network, FACS, UUCF Climate Action Group

Review of Nature is One of the Most Under-appreciated Tools for Reigning in Carbon, by Emma Bryce

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Reviewed by Tami Sheiffer

I’ve always been a big-picture person more than a details-person. in Virginia Master Naturalist basic training, I appreciated learning about the geology, flora, and fauna specific to Virginia and Fairfax County, and I value the focus on native plants and animals in our service projects. But my mind always wants to zoom out to the global scale and to my primary concern, which is human-induced climate change. I wonder, does our volunteer work as master naturalists have a significant effect on mitigating climate change, even when our service projects are not directly related to the issue? Encouragingly, the answer seems to be yes.

In Nature is One of the Most Under-appreciated Tools for Reigning in Carbon (20 October 2017) in the magazine Anthropocene, Emma Bryce summarizes Justin Adams’ (2017)  study, Natural Climate Solutions, published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America . The study found that natural climate solutions–reforestation, conserving wetlands, sustainable fertilizer use, and other land management strategies–have a great effect on removing carbon or keeping carbon out of the atmosphere. Even with constraints added to the model, to ensure that land requirements for food production are met, and costs are kept down, a conservative model estimates that natural climate solutions can save 11 billion tons of annual emissions, providing 37% of the mitigation needed to meet the Paris Climate Agreement goal of 2℃ of warming.

The study’s findings are encouraging, and Bryce sums up the key takeaways so that they are easy to remember. The article gives readers information about which land management strategies have the largest impact on carbon mitigation, and assures us that we have enough knowledge about their effectiveness to act on these solutions now.

It turns out that when we plant trees and other native plants, or engage in park restoration, or educate a landowner or farmer to use less fertilizer and disturb the soil less, collectively we are not just improving the local environment but the global one as well.

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Review of Dire Predictions: Understanding Climate Change (2nd ed.), by Michael E. Mann and Lee R. Kump

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Reviewed by Jim Wilcox

The facts about global warming and climate change are indisputable at this point, but all good naturalists still do their own research. To this end, for the past five years, I’ve completed more than 20 online courses and read about 30 well-researched books (references coming in a related post). If you have time to read only one book now, though, consider Dire Predictions (2015, 224 pp).

Mann and Kump, both professors at Pennsylvania State University, cover the science behind global warming and climate change; Earth’s climate history; how the water cycle and carbon cycle affect climate change; projections for future changes and what impact those changes will have on our environment, ecology, and sociology; possible mitigating actions; adaptive responses; and much more.

As scientists, the authors don’t shy away from data or math, nor are they dogmatic. Instead they speak in terms of probabilities and write for a general reader in easily understandable terms. Photographs and effective graphics document and illustrate complex concepts. A comprehensive glossary serves as a ready reference as do the frequent embedded bookmarks to other sections within the book.

Dire Predictions draws its information primarily from the 5th Assessment Report (AR5) of the United Nations’ Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (hence the book’s second subtitle: The Visual Guide to the Findings of the IPCC).

Dr. Mann is probably best known for his work showing the rise of Earth’s average temperature graphically, the graph for which became known as the hockey stick.

You can preview the contents and layout of Dire Predictions at no charge and with no effort by clicking on this link to the abridged pdf. The Fairfax County Public Library system has 13 copies of the complete book. Borrow one. Read it. You will walk away better able to have an informed discussion.

Want to review a resource? We’d love to hear from you. Instructions for submission await your click and commitment.