Fellow Story

Climate Adaptation Helpline (Switzer Foundation Webinar Series)

Fellow(s): Lara Hansen, Amber Pairis, Healy Hamilton, Patrick McCarthy
Topic(s): Climate Change, Energy Resources & Access

Are you a conservation practitioner or resource manager worried about climate change but not sure what to do about it? Watch our webinar recording with a panel of adaptation practitioners and get the help you need.

  • Be the first on your block to learn what we already know about how the climate is changing and what to expect.
  • Get insider tips on what others are doing to reduce their vulnerability and increase their adaptive capacity.
  • Find out why it all matters to you no matter what field you are in!

The webinar was held in a Help Desk format, so the audience's questions shaped the discussion. Topics included:

  • If you have to choose between parcels of land to preserve, how do you set criteria that will take climate change into consideration?
  • When you are managing protected areas, how do you need to adjust policies to adapt to changing conditions?
  • How will compliance with emissions regulations be affected by climate change?
  • How do we manage for extreme events like mega-fires and “hot drought,” whose frequency and severity are increasing due to climate change?
  • How can rivers be managed to sustain communities and ecosystems when water demand is rising and supply while supply decreases due to climate change, as is already the case in the Colorado River Basin?
  • What is the role of ecological restoration in a rapidly changing world?

Panelists:

Amber Pairis (2001), Climate Change Advisor, California Department of Fish and Wildlife (recently changed from Fish and Game), shares her first-hand knowledge of how a state agency is incorporating climate change into practice, including development of an educational curriculum to build adaptation capacity.

Patrick McCarthy (1990), Director of Conservation Programs, The Nature Conservancy in New Mexico, shares how the largest conversation organization working in the United States has integrated climate change into land acquisition and management action, with particular focus on the southwest where long-term water conflict is getting even messier.

Lara Hansen (1995), Chief Scientist and Executive Director, EcoAdapt, shares her 15 years of domestic and international experience making the case that good conservation, management and everything else requires that we include the reality of climate change….and doing that isn’t as hard as we think!

Healy Hamilton (1991), Senior Research Fellow at the Marine Conservation Institute and a Senior Research Associate at Sound Science, LLC, shares her perspecive on applying climate change data in a local context.

Originally broadcast: December 11, 2012.

Additional resources:

Meet the Fellows in this Story

Lara Hansen

Lara Hansen

1995 Fellow
Dr. Lara Hansen is the Chief Scientist and Executive Director of EcoAdapt, an organization created to help develop the field of climate change adaptation by creating a network to develop the science of adaptation, build capacity to expand...
Amber Pairis

Amber Pairis

2001 Fellow
Dr. Amber Pairis is the Founder and Lead Advisor of the Climate Science Alliance and Associate Research Faculty with the Western Regional Climate Center at the Desert Research Institute. The Climate Science Alliance was created in 2015 out...

Healy Hamilton

1991 Fellow
Dr. Healy Hamilton is Chief Scientist at the Sustainable Forestry Initiative (SFI), a forest sustainability organization operating in the U.S. and Canada. She is a biodiversity scientist and global change biologist with graduate degrees...
Katrina Schneider

Patrick McCarthy

1990 Fellow
Patrick McCarthy is the Water Policy Officer at the Thornburg Foundation. Trained as a conservation ecologist, he has worked for the last thirty years at the intersection of ecological science, water governance, and community-based...