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Manomet President Featured as Guest Speaker at Weston Forest & Trail Association Annual Meeting

Manomet President John Hagan was the featured speaker at the Weston Forest & Trail Association’s annual meeting On Sunday, May 2.

For 40 years Manomet has worked on science-based approaches to build a sustainable world based on healthy systems that support human and wildlife populations. Dr. Hagan spoke about how, through the non-advocacy use of science for problem-solving, Manomet works collaboratively to leverage outcomes that integrate environmental, social and economic values. 

Dr. Hagan described how the changing climate poses challenges to the conservation of plants and animals, the health of ecosystems, and the essential services that natural landscapes provide to communities. He explained how Manomet does its work through three major initiatives: Climate Change and Energy, Natural Capital, and the Shorebird Recovery Project. He gave examples of projects in each area. In Climate Change and Energy, he described Manomet’s work with regulatory partners in 13 northeast states to provide recommendations for connecting renewable energy projects like windpower to the grid, with consideration of the effects of transmission corridors on wildlife species and habitat. He spoke about Natural Capital as “nature’s services,” such as clean water and air, food, carbon sequestration, biodiversity and wood products. Manomet is working with the dairy cooperative farmers of the Cabot Creamery to produce a sustainability scorecard in the management of their farms. Manomet is producing a study for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts that addresses the use of its forests for energy through biomass energy plants.  Manomet’s long-term commitment to understanding populations of shorebirds and the factors that affect them is carried out through the Shorebird Recovery Project, which uses site-based conservation, science-based research and tools for measuring success. Manomet also coordinates the Western Hemisphere Shorebird Reserve Network, a network of conservation sites from the Arctic to Argentina.

Dr. Hagan emphasized that Manomet uses a bottom-up approach through engagement of stakeholders in all of the organization’s work. The dairy farm sustainability scorecard, for example, was developed through extensive involvement with the farmers, rather than a top-down approach that would negate a workable, efficient system of sustainability. 

As scientists respond to the call to meet so many challenges to our essential well-being, Dr. Hagan referred to the additional challenge of communicating science to the public. He recently convened a panel at MIT to address this subject under the heading of “Talking Science in an Age of Sound Bites,” with participants from print and TV media, environmental policy, filmmaking, and organizational management. Dr. Hagan stressed that Manomet is committed to producing real outcomes in its work, which can only be accomplished through listening and respect. “Listening and respect are essential to Manomet’s work with diverse partners and stakeholders,” he said, adding that this has resulted in greater trust, collaboration and appreciation for using science to forge lasting solutions to some of the most pressing issues of our times.

 

The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change

The Science and Politics of Global Climate Change was the theme of a recent presentation by Dr. James C. Anderson, a Harvard professor and leading researcher on global climate change. The event was held in Plymouth, Massachusetts and was facilitated by Manomet Senior Scientist and Bird Observatory Program Director Trevor Lloyd-Evans.  It was sponsored by the Plymouth Area League of Women Voters.  The presentation was sobering for the audience, mostly from the Plymouth community, who heard descriptions of the rapid and large scale changes the planet is undergoing and the hard facts about how difficult it will be to reverse the trend.

Dr. Anderson, the Philip S. Weld Professor in the Departments of Chemistry and Chemical Biology, Earth and Planetary Sciences and the School of Engineer­ing and Applied Sciences at Harvard University, is one of the world’s experts in climate feedback systems and climate change. In his presentation, he explored the demand for energy in the past, present and future and discussed how the escalating demand for energy is linked to feedbacks in the climate system—and what can be done to help restore the system. He also addressed the role that physical sciences play in selecting policies for the United States.

The Earth receives a continuous influx of energy from the Sun. Some of this energy is absorbed at the Earth’s surface or by the atmosphere, while some is reflected back to space, Dr. Anderson explained. At the same time, the Earth and its atmosphere emit energy to space, resulting in an approximate balance between energy received and energy lost. Knowledge of the natural processes that affect this energy balance is critical for understanding how the Earth’s climate has changed in the past and will change in the future.

Factors that drive climate change are usefully separated into forcings and feedbacks. A climate forcing is an energy imbalance imposed on the climate system either externally or by human activities. Examples include changes in solar energy output, volcanic emissions, deliberate land modification, or emissions of greenhouse gases and aerosols resulting from human development, energy consumption and daily living choices.

A climate feedback is an internal climate process that amplifies or dampens the climate response to a specific forcing. An example is the increase in atmospheric water vapor that is triggered by an initial warming due to rising carbon dioxide (CO2) concentrations, which then acts to amplify warming through the greenhouse properties of water vapor.” (Excerpted from the NAP report: Radiative Forcing of Climate Change, www.nap.edu.) 

Dr. Anderson expressed his concern with the term “Global Warming” noting that it does not effectively communicate the impact of human-induced climate change on the earth.  He said that "global melting” is a better description of what is underway than global warming. Global temperatures are rising, the summer Arctic ice cap will likely disappear in about seven years, irreversible loss of permanent ice in Greenland has already occurred, the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is increasing inexorably, and potential solutions are complex and not immediate. In his discussion of forcing mechanisms, Dr. Anderson said that the result of the rapid melting of the Arctic ice cap is the loss of the thermal shield for the Greenland ice sheet, which is nearly 1.9 miles thick. The melting of the ice cap is not causing sea levels to rise, because Arctic ice is floating in the ocean. However, the Greenland ice sheet is on land, and if it melts entirely, the water it adds to the oceans would cause sea levels to rise almost 23 feet.

In concluding his presentation, Dr. Anderson said that there is a need for communicating better with political leaders and the public about climate change. His remark reinforced the theme of a recent Earth Day panel discussion co-sponsored by Manomet and MIT that explored some of the news ways for talking about science in the age of sound bites.

Trevor Lloyd-Evans provided insights into climate change that he and other Manomet researchers have gained through long-term studies of bird populations as well as other research. He also highlighted other projects that Manomet is working on through its Climate Change and Energy Initiative, as well as the collaborative work that Manomet has spearheaded, including the Climate Change and Wildlife Alliance—Massachusetts and a major project that is focused on sustaining ecosystem services in the face of climate change.

To learn more about Dr. Anderson and his group’s research, visit the Anderson Group website at http://www.arp.harvard.edu/. For more information about Manomet’s Climate Change and Energy Initiative, click here.
 

Hector Galbraith and Co-authors Receive 2010 Quentin Martin Best Practice Paper Award

Hector Galbraith, Director of Manomet’s Climate Change Initiative, is one of several co-authors whose paper has been selected to receive the 2010 Quentin Martin Best Practice Paper Award. The paper, “Climate Driven Water Resources Model of the Sacramento Basin, California,” was published in the September/October 2009 issue of the American Society of Civil Engineers’ (ASCE) Journal of Water Resources Planning and Management.

The Quentin Martin Award is presented annually to the author(s) of the outstanding practice-oriented paper published in the Journal. In his paper, Dr. Galbraith and co-authors explored how future climate change might affect the ecological services provided by the Sacramento River in California’s Central Valley. One result of the paper has attracted a considerable attention from state water planning agencies and conservationists: the authors modeled how climate change might alter the ability of the river and its tributaries to support cold water fish, particularly Chinook salmon, which are an important cultural, recreational and economic resource in the Central Valley. In the past the construction of dams, such as Shasta, has blocked access to upstream spawning areas, resulting in massive population declines in the stocks. Now, paradoxically, it is the very existence of these dams that might be key to the future conservation of the remaining fish stocks under a changing climate. Under state law, the dams are compelled to release cool water from their depths to maintain the cold water spawning and rearing habitat that the fish depend on. Based on the climate change models, none of this habitat would survive in the watershed absent the releases from the dams. The future survival of these remaining stocks, therefore, depends on the dams that originally eliminated so many of the original salmon populations. This has interesting implications for how we think of “pristine” or “wild and scenic” rivers and the need to remove dams to return rivers to their “natural” states.

The award will be presented during the World Environmental & Water Resources Congress, May 16-20, 2010, in Providence, Rhode Island.

 

 

 

Spring Workshop: Sustainability in Action

Benchmarking Business Sustainability in Maine

SkylineMaine Business for Sustainability, in conjunction with Manomet, has developed a sustainability benchmarking tool to help Maine Businesses benchmark where they are with their sustainability efforts, and increase their positive social impact. At this May 11 workshop in Freeport Maine, come hear these businesses talk about why benchmarking sustainability is important to them and what they learned in the process. Read more…