Calendar of Events
Fall 2021
- November 3 - Thomas Berry's Vision for the Earth Community
- November 16 - Climate Crisis as Public Health Crisis: A Regional Perspective
- November 22 – The Sociotechnical Aspects of Climate Adaptation in the PNW: Salmon Restoration Case Study
Spring 2022
The Sociotechnical Aspects of Climate Adaptation in the PNW: Salmon Restoration Case Study
While people have been working across the Columbia River Basin to restore salmon habitat, these ecosystems are being heavily impacted by a changing climate. How does the restoration community deal with these compounding challenges? In this talk, Dr. Shana Hirsch will outline the scientific infrastructure of salmon restoration in the basin in order to show how it shapes the way ecologists adapt to and imagine a future environment.
About the speaker: Dr. Shana Lee Hirsch is a research scientist in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering and the Associate Director of the University of Washington's division of the Pacific Marine Energy Center (PMEC).
Monday, November 22, 2021
Time: 4:35 - 5:35 p.m.
Zoom Meeting
Changing Climate, Fire Regimes, and the Future of Western Northern American Forests (co-hosted with CCSE)
When a forest burns, should we expect it to recover as it was before? Changing climate and disturbance regimes can overcome the resilience of ecological systems, catalyzing enduring changes. Expanding wildfire activity, coupled with warming and drought, are driving enduring changes to western North American forests. In some cases these changes include long-term conversion to alternate and non-forested vegetation types. Given current trends and projected future climate, we should expect rapid, major, and essentially permanent losses and changes to many of our forests and the ecosystem services they provide. These changes compel new management paradigms, strategies and tactics that accommodate changing conditions, and shifts in public expectations and engagement for an era when the pre-fire forest may not return.
About the speaker: Dr. Jonathan Coop is a professor of Biology and ENVS at Western Colorado University. He is a plant community ecologist whose research, with many students and collaborators, revolves around forest dynamics in response to changing fire regimes and climate. He also works closely with land managers to develop and assess strategies for times of certain change of uncertain rate and magnitude.
Wednesday, February 9th, 2022
Time: 4:30pm
Location: Wolff Auditorium, Jepson Building