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Sea Level Rise Viewer: Visualize community-level impacts from coastal flooding or sea level rise (up to 10 feet above average high tides) at U.S. coastal locations.

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Wildfire detection in the US and Canada within a minute of satellite observation

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FIRMS recently integrated ultra real-time (URT) MODIS and VIIRS active fire data, within a minute of satellite observation, from multiple direct readout ground stations in the continental US (CONUS).

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Earth Science to Action

We are currently either flying or building the tools that humankind can use to meet these challenges. In fact, we have more data and information available to us than ever before - so much so that decision makers cannot access or act on it fast enough, creating a gap between what's available and what people can do with it.

Our new strategy is designed to bridge that gap and accelerate and advance the impact of NASA's Earth science to meet this moment for the benefit of all humankind.

A thriving world, driven by trusted, actionable Earth science.

Compelled by our planet's rapid change, we innovate and collaborate to explore and understand the Earth system, make new discoveries, and enable solutions for the benefit of all.

Within a decade, we will advance and integrate Earth science knowledge to empower humanity to create a more resilient world.

Using the power of science, cutting edge technology, engineering, modern tools and infrastructure, partnerships, and space-based observations, NASA will build a global framework that will allow constructing a comprehensive digital description of the Earth system. This approach will include the Earth environment's physical and geological systems, including surface and interior, biologic, and chemical components, as well as human and other relevant systems. The outcome will help answer challenging science questions posed by the community and allow a thorough understanding and monitoring of the Earth system and its interconnected nature. It will also allow the emergence of new applications and discoveries to benefit society.

Based on our history of understanding Earth as a system and its various applications, we will coalesce and cultivate the diverse communities of Earth science, including working across sectors and across agencies, to generate the science-based decision support information needed by users. When appropriate, we will build efficient and interactive end-to-end tools, models, and assessment systems with the needed latencies, at the appropriate temporal and spatial scales, and with the appropriate uncertainty quantification to serve people, communities, decision- and policy-makers, enabling them to take science-based actions. These activities will support efforts to build Earth resilience, including the development of strategies for mitigation, adaptation, and the assessment of various risks and contingencies associated with global change and its impacts. This approach will also include the investigation of potential risks due to crossing thresholds for climate tipping points and the possibilities for cascading environmental and societal impacts.

We will tap into the NASA Earth science community's end-to-end capability as an open enterprise to incorporate innovation, scientific discovery, and emerging user needs to accelerate the use of Earth science and inform the next iteration of programs, missions, and initiatives.

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Within a decade, NASA will advance and integrate Earth science knowledge to empower humanity to create a more resilient world.

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Sustaining a Hungry World with Data

Food shortages that leave communities languishing. Unpredictable weather that leads the cost of staples to skyrocket. Farmers that rely on a thriving market to provide for their families.

The Agriculture Program Area promotes the use of Earth observations to strengthen food security, support market stability and protect human livelihoods. Together with partners in the United States and around the world, we help bolster food security, improve agricultural resilience and reduce price volatility for vulnerable communities.
Get to Know Agriculture
Our Focus

NASA Acres

NASA Acres consortium is NASA's U.S.-focused agriculture program element established in March 2023. It was commissioned by NASA and is led by the University of Maryland. NASA Acres focuses on applying Earth observation information to the most pressing agricultural and food security challenges facing U.S. farmers, ranchers, and agrifood systems. NASA Acres works with stakeholders across the agricultural spectrum to develop Earth observatory-based data and tools that help increase production, while protecting and restoring land, water, atmosphere, and human health.
Visit the NASA Acres Website
NASA Harvest

NASA Harvest consortium is NASA's food and agriculture program It is made up of over 40 partners and was commissioned by NASA and is led by the University of Maryland. NASA Harvest connects top researchers, humanitarian aid organizations, economists, policymakers and other leaders. It gets them the timely, accurate and actionable information they need to prepare for and respond to spikes in food prices, weather-related food shortages and other events.
Visit the NASA Harvest Website
"The consortium approach gives a lot of flexibility and agility to be responsive to current needs and especially opportunities that arise to put Earth science into action." - Lawrence Friedl, Director of NASA's Earth Applied Sciences Program.

Featured Product

OpenET

OpenET is an website tool that provides data for U.S. water management on 17 western states, most notably the area covered by the Colorado River basin. The "ET" in OpenET stands for evapotranspiration, which is the process through which water leaves plants, soils, and other surfaces and returns to the atmosphere. It's a measurement that farmers can use to estimate the amount of water being taken up or used by their fields and crops and that will usually need to be replaced through irrigation or rainfall.

More about OpenET: OpenET: A Transformative Tool for Tracking Water in the U.S. West

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From individual farmers to global food chains, we help optimize decision-making about food availability and access through Earth-observing data.

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Provides solar and meteorological data sets from NASA research for support of renewable energy, building energy efficiency and agricultural needs.

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3.6K views · 50 reactions | Perspective — nothing like the Bird’s Eye view…especially when the “bird” is around 250 miles above sea level in outer space.

I recently had the great privilege to meet (via a fancy space zoom) @nasa astronaut @loralohara who spent six weeks on the @ISS. To see her life and world at zero gravity was remarkable as the station travels roughly 17,000 mph and orbits the earth 16 times a day (I got to see sunrise and sunset in space during our 50 minute call). Even more impressive was hearing Loral talk about her perspective and passion for our rivers, water, conservation and science. This is her latest video, including her own images, from her last voyage. Thanks Loral — follow her to learn more about the wonders of our world… and space.

#cool #astronaut #space #water #grateful | Peter McBride

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Perspective — nothing like the Bird’s Eye view…especially when the “bird” is around 250 miles above sea level in outer space.

I recently had the great privilege to meet (via a fancy space zoom)...

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Example Interpretive Product

Staff at Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park used visitor voices to build a History & Hope-inspired interpretive product. Hundreds of visitors answered the following question posted on a whiteboard:

During WWII, the country mobilized around a common cause. What cause do you want to mobilize around next?

Every response was recorded and tallied. The larger words in the word cloud to the right are the most popular responses. Staff created an exhibit that drew parallels between issues visitors proposed we mobilize around today and social movements from the postwar period.

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History & Hope for Climate Action: An Interpretive Toolkit - Climate Change (U.S. National Park Service)

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Staff at Rosie the Riveter/WWII Home Front National Historical Park used visitor voices to build a History & Hope-inspired interpretive product. Hundreds of visitors answered the following question posted on a whiteboard: During WWII, the country mobilized around a common cause. What cause do you want to mobilize around next?

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On the Move: The Overheating Earth and the Uprooting of America a book by Abrahm Lustgarten

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A New York Times Book Review Editors’ Choice”On the Move explains how we got here and where we’re headed. It’s crucial guide to the world we are creating.” --Elizabeth Kolbert, author of Under a White Sky and The Sixth ExtinctionA vivid, journalistic account of how climate change will make American life as we know it unfeasible.Humanity is on the precipice of a great climate migration, and Americans will not be spared. Tens of millions of people are likely to be driven from the places they call home. Poorer communities will be left behind, while growth will surge in the cities and regions most attractive to climate refugees. America will be changed utterly. Abrahm Lustgarten’s On the Move is the definitive account of what this massive population shift might look like. As he shows, the United States will be rendered unrecognizable by four unstoppable forces: wildfires in the West; frequent flooding in coastal regions; extreme heat and humidity in the South; and droughts that will make farming all but impossible across much of the nation. Reporting from the front lines of climate migration, Lustgarten explains how a pattern of shortsighted policies encouraged millions to settle in vulnerable parts of the country, and introduces us to homeowners in California, insurance customers in Florida, and ranchers in Colorado who are being forced to make the agonizing choice of when, not whether, to leave. Employing the most current climate data and predictive models, he shows how America’s population will be squeezed northward into a shrinking triangle of land stretching from Tennessee to Maine to the Great Lakes. The places many of us now call home are at risk, and On the Move reveals how we’ll deal with the consequences.

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The Geography of Risk: Epic Storms, Rising Seas, and the Cost of America’s Coasts a book by Gilbert M. Gaul

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This century has seen the costliest hurricanes in U.S. history--but who bears the brunt of these monster storms? Consider this: Five of the most expensive hurricanes in history have made landfall since 2005: Katrina ($160 billion), Ike ($40 billion), Sandy ($72 billion), Harvey ($125 billion), and Maria ($90 billion). With more property than ever in harm’s way, and the planet and oceans warming dangerously, it won’t be long before we see a $250 billion hurricane. Why? Because Americans have built $3 trillion worth of property in some of the riskiest places on earth: barrier islands and coastal floodplains. And they have been encouraged to do so by what Gilbert M. Gaul reveals in The Geography of Risk to be a confounding array of federal subsidies, tax breaks, low-interest loans, grants, and government flood insurance that shift the risk of life at the beach from private investors to public taxpayers, radically distorting common notions of risk. These federal incentives, Gaul argues, have resulted in one of the worst planning failures in American history, and the costs to taxpayers are reaching unsustainable levels. We have become responsible for a shocking array of coastal amenities: new roads, bridges, buildings, streetlights, tennis courts, marinas, gazebos, and even spoiled food after hurricanes. The Geography of Risk will forever change the way you think about the coasts, from the clash between economic interests and nature, to the heated politics of regulators and developers.

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The map was created by NASA's Scientific Visualization Studio using a model called GEOS, short for the Goddard Earth Observing System. GEOS is a high-resolution weather model, powered by supercomputers, that is used to simulate what was happening in the atmosphere - including storm systems, cloud formations, and other natural events. GEOS pulls in billions of data points from ground observations and satellite instruments, such as the Terra satellite's MODIS and the Suomi-NPP satellite's VIIRS instruments. Its resolution is more than 100 timesgreater than a typical weather model.

Carbon dioxide is a heat-trapping greenhouse gas and the primary reason for Earth's rising temperatures. As CO2 builds in the atmosphere, it warms our planet. This is clear in the numbers. 2023 was the hottest year on record, according to scientists from NASA's Goddard Institute for Space Studies (GISS) in New York. Most of the 10 hottest years on record have occurred in the past decade.

All this carbon dioxide isn't harmful to air quality. In fact, we need some carbon dioxide to keep the planet warm enough for life to exist. But when too much CO2 is pumped into the atmosphere, the Earth warms too much and too fast. That's what has been happening for at least the past half century. The concentration of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere increased from approximately 278 parts per million in 1750, the beginning of the industrial era, to 427 parts per million in May 2024.

Human activities have "unequivocally caused warming," according to the latest report by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. This warming is leading to all sorts of changes to our climate, including more intense storms, wildfires, heat waves, and rising sea levels.

Details

jennifer.m.fadoul@nasa.gov

Goddard Space Flight Center

Discover More Topics From NASA

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Watch Carbon Dioxide Move Through Earth's Atmosphere - NASA Science

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What we're looking at This global map shows concentrations of carbon dioxide as the gas moved through Earth's atmosphere from January through March 2020, driven by wind patterns and atmospheric circulation. Because of the model's high resolution, you can zoom in and see carbon dioxide emissions rising from power plants, fires, and cities, then spreading [...]

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NASA is a global leader in studying Earth’s changing climate.

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Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

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Most Americans say global warming is personally important to them, but don't talk or hear about it much.
Our surveys have repeatedly shown that most Americans are interested in the issue of global warming and consider it personally important. Our studies, however, have also shown that for most Americans, climate change is not a common topic of conversation or something they hear about much in their daily lives. This suggests that there is a climate change "spiral of silence"Noelle-Neumann, E. (1993). T he spiral of silence: Public opinion - our social skin, 2nd Edition. University of Chicago Press. Chicago, IL., in which even people who care about the issue, shy away from discussing it because they so infrequently hear other people talking about it - reinforcing the spiral.

Here we use data from our most recent national survey to explore this concept. As you'll see below, we find that more than half of those who are interested in global warming or think the issue is important "rarely" or "never" talk about it with family and friends (57% and 54% respectively).

So we pose the question to you: Do you think there a spiral of silence about climate change in America? Do you find yourself or others you know hesitant to talk about it? If so, why?
1. Americans are interested in global warming
Please share your answers via Twitter to @YaleClimateComm and , using the hashtag #climatesilence, or on our Facebook pages: Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. Let's talk about it!
2. Global warming is personally important to a majority of Americans
The majority of Americans are interested in the issue of global warming. Two in three Americans are either "very" (22%) or "moderately" (45%) interested. Only about one in three is "not very" (16%) or "not at all" (16%) interested in it.
3. Americans don't hear about global warming frequently in the media 4. Americans don't often hear global warming discussed 5. Americans rarely discuss global warming with family and friends 6. Many Americans who are interested in global warming or think it is important are not hearing or talking about it
The majority of Americans also say global warming is important to them personally. Six in ten say the issue is "extremely" (9%), "very" (17%), or "moderately" (35%) important to them. Fewer Americans - about four in ten - say global warming is "not too" (21%) or "not at all" (17%) important to them personally.

Fewer than half of Americans say they hear global warming discussed in the media (TV, movies, radio, newspapers/news websites, magazines, etc.) "at least once a week" (22%) or even "at least once a month" (22%). One in four Americans (26%) say they hear about the topic in the media "several times a year," while 30% say "once a year or less," "never," or "not sure."

Nearly seven in ten Americans (68%) hear other people they know discussing global warming only "several times a year" or less often, and one in four (24%) "never" hear people they know discussing it. Fewer than one in five (18%) hear people they know discussing global warming at least once a month.
Survey Method
About seven in ten Americans report that they "rarely" (36%) or "never" (32%) discuss global warming with family and friends, which has been trending slightly upward over the past eight years.

Although the majority of Americans are interested in global warming and say it is important to them personally, many of those same people say they don't hear about it in the media, from people they know, or from family and friends.

Specifically, among Americans who are interested in global warming or who say global warming is important to them personally, about half either hear about global warming in the media only several times a year or less often (40% and 39% respectively), or say they're not sure how often they hear about it/gave no response (12% and 13% respectively). An even larger percentage - three in four who are interested in global warming or think it is important - hear other people they know talk about it only several times a year or less often (66% and 63% respectively) or say they're not sure/gave no response (both 12%). Similarly, more than half of those who are interested or think global warming is important "rarely" or "never" talk about it with family and friends (57% and 54% respectively).
Sample details and margins of error
Table: Many Americans who are interested in global warming or think it is important are not hearing or talking about it
Rounding error
This climate note is based on findings from a nationally representative survey - Climate Change in the American Mind - conducted by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. The research was funded by the 11th Hour Project, the Energy Foundation, the Grantham Foundation, and the MacArthur Foundation.

The sample was drawn from GfK's KnowledgePanel ®, an online panel of members drawn using probability sampling methods. Prospective members are recruited using a combination of random digit dial and address-based sampling techniques that cover virtually all (non-institutional) resident phone numbers and addresses in the United States. Those contacted who would choose to join the panel but do not have access to the Internet are loaned computers and given Internet access so they may participate. The sample therefore includes a representative cross-section of American adults - irrespective of whether they have Internet access, use only a cell phone, etc. Key demographic variables were adjusted, post survey, to match US Census Bureau norms.

The survey instrument was designed by Anthony Leiserowitz, Geoff Feinberg, and Seth Rosenthal of Yale University, and Edward Maibach and Connie Roser-Renouf of George Mason University.

Data are based on a nationally representative survey of 1,204 American adults, aged 18 and older. The survey was conducted March 18-31, 2016. All questionnaires were self-administered by respondents in a web-based environment. The survey took, on average, about 26 minutes to complete. All samples are subject to some degree of sampling error - that is, statistical results obtained from a sample can be expected to differ somewhat from results that would be obtained if every member of the target population were interviewed. The margin of error for this survey, at the 95% confidence level, was plus or minus 3 percentage points.

For tabulation purposes, percentage points are rounded off to the nearest whole number. As a result, percentages in a given chart may total slightly higher or lower than 100%. Summed response categories (e.g., "very interested" + "moderately interested") are also rounded.

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Is There a Climate "Spiral of Silence" in America? - Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

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Most Americans say global warming is personally important to them, but don't talk or hear about it much. Our surveys have repeatedly shown that most Americans are interested in the issue of global warming and consider it personally important. Our studies, [...]

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Effective interpretive techniques create opportunities for individuals to make meaningful, emotional and intellectual connections to climate change and other complex issues. By knowing the audience and which interpretive technique is most effective for conveying a particular message to that audience, a guide or interpreter ensures that they relay information that will engage and help the visitor relate to the topic. Interpreters are highly credible sources of information, so audiences listen, even if they don't agree with the message. To quote Freeman Tilden, "The chief aim of interpretation is not instruction but provocation." Through effective interpretive techniques, we can leave our audiences mulling over new ideas or actions they might take.

The Certified Interpretive Guide Training Workbook (NAI) shares that the most effective interpretation, regardless of the content of the message:

Serves a purpose: shares a story that informs, entertains and enlightens

Is well-organized: lays a well-researched foundation rather than long discourse

Is enjoyable: engages the audience

Is thematic: presents a theme with meaning beyond information

Is relevant, follows different approaches for each audience

Makes a difference, coming from you as an interpreter, a credible source

When talking about climate change in particular, it's helpful to avoid using lots of scientific data, which tends to engender suspicion from general audiences that don't have a strong scientific background.

In short, beware of:

Data, charts, graphs

Long, complex explanations of complicated phenomena

Unfamiliar scientific terminology

Links to particular religious or political affiliations

Threats, bad news, gloomy forecasts

Instead, try to use:

Positive examples of actions that are helping

Good news

Positive vision of the future

Personal and collective actions we can take to make a difference

Actions that young people can take (recycling, limiting energy use, etc.)

References to shared values (ingenuity, innovation, energy independence, helping other creatures and the environment, conserving resources).

In this Unit, we showcase techniques in informal settings that help engage a variety of audiences in discussions about climate change, whether melting glaciers or oil in the Arctic or warming seas. Lesson 1.1 distinguishes between tangibles and intangibles, such as output from a smoke stack versus health concerns related to that smoke stack's output. In Lesson 1.2, framing complex issues helps engage the visitor with ocean challenges, as does sharing multiple points of view about a controversial topic. Lesson 1.3 depicts ways to engage the audience's positive emotions even when faced with complex topics.

Framing and Multiple Points of View

We all look at the world around us through particular filters or frames. These frames reflect our values, our worldview, our knowledge and experience and they have everything to do with how we perceive and react to events and issues. When interpreting climate change, it's important to use frames that will resonate with your audience. Frames that are consistent with the values the audience holds in common can be very successful-interconnectedness, responsible management, future generations (legacy). Framing intentionally structures an opportunity for the audience to experience a visual, auditory or other sensory experience of the resource. Typically, framing includes four key elements.

Connect with a value

Use an analogy to explain the issue

Present a simple causal chain that links the issue to behavior

Encourage participation in actions to solve the issue

A sample conversation might sound something like this:
Carbon dioxide acts like a blanket, trapping heat near the Earth's surface. Burning stuff to make energy is one of the major causes of increased carbon dioxide which is thickening that blanket. When we reduce our energy use or get energy from sustainable sources, we make less carbon dioxide and slow climate change. You can make a difference by turning down your thermostat, driving less, writing your representatives, supporting sound energy policies and much more.
Framing elements can stand on their own or be part of a larger conversation. Framing can also involve sharing multiple points of view from which something is considered or evaluated. In the following video, a skeptical visitor initiates the conversation and asks a question.

Positive Emotions

Building upon a visitor's positive emotional connection to an exhibit gives an interpreter an opportunity to delve into the impacts of global warming and ocean acidification, linking people's actions to the species well-being and the ocean's health.

One of the bright spots in interpreting climate change may be younger audiences. Today's younger audiences have access to more information, have a more global perspective and are more willing to change their consumption/lifestyle choices than older generations. However, younger audiences and especially young children can react very negatively when exposed to environmental issues in a scary or threatening way. They quickly pick up information but do not have the filters that life experience provides, and they can react strongly to negative information. There are many reasons to keep a positive tenor when talking about climate change, and avoiding a fearful reaction is one.

Instead, try to use positive examples of actions that are helping, share good news, present a positive vision of the future, and explore personal and collective actions we might take to make a difference. Smile, be relaxed and look like you're having fun and your audience will relax and engage with you.

Positive emotions lend themselves to creating opportunities for emotional connections, particularly when interpreting climate change to children. Make the ecosystem accessible using terms a child can understand. Activate comfort and positive emotions, be uplifting and inspiring, and ask the child to relate the theme to their own life.

One of the most important practices in effective interpretation involves understanding your audience's background, interests and perspectives so you can use the most appropriate technique for making your message relevant to their lives. Ask them questions, observe how they interact with each other, or the exhibit or location, and learn more in advance about the characteristics of the visitors to your institution.

You can also draw on recent studies that characterize the American audience as it relates their attitudes about climate change. One of the most widely used studies is Global Warming's Six Americas: An Audience Segmentation, an ongoing study conducted by George Mason University and the Yale Project on Climate Change Communication. You can find an overview and the full study here.

NAI's Certified Interpretive Guide Training Workbook notes that people love to hear good stories, unusual facts, inspirational thoughts, quotes and gee-whiz information in terms they understand (analogy, metaphor). They respond to things that evoke emotional or physiological responses, such as scary, beautiful, sad, happy, and what's important to them. They don't respond to scientific data, doom and gloom and the same thing they've heard over and over about climate change.

Person-on-the-Street Interviews We asked random people in California and Alaska their feelings or thoughts about energy, ocean acidification, climate change, oil in the Arctic, melting glaciers and polar regions and how to address these issues.Here's what we heard. Can you identify the different types of audiences - skeptic, unaware, supporter? Notice the range of responses based on their own values and beliefs.

Arctic Decisions: Melting Glaciers

Additional audience videos:

Unaware Audiences

When talking to audiences who are unaware of your theme or issue, such as the impacts of climate change, take a moment to learn what matters to them and discover their values, then use the exhibit or setting to relate to what's important to them. As a segue into a conversation about climate change, you might ask, "Have you heard any news about the strange weather we are experiencing?"

Or if you're standing in front of an open sea exhibit and the visitor expresses surprise at the size of the tuna, never having seen it outside of a can, tie the experience into the energy cycle. "We eat tuna as food, and tuna are perfectly tailored to finding food, too. See how streamlined they are for moving quickly through the water, and how they can tuck their fins into grooves in their sides to prevent drag and conserve energy. Conserving energy from the food you have eaten is just as important as finding the food in the first place. What are ways that we can save energy?"

Analogies are helpful techniques when talking to unaware audiences, or you might ask a question or make personal connections.

"Because people learn in different ways and on multiple levels, using a variety of techniques is more effective than using just one or two over and over again."- Handles, Helping Visitors to Grasp Resource Meanings: A Survey of Interpretive Techniqu es, Peggy Sherbaum, National Park Service

By using the interpretive technique most effective for conveying a particular message to an audience, a guide or interpreter ensures that they relay information that will engage and help the visitor relate to the topic. Often, skilled interpreters weave together various techniques to create interpretive opportunities yet take care to not let the technique overwhelm the message-or the listener.

In this Unit, you'll see examples of specific techniques at play. Lesson 3.1 about the use of analogies as a technique for making climate change relevant to your audience. Lesson 3.2 focuses on using questions and answers about the exhibit or the audience's experiences to help them relate to broader ocean issues, weaving in self-referencing to personalize the message. Lesson 3.3 explores the power of storytelling, and how personification can make global warming relevant to your audience. Lesson 3.4 gives ideas for how to move your audience towards taking action to help with pressing ocean challenges by "making the ask." And Lesson 3.5 models how to facilitate a lively discussion about climate change with a group.

Facilitated Dialogue

When facilitating a dialogue about climate change with a group of individuals, it's most helpful for the interpreter to guide the discussion, and not lead. This allows individuals at different levels of understanding about climate change to discuss their own personal thoughts and share actions they're taking to make a difference.

See content that needs updating?

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Interpretive Techniques for Challenging Topics

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Effective interpretive techniques create opportunities for individuals to make meaningful, emotional and intellectual connections to climate change and other complex issues. By knowing the audience and which interpretive technique is most effective for conveying a particular message to that audience, a guide or interpreter ensures that they relay information that will engage and help the visitor relate to the topic.

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earth to sky: an innovative partnership between nasa and national park service

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Earth to Sky: An Innovative Partnership between NASA and National Park Service

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Environmental Graphiti® uses art to dramatize the critical science of climate change and to inspire action to address this urgent issue.

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Landsat Science | A joint NASA/USGS Earth observation program.

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The Earth to Sky Partnership nurtures and supports a growing community of interpreters, educators and scientists learning and sharing science and communication techniques. Their community of practice develops interpretive and educational products and programs for use in refuges, parks and other sites of place-based education.

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What do I do with the piece when it's finished?

That's up to you! Your piece is yours to use however you might like. However, we plan to do a number of events around Wool and Water in the future and especially during Adirondack Water Week in August. If you are in the vicinity of an event, we would love you to consider joining and displaying your piece. If not, at the very least we would like to create a collection of photos and/or videos of finished items to share here and on social media. If you are interested, we would love for you to share your finished creations with us.

Wait, what if I can't knit or crochet but I'm still interested?

Can you weave? Simple weaving with a DIY loom could work in lots of ways.

Do you want to learn to knit or crochet? We might be able to help there too, let us know. There are abundant resources for learning online also.

Are you a teacher? We have some ideas for simple projects kids could do that do not require knitting or crochet skills.

What's the best way to get in touch?

Start by emailing Michale at mglennon@paulsmiths.edu or by filling out the form above.

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Wool & Water - Adirondack Watershed Institute

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Wool and Water is a data art project that blends fiber art with scientific data to create visual representations of changing water quality conditions in the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain Basin.

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What do I do with the piece when it's finished?

That's up to you! Your piece is yours to use however you might like. However, we plan to do a number of events around Wool and Water in the future and especially during Adirondack Water Week in August. If you are in the vicinity of an event, we would love you to consider joining and displaying your piece. If not, at the very least we would like to create a collection of photos and/or videos of finished items to share here and on social media. If you are interested, we would love for you to share your finished creations with us.

Wait, what if I can't knit or crochet but I'm still interested?

Can you weave? Simple weaving with a DIY loom could work in lots of ways.

Do you want to learn to knit or crochet? We might be able to help there too, let us know. There are abundant resources for learning online also.

Are you a teacher? We have some ideas for simple projects kids could do that do not require knitting or crochet skills.

What's the best way to get in touch?

Start by emailing Michale at mglennon@paulsmiths.edu or by filling out the form above.

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Wool & Water - Adirondack Watershed Institute

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Wool and Water is a data art project that blends fiber art with scientific data to create visual representations of changing water quality conditions in the Adirondacks and Lake Champlain Basin.

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Museums were more trusted than the daily newspaper before the pandemic - and now they're even more so.

During the pandemic, we watched and monitored as trust in museums (and zoos, aquariums, gardens, historic sites, and science centers, among other cultural organizations) increased in the United States and throughout the world. As we all continue to learn to live alongside the coronavirus, this dramatic rise in trust perceptions remains one of the biggest and arguably most impactful findings from the last three years.

We first published data concerning trust in museums in 2017, and...

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More People Trust Museums Now Than Before the Pandemic (DATA) - Colleen Dilenschneider

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Museums were more trusted than the daily newspaper before the pandemic - and now they're even more so. During the pandemic, we watched and monitored as trust in museums (and zoos, aquariums, gardens, historic sites, and science centers, among other cultural organizations) increased in the United States and throughout the world.

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The Montreal Protocol

The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is the landmark multilateral environmental agreement that regulates the production and consumption of nearly 100 man-made chemicals referred to as ozone depleting substances (ODS). When released into the atmosphere, those chemicals damage the stratospheric ozone layer, Earth's protective shield that protects humans and the environment from harmful levels of ultraviolet radiation from the sun. Adopted on 16 September 1987, the Protocol is to date one of the rare treaties to achieve universal ratification.

The Montreal Protocol phases down the consumption and production of the different ODS in a step-wise manner, with different timetables for developed and developing countries (referred to as "Article 5 countries"). Under this treaty, all parties have specific responsibilities related to the phase out of the different groups of ODS, control of ODS trade, annual reporting of data, national licensing systems to control ODS imports and exports, and other matters. Developing and developed countries have equal but differentiated responsibilities, but most importantly, both groups of countries have binding, time-targeted, and measurable commitments.

The Protocol includes provisions related to Control Measures (Article 2), Calculation of control levels (Article 3), Control of trade with non-Parties (Article 4), Special situation of developing countries (Article 5), Reporting of data (Article 7), Non-compliance (Article 8), Technical assistance (Article 10), as well as other topics. The substances controlled by the treaty are listed in Annexes A (CFCs, halons), B (other fully halogenated CFCs, carbon tetrachloride, methyl chloroform), C (HCFCs), E (methyl bromide), and F (HFCs).

The treaty evolves over time in light of new scientific, technical, and economic developments, and it continues to be amended and adjusted. The Meeting of the Parties is the governance body for the treaty, with technical support provided by an Open-ended Working Group, both of which meet on an annual basis. The Parties are assisted by the Ozone Secretariat, which is based at UN Environment Programme headquarters in Nairobi, Kenya.

The Multilateral Fund

The Multilateral Fund for the Implementation of the Montreal Protocol was established in 1991 under Article 10 of the treaty. The Fund's objective is to provide financial and technical assistance to developing country parties to the Montreal Protocol whose annual per capita consumption and production of ODS is less than 0.3 kg to comply with the control measures of the Protocol.

The Multilateral Fund's activities are implemented by four international agencies - UN Environment Programme (UNEP) , UN Development Programme (UNDP), UN Industrial Development Organisation (UNIDO) and the World Bank - as well as bilateral agencies of non-Article 5 countries.

Responsibility for overseeing the operation of the Fund rests with the Executive Committee, which comprises seven members each from Article 5 countries and non-Article 5 countries. The Committee is assisted by the Multilateral Fund Secretariat, which is based in Montreal. Since its inception, the Multilateral Fund has supported over 8,600 projects including industrial conversion, technical assistance, training and capacity building worth over US$3.9 billion.

Throughout the implementation of the Montreal Protocol, developing countries have demonstrated that, with the right kind of assistance, they are willing, ready, and able to be full partners in global efforts to protect the environment. In fact, many developing countries have exceeded the reduction targets for phasing out ODS, with the support of the Multilateral Fund.

Phase out of HCFCs - the Montreal Amendment

Hydrochlorofluorocarbons (HCFCs) are gases used worldwide in refrigeration, air-conditioning and foam applications, but they are being phased out under the Montreal Protocol since deplete the ozone layer. HCFCs are both ODS and powerful greenhouse gases: the most commonly used HCFC is nearly 2,000 times more potent than carbon dioxide in terms of its global warming potential (GWP). Recognizing the potential benefits to the Earth's climate, in September 2007 the Parties decided to accelerate their schedule to phase out HCFCs. Developed countries have been reducing their consumption of HCFCs and will completely phase them out by 2020. Developing countries agreed to start their phase-out process in 2013 and are now following a stepwise reduction until the complete phase-out of HCFCs by 2030.

In Article 5 countries, this HCFC phase-out is in full swing, with support from the Multilateral Fund for the implementation of multi-stage HCFC Phase out Management Plans (HPMPs), investment projects and capacity building activities. Throughout this process, the Parties are encouraging all countries to promote the selection of alternatives to HCFCs that minimize environmental impacts, in particular impacts on climate, as well as meeting other health, safety and economic considerations. For the climate consideration, this means taking global-warming potential, energy use and other relevant factors into account. For refrigeration and air conditioning, this means optimizing refrigerants, equipment, servicing practices, recovery, recycling and disposal at end of life.

Phase down of HFCs - the Kigali Amendment

Another group of substances, hydrofluorocarbons (HFCs), were introduced as non-ozone depleting alternatives to support the timely phase-out of CFCs and HCFCs. HFCs are now widespread in air conditioners, refrigerators, aerosols, foams and other products. While these chemicals do not deplete the stratospheric ozone layer, some of them have high GWPs ranging from 12 to 14,000. Overall HFC emissions are growing at a rate of 8% per year and annual emissions are projected to rise to 7-19% of global CO2 emissions by 2050. Uncontrolled growth in HFC emissions, therefore, challenges efforts to keep global temperature rise at or below 2°C this century. Urgent action on HFCs is needed to protect the climate system.

The Parties to the Montreal Protocol reached an agreement at their 28th Meeting of the Parties on 15 October 2016 in Kigali, Rwanda to phase down HFCs. Countries agreed to add HFCs to the list of controlled substances and approved a timeline for their gradual reduction by 80-85 per cent by the late 2040s. The first reductions by developed countries are expected in 2019. Developing countries will follow with a freeze of HFC consumption levels in 2024 and in 2028 for some nations.

The issue has been under negotiation by the Parties since 2009 and the successful agreement on the Kigali Amendment (Decision XXVIII/1 and accompanying Decision XXVIII/2) continues the historic legacy of the Montreal Protocol. The Kigali Amendment will enter into force on 1 January 2019 for those countries that have ratified the amendment.

The pathway to implement the HFC phase down is to reduce dependency on high-GWP alternatives and increase the adoption of low-GWP, energy-efficient technologies as part of the HCFC phase-out process under the Montreal Protocol. Such a "smart approach" can achieve the Montreal Protocol's objective of eliminating HCFCs while at the same time achieving energy efficiency gains and CO2 emissions reduction - a "climate co-benefit."

Success achieved to date and the job ahead

With the full and sustained implementation of the Montreal Protocol, the ozone layer is projected to recover by the middle of this century. Without this treaty, ozone depletion would have increased tenfold by 2050 compared to current levels, and resulted in millions of additional cases of melanoma, other cancers and eye cataracts. It has been estimated, for example, that the Montreal Protocol is saving an estimated two million people each year by 2030 from skin cancer.

To date, the Parties to the Protocol have phased out 98% of ODS globally compared to 1990 levels. Because most of these substances are potent greenhouse gases, the Montreal Protocol is also contributing significantly to the protection of the global climate system. From 1990 to 2010, the treaty's control measures are estimated to have reduced greenhouse gas emissions by the equivalent of 135 gigatons of CO2, the equivalent of 11 gigatons a year.

Under the Kigali Amendment, actions to limit the use of HFCs under the Montreal Protocol are expected to prevent the emissions of up to 105 billion tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent of greenhouse gases, helping to avoid up to 0.5 degree Celsius of global temperature rise by 2100 - a truly unparalleled contribution to climate mitigation efforts, and the single largest contribution the world has made towards keeping the global temperature rise "well below" 2 degrees Celsius, a target agreed at the Paris climate conference.

The Montreal Protocol also makes important contributions to the realization of the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

Given all of these factors and more, the Montreal Protocol is considered to be one of the most successful environmental agreements of all time. What the parties to the Protocol have managed to accomplish since 1987 is unprecedented, and it continues to provide an inspiring example of what international cooperation at its best can achieve.

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The Montreal Protocol The Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer is the landmark multilateral environmental agreement that regulates the production and consumption of nearly 100 man-made chemicals referred to as ozone depleting substances (ODS).

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Climate stripes are data visualization graphics that use coloured bands to show long-term temperature trends. Created by Ed Hawkins at https://showyourstripes.info, the colour palette from blue to red conveys global warming trends in a way that is easy to understand.

Sometime this year our friend Jie Hui had the idea to translate these climate stripes into a wearable form, to act as conversation starters on how the climate is changing. Winnie then had the idea that they could be made into friendship bracelets.

As someone new to friendship bracelets, it wasn't easy to find a way to weave the stripes, but we hope that with what we have learnt, it becomes a bit more straightforward for you.

This is what we came up with:

And here's how you can create your very own bracelet!
1. Data prep

1. Find the climate stripes graphic for your country or area of interest from https://showyourstripes.info. Most graphics will have 118 stripes - one for each year of data measured.

2. Use an app with a colour picker such as Photoshop, to determine the colour of each stripe. There should be 16 colours in total. 8 shades of blue and 8 shades of red. A spreadsheet app such as Google Sheets is useful to jot the information.

3. If you're interested to make one based on the Singapore data, below is the breakdown, and here is its source Google sheet - which could also be a useful starting place for your adaptation. The top right section acts as a legend to mark out the colour of each row using RGB hex.

2. Learning the basics of bracelet making

If you are totally new to friendship bracelets like I was, check out this great introductory video by Masha Knots to learn some basics such as how to make a knot. A big thank you to Masha for her wonderful videos, so I was able to pick up these basics without too much of an ordeal.
3. Materials prep

1. Gather the 16 colours of leading embroidery thread ('Leading' as opposed to 'base'. 'Leading' are the colours that are visible after knotting. 'Base' are the inner support threads that will be hidden after knotting.). In the top right section of the breakdown above are suggested embroidery thread colours that can be used from DMC. You could also choose to swap any of them out if you already have some colours. The key is to ensure the colour tones look distinct enough so the pattern shows up clearly when woven.

2. Prepare 12 base threads (the more base threads you have, the wider the bracelet). The colours of the base threads don't really matter as they will be covered by the leading threads, they are only visible in the ties on both sides. However I did try to use colours within the spectrum of red to blue because they look pretty and cohesive as the ties.

3. It could also be useful to have a big cardboard and a clip to peg the bracelet to while working on it.

4. Now you are ready to begin!

1. Cut the 12 base threads to a length of about 60 - 70cm, depending on how long you like your ties to be.

2. Gather all the 16 leading threads together and label them for easy readability. I didn't cut mine from the bunch because I wasn't sure how much length would be needed.

3. Start by making a triangle end - Masha's how-to video here. I like to start with a dark blue and end with red on the other side to emphasize the warming effect.
Tip: I bundled the dark blue thread for the first triangle end in together with the base threads so that I wouldn't have to tie it in at the top of the bracelet, which would result in a stub at the top underside of the bracelet. Similarly I bundled the red thread for the other triangle end into that end of base threads so I wouldn't create a stub at the end.

4. Use the alpha method to knot row by row from left to right and right to left (or vice versa). Masha's video on alpha bracelets here.

To switch colours from row to row, you can either pull the leading thread colour to the spot or tie in a fresh thread as per the alpha method.

I preferred to pull the thread from row to row each time it appeared, to create fewer stubs, unless the rows were too far.

The middle section of the Singapore breakdown graphic was useful for me to see where each colour starts and ends. Once a colour ends I can safely cut it off completely.

Tip: Although I didn't see this in any of the tutorials, I found it useful when switching rows between the same colour, to skip one knot on the upper row. That means when I am on the last knot in row A that goes forward, instead of doing a forward-backward knot, I just do a forward knot, then continue to row B. This helps to make the edge straighter, otherwise there is an extra bump. When switching rows between different colours, this is not necessary.

5. Once all the rows are done, make the red triangle end.

6. Finish off the bracelet with twisted ties on both ends. Here's Masha's video to show how.

7. Cut off excess thread at the back.
When cutting off the excess thread, I tried to organise and tie them in such a way they they help to secure each other down and inwards, so they don't peek out when worn.

Congratulations, you have completed your very own friendship bracelet!!!

Other prototype versions:

Below was my first attempt at making the friendship bracelet, the sides were more jagged because a different unorthodox method was used, where there were no base threads, only leading threads cannibalising themselves:

And here was another prototype of a mini version using 30 instead of 118 rows and 8 instead of 16 colours. The method was the same, only using a smaller dataset. Link to Google sheet:

More photos in this Facebook album.

Apologies if this tutorial is not comprehensive enough, I was focussed on making the prototype and now wish I had documented more of the steps. Anyhow please let us know if you have any thoughts or suggestions, and please share if you do make a bracelet of your own we would love to see! 🙂

#showyourstripes

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Climate stripes friendship bracelet tutorial

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Translating climate stripes into wearable bracelets to start conversations on climate change.

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Iconic Image

This iconic image of the Earth, dubbed 'Pale Blue Dot', is a part of the first ever 'portrait' of the solar system taken by Voyager 1.

The Pale Blue Dot is an iconic photograph of Earth taken on Feb. 14, 1990, by NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft.

Finding a way to display the images and capture the sheer scale of Voyager's accomplishment proved challenging. NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory - which built and manages the Voyager probes - mounted the entire mosaic on a wall in its Theodore von Kármán Auditorium and it covered over 20 feet.

Voyager 1 was launched Sept. 5, 1977, just days after its twin - Voyager 2 - on Aug. 20. Because it was on a faster route to the mission's first encounter, at Jupiter, Voyager 1 overtook Voyager 2 on Dec. 15, 1977. (This was the reason for the order of their naming.)

In August 2012, Voyager 1 entered interstellar space. It's now the most distant human-made object ever.

The image was processed by JPL engineer and image processing enthusiast Kevin M. Gill with input from two of the image's original planners, Candy Hansen and William Kosmann.

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Voyager 1's Pale Blue Dot - NASA Science

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The Pale Blue Dot is an iconic photograph of Earth taken on Feb. 14, 1990, by NASA's Voyager 1 spacecraft.

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Home | NASA Global Precipitation Measurement Mission

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NASA's Global Precipitation Measurement Mission (GPM) uses satellites to measure Earth's rain and snowfall for the benefit of mankind. Launched by NASA and JAXA on Feb. 27th, 2014, GPM is an international mission that sets the standard for spaceborne precipitation measurements.

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Contact: Dr. Huan Wu huanwu@umd.edu

Huffman, G.J., R.F. Adler, D.T. Bolvin, E.J. Nelkin, 2010: The TRMM Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA). Chapter 1 in Satellite Applications for Surface Hydrology, F. Hossain and M. Gebremichael, Eds. Springer Verlag, ISBN: 978-90-481-2914-0, 3-22.

Liang, X., D. P. Lettenmaier, E. F. Wood, and S. J. Burges, 1994: A Simple hydrologically Based Model of Land Surface Water and Energy Fluxes for GSMs, J. Geophys. Res., 99(D7), 14,415-14,428.

Wu, H., R. F. Adler, Y. Tian, G. J. Huffman, H. Li, and J. Wang (2014), Real-time global flood estimation using satellite-based precipitation and a coupled land surface and routing model, Water Resour. Res., 50, 2693.2717, doi:10.1002/2013WR014710.

Wu H., R. F. Adler, Y. Hong, Y. Tian, and F. Policelli (2012), Evaluation of Global Flood Detection Using Satellite-Based Rainfall and a Hydrologic Model. J. Hydrometeor, 13, 1268.1284.

Wu H., J. S. Kimball, H. Li, M. Huang, L. R. Leung, R. F. Adler (2012), A new global river network database for macroscale hydrologic modeling, Water Resour. Res., 48, W09701, doi:10.1029/2012WR012313.

Wu, H., J. S. Kimball, N. Mantua, and J. Stanford (2011), Automated upscaling of river networks for macroscale hydrological modeling, Water Resour. Res., 47, W03517, doi:10.1029/2009WR008871.

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Contact: Dr. Huan Wu huanwu@umd.edu Huffman, G.J., R.F. Adler, D.T. Bolvin, E.J. Nelkin, 2010: The TRMM Multi-satellite Precipitation Analysis (TMPA). Chapter 1 in Satellite Applications for Surface Hydrology, F. Hossain and M. Gebremichael, Eds. Springer Verlag, ISBN: 978-90-481-2914-0, 3-22. Liang, X., D. P. Lettenmaier, E. F. Wood, and S. J.

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10-in-10 Webinar Series | NASA Global Precipitation Measurement Mission

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As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission's launch, we have a real treat for anyone who is curious about how and why we measure precipitation from space and how this can bring about positive changes throughout the world.

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10-in-10 Webinar Series | NASA Global Precipitation Measurement Mission

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As we celebrate the 10th anniversary of Global Precipitation Measurement (GPM) mission's launch, we have a real treat for anyone who is curious about how and why we measure precipitation from space and how this can bring about positive changes throughout the world.

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We can all play a role in the climate movement by tapping into our skills, resources and networks in ways that bring us satisfaction, says climate leader Ayana Elizabeth Johnson. She suggests drawing a Venn diagram to map these questions: What are you good at? What is the work that needs doing? And what brings you joy? Where your answers intersect is where you should put your climate action effort. “Averting climate catastrophe: this is the work of our lifetimes,” Johnson says.

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Can your career actually give you the power to save the planet?

Millions of young people are hoping the answer is "yes"-and the growing world of clean energy seems to be a promising place to start. Ride along for the journey as three New Yorkers travel across their state to explore the industry's innovations, from offshore wind farms to sustainable skyscrapers-and discover how the clean energy revolution is empowering people everywhere.

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A documentary series exploring how the clean energy revolution is giving people the power to change the world.

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Sign up to know when it launches on Kickstarter at 20% off!

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How to talk to kids about climate change

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Flash droughts -the rapid onset or intensification of drought-can have widespread impacts on communities, ecosystems, and the economy. However, they also have unique challenges for monitoring and prediction. NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) Climate Prediction Center (CPC) created the Rapid Onset Drought (ROD) hazard outlookto better predict areas at risk for flash drought development.

Challenges in monitoring & predicting flash drought

CPC's Rapid Onset Drought hazard outlook, which became operational in May 2024, highlights areas where rapid onset drought (i.e., flash drought) may develop in the coming 2-4 weeks. Source: NOAA/NWS/CPC.

Unlike slow-evolving drought, where below-normal precipitation is often the major driver, flash drought intensification is more likely when low precipitation is accompanied by weather extremes such as high temperatures, low humidity, strong winds, and/or sunny skies, which enhances evaporative demand. These rapid changes can quickly remove available water from the landscape, leading to stressed plants, reduced crop production, increased fire risk, and more. If not monitored properly, flash drought impacts may catch people off guard as more abrupt changes are different-and potentially more damaging-than those that people have more time to prepare for.

Because of this, flash drought requires unique approaches for effective monitoring and prediction. Many existing operational drought outlooks are either not issued frequently enough or at high enough resolution for effective flash drought prediction, or lack variables relevant to flash drought (such as evapotranspiration and soil moisture). While there have been recent efforts to improve flash drought early warning, researchers and practitioners identified the need for better flash drought prediction at multiple timescales, including short-term prediction.

Building a new tool

In response to this need for better flash drought prediction, CPC created the Rapid Onset Drought (ROD) hazard outlook, which became operational in May 2024. This map highlights areas where rapid onset drought (i.e., flash drought) may develop in the coming 2-4 weeks.

CPC forecasters use initial conditions, such as existing dryness (e.g., soil moisture) and temperature and precipitation outlooks during the next 2 weeks to communicate the risk of rapidly developing drought. Rapid onset drought risk areas can give users, such as farmers making decisions about planting and supplemental irrigation, an early warning of the potential for hot and dry conditions.

The launch of the Rapid Onset Drought hazard outlook follows two years of extensive user engagement and product verification to improve the tool, which CPC launched experimentally in May 2022.

Since the operational launch of the product, NOAA's National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) worked with both CPC and the Drought.gov team at NOAA's National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) to display the Rapid Onset Drought hazard outlook as an interactive map on Drought.gov , alongside other key drought and climate prediction maps. Users can zoom and pan to their area of interest, or click the "customize map" button in the top left corner of the map to customize the map image, including changing the basemap, adjusting layer transparency, adding state, county, and tribal boundary lines, and downloading a high-quality PNG image.

Click the customize map icon on the Rapid Onset Drought hazard outlook on Drought.gov to zoom in, change the map background, adjust layer transparency, add boundary lines, or download a high-quality PNG map image.

Prior to the launch, NIDIS supported CPC's efforts to increase awareness and use of this tool and gather stakeholder feedback through its networks and communications during the experimental phase.

CPC on the Rapid Onset Drought hazard outlook's development during the NIDIS-hosted Virtual Flash Drought Workshop in 2020 . In November 2022, NIDIS and CPC co-hosted a webinar that provided an overview of the tools and indicators that CPC forecasters use to assess rapid onset drought risk, case studies of rapid onset drought during the summer of 2022, and CPC's next steps for improving the product. Meteorologists, researchers, and end users were encouraged to share their questions and experience using this new product in drought monitoring and decision-making. NIDIS also partnered with NWS to raise awareness of this product among NWS staff and other key drought monitoring stakeholders during the joint 2023-2024 NWS-NIDIS Webinar Series .

Users can view rapid onset drought risk areas alongside other probabilistic and deterministic hazards, such as temperature, precipitation, wind, and flooding, in CPC's Week 2 (Day 8-14) U.S. Hazards Outlook . This map is updated daily on Monday-Friday afternoons and is accompanied by a text summary written by CPC forecasters, describing the potential for various hazards to pose threat to life and property. Areas at risk for rapid onset drought development in the next 2-4 weeks are issued on Thursdays, with potential adjustments the following Monday, from April 1-October 31.

CPC's Rapid Onset Drought hazard outlook is an important step toward addressing the need for more skillful flash drought prediction.

You can view the latest Rapid Onset Drought outlook on CPC's website or on the Drought.gov Outlooks & Forecasts page or Hazard Planning & Preparedness page .

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New Rapid Onset Drought Tool Forecasts Flash Drought Development | June 17, 2024 | Drought.gov

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Flash droughts-the rapid onset or intensification of drought-can have widespread impacts on communities, ecosystems, and the economy. However, they also have unique challenges for monitoring and prediction. NOAA's National Weather Service (NWS) Climate Prediction Center (CPC) created the the Rapid Onset Drought (ROD) hazard outlook to better predict areas at risk for flash drought development.

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Cooperatively decarbonize the planet and create resilient societies.

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Resources Main Article - Climate Generation

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Today's college students are coming of age in a warming world, growing up as climate change has accelerated into an intensifying crisis that leaves no community untouched. Research shows many young people are experiencing adverse psychological and emotional impacts as a result.

What might educators do to counter this trend? A university program I led over the past academic year offers some promising insights into supporting students through a combination of career preparation, community connection, and personal empowerment.

Eco-Anxiety in the Classroom

In 2021, an estimated 85 percent of the world's population had already been affected by human-driven climate change, including extreme weather events, fires, changes in water resources, and temperature rise. When surveyed, people around the world consistently rank climate change as one of the greatest perceived long-term risks to society.

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For many college students, the unfolding climate crisis is something thought about daily. A recent landmark study reported over 80 percent of young people around the globe were at least moderately worried about climate change. The same survey suggested more than half of individuals felt sad, anxious, angry, powerless, and guilty when thinking about it. More than 45 percent of respondents said their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily life and functioning.

Although estimates vary, hundreds of millions of people could be experiencing some type of adverse psychological or negative socioemotional response to the climate emergency. Commonly referred to as eco-anxiety, defined by the American Psychological Association as the "chronic fear of environmental doom," these reactions can range from mild stress to clinical disorders like depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and suicide, and maladaptive coping strategies such as intimate partner violence and substance misuse. To encompass a wider range of emotional responses, the terms "climate stress" and "climate distress" are also frequently utilized in reference to the same phenomenon.

Some colleges and universities have begun to respond by creating classes or launching related degree programs to assist students in codifying learnings about the crisis. A few others have started workshop series for students centered around the mitigation of eco-anxiety, with some also offering counseling through existing institutional systems.

But many therapists and counselors aren't trained to provide young people with specific support around ecologically-rooted concerns, in part due to a lack of research about climate distress as a distinct phenomenon. Most instructors and administrators across higher education are largely unfamiliar with eco-anxiety among students for the same reason, resulting in a significant gap in programming for the age groups that need it the most.

Taking Action Beyond Activism

As researchers continue delving into the topic, a growing amount of evidence suggests taking action can help significantly in mitigating climate distress, particularly before it becomes clinically significant.

Perhaps the most common form of action is engaging in activism, including attending a protest or rally, volunteering, donating money to relevant organizations, or contacting elected officials to urge them to address climate change. And younger adults are doing this, with individuals ages 18 to 29 participating in these activities at rates nearly double of those in other age groups.

In 2019, the Global Climate Strike saw over 7.6 million people participate across 185 countries. In 2023, tens of thousands of people filled the streets of New York City, calling for an end to fossil fuel usage ahead of UN meetings on the topic. Organizations like the Sunrise Movement support young people in identifying more opportunities for local action.

Activism is perhaps the method students are most familiar with, particularly since calls for involvement are frequently seen on social media; however, it is not the only form of action. By supporting students in applying their learnings outside the confines of a traditional classroom, entrepreneurially-rooted experiential learning programs provide a unique opportunity for young people to chart personalized pathways forward in the climate and sustainability space.

Learn, Test, Create

Over the past several years, I've had the unique opportunity as a young woman to become an entrepreneurial changemaker within post-secondary education, piloting programs and building a variety of academic curriculums for unique student populations. With a background in social epidemiology and community well-being, I have also reported extensively on eco-anxiety, providing a unique positioning in this discussion. I firmly believe higher education is standing on a critical precipice, one where many of the existing methodologies of teaching and engagement no longer meet the needs of students or the talent demands of employers. This is particularly evident in the climate and sustainability space.

Over the 2023-24 academic year, I led the pilot of an experiential learning program at the University of Connecticut, called ClimateWerx, that was centered around supporting participants in transforming their passions in sustainability and climate change into action through hands-on experience. In addition to furthering knowledge competencies that may be complementary to their degree tracks, students developed their creativity, critical thinking, adaptability, and resiliency through entrepreneurial opportunities. Intentionally housed outside of any specific academic program or department, ClimateWerx constructs a truly multidisciplinary space for students to engage with peers passionate about the same issues in a variety of contexts. The inaugural cohort included 15 students, representing 11 different majors and five different schools and colleges within the university. The students were across levels in their undergraduate study, and about half were first-generation college students.

For the first semester, students participated in a weekly seminar-style course, building a foundational knowledge necessary for involvement in ClimateWerx. Because each member of the cohort approaches the topics from a different disciplinary and experiential lens, it's crucial to craft a shared body of collective knowledge around issues including renewable energy, planetary health and population displacement, effects felt in the natural world, and environmental justice and community infrastructure. In this course, students also gain a practical understanding of relevant entrepreneurial skill sets and pathways for becoming further involved in sustainability and climate at the university, identifying opportunities and applying knowledge to real-world contexts.

In the second semester of ClimateWerx, students were supported in completing part-time, compensated placements to engage beyond the traditional boundaries of a classroom setting. For some, this took the form of completing lab-based research projects around sustainable aviation or ecological preservation. Others interned in a variety of roles at climate-oriented startups, with companies ranging from impact investment marketplaces to AI-informed crop health. A few students opted instead to utilize the time and resources to further develop an idea of their own, with one building thought leadership around sustainable fashion practices and two others working jointly to create a community-based organization. The group also engaged in an activity together each week to reinforce learnings and cultivate connections, often in the form of a site visit, guest speaker, or themed discussion. Pursuing projects closely aligned with their future career paths allows students to acquire both specialized and broad experience through hands-on work.

Building Bridges

By connecting with fellow students who share similar interests and goals, as well as mentors who possess experience and expertise, ClimateWerx aims to seed a sense of belonging through intergenerational community. This network acts as a foundational structure that not only encourages learning and growth but creates a supportive scaffolding that will transcend their time at the university.

Several students noted that their involvement in the ClimateWerx program was like nothing else they'd experienced previously, enjoying the opportunities to become friends with people they otherwise might not have met as well as explore emerging career pathways. Feedback from the students' supervisors and mentors was also similarly positive, highlighting their preparedness and eagerness to engage. The majority of cohort members received offers from their second-semester placement to either continue on in their projects or return in another capacity.

Through use-inspired collaboration with peers, faculty, and local stakeholders, students find a supportive environment where they can share concerns, exchange ideas, and collectively work towards solutions to environmental challenges. This sense of belonging and purpose empowers students to move beyond feelings of helplessness and despair, instead harnessing their emotions as catalysts for meaningful action, cultivating a sense of agency and hope for a more resilient future.

Young people, eager to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to address pressing global challenges, show a strong interest in participating in such programs. Likewise, industries recognize the value of recruiting individuals equipped with expertise in sustainability and climate solutions, yet they struggle to find recent graduates with relevant experiences as few direct degree tracks exist in the space. This dual demand underscores the relevance and effectiveness of tailored experiential educational programs in meeting the needs of both students and industry stakeholders, beginning to close the gap in trained talent. In the absence of such support, there is a significant risk of burnout and other psychosocial challenges developing, increasing the likelihood of losing highly skilled professionals from the workforce at a time when their expertise is most critical.

By immersing individuals in real-world experiences around complex societal problems such as climate change, we can help cultivate a deeper awareness of these issues and empower students today to become proactive, resilient agents of change in their communities, now and for many years in the future.

Support SSIR's coverage of cross-sector solutions to global challenges.
Help us further the reach of innovative ideas.Donate today.
Read more stories by Zoey England.

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Tackling Eco-Anxiety Through Experiential Education (SSIR)

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A warming world is causing adverse psychological and emotional impacts for many young people. Universities may be able to help by building opportunities for students to take relevant action beyond the classroom.

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Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

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About Downscaling Climate Opinions

This version of the Yale Climate Opinion Maps is based on data through fall 2023. Public opinion about global warming is an important influence on decision making about policies to reduce global warming or prepare for the impacts, but American opinions vary widely depending on where people live. So why would we rely on just one national number to understand public responses to climate change at the state and local levels? Public opinion polling is generally done at the national level, because local level polling is very costly and time intensive. Our team of scientists, however, has developed a geographic and statistical model to downscale national public opinion results to the state, congressional district, and county levels. We can now estimate public opinion across the country and a rich picture of the diversity of Americans' beliefs, attitudes, and policy support is revealed.

Our national surveys show that 72% of Americans think global warming is happening. Our new YCOM model estimates, however, show that only 49% of people in Emery County, Utah agree. Meanwhile 71% in neighboring Grand County, Utah believe global warming is happening.

Explore the maps by clicking on your state, congressional district, or county and compare the results across questions and with other geographic areas. The Congressional District Map reflects the 118th Congress (2023-2025). You will find that not all congressional districts have data due to pending litigation regarding the adoption of new redistricting plans. In 13 states where districts could be redrawn in the near future for the 119th Congress, we are delaying the release of estimates.

Beneath each map are bar charts displaying the results for every question at whichever geographic scale is currently selected. For the bar charts and the maps alike, multiple responses to each survey question are grouped into positive and negative categories as defined on the Survey Question Wording tab.

See the methods page for more information about uncertainty estimates. In some cases, numbers that should sum to 100% or differences from the national average that should sum to zero are off by one percentage point; these effects are due to rounding errors.

This research was funded by the Schmidt Family Foundation, the U.S. Energy Foundation, the MacArthur Foundation, the Heising-Simons Foundation, King Philanthropies, and the Grantham Foundation. For further questions about these maps or what they mean, please see our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ) tab above.

Methodology

This site provides estimates of U.S. climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and policy preferences at the state and local levels - a new source of high-resolution data on public opinion that can inform national, state and local decision-making, policy, and education initiatives. The estimates are derived from a statistical model using multilevel regression with post-stratification (MRP) on a large national survey dataset (n>31,000), along with demographic and geographic population characteristics.

Validating models is essential for producing accurate results. Our estimates were validated using three different methods. First, cross-validation analyses were conducted within the dataset. The dataset was divided into two sets of respondents, with one part used to run the model and the other kept aside for validation. The model estimates were then compared to the results of the set aside respondents to directly quantify the percentage of correct answers the model predicted. These cross-validation tests were repeated multiple times using different sample sizes and dividing the data in different ways. Second, the model estimates derived from the full dataset were compared to the results of independent, representative state- and city-level surveys conducted in California, Colorado, Ohio, Texas, San Francisco, and Columbus, Ohio in 2013. The mean absolute difference between model estimates and validation survey results was 2.9 percentage points (SD = 1.5) among the four states (CA, TX, OH, CO) and 3.6 percentage points (SD = 2.9) among the two metropolitan areas (Columbus, OH, and San Francisco, CA), well within the margins of error for the survey results alone (at a 95% confidence level). Estimates have also been validated internally through a series of technical simulations. Third, some model estimates were compared with third-party survey data collected by other researchers in previous years.

For the 2023 model estimates, uncertainty ranges are based on 95% confidence intervals using 999 bootstrap simulations. These confidence intervals indicate that the model is accurate to approximately ±7 percentage points at the state and congressional district levels, and ±8 percentage points at the metro and county levels. Such error ranges include the error inherent in the original national surveys themselves, which is typically ±3 percentage points.

Trends over time from 2010-2020 are provided for 16 state-level climate opinions using data from Marlon et al. (2022). Estimates for 2021, 2022, and 2023 are generated using our conventional MRP model described in Howe et al. (2015).

Marlon, J. R., Wang, X., Bergquist, P., Howe, P., Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., Mildenberger, M., and Rosenthal, S. "Change in US state-level public opinion about climate change: 2008-2020." Environmental Research Letters 17, no. 12 (2022). 124046.

Howe, P., Mildenberger, M., Marlon, J.R., and Leiserowitz, A., "Geographic variation in opinions on climate change at state and local scales in the USA," (2015). Nature Climate Change. DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2583.

Climate Change in the American Mind Survey Question Wording

Model estimates in the maps were derived from public responses to the following survey questions. The response categories for many questions were collapsed into a single variable for mapping. For example, for the question measuring how worried respondents are about global warming, "very worried" and "somewhat worried" were combined into a single measure of "worried." Likewise "Not very worried" and "Not at all worried" were combined into a single measure of "not worried." The responses below are color coded to indicate how they were grouped into the variables shown on the maps. Individuals who responded "Don't know" or who did not answer the question were not modeled separately and appear as gray segments within the bar charts.

BELIEFS

Global warming is happening
Recently, you may have noticed that global warming has been getting some attention in the news. Global warming refers to the idea that the world's average temperature has been increasing over the past 150 years, may be increasing more in the future, and that the world's climate may change as a result. What do you think: Do you think that global warming is happening?

Global warming is caused mostly by human activities
Assuming global warming is happening, do you think it is... ?

Caused mostly by human activities

Caused mostly by natural changes in the environment

None of the above because global warming isn't happening

Other

Don't know

Most scientists think global warming is happening
Which comes closest to your own view?

Most scientists think global warming is happening

There is a lot of disagreement among scientists about whether or not global warming is happening

Most scientists think global warming is not happening

Don't know enough to say

Global warming is affecting the weather in the United States
How strongly do you agree or disagree with the statement below?

RISK PERCEPTIONS

Worried about global warming
How worried are you about global warming?

Global warming will harm plants and animals
How much do you think global warming will harm plants and animal species?

Global warming will harm future generations
How much do you think global warming will harm future generations of people?

Global warming will harm people in developing countries
How much do you think global warming will harm people in developing countries?

Global warming will harm people in the US
How much do you think global warming will harm people in the United States?

Global warming will harm me personally
How much do you think global warming will harm you personally?

Global warming is already harming people in the US
When do you think global warming will start to harm people in the United States?

Has personally experienced the effects of global warming
How much do you agree or disagree with the following statement: "I have personally experienced the effects of global warming"?

POLICY SUPPORT

Fund research into renewable energy sources

How much do you support or oppose the following policies?
Fund more research into renewable energy sources, such as solar and wind power

Regulate CO2 as a pollutant
How much do you support or oppose the following policies?
Regulate carbon dioxide (the primary greenhouse gas) as a pollutant

Require fossil fuel companies to pay a carbon tax
How much do you support or oppose the following policies?
Require fossil fuel companies to pay a carbon tax and use the money to reduce other taxes (such as income tax) by an equal amount.

Provide tax rebates
Provide tax rebates for people who purchase energy-efficient vehicles or solar panels.
How much do you support or oppose the following policies?

The YPCCC is pleased to offer our downscaled climate change opinion estimates to the public. These data are distributed under the following terms of use. This is a legal agreement between you, the end-user ("User") and Yale University on behalf of the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication (the "YPCCC"). By downloading the survey data made available on this web site ("Data") you are agreeing to be bound by the terms and conditions of this agreement. If you do not agree to be bound by these terms, do not download or use the Data. The YPCCC hereby grants to the User a non-exclusive, revocable, limited, non-transferable license to use the Data solely for (1) research, scholarly or academic purposes, (2) the internal use of your business, or (3) your own personal non-commercial use. You may not reproduce, sell, rent, lease, loan, distribute or sublicense or otherwise transfer any Data, in whole or in part, to any other party, or use the Data to create any derived product for resale, lease or license. Notwithstanding the foregoing, you may incorporate limited portions of the Data in scholarly, research or academic publications or for the purposes of news reporting, provided you acknowledge the source of the Data (with express references to the YPCCC, as well as the complete title of the report) and include the following legend: The YPCCC bears no responsibility for the analyses or interpretations of the data presented here. THE DATA IS PROVIDED "AS IS" WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EITHER EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, ARISING BY LAW OR OTHERWISE, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO WARRANTIES OF COMPLETENESS, NON-INFRINGEMENT, ACCURACY, MERCHANTABILITY, OR FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. THE USER ASSUMES ALL RISK ASSOCIATED WITH USE OF THE DATA AND AGREES THAT IN NO EVENT SHALL YALE BE LIABLE TO YOU OR ANY THIRD PARTY FOR ANY INDIRECT, SPECIAL, INCIDENTAL, PUNITIVE OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, DAMAGES FOR THE INABILITY TO USE EQUIPMENT OR ACCESS DATA, LOSS OF BUSINESS, LOSS OF REVENUE OR PROFITS, BUSINESS INTERRUPTIONS, LOSS OF INFORMATION OR DATA, OR OTHER FINANCIAL LOSS, ARISING OUT OF THE USE OF, OR INABILITY TO USE, THE DATA BASED ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, BREACH OF CONTRACT, BREACH OF WARRANTY, TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE), OR OTHERWISE, EVEN IF USER HAS BEEN ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGES. The YPCCC has taken measures to ensure that the Data is devoid of information that could be used to identify individuals (e.g., names, telephone numbers, email addresses, social security numbers) who participated in or who were the subject of any research surveys or studies used to collect the Data ("Personally Identifying Information"). However, in the event that you discover any such Personally Identifying Information in the Data, you shall immediately notify the YPCCC and refrain from using any such Personally Identifying Information. This license will terminate (1) automatically without notice from the YPCCC if you fail to comply with the provisions of this agreement, or (2) upon written notice (by e-mail, U.S. or otherwise) from the YPCCC. Upon termination of this agreement, you agree to destroy all copies of any Data, in whole or in part and in any and all media, in your custody and control. This agreement shall be governed by, construed and interpreted in accordance with the laws of the State of Connecticut. You further agree to submit to the jurisdiction and venue of the courts of the State of Connecticut for any dispute relating to this Agreement. Please use the following citation in any work that makes use of the data and documentation as follows: Howe, Peter D., Matto Mildenberger, Jennifer R. Marlon, and Anthony Leiserowitz (2015). "Geographic variation in opinions on climate change at state and local scales in the USA." Nature Climate Change, doi:10.1038/nclimate2583. Direct any questions to the YPCCC at climatechange@yale.edu.

Frequently Asked Questions

What do these maps depict?

The maps depict estimates of the percentage of American adults (age 18 and over) who hold particular beliefs, attitudes, and policy preferences about global warming. The estimates were generated from a statistical model that incorporates actual survey responses, but combines these responses with demographic data from the U.S. Census to estimate opinions for different groups of people based on information such as their gender, race and ethnicity, and educational attainment; they also take into account changes in public opinion over time.

Where do the survey data underlying the estimates come from?

The data underlying the maps come from a large national survey dataset ( >28,000 respondents) collected between 2008 through 2023 as part of the Climate Change in the American Mind project led by the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication and the George Mason University Center for Climate Change Communication. Reports from the individual surveys are available here: CCAM Reports.

How many people did you survey in my state/county? / How can you say anything about opinions in my geography if you didn't survey anyone there?

The number of respondents surveyed varies for each geographic unit but is very large across the US as a whole. Since our surveys are nationally representative, the number of respondents in each state and county is proportional to its share of the national population. In other words, larger states and counties will have more respondents than smaller states and counties. In some smaller counties, very few, if any, respondents may have been surveyed. In those cases, our model uses information about the population of the county, information from other counties in the same state and region, and information about the characteristics of the county (such as how the county voted in previous elections) to make its estimates. While this may sound surprising, it makes sense when we consider the strongest influences on a person's individual opinions about climate change in the US - political views. Knowing the political leanings of a county's (or other unit's) residents, along with the proportion of different demographic groups within that county, allows us to predict resident's climate opinions very well. Adding additional information (e.g., about rural/urban context, carbon-intensive activities, etc.), further improves predictions. Moreover, for any given geographic unit, information is pooled from nearby units and from higher-level geographies (e.g. state level information is included for all counties within that state). All of this information together allows us to produce reliable estimates (see next question) for all counties even if the number of individuals sampled within a specific county is small.

How accurate are the estimates?

No model is perfect and there are uncertainties in the model estimates. To validate the model, we conducted independent surveys in four states (CA, TX, OH, CO) and two metropolitan areas (Columbus, OH and San Francisco, CA) and compared the survey results to our model estimates. On average, the model estimates differed from the survey results by 2.9 percentage points among the four states and 3.6 percentage points among the two metropolitan areas, within the survey margins of error. A series of technical simulations estimate that the model has an average margin of error of ±7 percentage points at the state and congressional district levels, ±8 percentage points at the metro and county levels. Such error ranges include the error inherent in the original national surveys themselves, which is typically ±3 percentage points. The model uncertainties are smaller at broad geographic scales (e.g., the state level), and are larger at finer geographic scales (e.g., at the county and city levels). The model estimates also tend to be conservative, so geographic areas with extremely high or low measures are not estimated as well as areas with values closer to the national average for each survey question.

Why are some Congressional Districts gray (missing data)?

Due to redistricting, many states have congressional district boundaries that are not yet settled, or that do not yet have census counts available for those districts. Census counts are required for the modeling, so we cannot make estimates of public opinions about climate change for geographic areas that are missing census data. We will update the model and maps as soon as the districts are settled and the census data for those areas are available. Current maps reflect all the census data available through January 2024.

What does the gray color mean on some of the bars beneath the maps?

The gray area reflects people who refused to answer the question or said "don't know". We do not provide specific values for the gray areas because we did not develop estimates for these particular responses.

Do the maps account for differences in population density across the country?

No, the maps depict the estimated proportion of people within each geographic area who would answer each question as indicated. We have not adjusted the maps based on population density differences. It is important to keep in mind that some geographic areas may be large, but have few residents (e.g., Wyoming), while other geographic areas may be small, but have many residents (e.g., New Jersey). For reference, Wikipedia has a population density map here. The type of map used in this tool is called a choropleth map, which means the colors on the maps reflect the percentage of the population in a given geographic unit. These kinds of maps are used to represent everything from election results (e.g.,the red state / blue state maps common during presidential elections) to census and economic data (e.g., per capita income or unemployment rates).

Do these maps reflect changes in opinions due to recent extreme weather events like Superstorm Sandy?

Perhaps. The maps may reflect the impacts that specific extreme weather events had on public opinion in a given geographic unit. If public opinion in a particular area has been influenced by local events it is possible that the model would detect such an influence. However, data from specific events or types of events are not explicitly built into the model as predictor variables.

Can I use the data?

Yes. We encourage you to explore the maps and use the results in your own work. The data are available on our Data Download tab at the top of this page so that you can do your own analyses and create your own visualizations. If you publish an academic paper using these data please acknowledge the source by using the following citation:
Trends over time from 2010-2020 are provided for 16 state-level climate opinions using data from Marlon et al. (2022). Estimates for 2021, 2022, and 2023 are generated using our conventional MRP model described in Howe et al. (2015).

Marlon, J. R., Wang, X., Bergquist, P., Howe, P., Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., Mildenberger, M., and Rosenthal, S. "Change in US state-level public opinion about climate change: 2008-2020." Environmental Research Letters 17, no. 12 (2022). 124046.

Howe, P., Mildenberger, M., Marlon, J., & Leiserowitz, A. (2015) "Geographic variation in opinions on climate change at state and local scales in the USA," Nature Climate Change. DOI: 10.1038/nclimate2583.

If you publish a news article, visualization, blog post, or other publication using these data or maps, please include the link to the Yale Climate Opinion Maps website and attribution to the Yale Program on Climate Change Communication.

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Yale Climate Opinion Maps 2023 - Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

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Explore climate change beliefs, risk perceptions, and policy support at every geographic level in the United States.

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The Paris Olympics I have just returned from a week in Paris. I was a bit manic, seeing eight different sports, loving every moment. Inside Edelman: Meet our U.S. Culture Champions - Susana Pastrana In this edition of Inside Edelman, we highlight our Edelman Culture Champions, celebrated by their colleagues for their exceptional commitment and positive impact in creating a supportive workplace.

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Copy and paste the Ray ID when you contact the site owner.

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This Earth Day, delve into Americans' perceptions about the environment. Explore their views on climate change, awareness of record-breaking temperatures, how they prioritize the issue and their concerns about specific environmental problems. Gain insights on their approval of government action and their preferences in balancing economic growth and environmental protection.

Gallup tracks Americans' views about the environment each March as part of its annual Environment poll. The latest survey was conducted March 1-20, 2024.

1. Close to Two-Thirds of Americans Are Concerned About Climate Change

Consistent with recent years, 42% of Americans worry "a great deal" about global warming or climate change. Gallup also finds 59% of Americans believing that global warming has already begun to happen. However, 55% do not think it will pose a serious threat in their own lifetime.

In terms of global warming's cause, more Americans attribute increases in the Earth's temperature over the past century to pollution from human activities (61%) than to natural changes in the environment (33%).

2. Nearly 7 in 10 Americans Knew 2023 Was World's Warmest Year

Last year (2023) was the hottest year on record, according to the 174-year tracking of The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Just over two-thirds of Americans (68%) have heard about the year's record temperatures, slightly more than the 63% measured in 2016, the last time Gallup asked about the world hitting a new annual temperature high.

3. The Environment Ranks Relatively Low Among Americans' National Concerns

Among the leading issues confronting the nation, the environment ranks as a lesser public concern, with 37% saying they worry a great deal about environmental quality. This contrasts with much higher levels of concern shown for inflation (55%), crime and violence (53%), hunger and homelessness (52%), the economy, healthcare, and federal spending, all troubling to more than half of Americans.

The environment ranks with energy, race relations and unemployment as issues evoking the least concern.

4. Pollution of Drinking Water Ranks as Americans' Top Environmental Concern

When asked to rate their concern about several specific environmental threats, the majority of adults, 56%, say they worry "a great deal" about the pollution of drinking water in the U.S., which remains their top environmental concern among the seven problems tested in the 2024 poll. Slightly more than half also worry a great deal about the pollution of rivers, lakes, and reservoirs, and about soil and water contamination by toxic waste.

Although less than half of Americans worry a great deal about the other four issues tested -- extinction of plant and animal species, the loss of tropical rain forests, air pollution, and climate change -- most still say they worry at least "a fair amount" about each.

Climate change sparks an uncommon divide among U.S. adults, with nearly as many saying they worry only a little or not at all about the issue (38%) as say they worry a great deal about it (42%).

5. Biden Gets Highest Approval Scores on Environmental Policy

President Joe Biden, akin to other Democratic leaders, has made addressing climate change a priority of his administration. Americans give him higher marks for his handling of the environment (46%) than for other issues -- though not even on the environment does his approval rating rise to the majority level; it is likely dragged down by his low overall job approval rating.

Biden's approval on the environment is at least four points higher than on any other issue tested in the March poll, and it is six points above his overall job approval rating.

6. Americans Tend to Believe the Government Is Doing Too Little to Protect the Environment

Currently, 50% of Americans feel the U.S. government is doing too little to protect the environment, 19% believe it's doing too much, and 28% think it is doing the right amount.

Over three decades of measurement, the largest share of Americans has always said the government is doing too little on the issue. The percentage has exceeded 60% in five years -- all during Republican administrations, including 1992, 2006, and 2018 through 2020. The lowest readings, all below 50%, were recorded during the Barack Obama administration in 2010 and 2011 and from 2013 through 2015.

Americans' outlook for the quality of the environment in the country varies by the party of the president. On average, the percentage of Americans who believed things were getting worse stood at 61% during the George W. Bush and Donald Trump administrations. Conversely, during the Obama years, the average was 50%. Under the Biden administration, attitudes have been less negative than under Trump and Bush but more negative than under Obama, averaging 57% getting worse.

7. Economic Recovery Shifts American Priorities Away From Environmental Concerns

Asked in Gallup trends since 1984 about the trade-offs between protecting the environment and encouraging economic growth, Americans have typically come down on the side of the environment. Currently, 52% of U.S. adults think protecting the environment should be given greater priority, even at the risk of curbing economic growth, while 38% think strengthening the economy should be given priority, even if the environment suffers to some extent.

During economically challenging periods involving sluggish economic growth or high unemployment, such as 2009 to 2013, Americans were more likely to prioritize the economy than the environment. And though Americans typically give greater weight to environmental protection, these percentages have been especially high during strong economic times, like the late 1990s.

Attitudes on this question seem especially responsive to changes in the unemployment rate -- as unemployment increases, the percentage of Americans who prioritize the economy tends to rise.

This article was compiled by Mary Claire Evans using new and existing analyses from Gallup's March Environment surveys.

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Seven Key Gallup Findings About the Environment on Earth Day

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Learn more about Americans' views on present environmental conditions, their rankings of environmental issues and their worries about key issues.

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Make a difference on climate change.

Train with former US Vice President Al Gore and join a community of almost 50,000 changemakers working for just climate solutions worldwide.

The Climate Reality Leadership Corps was born from the simple belief that everyday people could lead the fight on climate and together change the world.

The program started back in 2006, when 50 aspiring advocates joined Vice President Gore at his barn in Nashville, Tennessee to learn how to share the truth about the climate crisis, just as he had in the Academy Award-winning film "An Inconvenient Truth."

Two decades on, that 50 has grown to over 45,000 advocates working together for bold and just climate solutions across sectors and continents. People come to the Climate Reality Leadership Corps with a desire to make a difference on climate. We give them the tools, training, and network to do it.

The first step to becoming a Climate Reality Leader is attending a special multiday training, either online or in person in cities and communities around the world.

By attending a training, you'll:

We hold numerous Climate Reality Leadership Corps trainings throughout the year, with varying thematic focuses and both online and in-person options available.

Led by Vice President Gore and featuring advocates and experts from a wide range of fields, our foundational Climate Reality Leadership Corps trainings provide attendees with a deeper understanding of how the climate crisis is transforming our world today and the solutions in our hands. Select trainings will also focus on the climate fight in strategic regions and countries, as recent offerings have with Brazil and the Western US.

Our newest offering, Power Up Trainings, focus on key issues and opportunities in the climate and justice fight, with targeted content and skill-building workshops enabling attendees to seize a critical moment.

To learn more about Climate Reality Leadership Corps trainings as they're announced, simply fill out the form to the right and we'll in touch.

"It was one of the best climate-related trainings I have attended. I was inspired to hear and learn from the work of a diverse group of climate advocates, and it has enhanced my knowledge on environmental justice and the links between inequality and climate change. I also found the facts and figures with regards to connection between lived experiences and climate science very insightful."

-Muna Mumthaz, The Maldives

-Ester António, Mozambique

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Learn more about the Climate Reality Leadership Corps and find out how you can join the global network of extraordinary people helping educate the world about the climate crisis.

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Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

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About Six Americas Super Short Survey (SASSY!)

Americans hold a broad range of opinions about climate change. Global Warming's Six Americas is an audience segmentation that distinguishes unique groups among the American public who perceive and respond to global warming in different ways. The groups range from the Alarmed, who are very concerned about global warming and support immediate political action to address it, to the Dismissive, who do not believe that the problem is real and thus oppose most climate policies. The Concerned, Cautious, Disengaged, and Doubtful are middle groups that differ in their beliefs and knowledge, risk perceptions, political engagement, and behaviors regarding the issue.

SASSY - the Six Americas Short Survey, Yay! is a questionnaire and model that sorts respondents into their respective audience groups based on just four items. The instrument was developed using the original 36-item Six Americas screener ( Maibach et al., 2011 ) and over 18,000 respondents from the Climate Change in the American Mind series of nationally representative surveys. Methodological details about SASSY can be found in Chryst et al., 2018 .

SASSY is like a short personality quiz that can help you quickly identify which of the Six Americas you belong to and see how your views about global warming compare with other Americans.

The suggested citation for SASSY is:
Chryst, B., Marlon, J., van der Linden, S., Leiserowitz, A., Maibach, E., & Roser-Renouf, C. (2018). Global warming's "Six Americas Short Survey": Audience segmentation of climate change views using a four question instrument. Environmental Communication, 12(8), 1109-1122.
SASSY Group Scoring
If you are an educator who wants to compare your students' views before and after a class, or a researcher who is conducting surveys or experiments with a particular population, or a NGO who wants to better understand your own members, our new SASSY Group tool can help!

The SASSY Group tool allows you to upload your own survey or experimental data in a spreadsheet (csv) to obtain the Six Americas segment scores for each individual in your dataset. SASSY results are immediately processed and added to the spreadsheet as a new column with the segment scores, which can then be downloaded. Summary graphics of your SASSY scores depict your group's composition and how it compares with Americans as a whole.

To obtain your group's scores, you need to survey them using the following four questions:

How important is the issue of global warming to you personally?

Extremely important

Very important

Somewhat important

Not too important

Not at all important

How worried are you about global warming?

Very worried

Somewhat worried

Not very worried

Not at all worried

How much do you think global warming will harm you personally?

A great deal

A moderate amount

Only a little

Not at all

Don't know

How much do you think global warming will harm future generations of people?

A great deal

A moderate amount

Only a little

Not at all

Don't know

The responses to the survey must be entered into a spreadsheet and saved as a "csv" file (the Comma Separated Values file format in the "Save as..." dialogue box Microsoft Excel). Your survey responses must be entered as five columns with the following five headings as seen in our template found here: 1) casenumber; 2) important; 3) worry; 4) personal; 5) future.

The first column must have a unique identification code for each respondent - it can take any form. The next four columns must contain the survey question responses, which must exactly match the wording in the original questions above. Your final csv file should match our template format exactly.

If you or your organization want to discuss how the SASSY group tool can help inform or shape your climate communications or strategy, please reach out to our partnerships team: ypccc.partners@yale.edu.

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Six Americas Super Short Survey (SASSY!) - Yale Program on Climate Change Communication

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Find out which of the six segments of American climate opinion best describes you by taking this four-question survey.

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Summer 2024 has delivered sweltering temperatures, a stagnant heat dome, and a series of heat advisories, and we're not even halfway through. In the 43 days since the official start of summer, there have been 15 days with temperatures at or above 95ºF in Fairfax County, according to data from the National Weather Service.

We also saw temperatures so hot on July 16 - a high of 101ºF - that the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) reported tracks expanded and bent, closing that stretch of service. Read this article to learn more.

Between the baking heat outdoors and news alerts of extreme events on our screens, it feels like our weather is always breaking records. It's important to understand the relationship between record-breaking weather and climate change so we can prepare in our daily lives and know how to adapt for the future.
Summer heat waves are not unusual, but what is record-breaking weather?
A scorching hot day feels extreme in the moment, but in July and August, temperatures in the high-90s are not unexpected. The heat dome of late June shattered records because it brought a full blast of summer earlier than usual.

When a single day has a record-breaking temperature, it means that temperature has never been reached on that date in that location. Usually, we can find out quickly that a day's weather set a record, because weather stations compare the observed temperature to past temperatures. It's important to consider the timeframe we're referring to. For example, July 16 was the hottest day of 2024, but it didn't beat the record for that day. That belongs to 1988, with 104ºF! Whereas on June 22, we did see a record high, with 100ºF. In the graph below, anywhere the blue bar touches the red line means an old record was broken.

Source: weather.gov

When we hear that a whole month or year was record-breaking, it means temperatures recorded during that timeframe have been averaged together and compared with past records. This involves a lot of data, math, science, statistics - et cetera - and can cover small or large geographic regions.

If you feel like you've heard about record breaking months a lot lately, you would be right. The National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) confirmed that globally, we have experienced 12 consecutive months with the warmest average temperatures on record. The graphic below provides a visualization of that record showing how global surface temperatures have increased over time.

This visualization shows monthly global surface temperatures from 1880 to May 2024. The last 12 months (June 2023 through May 2024) hit record highs for each respective month. Download this visualization from NASA Goddard's Scientific Visualization Studio: https://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/5311

More record-breaking weather is an indicator that the climate is changing. Why?
Recall the relationship between "weather" and "climate" from our blog post, From Raindrops to Records: The Difference Between Weather and Climate. One term refers to the day-to-day meteorological conditions we experience and the other refers to those same conditions averaged over a 20-plus year span. If the atmosphere is left to its own devices, it ebbs and flows through its natural cycles over time. However, additional unnatural factors have started to impact the atmosphere.

Yep, you guessed it - greenhouse gas emissions. The term may sound like a broken record, but if you need a quick science refresher, we wrote about that, too! Check here: How Greenhouse Gases Are Changing our Climate and What We Can Do to Stop It.

Greenhouse gas emissions have been impacting our atmosphere for a long time, and we know that when we're talking about our atmosphere over a long time, we're talking about climate. The gradual warming causes our daily weather to change, which is why we are beginning to experience extreme temperatures more often, and why more and more record-high temperatures are occurring.

These record highs are the effect of a shifting climate, a signal from our weather that a change is underway. The graph below illustrates how a warmer climate results in record weather.

Keith, Ladd and Sara Meerow. (2022). Planning for Urban Heat Resilience. Planning Advisory Services (PAS) Report 600. American Planning Association. http://www.planning.org/publications/report/9245695/

As you can see in the graph, even a seemingly small difference between the two curves makes hot weather more likely and makes a big difference in our day-to-day weather. It's like getting a fever; just a few degrees noticeably impacts how we feel.
Extreme heat days are already increasing. How much warmer is it going to get in Fairfax County?
The graphic below visualizes a projection that tells us how many days above 90, 95, and 100 degrees we can anticipate on average each year in a scenario where emissions continue at a high rate. Between 2020 and 2035, we could see the number of extreme heat days double.

To contextualize the extreme heat of summer 2024, we can examine Fairfax's climate using the graph below on the number of days per year at 95ºF since the 1960s. Notably, there have been several other years across the decades in which there were a high number of sizzling summer days. The key feature to note is the positive trendline, representing our average climate, which confirms we can expect more of these summers to come.

While the graph above looks at high temperatures, low temperatures also tell us about our warmer climate. The graph below counts nights where temperatures did not drop below 70 degrees, meaning there was no relief from the heat, which is of particular concern for residents without sufficient air conditioning or shelter.

Some of these visualizations may be alarming, especially if this summer has already felt relentless. But the good news is this information empowers us to be better prepared for the future.
Being safe and resilient in hot weather goes a long way. Here's what you can do:

Stay safe and learn the signs of heat-related illness and heat stress. Extreme heat is a dangerous and common hazard, but fortunately, being aware of what heat stress looks like can go a long way to prevent sickness for yourself and those around you.

Stay hydrated. Be intentional about making sure your body has enough water by regularly taking sips of water and avoiding sugary or caffeinated beverages, which can affect your body's ability to cool down.

Stay cool, your body needs cool air for relief. Go to an air-conditioned space, or, if you do not have sufficient air conditioning in your home, locate your nearest Cooling Center during a heat advisory or go to a public space such as a mall, store, or movie theater. Take cool showers or baths. Do not rely on a fan for cooling, fans create air flow but do not lower your body temperature and cannot prevent heat-related illnesses.

Stay protected. If you must be out in the heat, apply sunscreen periodically and wear clothing that is breathable and light in color, as well as a hat that shields you adequately from the sun.

Stay vigilant. Check on neighbors or other family members who do not have adequate air conditioning. Don't leave pets or people in a vehicle during the summer. Temperatures inside the vehicle can exceed temperatures outside.

Stay resilient. You and your community become more resilient by being knowledgeable about extreme heat and helping keep each other safe. You can take extra measures by:

Planting native trees in your yard or community, if you are able. Trees provide two types of cooling via shade and evapotranspiration. Adding shade near your residence can also lower your utility bills. Head to our webpage Find a Tree Planting Program for more.

Opting for a cool roof during new construction or your next roof replacement if you are a homeowner. Cool roofs reflect light and heat back into the atmosphere, allowing less heat into your residence and lowering your utility bills. The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency's webpage offers more information: Using Cool Roofs to Reduce Heat Islands.

Applying cool pavement coating or materials. Lighter-colored pavements work like cool roofs do, but there are also cool pavements made of materials that allow water to evaporate more quickly, cooling them down. The EPA's Using Cool Pavements to Reduce Heat Islands webpage has great information.

These are just a few of the many ways that can help make a warming climate feel a little more manageable.

For more health tips and guidance to beat the heat, visit Fairfax County's Extreme Heat Resources webpage. To learn more about what the county is doing to adapt to effects of climate change, visit the Resilient Fairfax webpage.
Melanie Malsch joined OEEC in 2023 and is a community specialist with the office's climate planning team, which leads implementation for the county's climate adaptation plan, Resilient Fairfax. Melanie engages with community members and county staff and collaborates on initiatives that enhance local climate action and build community resilience to extreme heat, flooding, and severe storms. Melanie holds a degree in Environmental Studies from the University of Pittsburgh. Climate Matters is the blog of Fairfax County's Office of Environmental and Energy Coordination, where we share stories, insights and information related to climate change and environmental sustainability. Posts are written by knowledgeable and passionate OEEC staff members and guest authors. To read all blog posts, visit Climate Matters.

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It's a Cruel Summer Indeed: Record-Breaking Heat Explained

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Fairfax County, Virginia - Blog about record heat waves and how they relate to the climate

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Tao Liang / Xinhua via Getty Images

Generative artificial intelligence uses massive amounts of energy for computation and data storage and millions of gallons of water to cool the equipment at data centers. Now, legislators and regulators - in the U.S. and the EU - are starting to demand accountability.

Two months after its release in November 2022, OpenAI's ChatGPT had 100 million active users, and suddenly tech corporations were racing to offer the public more "generative A.I." Pundits compared the new technology's impact to the Internet, or electrification, or the Industrial Revolution - or the discovery of fire.

Time will sort hype from reality, but one consequence of the explosion of artificial intelligence is clear: this technology's environmental footprint is large and growing.

A.I. use is directly responsible for carbon emissions from non-renewable electricity and for the consumption of millions of gallons of fresh water, and it indirectly boosts impacts from building and maintaining the power-hungry equipment on which A.I. runs. As tech companies seek to embed high-intensity A.I. into everything from resume-writing to kidney transplant medicine and from choosing dog food to climate modeling, they cite many ways A.I. could help reduce humanity's environmental footprint. But legislators, regulators, activists, and international organizations now want to make sure the benefits aren't outweighed by A.I.'s mounting hazards.

Right now, it's not possible to tell how your A.I. request for homework help will affect carbon emissions or freshwater stocks.

"The development of the next generation of A.I. tools cannot come at the expense of the health of our planet," Massachusetts Senator Edward Markey (D) said last week in Washington, after he and other senators and representatives introduced a bill that would require the federal government to assess A.I.'s current environmental footprint and develop a standardized system for reporting future impacts. Similarly, the European Union's "A.I. Act," approved by member states last week, will require "high-risk A.I. systems" (which include the powerful "foundation models" that power ChatGPT and similar A.I.s) to report their energy consumption, resource use, and other impacts throughout their systems' lifecycle. The EU law takes effect next year.

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Meanwhile, the International Organization for Standardization, a global network that develops standards for manufacturers, regulators, and others, says it will issue criteria for "sustainable A.I." later this year. Those will include standards for measuring energy efficiency, raw material use, transportation, and water consumption, as well as practices for reducing A.I. impacts throughout its life cycle, from the process of mining materials and making computer components to the electricity consumed by its calculations. The ISO wants to enable A.I. users to make informed decisions about their A.I. consumption.

Right now, it's not possible to tell how your A.I. request for homework help or a picture of an astronaut riding a horse will affect carbon emissions or freshwater stocks. This is why 2024's crop of "sustainable A.I." proposals describe ways to get more information about A.I. impacts.

In the absence of standards and regulations, tech companies have been reporting whatever they choose, however they choose, about their A.I. impact, says Shaolei Ren, an associate professor of electrical and computer engineering at UC Riverside, who has been studying the water costs of computation for the past decade. Working from calculations of annual use of water for cooling systems by Microsoft, Ren estimates that a person who engages in a session of questions and answers with GPT-3 (roughly 10 t0 50 responses) drives the consumption of a half-liter of fresh water. "It will vary by region, and with a bigger A.I., it could be more." But a great deal remains unrevealed about the millions of gallons of water used to cool computers running A.I., he says.

The same is true of carbon.

"Data scientists today do not have easy or reliable access to measurements of [greenhouse gas impacts from A.I.], which precludes development of actionable tactics," a group of 10 prominent researchers on A.I. impacts wrote in a 2022 conference paper. Since they presented their article, A.I. applications and users have proliferated, but the public is still in the dark about those data, says Jesse Dodge, a research scientist at the Allen Institute for Artificial Intelligence in Seattle, who was one of the paper's coauthors.

Data centers' electricity consumption in 2026 is projected to reach 1,000 terawatts, roughly Japan's total consumption.

A.I. can run on many devices - the simple A.I. that autocorrects text messages will run on a smartphone. But the kind of A.I. people most want to use is too big for most personal devices, Dodge says. "The models that are able to write a poem for you, or draft an email, those are very large," he says. "Size is vital for them to have those capabilities."

Big A.I.s need to run immense numbers of calculations very quickly, usually on specialized Graphical Processing Units - processors originally designed for intense computation to render graphics on computer screens. Compared to other chips, GPUs are more energy-efficient for A.I., and they're most efficient when they're run in large "cloud data centers" - specialized buildings full of computers equipped with those chips. The larger the data center, the more energy efficient it can be. Improvements in A.I.'s energy efficiency in recent years are partly due to the construction of more "hyperscale data centers," which contain many more computers and can quickly scale up. Where a typical cloud data center occupies about 100,000 square feet, a hyperscale center can be 1 or even 2 million square feet.

Estimates of the number of cloud data centers worldwide range from around 9,000 to nearly 11,000. More are under construction. The International Energy Agency (IEA) projects that data centers' electricity consumption in 2026 will be double that of 2022 - 1,000 terawatts, roughly equivalent to Japan's current total consumption.

However, as an illustration of one problem with the way A.I. impacts are measured, that IEA estimate includes all data center activity, which extends beyond A.I. to many aspects of modern life. Running Amazon's store interface, serving up Apple TV's videos, storing millions of people's emails on Gmail, and "mining" Bitcoin are also performed by data centers. (Other IEA reports exclude crypto operations, but still lump all other data-center activity together.)

Bitcoin's intensive energy demands are sparking a crypto backlash. Read more.

Most tech firms that run data centers don't reveal what percentage of their energy use processes A.I. The exception is Google, which says "machine learning" - the basis for humanlike A.I. - accounts for somewhat less than 15 percent of its data centers' energy use.

Another complication is the fact that A.I., unlike Bitcoin mining or online shopping, can be used to reduce humanity's impacts. A.I. can improve climate models, find more efficient ways to make digital tech, reduce waste in transport, and otherwise cut carbon and water use. One estimate, for example, found that A.I. -run smart homes could reduce households' CO₂ consumption by up to 40 percent. And a recent Google project found that an A.I. fast-crunching atmospheric data can guide airline pilots to flight paths that will leave the fewest contrails.

Google's data centers used 20 percent more water in 2022 than in 2021, while Microsoft's water use rose by 34 percent.

Because contrails create more than a third of commercial aviation's contribution to global warming, "if the whole aviation industry took advantage of this single A.I. breakthrough," says Dave Patterson, a computer-science professor emeritus at UC Berkeley and a Google researcher, "this single discovery would save more CO₂e (CO₂ and other greenhouse gases) than the CO₂e from all A.I. in 2020."

Patterson's analysis predicts that A.I.'s carbon footprint will soon plateau and then begin to shrink, thanks to improvements in the efficiency with which A.I. software and hardware use energy. One reflection of that efficiency improvement: as A.I. usage has increased since 2019, its percentage of Google data-center energy use has held at less than 15 percent. And while global internet traffic has increased more than twentyfold since 2010, the share of the world's electricity used by data centers and networks increased far less, according to the IEA.

However, data about improving efficiency doesn't convince some skeptics, who cite a social phenomenon called "Jevons paradox": Making a resource less costly sometimes increases its consumption in the long run. "It's a rebound effect," Ren says. "You make the freeway wider, people use less fuel because traffic moves faster, but then you get more cars coming in. You get more fuel consumption than before." If home heating is 40 percent more efficient due to A.I., one critic recently wrote, people could end up keeping their homes warmer for more hours of the day.

"A.I. is an accelerant for everything," Dodge says. "It makes whatever you're developing go faster." At the Allen Institute, A.I. has helped develop better programs to model the climate, track endangered species, and curb overfishing, he says. But globally A.I. could also support "a lot of applications that could accelerate climate change. This is where you get into ethical questions about what kind of A.I. you want."

If global electricity use can feel a bit abstract, data centers' water use is a more local and tangible issue - particularly in drought-afflicted areas. To cool delicate electronics in the clean interiors of the data centers, water has to be free of bacteria and impurities that could gunk up the works. In other words, data centers often compete "for the same water people drink, cook, and wash with," says Ren.

In 2022, Ren says, Google's data centers consumed about 5 billion gallons (nearly 20 billion liters) of fresh water for cooling. ("Consumptive use" does not include water that's run through a building and then returned to its source.) According to a recent study by Ren, Google's data centers used 20 percent more water in 2022 than they did in 2021, and Microsoft's water use rose by 34 percent in the same period. (Google data centers host its Bard chatbot and other generative A.I.s; Microsoft servers host ChatGPT as well as its bigger siblings GPT-3 and GPT-4. All three are produced by OpenAI, in which Microsoft is a large investor.)

In Chile and Uruguay, protests have erupted over planned data centers that would tap drinking water reservoirs.

As more data centers are built or expanded, their neighbors have been troubled to find out how much water they take. For example, in The Dalles, Oregon, where Google runs three data centers and plans two more, the city government filed a lawsuit in 2022 to keep Google's water use a secret from farmers, environmentalists, and Native American tribes who were concerned about its effects on agriculture and on the region's animals and plants. The city withdrew its suit early last year. The records it then made public showed that Google's three extant data centers use more than a quarter of the city's water supply. And in Chile and Uruguay, protests have erupted over planned Google data centers that would tap into the same reservoirs that supply drinking water.

Most of all, researchers say, what's needed is a change of culture within the rarefied world of A.I. development. Generative A.I.'s creators need to focus beyond the technical leaps and bounds of their newest creations and be less guarded about the details of the data, software, and hardware they use to create it.

Will tech breakthroughs bring fusion energy closer to reality? Read more.

Some day in the future, Dodge says, an A.I. might be able - or be legally obligated - to inform a user about the water and carbon impact of each distinct request she makes. "That would be a fantastic tool that would help the environment," he says. For now, though, individual users don't have much information or power to know their A.I. footprint, much less make decisions about it.

"There's not much individuals can do, unfortunately," Ren says. Right now, you can "try to use the service judiciously," he says.

Correction, February 21, 2024: An earlier version of this article incorrectly quoted researcher Dave Patterson as referring to CO₂ emissions from global aviation. Patterson was actually referring to CO₂e ("carbon dioxide equivalent") emissions, a measurement that includes both CO₂ and other greenhouse gases.

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As Use of A.I. Soars, So Does the Energy and Water It Requires

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Generative artificial intelligence uses massive amounts of energy for computation and data storage and millions of gallons of water to cool the equipment at data centers. Now, legislators and regulators - in the U.S. and the EU - are starting to demand accountability.

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G. Richard Mode
Board of Directors
Resource Institute
Morganton, NC

Richard holds a Bachelor of Science in Industrial Technology from Appalachian State University. Richard began his career in the Burke County, NC school system where he taught furniture manufacturing, and drafting. He also coached football and track. Richard also served as a Manufacturer's representative in the home furnishing industry for 30 years. During that period, he ran a multi-state sales team, served on the product development, sales development, and policy team at T.L. Bayne Company.

In 2008 Richard started a new career with National Wildlife Federation (NWF) serving as Consultant to NWF and as Outreach Coordinator to the sportsman community and the conservation community in North Carolina and Virginia. In that capacity, he has served on numerous NWF campaigns including:

During this tenure, Richard worked with nonprofits, state and federal decision-makers, resource management agencies, and business leaders. He has developed media for the general public and presented at numerous venues. This work has focused on promoting sound public policy that relates to wildlife habitats that protect and enhance wildlife habitats. He has recently retired from NWF.

Richard lives in Morganton, NC with wife Julia. He has two grown children and three grandchildren.

Richard is proud to have served on serval nonprofit organizations including the North Carolina Wildlife Federation (NCWF) Affiliate Representative to the National Wildlife Federation (NWF). He was the founding President of the local Table Rock Chapter for Trout Unlimited (TU) and served as the President and Chairman of the Board of National Trout Unlimited.

Richard served for 20 years as a Board member of the NC Wildlife Federation and has served as Affiliate Representative to the NWF for 10 years. For years, Richard's goal has been to bring American hunters, anglers, and wildlife enthusiasts to the public policy decision table to protect the unique places and wildlife resources in America.

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Richard Mode's Bio - Resource Institute, Inc.

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Board Member Richard Mode's background and experience.

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Showcase

After participating in an Earth to Sky workshop, ETS members are encouraged to create action plans- and ultimately to complete their own project. Please browse through these products to see what others have created, to gain some inspiration, or to connect with others who are developing materials in your field of interest.

What can you do if you're already interpreting the climate crisis in programs, but you suspect some of your agency co-workers may not accept climate science? Well, one option is to tackle that challenge within an Earth to Sky action plan.

Here's a new publication being distributed in New Mexico, developed by ETS Alumna, Pat Walsh, a regional interpretive ranger for New Mexico State Parks. It was developed when, working from home during the COVID quarantine over the last year, the opportunity allowed her to focus on developing the brochure. It's adapted from a similar 2014 publication, "State of Change: Climate Change in Alaska's National Parks."

Read more ...

It's been over a year since the 2017 total solar eclipse, but interpretive "magic" is never too late to showcase. Two audio stories about finding wonder in science through the experience of the eclipse are highlighted here. The storyteller is Kayla Bordelon, a PhD student at the University of Idaho in Moscow, Idaho. Kayla produced two audio stories in connection to the science education program for youth she helped coordinate for the eclipse. She was one of presenters at the NAI ETS course last year in Spokane, WA; her session was entitled " Climate Change for Youth Audiences."

Read more ...

Here's a great program from Earth to Sky Alumnus, Iva Moss-Redman who is the STEM Teacher for grades 6-12, in Arapahoe, Wyoming. Iva was one of our out-of-state participants in 2015, for the first regional ETS course held in Anchorage. She is finding this project to be a great opportunity to combine those two disciplines.

The project started out by teaching the students about observing. They went on several field trips and taught the students how to collect data using their technological devices. When they came back into the classroom, Iva taught them how to build a digital story around the materials they had gathered during each field trip. The very first video was very hard for her students, since they were compelled to be creative and to understand how to take their observations and tell the story of what they learned.

Read more ...

Cathy Curby, long-time ETS alumnus and coach, recently produced this interpretive handout to help her visitors at the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in Alaska. It's a relatively simple product, intended to be distributed to people who visit Kaktovik (Barter Island) to view Polar Bears. The refuge staff also plan to use it as a downloadable document on the refuge website, and for teachers, students, or anyone else for which a pledge like this would be appropriate.

Although polar bears have been "overused" as a climate change icon, and the standard advice for communicators is to help audiences appreciate the effects of climate change in their own locations, the Arctic Refuge is in the opposite position because polar bears ARE their local focus. This pledge is an attempt to inspire those who come to see polar bears, to reduce their fossil fuel use for the benefit of polar bears, reminding them it will help provide benefits near visitors' homes, as well.

Read more ...

Craters of the Moon National Monument and Preserve (CRMO) is the only place in the universe where kids and their parents can become a Lunar Ranger. Ted Stout, Chief of Interpretation at the monument and alumnus/coach from many Earth to Sky courses, invites his visitors to get their own Lunar Ranger booklet on-site or on-line at the park website. That's the best way to earn an official Lunar Ranger Mission Patch and to complete the interactive activities that help them to follow in the footsteps of the astronauts, to learn more about their own backyards here on Earth, and to reach beyond them, for the stars!

Lunar Ranger Website: https://www.nps.gov/crmo/learn/kidsyouth/index.htm

Read more ...

There's a new program in the wind, so to speak, for residents near San Francisco Bay. Using the National Landmark scow schooner Alma, several agencies (some of whom are alumni from Earth to Sky PW), are joining together to create an education experience for underserved youths from the local community. Through hands-on science activities, and a place-based, culturally relevant climate change curriculum being developed by the partners of bay.org, organizers hope to empower and facilitate a feeling of ownership among the Bayview-Hunters Point youth, and inspire them to band together and make positive environmental change. Their key idea, that Bayview-Hunters Point's past, present, and future depend on a diverse and healthy San Francisco Bay, is a point that should be easily apparent from the deck of the Alma.

Read more ...

This project began as an outgrowth of ETS alumnus David Shelley's action plan. The Climate Change Song was inspired by Dr. David Shelley's experience with climate change education at the Old-Growth Bottomland Forest Research and Education Center ( OGBFREC) at Congaree National Park. Initially co-written with Congaree NP intern Chris Ramaglia, the song has developed over the years into a resource for use with a variety of internal and external audiences.

Read more ...

In response to the growing concerns about the effects of global climate change on our national treasures, a nationwide strategy of communication, mitigation and adaptation has been adopted. The Earth to Sky podcast series inform park and refuge visitors on the present and future affects of climate change on our public lands, and the measures being taken to mitigate and adapt to these effects.

Read more ...

One of the biggest challenges faced by front-line communicators of climate change is how to organize and keep track of the overwhelming amount of information available from sources all over the planet. We developed this training tool to help bring key pieces of the most current climate science into a useful format that interpreters and educators could apply in their daily contacts.

Read more ...

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earth to sky: an innovative partnership between nasa and national park service

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Earth to Sky: An Innovative Partnership between NASA and National Park Service

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WASHINGTON - The Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission released its report PDF outlining a comprehensive, consensus-based set of recommendations to Congress to address the nation's wildfire crisis.

The Commission, created by President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and announced in December 2021, was charged with making recommendations to Congress to improve federal policies related to the mitigation, suppression and management of wildland fires in the United States, and the rehabilitation of land devastated by wildland fires. Composed of representatives from federal agencies, state, local and Tribal governments, and representatives from the private sector, the Commission has met monthly over the last year to discuss and craft these recommendations.

According to the terms of the statute PDF in the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, the commission is co-chaired by the Department of the Interior, Department of Agriculture, and Federal Emergency Management Agency. The 50 commission members have a broad range of expertise with wildfire, including firefighting, prescribed fire, cultural burning, watershed restoration, pre-fire mitigation, research, public health, post-fire recovery and more.

The Commission's comprehensive and holistic recommendations provide strategies for transforming our wildland fire response approach from reactive to proactive, building sustainable and long-term solutions, and creating communities and landscapes that are more resilient and adaptable to wildfire as a fundamental part of our world. Proposed solutions also strongly support increased collaboration and coordination across scales and jurisdictions, and greater inclusion of all entities within the wildfire system. Taken together, these recommendations are intended to help lead the nation toward a different relationship and experience with wildfire.
Recommendations outlined in the report can be summarized by seven key themes:
New Approaches

Historically and institutionally addressed as a land management problem, wildfire - and the crisis it has become - spans jurisdictions and ecosystems and threatens critical infrastructure, built environment, public health, and public safety. As such, collective, holistic, cross-boundary action is critical to address the present challenges. Some of the report's suggestions in this theme include: establishing a Community Wildfire Risk Reduction Program to proactively address risk, change financial incentives and change agency metrics to better focus on performance of ecological health over acres treated.

Supporting Collaboration

Successfully meeting the challenge of wildfire mitigation and management requires approaches that better involve all relevant entities and every scale of society.

Shifting from Reactive to Proactive

Only by putting significantly more focus and resources toward proactive pre-fire and post-fire planning and mitigation can we break the current cycle of increasingly severe wildfire risk, damages, and losses.

Enabling Beneficial Fire

The need to expand beneficial fire, such as prescribed and cultural burning, must be balanced with the public health threats associated with smoke and reduced air quality produced through beneficial fire and implemented through pre-fire planning that helps share decision-making, enable mutual understanding, and facilitate the consideration of tradeoffs associated with various fire response and management decisions.

Supporting and Expanding the Workforce

Federal investment is urgently needed to create a cross-trained year-round workforce that is focused on and tailored to mitigation, planning, and post-fire response and recovery, with strategies in place for recruitment and retention.

Modernizing Tools for Informed Decision-making

The Commission recommends a number of measures that would better coordinate, integrate, and strategically align fire-related science, data and technology.

Investing in Resilience

There is a need for increased funding that is more sustained and predictable, keeps pace with the escalating crisis, and includes a focus on the mitigation of risk and impacts both before and after wildfire is critical and will reduce costs in the long run.

This is the second report to be released by the Commission. The first report PDF , which focused on aerial equipment and a strategy to meet equipment needs through 2030, was released in February. While the Commission's focus in this report was on federal legislative action, the solutions proposed are also relevant to state, local, Tribal and territorial governments, the nonprofit, private and academic sectors, and the public at large.

The Commission's recommendations recognize the urgency and importance of providing increase pay and benefits for federal wildland firefighters, and address a number of related workforce needs. The Bipartisan Infrastructure Law supported temporary landmark pay increases for federal wildland firefighters, which aim to bring federal firefighter pay in alignment with their state and local counterparts, while aiding in recruitment and retention of a more permanent and stable wildland firefighting force across the federal government.

The Commission's recommendations were informed by the Department of the Interior's " Five-Year Monitoring, Maintenance, and Treatment Plan PDF ," which provides a roadmap for addressing wildfire risk on Department of the Interior-managed and Tribal lands. They were also informed by USDA Forest Service's " Confronting the Wildfire Crisis " strategy, which aims to treat 20 million acres of national forests and grasslands and 30 million acres of state, local, Tribal and private lands over the next 10 years to reduce wildfire risk where it matters most. These plans help facilitate the collaborative work between the two Departments. In total, President Biden's Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and Inflation Reduction Act include over $7 billion in funding across the interagency to enhance our ability to mitigate and respond to wildfires.

The Commission's work builds on existing interagency federal efforts, such as the Wildland Fire Leadership Council and the White House Wildfire Resilience Interagency Working Group. The Biden-Harris administration will continue to pursue an all-of-government approach to wildfire risk reduction and resilience.

For more information visit the commission website or email wildlandfirecommission@usda.gov.

Media contacts

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Media Release: Media Advisory: Wildland fire mitigation and management commission report

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The recently released Wildfire mitigation report provides recommendations to change how we interact with wildfire.

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Conservation at Bluestem

We practice reverence for land through our values of integrity, utility, simplicity and sustainability. For every gravesite, we consider the impact of digging on the soil, root systems, water quality and wildlife.

Bluestem Conservation Cemetery is an 87-acre nature preserve of three habitat types: grassland, early transitional and woodland. Grasslands and early successional habitats are among the most endangered in our region. That's why one of our founding principles is preserving and protecting ours. Through conservation easements with our partners the and , Bluestem will be permanently protected by December 2024. Triangle Land Conservancy

Restoring crucial habitat returns the balance of species availability to the ecosystem. Our namesake, the little bluestem grass, is a core species in our fields. A stabilizing force, their deep root systems store carbon and survive through periods of drought or rain. They encourage dozens of other native companion plants like larkspur, tickseed and narrow-leaf sunflower. Our grassland hosts diverse pollinators that benefit our community's farms and fields and encourages the resurgence of animal species like the bobwhite quail and northern harrier.

Bluestem's conservation mission extends to our old oak and hickory forest habitat includes beech, sassafras, tulip poplar, sweetgum and several pine species. It's a welcoming home for fungi, lichens, woodland birds and larger animals like squirrels, deer, foxes and coyotes.

Our efforts have made Bluestem a popular destination for amateur and recreational naturalists and an eBird Hotspot and iNaturalist location.

Learn more about how you can support our conservation mission.

Our Community Conservation Strategy

Re-create 35 acres of native wildflowers and grasses that store carbon

Enhance wildlife habitat with plant, shrub and tree plantings, and bird boxes

Use prescribed fire to encourage growth and manage non-native plants

Construct erosion controls to support stormwater management for portions of the headwaters of the Neuse and the Roanoke River Basins

Establish water quality buffers on 4,000 feet of stream frontage

Create and maintain pollinator habitat

Follow low-density green burial practices

Foster plant diversity, restoring the vibrancy of the upland and lowland forests and open lands

Header photo: Prescribed Burn at Bluestem March 4, 2024. Photo credit: Don Bryson. Additional photos credit: Jackie Rimmler​, James Gartrell, Caroline Ray, Noah Rokoske, Courtney Reid-Eaton.

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Bluestem Conservation Cemetery use multiple strategies to restore and protect our Southeast grassland, succession and woodland habitats.

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When Cyrus Harris first saw a beaver during a camping trip in the tundra territory in the far northwest of Alaska in 1988, the discovery created a stir in his hometown of Kotzebue.

"That made big news then," he said. He and his companions removed the beaver, which was near Cape Krusenstern just north of the Bering Strait, above the Arctic Circle and, until recently, far north of the Alaska tree line. When they heard about the beaver, Harris said, local Inupiat elders issued a warning that more would appear: "They're coming, and that's what's going to be happening."

The presence of beavers in the Arctic landscape around Kotzebue is no longer news. The beaver population, previously not an Arctic feature, has exploded in that region - and quickly transformed the landscape.

In a 100-square-kilometer area near Kotzebue - just under 40 square miles - the number of beaver dams jumped from two in 2002 to 98 in 2019, according to UAF research presented at the beginning of the three-day workshop. The workshop was part of a National Science Foundation-funded program called the Arctic Beaver Observation Network, or A-BON. On a wider area of the Baldwin Peninsula, the number went from 94 in 2010 to 409 in 2019. Across a wider area of Arctic Northwest Alaska, their presence went from nothing in the 1950s, as shown in aerial photos, to more than 11,300 beaver ponds identified through satellite imagery by 2019, according to the UAF scientists. The presence of beaver ponds in that region more than doubled between 2004 and 2017, the scientists found.

Satellite images that have tracked beaver expansion over time clearly show not just the number of dams but their drastic impacts, said Ken Tape, the UAF ecology professor who is leading the A-BON program. He pointed to one site as an example. "It basically changes from a little stream into a sprawling wetlands," he said.

The proliferation of beavers is attributed to the northward spread of woody plants that they eat and use for their dams and lodges.

While climate change has enabled beavers to live farther north, the animals are exacerbating the effects of Arctic climate change. Through their dam and lodge engineering, they are inundating some areas with water, speeding up permafrost thaw. Elsewhere, they are drying out areas.

"All of a sudden, the beaver shows up. It's like, wham, just night and day, completely different," he said.

'Tundra Be Dammed'

Tape, who got into beaver studies when he and UAF permafrost expert Ben Jones were tracking climate change effects on the tundra, has now become a leading authority on the animals' northward expansion. A famous study that he led, published in 2018, described the phenomenon in Northwest Alaska and bore a catchy title: Tundra Be Dammed.

Beavers can be as disruptive to the tundra ecosystem as wildfires are, Tape and his colleagues have concluded.

Beaver presence in Arctic Alaska largely stops at the Continental Divide in the Brooks Range, leaving the North Slope largely beaver-free - for now. There are some exceptions discovered recently: a beaver pond complex that was found on the Kongakut River, which flows through the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge near the Canadian border, and some chew marks and tracks left by beavers on the Killik River, which flows from a point in Gates of the Arctic National Park and Preserve into the bigger Colville River.

For many residents, their animals' new presence is a serious problem.

"We're surrounded by beaver lodges," said Ralph Ramoth of Selawik, an Inupiat village about 90 miles east of Kotzebue.

Beaver structures have blocked access to traditional areas for duck hunting and berry-picking, and they've created barriers on creeks where fish used to spawn, Ramoth said. They have affected water quality as well, he said.

"When I was young, you used to be able to drink the water out of the river. Nowadays you don't," he said. Those who try, he said, get stomach distress. "People call it 'beaver fever,'" he said, referring to the unpleasant intestinal infection caused by the parasite giardia.

Beaver sins

Their dams can be insurmountable barriers to fish, particularly to the whitefish that are important subsistence foods but not particularly strong swimmers. That affects people who depend on those fish for their diets - and reverberates through the food web in ways that might seem surprising. Belugas in Arctic waters, for example, depend on whitefish populations that might be harmed by new beaver presence.

As articulated by Ramoth and by residents of Canada's Northwest Territories who attended the workshop, beaver structures can impede travel, blocking boat routes long used in the summer and turning once-dependable winter ice-travel routes into danger zones.

Deteriorated water quality is a widespread concern; Harris noted that beaver complexes are plentiful just upstream of the reservoir that is the drinking-water source for Kotzebue.

There are potentially longer-term and wider-ranging effects as well.

By speeding permafrost thaw, they are hastening the release of carbon into the atmosphere, scientists said. That is because permafrost holds organic material accumulated over thousands of years that, through freeze, is resistant to decomposition, said Michael Loranty, an associate professor of geography at Colgate University in New York.

There is evidence that such pulses are already underway. Work led by UAF researcher Jason Clark detected hotspots of methane emissions from Northwest Alaska beaver ponds. Methane is a particularly potent greenhouse gas and is known to be produced from permafrost thaw. The discovery of "is an example of a new disturbance regime, wrought by an ecosystem engineer, accelerating the effects of climate change in the Arctic," said the 2023 study, which was coauthored by Tape, Jones and others at UAF, along with scientists from the National Park Service and the California Institute of Technology.

There are related effects. Though studies are preliminary, there is evidence that beavers are contributing to higher mercury levels in the water systems - and thus in fish populations. Permafrost thaw releases natural elemental mercury that is stored in frozen peat, and beavers stimulate that thaw.. Additionally, the beavers may be inadvertently helping to convert that elemental mercury into methylmercury, the form that is most dangerous to people and animals.

Mervyn, with Canada's Wilfrid Laurier University, is part of a Canadian-British program called Beavers and Socio-ecological Resilience in Inuit Nunangat, or BARIN. It focuses on the Arctic region of the Northwest Territories. There, Indigenous hunters were the first to document colonization of the Beaufort Sea coast by beavers, with the animals spotted in 2008 and 2009.

The benefits of beavers

But there is another side of beavers in the Arctic.

"If I had a T-shirt, it would say, 'I love beavers.' I love them. They're the best things in the world," Lance Kramer, one of only about three Kotzebue residents who regularly trap beavers, said at the workshop.

He acknowledged that many of his Kotzebue neighbors greeted the news of beaver presence with the expression "Aiee," a somewhat untranslatable Inupiaq expression of alarm and annoyance.

Kramer, in contrast, has taken advantage of the new arrivals. When he traps a fat beaver, he can use it for meat. The meat from skinny beavers goes to his dog, he said. He is making money selling the pelts. He has created his own detailed map of beaver lodges in the area, with names like "Faceplant Place Lodge" "About Time Lodge" and "Mad Snowman Lake Lodge," the latter so named because his son became so annoyed about waiting for him to show up there that he built a snowman with an angry face.

He has even taken his love of beavers to show business, albeit subtly. He was an actor in the Alaska-based HBO series True Detective: The Night Country, and in a tense scene where his character brandishes a gun at law enforcement officers, he is wearing a beaver hat made by his mother-in-law.

Kramer brought up other beaver benefits. Aside from supplying meat, fur and income, beavers make it easier for him to hunt or trap other animals that gather at the structures, like wolverines and minks. "You can get everything at a beaver lodge. It's a one-stop shop," he said.

Evidence, mostly from outside of Alaska, shows that beaver lodges and dams can create habitat for other species, from insects to birds to predators. Research into that is continuing through the A-BON program; one project, explained by UAF graduate student Sebastian Zavoico , is using sound recorders to track bird diversity at recently established Alaska beaver sites.

While many Arctic residents are leery about the impacts of beaver dams and lodges to fish, evidence gathered to date paints a mixed picture.

In the Lower 48, where many riparian systems have been damaged by development, beavers are often considered restorers. Numerous studies there have found that beaver colonization is good for fish.

In Alaska, where study of the beaver-fish relationship is just starting, the evidence is that the animals have been positive influences in some spots and negative in others, according to information presented at the conference by UAF graduate student William Samuel. He has been tracking the relationship between beavers and Arctic grayling - and the relationship between beavers, grayling and wildfire. Within Interior Alaska, he found strong evidence that beaver densities increased in burned areas and that the combination of beavers and fires could be bad for grayling.

But the presence of beavers can make forested areas resistant to fires, too. Dammed areas can serve as fire breaks and help speed ecosystem recovery after wildfires, research in the Lower 48 has found.

The "beaver fever" name notwithstanding, beavers may not be as responsible as people think for giardia infections, said Glynnis Hood, an environmental science professor at the University of Alberta. "Beavers always get the rap, but humans carry giardia, too, and they don't always clean up after themselves," she said at the workshop.

Entrenched in the tundra landscape?

Future action on beavers might address both negative and positive aspects, suggested Andy Bassich of Eagle, an Interior community near the Canadian border.

I don't want, really, to use the word 'infestation,' but in some people's minds that's the appropriate word," he said. In his region, where beavers have long been established, the animals have become a good source of food that substitutes for traditional food sources like salmon that are in short supply, he said.

If people want to get rid of "nuisance beavers" that might be blocking fish passage or creating other problems, perhaps there should be some kind of combined economic and cultural program that trains young people to hunt and trap them, process them, tan the hides, providing both meat and income, Bassich said.

Whatever Alaskans and Arctic residents decide to do about them, beavers may be in the far north for good.

That was a lesson imparted by Lennie Emaghok, an elder from Tuktoyaktuk , a Northwest Territories Inupiat community on the Beaufort Sea coast.

He recounted how in 2020, along a relatively short stretch of creek, he and others found 10 beaver structures and quickly removed most of them, including one that was particularly towering.

"When we returned three days later, the dam was built back, as if we had never touched it," he said.

Hood summarized the power of the wood-chomping rodent. "Never underestimate a beaver," she said.

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Beaver expansion into Alaska's Arctic tundra presents problems for people - and opportunities * Alaska Beacon

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Beavers, previously not an Arctic feature, have exploded in that region - and quickly transformed the landscape.

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“Tunnel Fire” redirects here. For the 2022 wildfire in Arizona, see Tunnel Fire (2022).

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Youth Climate Program

The Wild Center's Youth Climate Program works to convene, engage, connect and empower young people around the world to take action on climate change. We do that through conference-style Youth Climate Summits that focus on the knowledge and skills needed to become effective climate leaders. Summits empower youth to generate Climate Action Plans that they can implement in their schools and communities. Using our Youth Climate Summit Toolkit, this model has been replicated across the globe.

Have questions? Want to collaborate? The Wild Center's Youth Climate Program team is here to help.

Click Here to Reach Out

"The Adirondack Youth Climate Summit was an incredible experience. Not only was it a lot of fun, but I also learned so much in such a short period of time. I feel wizened about the global situation of climate change, and I was encouraged to learn that we have the capacity to deal with it."

Samantha Martin, Saranac Lake High School alumna

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The Wild Center's Youth Climate Program works to convene, engage, connect and empower young people around the world to take action on climate change. We do that through conference-style Youth Climate Summits that focus on the knowledge and skills needed to become effective climate leaders.

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This Summit is a two-day event. Sunday, November 10th is a Kick-Off event that combines hands-on service projects, an opportunity to explore the Museum's 86-acre campus, and opportunities to connect informally with other teams.

Monday, November 11th is a conference-style event that includes workshops that will provide the teens with tools and resources for different paths to climate action, speakers who will educate and inspire, Eco-Fair exhibitors who will connect with teens on opportunities to get involved with existing climate action projects, and the day culminates with the teens working together with their team to create a climate action plan that they can implement at their school or within their community.

This youth-led event is hosted by a dedicated group of teens who meet after school throughout the fall with guidance from our Museum team to curate an event that is impactful and relevant for an audience of their peers. Follow the Teen Advisory Board on Instagram @NCclimatesummit

Meet the Teen Advisory Board:
About Youth Climate Summit Model
Youth Climate Summits, like the one held at the Museum of Life and Science, are a part of The Wild Center's Youth Climate Program which works to convene and empower young people around the world to take climate change action. Since hosting the first Adirondack Youth Climate Summit more than 11 years ago, the model, developed by The Wild Center, has inspired over 60 summits in 11 states and 5 countries, and that number is growing fast.

For more information on The Wild Center's Youth Climate Program, visit https://www.wildcenter.org/our-work/youth-climate-program/

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No room for a six foot sphere? No problem!

SOS Explorer® is a flat screen version of the widely popular Science On a Sphere (SOS). The revolutionary software takes SOS datasets, usually only seen on a 6-foot sphere in large museum spaces, and makes them more accessible. The visualizations show information provided by satellites, ground observations, and computer models.

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Science On a Sphere® is a room-sized, global display system that projects visualizations of planetary data onto a six foot diameter sphere to help illustrate Earth System science to people of all ages.

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There is work to do.

The Adirondacks grows more important at a time when:

Every 30 seconds a football field of U.S. natural lands is lost to roads and other development

3 billion North American birds (29% of avian population) have been lost since 1970

Climate change disrupts precipitation and migration patterns, water quality, and the ability of people to live in vulnerable places

We grow more aware of how access to the outdoors affects mental and physical health

The Adirondacks is a place of hope, but even here farmers and owners of large private forests are feeling financial pressure to sell or develop, and climate change threatens much of what we love - on the land, in the water, and in the Northern Forest way of life. As big and intact as the Adirondack Park is, it needs our help. It's our turn to make sure it doesn't splinter from inside or become an isolated island of nature

How well these mountains, forests, communities and waters withstand accelerating change depends on actions we take today.

Adirondack Park resources
More about the Adirondack Park Visitor information Support Adirondack conservation

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Photo by Larry Master "Any map of the Eastern United States shows it laced with roads. Parks and wildlands appear as lonely green islands.

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Our mission is to ignite an enduring passion for the Adirondacks where people and nature can thrive together and offer an example for the world.

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EMI | Public Information Officer Program

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The Right Message, to the Right People, at the Right Time

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We’ve found a messaging platform that simultaneously builds awareness for the problem and generates enthusiasm for the solutions.

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Broken Equilibrium walk-through installation of burned trees salvaged from wildfire sites and trees from thinning projects, 13.5x14x8 feet Fresno Art Museum, 2019

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A Community & Expert Summit on Catastrophic Wildfire in Oregon and Beyond

Wildfire ravaged much of the western United States in 2020.

Towns were destroyed, homes and businesses evacuated, forests incinerated, and lives lost. Vast swaths of rural communities like Talent and Detroit were devastated by sweeping megafires.

Across the state, Oregonians were impacted by widespread evacuations, life-threatening smoke, damage to vineyards and other crops, and staggering costs siphoning critical tax dollars away from other essential public services. The greatest impacts were born our most vulnerable communities: low-income families, communities of color, the sick, the elderly, and the young.

These megafires also accelerated their climate effects, with carbon emissions from wildfires in the U.S. alone increasing 30% over the previous year.
The 2020 season was a record-breaking year in the West, continuing a 20-year trend that is only worsening.
But there is hope.

As wildfire impacts broaden, so has the coalition of parties seeking solutions. Small town mayors and tribal leaders, experts in public health and social justice, CEOs and scientists are speaking up.
In early 2021, World Forestry Center brought together representatives from this broadening coalition in a five-week virtual summit on catastrophic wildfire.

Matt Donegan, chair of the Oregon Governor's Council on Wildfire Response, was joined by community leaders Charles Wilhoite and Katrina Holland, to lead this series of virtual talks.

The series outlined the full impacts of megafires on our state and our region; discussed real solutions shaped by decades of experience across the globe; and addressed the barriers to achieving these solutions.

This free public series, now available online, is for anyone who cares about the health of our society, our environment, or our economy. Catastrophic wildfire impacts us all. But together we can end the era of megafires.

Episodes

Episode 1: Understanding the Era of Megafires and the Threat Ahead

Episode 2: Protecting People: Creating Fire-Adapted Communities

Episode 3: Protecting Forests: Building Resilient Landscapes

Episode 4: Protecting Firefighters: Responding Safely and Effectively to Wildfire

Episode 5 Part 1: Building a Movement and Implementing Solutions

Tuesday, May 11 at 10 am

Episode 5 Part 2: Building a Movement and Implementing Solutions

Wednesday, May 12 at 10 am
The event series is supported by the estate of William D. Hagenstein. Learn more about the legacy of Bill Hagenstein and World Forestry Center.

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Adapting to the Era of Megafires - World Forestry Center

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A Community & Expert Summit on Catastrophic Wildfire in Oregon and Beyond Wildfire ravaged much of the western United States in 2020. Towns were destroyed, homes and businesses...

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Let beavers do the work: Fighting wildfire one dam at a time

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By Olivia Box As wildfires grow hotter and bigger across the American West, people are turning to a new breed of firefighter: the American beaver. New research suggests that beaver’s dam-building creates lush, wet fire breaks in otherwise dry landscapes, helping to slow and contain wildfires.

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Jan. 27, 1967, tragedy struck on the launch pad at Cape Kennedy during a preflight test for Apollo 204 (AS-204). The mission was to be the first crewed flight of Apollo, and was scheduled to launch Feb. 21, 1967. Astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee lost their lives when a fire swept through the command module, or CM.

The exhaustive investigation of the fire and extensive reworking of the Apollo command modules postponed crewed launches until NASA officials cleared them for flight. Saturn IB schedules were suspended for nearly a year, and the launch vehicle that finally bore the designation AS-204 carried a lunar module, or LM, as the payload, instead of a CM. The missions of AS-201 and AS-202 with Apollo spacecraft aboard had been unofficially known as Apollo 1 and Apollo 2 missions. AS-203 carried only the aerodynamic nose cone.

In the spring of 1967, NASA's Associate Administrator for Manned Space Flight, Dr. George E. Mueller, announced that the mission originally scheduled for Grissom, White and Chaffee would be known as Apollo 1, and said that the first Saturn V launch, scheduled for November 1967, would be known as Apollo 4. The eventual launch of AS-204 became known as the Apollo 5 mission. No missions or flights were ever designated Apollo 2 or 3.
The second launch of a Saturn V took place on schedule in the early morning of April 4, 1968. Known as AS-502, or Apollo 6, the flight was a success, though two first-stage engines shut down prematurely, and the third-stage engine failed to reignite after reaching orbit.

Payload
Spacecraft-012

Apollo Pad Fire
Emergency Transmission: Jan. 27, 1967; 6:31:05 p.m. EST
Launch Complex 34
Saturn-IB AS-204
CSM-012

Houston We Have a Podcast: Apollo 1 Fire

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On Jan. 27, 1967, tragedy struck on the launch pad at Cape Kennedy during a preflight test for Apollo 204 (AS-204). The mission was to be the first crewed flight of Apollo, and was scheduled to launch Feb. 21, 1967. Astronauts Virgil Grissom, Edward White and Roger Chaffee lost their lives when a fire swept through the command module.

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Climate Stories Project fosters creative art and music projects that feature people's reflections about climate change impacts and responses. If you would like to share your artistic creations using climate stories, please contact us.

Please consider supporting Climate Stories Project by purchasing this music on the Earthsound Bandcamp page. All proceeds go towards Climate Stories Project.

To learn more about climate music and storytelling, please read Music for a Changing Climate by Jason Davis, published by Orion Magazine.

If you are interested in booking musician and Climate Stories Project director Jason Davis for a performance or presentation, please contact us.

Exponential is a solo bass and electronic music piece featuring the voices of Colby College students speaking about their personal responses to climate change. The students' stories were recorded as part of a climate storytelling workshop at Colby College in spring 2021.

​Jason Davis, bass
Recorded by Joe Musacchia

throat singing, and the Scottish and Irish jigs that have been part of Inuit musical practice since the 19th century. The changing environment of the Arctic is an important theme as well-at the beginning of the piece, you'll hear the recorded words of Iñupiat elder John Sinnok speaking about the dramatic effects of climate change on his home village of Shishmaref, Alaska. Footsteps in Snow, by Jason Davis, is inspired by elements of Inuit music, including the drum dance song Siipinngua,

Jason Davis, bass
​Recorded by Randy Cole
Climate Voices Suite
This suite for solo double bass features the voices of five people from around the world speaking about their personal responses to the climate crisis. The speakers are:

Laura Gill, Stanford, California
Drew Lanham, Seneca, South Carolina
Goksen Sahin, Istanbul, Turkey
Clifford Paul, Membertou, Cape Breton, Canada
Rosalie Zerrudo, Iloilo City, the Philippines

Written and performed by Jason Davis
at Cambridge Public TV in Cambridge, MA

Here are two music pieces recorded by the group Earthsound. John Sinnok features an interview with Shishmaref, Alaska Iñupiat elder John Sinnok, while Resting Storm features interview material from Bessie Sinnok of Shishmaref and Marybeth Holleman of Anchorage, Alaska. Both pieces are by Jason Davis.

Claire Bourg, violinJung-Hsuan Ko, cello Featuring:
Amir Milstein, flute
Henrique Eisenmann, piano
Bertram Lehmann, drums
Jason Davis, bass

​ Harriet Langley, violin
Jing Peng, viola

​ Recorded and mixed at Wellspring Studio, Acton MA
Mastered by Joel Edinberg

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Climate Stories Project fosters creative art and music projects that feature people's reflections about climate change impacts and responses. If you would like to share your artistic creations using climate stories, please contact us. Please consider supporting Climate Stories Project by purchasing this music on the Earthsound Bandcamp page.

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Using music to make marine science accessible for blind and low vision people

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Climate Stories Project climate stories map

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Check out our latest knowledge articles that share NASA STEM content including activities, games, videos, educator guides, teacher toolkits, and much more.

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Official websites use .gov
A.gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

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Fifth National Climate Assessment Art × Climate Gallery

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The Fifth National Climate Assessment is the US Government's preeminent report on climate change impacts, risks, and responses. It is a congressionally mandated interagency effort that provides the scientific foundation to support informed decision-making across the United States.

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Manish Karkera (Institute for Environmental Analytics)

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Visualising how the climate has changed for every country across the globe

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A 300-foot outdoor mural unveiled in March illustrates a century of climate change in Anchorage.

By covering the exterior of a downtown building with 100 vertical stripes, "Warming Stripes" demonstrates average annual Anchorage temperatures from 1919 to 2019. Local designer Karen Larsen created the blue and red image using data provided by Brian Brettschneider, an Alaska climate science expert and research associate for the International Arctic Research Center. The Warming Stripes project was first introduced by a U.K. researcher who communicates climate science through simple data visualizations.

Visitors can view the Anchorage installation at Sixth Avenue and D Street.

"Warming Stripes" was produced by the Anchorage Museum and its SEED Lab initiative, which explores creative and positive ways to respond to change, in collaboration with the Anchorage Downtown Partnership.

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Anchorage public art depicts changing temperatures

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"Warming Stripes" demonstrates average annual Anchorage temperatures from 1919 to 2019.

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National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI)

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Search | Climate Data Online (CDO) | National Climatic Data Center (NCDC)

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Climate Data Online (CDO) main general search page for locating data within the National Climatic Data Center’s (NCDC) archive of weather and climate data.

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Ocean Story Gallery
(View in a separate tab)

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In 2023, the Children's Environmental Literacy Foundation announced that it has added the Young Voices for the Planet's series of groundbreaking films featuring student environmental action to its educational resources. Associated curriculum resources will be absorbed into CELF's portfolio of educational tools soon. After more than a decade of innovation in youth voice empowerment and environmental education, over a dozen short films produced, workshops and film screenings hosted across North America, PBS broadcasts, National Geographic streaming, and numerous other creative partnerships, Young Voices for the Planet is entering its next phase of growth as a part of CELF.

Young Voices for the Planet films and curricula were originally developed as a project of Young Voices on Climate Change, a nonprofit organization. All associated copyrights and trademarks have now been assigned and transferred to CELF.

WORDS HAVE POWER

10-year-old Jaysa rallies the community with her speeches about how the power plant causes asthma and "so much suffering." When they succeed in shutting down the plant, Jaysa concludes that "words have power."

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Young Voices for the Planet - Children's Environmental Literacy Foundation

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In 2023, the Children's Environmental Literacy Foundation announced that it has added the Young Voices for the Planet's series of groundbreaking films featuring student environmental action to its educational resources. Associated curriculum resources will be absorbed into CELF's portfolio of educational tools soon.

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Earth to Sky - Team Northeast Ohio Climate Heroes

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Earth to Sky: An Innovative Partnership between NASA and National Park Service

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Join the web’s most supportive community of creators and get high-quality tools for hosting, sharing, and streaming videos in gorgeous HD and 4K with no ads.

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Climate Mental Health Network helps parents understand and respond to the mental health impact of climate change on young family members. Our tools and resources — in use with families across the country — can reveal the role climate plays in the emotional states, behaviors, and choices of young people. Our connections with practitioners and advocates helps parents translate those understandings into building stronger parent-child relationships, better community mental health supports, and a future that’s more worthy of our youth.

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Earth to Sky: An Innovative Partnership between NASA and National Park Service

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Earth to Sky - Team Climate Resilient Colorado

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Earth to Sky: An Innovative Partnership between NASA and National Park Service

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Earth to Sky: An Innovative Partnership between NASA and National Park Service

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Starting a conversation about climate change doesn't have to be scary. Many people feel uncomfortable or unprepared to talk about climate change, especially if they aren't sure of people's beliefs, emotions, and values. The good news is that the majority of people across western Pennsylvania know the climate crisis is real, it's serious, and we need to act now. Climate change is a crisis of science, human health, economics, policy, culture and ethics. It's a wicked problem that touches all aspects of our lives, which means everyone has a stake in finding solutions.

That's where the Climate and Rural Systems Partnership (CRSP) comes in. The project believes in the collective power of community relationships to cross social and political barriers and encourage conversations around the climate issues that impact all of us. We do this by exploring meaningful processes for engaging community members in deliberation around complex socio-scientific topics.

To break the stigma, we create space for open conversations about climate change. CRSP brings together diverse networks of educators, students, farmers, business leaders, government officials, community groups, scientists, outdoor recreationists and others who want to work together to solve the climate crisis in communities across Western PA

Community Participation

How many times does it have to flood before you start looking at the infrastructure and say we need to do something. [...] I think designing for a 100-year storm is not overdesigning at this point.

THE CLIMATE AND RURAL SYSTEMS PARTNERSHIP SUPPORTS PEOPLE TO:

* Share their perspective on climate change and climate justice. People are most able to speak and listen when they trust that their perspective will be heard and valued.
* Build and rely on trust. Research shows that we are most able to impact the beliefs and actions of people that know and trust us. Talking with our friends, families, neighbors and colleagues is a great place to start.
* Find common ground. Starting conversations around resources, examples and evidence co-developed with rural communities can highlight connections with locally-relevant impacts and workable solutions.
* Build a vision for a hopeful future. Acknowledge what has happened, what you hope for, what you fear, and what you expect, with a focus on opportunities for actions that move us toward the future we want.

* Practice having conversations. Working with peers to refine your message can increase your comfort and confidence to deliberate the problems, solutions, policy and ethics of climate change.
* Meet people who think, feel and live differently. In partnership with researchers from the University of Pittsburgh Center for Learning in Out-of-School Environments, CRSP is encouraging people to understand themselves, one another, and the issue differently through the development the reflective practices and 'boundary objects' that facilitate dialogue.

Climate Conversations Starter Guide for the Laurel Highlands

[Booklet PDF]

When it comes to climate conversations, where do you begin? This guide is meant to help you get conversations started with eight different "Have you noticed...?" questions regarding locally relevant solutions and impacts of climate change drawing on the latest scientific evidence. The booklet also has some general tips for talking about climate, six actions you can take today to help reduce future climate change, and a section on climate change basics that answers questions like "What's the difference between weather and climate?" This guide was instigated from a Laurel Highlands CRSP network meeting in 2021 and co-produced that year by Laurel Highlands CRSP member Paula Purnell (Sense of Place Learning) and CRSP team members Alexis Boytim, Nicole Heller, and Bonnie McGill with feedback from the network at several stages.

The Road to Farm Resilience to Weather Extremes

[Pamphlet PDF for Mercer County] [Pamphlet PDF for Indiana County]

This tri-fold pamphlet was co-produced by farmers and ag professionals at the Shenango River Valley CRSP hub (Shenango Climate and Rural Environmental Studies Team or S-CREST) and Bonnie McGill, a CRSP scientist and illustrator. During 2021, the group explored local climate data and worked to write the pamphlet text for their intended audience, conventional farmers in the region growing corn and soybeans. The group wanted to make a resource that could help them have conversations with such farmers about how certain conservation practices will help farmers build resilience in their operations to the current and worsening impacts of climate change. Many of these practices also build soil carbon, which mitigates climate change. Recently, the pamphlet has been adapted for Indiana County for our partners at the Indiana County Conservation District.

Signs of Climate Change in Migratory Songbirds of Pennsylvania

[ view webpage or blog post]

In CRSP we emphasize that climate change is here and now, not somewhere else and in the future. How do we know it is here and now? This infographic looks to migratory birds as teachers. These birds (and the Powdermill Avian Research Center scientists who study them) show us how climate change is speeding up their arrival from the south and their nesting dates. Often climate change is framed as a political issue, but this local evidence of climate change moves the conversation beyond that because the earlier arrival of birds is something everyone in rural PA can notice and migratory birds do not belong to any political parties (as far as we know!). This infographic was developed by CRSP scientist and illustrator

Brook Trout in a Warming World
[story map link]
Trout fishing is deeply rooted in the cultural heritage of Pennsylvania's Laurel Highlands, yet many stewards have been noticing how climate change is changing the narrative. This story navigates climate change from the perspective of the Brook Trout, holding a hopeful call to action front and center. Organizations a part of the Laurel Highlands CRSP Hub will be able to use this resource to spark climate conversations with various Brook Trout stakeholders (from anglers to students to conservation groups) that inspire stewardship on behalf of both the Brook Trout and ourselves. This story was produced by Alexis Boytim, CRSP educator and GIS professional, with important contributions from conservation professionals of the Laurel Highlands CRSP Hub.

Striving for a Better Future on the Shenango
[story map link]
When talking about climate change, CRSP recognizes the need to keep the conversation locally relevant. For the SCREST Stormwater and Flood Resilience Group, the Shenango River is the perfect natural feature: it is both an outdoor recreation destination loved by many and the subject of climate change impacts, most notably flooding, that threaten nearby communities. This story utilizes the Shenango River to explain the relationship between climate change and the water cycle, as well as the different organizations and projects currently trying to address climate change in the Shenango River Watershed. This story was co-produced by stormwater and conservation professionals of the Shenango River Valley CRSP Hub (Shenango Climate and Rural Environmental Studies Team or S-CREST), and Alexis Boytim, CRSP educator and GIS professional.

CO-PRODUCING NEW SCIENTIFIC KNOWLEDGE

Despite the best of intentions, scientific analyses are often not useful in community decision making. Co-production of new knowledge between scientists and communities is becoming the gold standard for work related to climate change, sustainability and the Anthropocene. Some of the key components of co-production are keeping data context-based, recognizing multiple ways of knowing and doing, focusing on a clear shared goal, and engaging community members in analyzing, interpreting, refining and visualizing data. The process is as important as the knowledge produced.

In collaboration with farmers, and representatives from PSU extension office, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service, and community groups, Carnegie Museum of Natural History Science Communication Fellow, Dr. Bonnie McGill, is co-producing climate communication resources that are tailored to the lives and livelihoods of western Pennsylvania farmers. The goal is to empower the agricultural community with the right data types, in the right format, to allow them to make sense of the environmental changes they are witnessing and make informed economic, ecological and ethical decisions.

This methodology pushes scientists to think more deeply about how we conceptualize and communicate shifts in environmental variables like temperature and moisture by relating them to plant and animal biology, farming practices, and the broader social and political systems governing agriculture.

Farmers often know best when it comes to workable solutions to challenges with policy and practice, and their expertise is guiding our scientists to co-produce data that is both relevant and useful. Late freezes in the spring are disastrous for orchards, while summer droughts make corn unsellable. Farmers must keep livestock cool to preserve milk or wool production. Timing of soil freeze and thaw impacts when farmers can put equipment on their fields. The typical format for average annual temperature and rainfall projections won't necessarily help them make informed decisions that their livelihoods depend on, but co-production provides an opportunity to produce climate data that is ready-made for action.

ABOUT THE REGIONAL LEADERSHIP TEAM

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CLIMATE AND RURAL SYSTEMS PARTNERSHIP (CRSP)

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Starting a conversation about climate change doesn't have to be scary. Many people feel uncomfortable or unprepared to talk about climate change, especially if they aren't sure of people's beliefs, emotions, and values. The good news is that the majority of people across western Pennsylvania know the climate crisis is real, it's serious, and we need to act now.

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Launchpad: NASA’s History of Winter Program | Launchpad | NASA eClips

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A “courageous and revelatory memoir” (Naomi Klein) chronicling the life of the leading Indigenous climate change, cultural, and human rights advocate For…