Tag Archives: drought

Come on the Great American Adaptation Road Trip with Us: New England Aquarium Lecture October 9

1 October 2014

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Since completing the Great American Adaptation Road Trip, we’ve been sharing the things we learned about how climate change is affecting U.S. communities and how they are adapting to the changes they’re experiencing. We’ve shared adaptation stories with all sorts of groups, from 300 6th graders to environmental professionals at the EPA, NOAA, and other agencies.
If you’re in the Boston area, we want to invite you to a free talk we’re giving at the New England Aquarium on Thursday, October 9 at 7pm. You can register here.
We’ll tell you a bunch of road trip stories. Then we’ll reflect on what we all need to do to prevent the worst impacts of climate change and to help people protect the communities they love as temperatures and seas continue to rise. The talk is followed by a reception at 8:15pm where we’ll continue the conversation over refreshments. We promise it will be fun, educational, and engaging!
-Kirsten & Allie

On Flood and Thirst: How Communities Are Adapting to the Age of Unpredictable Water

12 November 2013

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In Keene, New Hampshire, Duncan Watson looks out the window with trepidation as rain pounds the glass of his office at the Public Works Department; in 2005, a flood in his hometown killed seven people. And across the country in Santa Fe, New Mexico, forest fuels specialist Bill Armstrong fears he’s losing a race against the clock to thin and prescriptively burn the tree-crowded national forest before a prolonged drought sets the stage for another mega-fire.

What do these two men have in common? They’re on opposite sides of the same coin, dealing with the consequences of what Watson calls a “caffeinated climate” in which change is not so much about the slowly rising thermostat, but about more pronounced extremes, from very wet to very dry.

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Fighting Drought with a New Super Corn

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Gothenburg, Nebraska to Belmond, Iowa

August 14-17, 2013

So how exactly do you win a tilling competition? We’re at the Prairie Homestead Antique Power and Country Craft Show in Belmond, Iowa, of all places, watching farmers on tractors practicing for the next day’s tillage contest.

Farmers practicing for the next day's tilling competition in Belmond, IA

Farmers practicing for the next day’s tilling competition in Belmond, IA

“You drive as straight as you can,” David Sieck, of Glenwood, Iowa, tells us. Sieck, a former president and current board member of the Iowa Corn Growers Association, has been growing field corn (used for animal feed and ethanol) in Iowa for over 35 years.

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Preventing a Joshua Treeless National Park

20 August 2013

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July 21-22

Joshua Tree National Park, California

The desert has much to teach us about the marvels of adaptation. Relentless sun, little water, and summer temperatures over 100 degrees Fahrenheit can make a forbidding world for non-desert dwellers. Yet hundreds of species conserve moisture and beat the heat in fascinating ways. –Joshua Tree National Park visitor’s map

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Rainwater Harvesters Reap Bounty in Arid Tucson

15 August 2013

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Tucson, AZ

July 19, 2013

Brad Lancaster describes the strip of vegetation beside the sidewalk outside his Tucson, Arizona home as “an orchard and a pharmacy.” The desert ironwood tree has peanut flavored seeds and blooms that make a delicious salad garnish. Creosote is good for athlete’s foot. Chuparosa has a red flower that tastes like cucumber. The barrel cactus’s yellow fruit can be used for chutneys or hair conditioner. Mesquite pods make nutritious flour. And many more. Depending on the season, Lancaster gets 10 to 20 percent of his food from this sidewalk garden, and another in his yard.

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Denver Residents Pay Forest Service to Keep Their Water Clean

12 August 2013

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July 11-14, 2013

Denver, CO

As we stand at the Dillon Reservoir in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado, we’re daunted by the expanse of water. Sailboats and speedboats zip back and forth, enjoying the summer season. At one end, the water is mostly contained by a high cement wall but for a steady stream slipping over the dam on its way to Denver. Abutting the reservoir is the White River National Forest, made up mostly of lodgepole pine trees. Some trees are laid barren by the pine beetle, some scarred by fire, some still healthy.

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Colorado Fruit Growers Harness Wind, Water, and Fire to Save Harvest

2 August 2013

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July 8-10, 2013

Paonia & Hotchkiss, Colorado

Glenn Austin started farming on his family’s organic dairy and tobacco farm in Tennessee at the ripe age of five. As a young man, he worked for Monsanto, but after several years Austin decided petrochemical fertilizers weren’t for him, so he and his wife made the move from Tennessee to the Western Slopes of Colorado’s Rocky Mountains to plant a sustainable orchard. This year he turns 70 and marks his 43rd year farming in Paonia. When we hopped on Austin’s golf cart to tour his family farm, which sits high on a mesa in the North Fork Valley, things were in full swing. Continue reading →

Georgia Farmers Irrigate Smarter

15 July 2013

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Camilla, Georgia

June 24, 2013

Transcript:

Allie Goldstein: This is Allie Goldstein and Kirsten Howard of Adaptation Stories. On June 24, 2013, we visited Camilla, Georgia.

We spent the day with Casey Cox, a 21-year-old, sixth-generation Georgian who just finished college and has returned to Camilla to help run her family farm. Some people were surprised by her decision.

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Queen Quet, Unedited

9 July 2013

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Saint Helena Island, South Carolina

June 22, 2013

The Gullah/Geechee people, descendants of enslaved Africans captured in Angola and other parts of the Western Seaboard of Africa who now stretch from Jacksonville, North Carolina to Jacksonville, Florida, do not have a word for “adaptation” or “resiliency” in their Creole language. And yet, as Queen Quet, the elected head-of-state for the Gullah/Geechee, explains in the (unedited) clip above, the Gullah/Geechee are an incredibly resilient people: they maintained their culture through slavery and today continue traditional farming practices on family compounds.

“What we understand, or overstand as I like to say—that’s what others call adapting,” Queen Quet said. “We call it living.”

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