Growing Returns

Selected tag(s): climate change

3 urgent steps for North Carolina to build back stronger and smarter

By Will McDow / Bio / Published: October 2, 2018

Hurricane Florence’s arrival so soon after Hurricane Matthew serves as an urgent reminder that new, effective and rapidly implementable solutions are required to meet the challenges of a new normal of extreme weather.

“It’s clear that we’re going to have to build back not only stronger, but smarter. When you have two so-called 500-year floods within a 23-months period, you know we’re not talking about 500-year floods. We’ve got to work to make sure we make smart decisions.”
– North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper after surveying extreme flooding from Hurricane Florence

It’s time to invest in three proven approaches to flood preparedness and economic development so that our communities can bounce forward to a more prosperous, safe and resilient future. Read More »

Posted in Uncategorized / Also tagged buyout, Coasts, ecosystems, extreme weather, flood storage, flooding, governor, Hurricane Florence, Hurricane Matthew, legislature, North Carolina, policy, resilience, roy cooper | Read 1 Response

Trump attacks vital conservation tool for threatened and endangered species, misses real problem

By Holly Pearen / Bio / Published: September 19, 2018

Critical habitat designations are an essential tool in the Endangered Species Act (ESA) toolbox. They are the primary mechanism Congress created to accomplish the goal of the act, “to provide a means whereby the ecosystems upon which endangered species and threatened species depend may be conserved.”

Critical habitat is the science-based determination of specific areas that are essential for a species’ survival. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service designate critical habitat for threatened and endangered species, like the marbled murrelet and piping plover, to signal to federal agencies, landowners, industries and conservationists where habitat protections should be prioritized and impacts avoided. Photo credit: Kathy1006

Because habitat loss and fragmentation is currently the leading cause of extinction, it’s vital to protect areas that currently contain the physical and biological features that are essential for species survival today.

Supporting imperiled species also requires that the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and National Marine Fisheries Service (Services) identify and protect historic ranges that can be restored or rehabilitated, provide key features or dynamic forces essential to species, or potentially become suitable habitat due to climate change. Critical habitat designations are the tool the Services use to do this.

As important as they are, critical habitat designations don’t come without controversy. Read More »

Posted in Uncategorized / Also tagged conservation, critical habitat, dusky gopher frog, ecosystems, Endangered Species Act, endangered species act success stories, National Marine Fisheries Service, piping plover, polar bear, red-cockaded woodpecker, regulation, Supreme Court, Trump, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, wildlife | Comments are closed

What a New York Times op-ed misses about living with climate change

By David Festa / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: August 27, 2018

There’s so much that Dr. Erle C. Ellis gets right in his recent op-ed in The New York Times, “Science Alone Won’t Save the Earth. People Have to Do That.”

We’re exceeding Earth’s planetary boundaries. We need to adjust our expectations about what a new normal will look like. And there’s no single optimal solution for thriving in a changing climate.

Photo Credit: NOAA Photo Library

But in making the case that it is people who will decide the future and not science or natural limits, Dr. Ellis falls into the binary trap he’s encouraging us to avoid. It’s not an either/or proposition.

We need both science and people to make our land and water systems more resilient so humanity and nature can prosper. Heck, we need every tool in the shed, including community engagement, flexible policy, money and good old-fashioned political will.

It may sound like an impossible order, but it’s already happening in some surprising places. Read More »

Posted in Uncategorized / Also tagged Changing Course, Coastal Louisiana, Coasts, ecosystems, humanity, Louisiana Coastal Master Plan, Mississippi River Delta, nature, New York Times, Rebuild by Design, resilience, Resilient by Design, science | Read 1 Response

Climate change will force us to make tough decisions. Adaptive management can help.

By Natalie Snider / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: August 23, 2018

In the face of climate change, it can be difficult to balance environmental, economic and community needs, but it’s a challenge we must overcome to adapt, survive and thrive.

To do this, professionals from multiple sectors across the globe are increasingly incorporating adaptive management techniques into resource planning for all kinds of essential ecosystems – from major watersheds like the Mississippi River Delta to high food production regions like the Corn Belt.

The lessons learned from past management decisions in these places will help shape resilience strategies for communities and industries around the world as they prepare for a new normal. Read More »

Posted in Uncategorized / Also tagged Adaptive management, agriculture, Coastal Louisiana, Coasts, ecosystem resilience, ecosystems, infrastructure, Louisiana, Mississippi River Delta, Missouri River Adaptive Management Plan, navigation, recreation, water supply | Read 2 Responses

Environmental impact bonds can help make coastal communities safer, sooner. Here’s how.

By Shannon Cunniff / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: August 14, 2018

Last year’s hurricane season was the most destructive disaster season in U.S. history, causing $265 billion in damage and forcing more than one million Americans from their homes.

As climate change causes weather to get more extreme, coastal communities across the country are struggling to find cost-effective solutions to enhance their resiliency to storms and develop new ways to finance that work.

Photo Credit: Karen A. Westphal, Audubon Louisiana

How can we help make coastal communities more resilient more quickly? How can we engage the private sector in coastal resiliency efforts and generate a financial return for investors?

Together with my EDF colleagues and partners, I set out to explore how one innovative financing mechanism – environmental impact bonds – might help. Read More »

Posted in Uncategorized / Also tagged coastal communities, coastal resilience, coastal restoration, Coasts, environmental impact bond, Louisiana, Quantified Ventures, restoration, restoration finance, wetland restoration | Read 2 Responses

The market for grassland carbon credits is on the rise. Here’s why.

By Robert Parkhurst / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: July 19, 2018

A new study from UC Davis found that “grasslands and rangelands are more resilient carbon sinks than forests in 21st century California.”

While forests remain vital to global climate mitigation efforts, the increasing frequency and severity of wildfires has heightened the need to explore additional carbon sinks in fire-prone regions. Grasslands lock carbon into the soil, and they don’t release it during wildfires.

Photo credit: Nicole Rosmarino, Executive Director of the Southern Plains Land Trust

It’s because of this resilient carbon-capturing power that grasslands and rangelands are essential to meeting climate goals. Unfortunately, these ecosystems are being converted into croplands at the highest rate in decades. Landowners converted 1.6 million acres of long-term grasslands – those that have existed for 20 years or more – into croplands between 2008 and 2012.

Record high land rental values make land conversion a compelling economic choice, but a new market opportunity may soon change this calculus. Read More »

Posted in Carbon Market / Also tagged American Carbon Registry, carbon market, carbon sink, climate action reserve, colorado, grassland, grassland project protocol, grasslands protocol, greenhouse gas emissions, Microsoft, Partnerships, rangeland, Southern Plains Land Trust, sustainable agriculture, wildfire | Comments are closed

California’s budget is not about resistance. It’s about resilience.

By Pablo Garza / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: June 14, 2018

The California legislature has passed a budget bill that gives me great hope for the state and for the nation. That’s because the budget was not only passed with bipartisan support – it also proves that conservation has broad political appeal.

California has rebuked the Trump administration on a number of issues including healthcare, immigration and the environment, leading many Americans to see California as the ultimate resistance state. But when I take a closer look at this budget, I think it has less to do with resistance, and everything to do with resilience.

Resilient people, communities, institutions and, yes, environment. Read More »

Posted in Climate Resilience, Wildlife Protection / Also tagged AB 2421, bill, budget, california, climate resilience, drought, ecosystems, flooding, legislature, Mark Stone, monarch butterfly, parks, proposition 68, salton sea, voters, western water, wildfire | Comments are closed

3 urgent areas for Zinke to focus beyond departmental reorganization

By Eric Holst / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: May 22, 2018

Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke last week invited members of the conservation community to meet with him to discuss a number of his department’s near-term priorities.

Among these priorities was a “grand pivot” that Secretary Zinke described as a shift from focusing on energy dominance and shrinking monuments to a focus on conservation. When outlining his specific conservation priorities, Secretary Zinke spoke mostly in broad strokes about the reorganization of his department and infrastructure backlogs.

Some of his ideas on the reorganization had merit and we’d be willing to work with his agency to ensure that it is staffed to meet the needs of near and long-term conservation challenges.

While departmental organization and infrastructure needs are both worthy of administrative attention, I’m concerned that these priorities could detract from three urgent environmental and public health needs.

Posted in Uncategorized / Also tagged BLM, conservation, department of interior, ecosystems, land and water conservation fund, methane, mitigation, monuments, public lands, reorg, reorganization, ryan zinke, wildlife | Comments are closed

Farmers join international climate talks prepared to take action

By Josette Lewis / Bio / Published: May 7, 2018

Nearly one year ago, President Trump announced his intention to withdraw the United States from the Paris Climate Agreement. In the absence of federal government leadership, the agriculture sector is making its voice heard in the international climate change discussions taking place this week at the U.N. Climate Change Conference in Bonn, Germany.

Farmers are on the front lines of a changing climate and increasingly extreme weather. They know that climate-smart agriculture is critical to ensuring their operations continue for generations to come. That’s why they’re pulling up a chair to take a seat at the global climate table. Read More »

Posted in Climate Resilience, Supply Chain / Also tagged climate adaptation, climate mitigation, climate-smart agriculture, extreme weather, Global Alliance for Climate-Smart Agriculture, North American Climate Smart Agriculture Association, Partnerships, sustainable agriculture, United Nations, United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change | Read 1 Response

What the world can learn from Louisiana about living with climate change

By Natalie Snider / Bio / Twitter profile / Published: May 3, 2018

Louisiana is emerging as a global leader in how to sustainably plan for the future in the face of increased storms, coastal erosion and rising seas. By combining nature-based solutions with traditional flood protection measures, Louisiana is a proving ground for living with climate change.

The lessons Louisiana can teach are not new, but they build upon those first taught by the Dutch. The Netherlands has taught the world innumerable lessons in flood protection – but historically, the Dutch have been primarily focused on building walls to keep water out, rather than finding more sustainable ways to protect coastal communities.

That is until recently, when the Dutch began embracing a more nature-based approach of “living with water,” similar to what is happening in Louisiana.

We can change the way we face coastal flooding challenges if we blend coastal restoration, protection and community resiliency measures. Louisiana’s multiple-lines-of-defense approach is a model for other coastal places, including the Netherlands, that are planning their futures in the face of climate change. Read More »

Posted in Uncategorized / Also tagged climate adaptation, coastal protection, coastal restoration, coastlines, Coasts, community resiliency, Delta Works, Dutch, flood protection, flooding, floodplains, floods, Katrina, Louisiana, Netherlands, Rita, sea level rise, wetlands | Comments are closed