video
Climate adaptation, water, and governance: An emerging nexus
27/08/10 00:39
Changing
Climate, Shifting Institutions: Building Governance
and Capacity through Freshwater
Adaptation
Efforts to respond to the impacts of a shifting climate in the water community have widely focused on particular eco-hydrological changes in freshwater systems, such as floods, droughts, and higher water temperatures. From this perspective, climate change is defined largely as a problem with an engineering (or engineering finance) solution. Engineers themselves, however, have declared that the current measures for designing long-lasting water infrastructure assumes that the recent historical hydrological information is a fair representation of future conditions — an assumption that has recently been declared “dead,” since historical statistically “normal” hydrological states are expected to shift, but without knowing how much or often even in what direction. Climate change thus causes increasingly uncertain hydrological futures for decades and possibly centuries.
Read More...
Efforts to respond to the impacts of a shifting climate in the water community have widely focused on particular eco-hydrological changes in freshwater systems, such as floods, droughts, and higher water temperatures. From this perspective, climate change is defined largely as a problem with an engineering (or engineering finance) solution. Engineers themselves, however, have declared that the current measures for designing long-lasting water infrastructure assumes that the recent historical hydrological information is a fair representation of future conditions — an assumption that has recently been declared “dead,” since historical statistically “normal” hydrological states are expected to shift, but without knowing how much or often even in what direction. Climate change thus causes increasingly uncertain hydrological futures for decades and possibly centuries.
Read More...
|
Video: Conservation portfolios for climate adaptation - Daniel Schindler, University of Washington
08/01/10 01:38
In this video,
Daniel Schindler of the
University of Washington discusses his research on
ecosystem changes in response to climate change
and the importance of heterogeneity. Schindler
is a fisheries ecologist who works on a wide
range of topics, especially with salmonids and
plankton in the Pacific Northwest of the North
America. Read
More...
Video: Red Eyes in Copenhagen: Adaptation at COP15
27/12/09 17:26
Red Eyes in
Copenhagen: Climate Adaptation at COP15
7 mins, December 2009, Copenhagen, Denmark
In December 2009, representatives of 192 nations met in Copenhagen, Denmark, to negotiate a new international climate change agreement. Most of these efforts focused on climate mitigation — reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases in order to slow down the rate of climate change. These results received widespread analysis. But there were also heated if less publicized negotiations to help the poor and vulnerable of the world adapt to the negative impacts of climate change. Filmed within hours of the conclusion of the Copenhagen Accord on 19 December 2009, this film shows the sleep-deprived thoughts of WWF staff about the impacts and efficacy of the Accord for international climate adaptation policy. These staff have worked on these issues for many years.
7 minutes, produced and directed by John Matthews. Read More...
7 mins, December 2009, Copenhagen, Denmark
In December 2009, representatives of 192 nations met in Copenhagen, Denmark, to negotiate a new international climate change agreement. Most of these efforts focused on climate mitigation — reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases in order to slow down the rate of climate change. These results received widespread analysis. But there were also heated if less publicized negotiations to help the poor and vulnerable of the world adapt to the negative impacts of climate change. Filmed within hours of the conclusion of the Copenhagen Accord on 19 December 2009, this film shows the sleep-deprived thoughts of WWF staff about the impacts and efficacy of the Accord for international climate adaptation policy. These staff have worked on these issues for many years.
7 minutes, produced and directed by John Matthews. Read More...
Video: Jim Jarvie from Mercy Corps on Development and Ecosystem-based Adaptation
26/12/09 15:04
Jim Jarvie
of Mercy Corps: The Direction of Adaptation and
Development.
2:25 mins, November 2009, Fuller Symposium, Washington, DC
Jim Jarvie was stood apart at the WWF Fuller Symposium last November: he works for Mercy Corps, one of the leading economic development non-governmental organizations active in the developing world today. In this video, he reflects on issues that are extremely relevant to the practice of climate adaptation globally: Is ecosystem-based adaptation different than community-based adaptation? How should environmental organizations and development groups work together? These topics have been burning issues for some time, and I've seen conflict — latent usually but sometimes explicit — directed form each type of group at the other over the past two years. This anxiety and anger are a terrible waste of energy, and there is plenty of fault to go around for the continuation of the fighting. But Jim speaks movingly of the way beyond. Jim was interviewed shortly after his full talk, which is also very much worth viewing at this site.
2:25 minutes, produced and directed by Daphne Patterson of WWF. Read More...
2:25 mins, November 2009, Fuller Symposium, Washington, DC
Jim Jarvie was stood apart at the WWF Fuller Symposium last November: he works for Mercy Corps, one of the leading economic development non-governmental organizations active in the developing world today. In this video, he reflects on issues that are extremely relevant to the practice of climate adaptation globally: Is ecosystem-based adaptation different than community-based adaptation? How should environmental organizations and development groups work together? These topics have been burning issues for some time, and I've seen conflict — latent usually but sometimes explicit — directed form each type of group at the other over the past two years. This anxiety and anger are a terrible waste of energy, and there is plenty of fault to go around for the continuation of the fighting. But Jim speaks movingly of the way beyond. Jim was interviewed shortly after his full talk, which is also very much worth viewing at this site.
2:25 minutes, produced and directed by Daphne Patterson of WWF. Read More...
Video: More Water Asks at the COP
17/12/09 15:47
Quick update: a video
on the UNFCCC COP15 site of me speaking
last week on
water and climate from an event sponsored by the
Global Water Partnership, Stakeholders Forum,
and the Stockholm International Water Institute.
3 mins, UNFCCC official footage. In case the
link doesn’t work, you can find the entire
event here. Read More...
Video: The Language of Climate Change Is the Language of Water
14/12/09 13:04
At a recent event
sponsored by TERI and the Yale School of Forestry,
WWF-US CEO Carter Roberts spoke to a small
distinguished group in Denmark’s Kronborg Castle
about the vulnerability of freshwater species and
ecosystems — and communities and their livelihoods
— to climate change. His key message: the language
of climate change is the language of water. Listen
to the language of climate change. This message has
largely been missing from current discussions about
how to prioritize climate change adaptation
actions. This
video was produced over the weekend
from the event. 5 mins. Read More...
Video: Voices on water, biodiversity, and COP15
14/12/09 09:35
The Dutch government
and its environmental assessment
agency organized a great series of
events over two weeks here at the COP on climate
adaptation issues. If you’re interested in
water, it would be hard to leave the Holland
Climate House. I’m involved in a total of four
side events there, with one remaining. A
video was produced from
one of the events I participated in last week
focusing on water, climate adaptation, and
biodiversity issues in the negotiations
(background material on the event itself is
described here). Some nice quotes from a
wide range of people!
Read More...
Read More...
Video: UK Rivers on the Edge
01/11/09 18:06
When we think about
great freshwater ecosystems globally, most people
don't think about the United Kingdom. The Yangtze
of China is probably closer to most visions of a
great river, or perhaps from a wild perspective
Lake Baikal of Russia or the Colorado river as it
passes through the Grand Canyon. But there is also
great beauty and wonder in small places — streams
and ponds — that may lack grandeur but are no less
moving or important. The chalk
streams of southern England and
northern France are precisely such places.
Read More...
Read More...
Speaking Water to Power: An Address to Ministers in Advance of COP15
01/09/09 05:38
Does the UN Framework
Convention on Climate Change help anyone with
adaptation practice on the ground now? Can we
improve international adaptation policy?
Here, I was
asked to speak by the Stockholm International Water
Institute on behalf of the CSO/NGO
community to a group of minister/cabinent-level
officials involved with water and development
from six different countries. The "high-level
panel" occurred in late August 2009 during World
Water Week in Stockholm, Sweden. By way of
backstory, I was pretty angry by the time I got
to talk. Most of the ministers had gone way over
their allotted 5 minutes, and it was clear they
weren't very interested in listening to me
anyway. I felt a bit of passion by the time the
discussion came around to me. Their statements
were deeply theoretical -- lacking in people and
places, removed from practical issues. They were
cold. I felt hot. 7.5 min. Below is the written text of
my presentation. Read
More...
The Watery Road to Copenhagen: Video Interviews from World Water Week
26/08/09 14:38
The water community
gathered in Stockholm, Sweden, in August 2009 to
discuss emerging and critical issues, and adapting
to climate change was easily one of the most
prominent topics discussed. Part of this prominence
comes from the international climate change
discussions that will occur in Copenhagen, Denmark,
in December 2009. Here, a group of rapporteurs was
asked by the World Water Week staff with SIWI
to interview conference
attendees about what they expect,
if anything, will
come out of the Copenhagen negotiations relevant
to water, their home countries, and their
families. 8.25 min. Read More...
One Talk, Two Heads: Bloviating on Climate Adaptation in Two Languages
12/08/09 21:05
This
video is a fair
representation of the overview adaptation
talk I've been giving for the past few months,
describing how climate adaptation differs from
much of the economic development and
conservation work up to now and how climate
adaptation has some special challenges and
opportunities for the water sector. Filmed on 3
August 2009 in Brasilia, DF, Brazil, this is a
long flick at 25 minutes, so brace yourself.
Although I appear visually a few times in the
stream, most of what you see are the
presentation slides filling the screen with me
(in English) and Martin Charles (my most
excellent Portuguese translator) delivering the
substance of the keynote talk to a live audience
of leading policy and resource management staff
from various government and civil society
groups. The event was billed as a climate
adaptation workshop, spanning two days at a
place called the LBV (very interesting in
itself) but hosted by WWF-Brazil. Filmed in
August 2009. Read
More...
Fixed video streaming! The Cerrado of Brazil
09/08/09 17:19
I’ve just returned
from a trip to Brazil, where most of my time was
spent talking in Brasilia with colleagues and
policymakers working on climate adaptation issues
from a freshwater perspective. While I will soon
post a video of a talk that I gave (and perhaps
some other video content), I’ve just finished
a short video
from I trip I made
to the beautiful savannah or cerrado
of interior Brazil
a few hundred kilometers from Brasilia. Hope you
enjoy! — JM Read
More...
New! Video blog entries
09/07/09 00:43
I’ve started teaching
a distance learning course with Dr. Bruce Dugger at
Oregon State University on wetlands. My
contribution focuses on wetlands of the world and
on climate impacts on wetlands, and includes making
some short videos on wetlands I visit on my
travels. The first installment is posted
here. A new posting will be uploaded
by early August for the cerrado
of Brazil.
Read
More...
