The Climate Change Story

The Interfaces of Global Change IGEP recently held their Spring Retreat at the Skelton Conference Center at Virginia Tech. The day included a special seminar featuring Susan Joy Hassol, Director of Climate Communication, based in Boulder, Colorado and Asheville, North Carolina. In her presentation titled, “The Climate Change Story”, she addressed both the scientific evidence for climate change as well as the need for effective communication strategies when talking about climate change publicly.

Susan Hassol is a climate change communicator, analyst, and author known for her ability to make complex science issues accessible to policymakers and the public. In addition to her work at Climate Communication,  she is currently senior science writer on the  National Climate Assessment, due to be released on May 6, 2014.

Susan is a Visiting Scholar at NOAA’s National Climatic Data Center in Asheville NC, as well as at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, CO. She was recently elected a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) for her “exceptional contributions in the area of science communication, particularly for communication of the science of climate change to policymakers and the public.” She currently serves as Communication Advisor to the World Meteorological Organization Commission for Climatology, and is on Board of Directors of the American Geophysical Union (AGU).

For more information about Sue and Climate Communication go to: http://www.climatecommunication.org/who-we-are/staff/susan-joy-hassol/ or http://www.climatecommunication.org/

Are you interested in sharing your research with broader audiences? Would you like to improve your ability to communicate science, both to scientific peers and the public? Do you want to develop broader impacts for an NSF grant proposal? If so, then sign up for:

Outreach in Biology
Fall 2014
BIOL-6004 (CRN 87994)
2 Credits
Instructor: DANA HAWLEY
Time: Tuesdays 2:00-3:15 pm

This course will cover

a) why outreach is important and relevant for scientists

b) how to develop a successful outreach activity

c) effective communication of science (relevant to academic peers as well as the public)

d) basic pedagogical techniques for K-12 outreach that meet Virginia’s Standards of Learning

We will bring in local outreach and education experts including Dr. Mike Rosenzweig, Director of the VT Science OUtreach Program (SOUP) and the Blacksburg Nature Center. The course will culminate in students designing and piloting an outreach activity based on their own research interests.

Outreach course advertisement (PDF)

VIEW PHOTOS FROM THIS EVENT

Saturday, April 12, 2014: Interfaces of Global Change Graduate Student Organization hosted a science outreach day at the SEEDS Nature Center* in Blacksburg, VA. The day of outdoor activities was titled “Passport to Discovery: a hands-on journey through the world of biological science and nature for children of all ages.”

Volunteers participating in this event included Interfaces of Global Change fellows, graduate and undergraduate students from the Hopkins and Belden labs, NRV Master Naturalists, and staff members from the SEEDS Nature Center. More than 200 participants were in attendance, including many local families as well as visitors who were in town for the weekend.

“Passport to Discovery” activity stations included:

1. Owl pellet dissection
2. Field techniques for young field biologists
3. A live demonstration of the adaptations of anoles
4. A live demonstration of native turtles and their local habitats
5. Pond life: a plankton demonstration with dissecting scopes
6. A touch tank of stream invertebrates: how to use a key to determine healthy vs. degraded streams
7. A live demonstration of frog and salamander diversity
8. A “passport” photo booth for young scientists

Mike Rosenzweig, director of the SEEDS* Nature Center in Blacksburg, had this to say:

“It was a wonderful day and I hope this can be the start of more collaboration with the Interfaces of Global Change Program… It’s a great opportunity for everyone to connect and reach out to the public.”

*Seek Education, Explore, DiScover – SEEDS®

Since 1995, SEEDS mission has been inspiring a natural curiosity and love for the environment in children and the young at heart through discovery learning, nature education, teacher support, and civic awareness.

From VT NEWS:

Scott Salom, a professor of entomology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences, has worked for years to develop ways to combat the woolly adelgid and save hemlock trees.

In 2013, he and his team of researchers released one of the hemlock woolly adelgid’s predators from its native habitat in Japan into the woods in Virginia and West Virginia. If all goes as planned, the beetle will be another tool that resource managers will have to save the treasured trees.

“We don’t want to lose the hemlocks, and we have to explore every avenue we can to save them,” Salom said. “This is a battle we feel compelled to take on.”

The Laricobius osakensis beetle was discovered in Japan in 2005, where it was feasting on the hemlock woolly adelgid and keeping its population in check. Salom obtained a permit from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to bring the beetles to Virginia Tech, where they were under quarantine for six years. During that time, he did a series of tests to ensure that the beetle wouldn’t harm other native species and would indeed go after the hemlock woolly adelgid.

In 2010, Salom got approval to release the beetles. In fall 2012, his team placed 500 into two sites where the adelgids were wreaking havoc. In 2013, 6,000 beetles were released at five additional sites, adding Maryland and Pennsylvania to the state lists.

Read the full article here.

Ben Grumbles, U.S. Water Alliance 

Tuesday, April 29, 2014   (2:00-3:00 p.m.)

Virginia Bioinformatics Institute (VBI) Auditorium 

Ben Grumbles is President of the U.S. Water Alliance–a non-profit, educational organization dedicated to uniting people and policy for “one water” sustainability. Possessing one of the broadest and most diverse memberships in the country, the Alliance has public and private sector leaders focusing on quality and quantity water issues both above and below the surface. The Alliance also focuses on the connections of energy, land, food and transportation as they relate to water, and the need for an integrated “one water” management philosophy. Mr. Grumbles has served as Director of Arizona’s Department of Environmental Quality, Assistant Administrator for Water at U.S. EPA, and in the U.S. House of Representatives on both the Transportation and Infrastructure Committee and the Science Committee. Ben has a Master’s Degree in environmental law from George Washington University, a J.D. from Emory University Law School, and a B.A. from Wake Forest University.

Abstract: Everyone wants clean, safe, abundant, and affordable water but it’s not so easy. Aging systems, increasing development pressures, changing climates, and challenging public attitudes make the balancing act more difficult and complex. Here are three of the most basic threats and sustainable solutions.

Threat #1: Water is forgotten and taken for granted. The infrastructure systems are invisible, unappreciated, and underfunded.  Solution: Local and national campaigns are needed to change the way America views, values, and manages water.  True value and full cost pricing with smart metering and social safety nets will help.

Threat # 2: Water policies are fractured and fragmented. All water is local and beyond. 20 federal agencies and countless federal laws and policies get into the mix, along with wildly diverse state and local laws and policies. Agencies and citizen boards segment the water cycle into separate components and turf battles. Quantity and quality, surface and groundwater, Clean Water Act and Safe Drinking Water Act programs are rarely coordinated and almost never integrated. Decisions on energy development, from fracking to biofuels, agricultural production, housing and transportation often fail to include water impacts and needs. Solution: More holistic, “One Water” management, at the local, regional, and national levels will result in smarter decisions for the future of water. New paradigms on water efficiency and reuse, onsite and neighborhood-wide in urban and rural settings, and watershed restoration and governance are needed.

Threat #3: Water innovators are fearful and frozen in place. Risk-averse policies and policymakers often block the development and use of improved technologies, management tools, and financial strategies due to lack of information and legal or political constraints.  Solution:  Coordinated strategies and university-driven technology clusters are needed to facilitate the approval and use of new tools.  The vision for a “blue innovation nation” includes strategies to shift our culture from gray infrastructure to green, treat and discharge plants to resource recovery centers, end-of-pipe permitting to market-based trading, and public-only funding to public-private partnerships that maintain the public’s trust.

This seminar is sponsored by: Virginia Water Resources Research Center and the Institute for Critical Technology and Applied Science (ICTAS).

In West Virginia, conservationists have set out to revive heavily logged red spruce forests in hopes of saving an endangered flying squirrel from extinction. Cordie Diggins, a Virginia Tech doctoral student and an IGC Fellow, is featured in the following Nature Conservancy Magazine article.

Flying High

Cordie Diggins

“Craig Stihler holds the squirming rodent in his gloved hands. “It’s a biter,” warns the bespectacled biologist as he handles the animal using only calm, deliberate movements. With its impossibly large eyes built for seeing in the dark, the West Virginia northern flying squirrel looks and acts like an agitated Muppet.

And rightfully so: A few minutes ago, this young female specimen was napping in one of hundreds of nest boxes that Stihler and other researchers installed throughout the Monongahela National Forest. But now she’s being weighed, ear-tagged and measured by a small group of scientists.

One of them—Virginia Tech doctoral student Corinne Diggins—blows in the squirrel’s face, trying to stop it from writhing in Stihler’s hand long enough for her to slip a radio collar around its neck. The animal finally holds still after a Forest Service technician gamely offers the finger of his glove for the squirrel to gnaw on, which allows Diggins to crimp the collar in place. Once she is done, Stihler releases the squirrel onto a tree trunk. It darts up into the canopy, then freezes in place, waiting for the group to leave.

A captured flying squirrel gets a radio tag before release

A biologist with the West Virginia Division of Natural Resources, Stihler has held more West Virginia northern flying squirrels than just about anyone. He has been studying the animals since 1985, when this subspecies of the northern flying squirrel was listed as endangered under the federal Endangered Species Act. At the time, scientists could find the squirrel at only a handful of sites in West Virginia, and its only known habitat had been reduced to a small fraction of its historical footprint in the area. To make things worse, not much was known about the animal—including what it ate, where it slept and how it differed from its more common cousin, the northern flying squirrel, which ranges across North America. With so few of the feisty, nocturnal animals to study, figuring out why the squirrel had declined—let alone how to save it—was going to require some sleuthing.

Only three decades later, the outlook for the flying squirrel’s survival has changed dramatically. The species is no longer endangered and was delisted in 2013—a remarkable feat, given how few squirrels remained and how little was known about them. The story of the squirrel’s turnaround isn’t about saving just one species; it’s the story of the restoration of an entire landscape that had become unbalanced by more than a century of logging and mining.”

Read the full story here: http://shar.es/Tn1Ml

Dr. Leandro Castello and his colleagues at Woods Hole Research Center and University of California Santa Barbara recently received a grant from NASA to study the impacts of extreme weather events (floods and droughts) on aquatic plants, forests, and fisheries of the central Amazonian river floodplain. This study was recently featured in VT News. A Public Radio interview on WVTF also highlighted this project.

Read the full VT News article here.

Listen to Dr. Castello’s interview on Public Radio (WVTF).

Story and related video from Virginia Tech University Relations…

Scott Salom, a professor of entomology in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and a core faculty member in the IGC IGEP, has worked for years to develop ways to combat the invasive woolly adelgid and save hemlock trees.

In 2013, he and his team of researchers released one of the hemlock woolly adelgid’s predators from its native habitat in Japan into the woods in Virginia and West Virginia. If all goes as planned, the beetle will be another tool that resource managers will have to save the treasured trees.

“We don’t want to lose the hemlocks, and we have to explore every avenue we can to save them,” Salom said. “This is a battle we feel compelled to take on.”

The Laricobius osakensis beetle was discovered in Japan in 2005, where it was feasting on the hemlock woolly adelgid and keeping its population in check. Salom obtained a permit from the U.S. Department of Agriculture to bring the beetles to Virginia Tech, where they were under quarantine for six years. During that time, he did a series of tests to ensure that the beetle wouldn’t harm other native species and would indeed go after the hemlock woolly adelgid.

In 2010, Salom got approval to release the beetles. In fall 2012, his team placed 500 into two sites where the adelgids were wreaking havoc. In 2013, 6,000 beetles were released at five additional sites, adding Maryland and Pennsylvania to the state lists.

Read the full story here.