Climate Programs

SoundToxins, a diverse partnership of Washington state shellfish and finfish growers, environmental learning centers, Native American tribes, and Puget Sound volunteers, is a monitoring program designed to provide early warning of harmful algal bloom events in order to minimize both human health risks and economic losses to Puget Sound fisheries.

Categories: shellfish, Harmful Algal Bloooms (HABs), finfish, aquaculture

The world is awash in bullshit. Politicians are unconstrained by facts. Science is conducted by press release. Higher education rewards bullshit over analytic thought. Startup culture elevates bullshit to high art. Advertisers wink conspiratorially and invite us to join them in seeing through all the bullshit — and take advantage of our lowered guard to bombard us with bullshit of the second order. The majority of administrative activity, whether in private business or the public sphere, seems to be little more than a sophisticated exercise in the combinatorial reassembly of bullshit.
Our aim in this course is to teach you how to think critically about the data and models that constitute evidence in the social and natural sciences.

Categories: science, transparency, student, research, framework, training, myth-bust,

The Northwest Climate Hub encompasses Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington. The purpose of the Hub is to deliver science-based knowledge and practical information to farmers, ranchers, forest landowners, and Native American tribes that will help them to adapt to climate change.

Categories: science, outreach, adaptation

The Hoonah Native Forest Partnership (HNFP) is a science-based, landscape scale, community forest approach to watershed planning and project implementation. The overall goal of the HNFP is to achieve a measurable and resilient blend of timber, salmon and deer production, local economic diversification and improved watershed health. The HNFP is one of southeast Alaska’s premiere all-lands, all-hands initiatives and our hopes is that this effort can be used as a model for other areas in the region.

Categories: science, community forest, watershed planning, implementation, natural resources, wildlife conservation, watershed health

The State of Alaska’s Salmon and People (SASAP) project is a collaboration of researchers, cultural leaders, and others working to bring together integrated, accurate, and up-to-date information that will help to support better salmon decision-making. SASAP’s mission is to create an equitable decision-making platform for all stakeholders by addressing data gaps in Alaska’s salmon system through information synthesis, collaboration and stakeholder engagement. This project is led by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) at the University of California, Santa Barbara and Nautilus Impact Investing (NII) in Anchorage, Alaska. SASAP is collaborating with and engaging leading experts at the University of Alaska in Fairbanks and Anchorage, indigenous leaders, and specialists across resource sectors.

Categories: salmon health, decision-making, information synthesis, data, stakeholder engagement, collaboration

The USDA Resource Guide for American Indians and Alaska Natives (AI/AN) was developed to provide tribal leaders and tribal citizens, 1994 Land-Grant Tribal Colleges and Universities, AI/AN businesses, and non-governmental organizations serving AI/AN communities with a tool for navigating USDA resources. The USDA programs and services available to members of American Indian and Alaska Native tribes are described in the following pages. This guide provides readers with a comprehensive summary of USDA Programs, separated into four categories: 1. Agriculture, Food Sovereignty, and Traditional Foods 2. Business and Community Development 3. Conservation and Forestry 4. Research, Extension, and Outreach 

Categories: resources, agriculture, food sovereignty, traditional foods, business and community development, conservation, forestry

The overarching vision is to maintain and strengthen the tribe’s safety, collective identity, social stability, and contribution to the region throughout the resettlement process. Traditional ways of life will be rekindled and reinforced with tribal members living in one community rather than scattered, as they are today - some on The Island and others living in surrounding villages and towns. The design and layout of the new community is inspired by the tala, Choctaw for palmetto, because of its symbolic and functional importance in the tribe’s traditional lifeways. A successful resettlement will integrate historical traditions, novel technologies, and state-of-the-art resilience measures to create proactive solutions for this time of change and into the future. These efforts will not only benefit the Isle de Jean Charles community, but will also inform other communities that decide to relocate as the most sensible response to increasing coastal environmental hazards. This effort of utilizing tradition roots, innovation, and teaching and sharing activities will further enhance tribal livelihoods and build upon their resilience and social capacity. The new site will be a self-sustaining, practical, affordable, living demonstration of a community-led resettlement, with residential, agriculture, agroforestry and aquaculture uses.

Categories: resettlement, climate change, adaptation, marine ecosystems, infrastructure, tribal lands

The 1994 Land-Grants often serve as the primary institution of scientific inquiry, knowledge and learning for reservation communities. This funding allows them to address the questions that matter to these communities such as protecting reservation forests or monitoring water quality. Projects may help a tribe improve bison herd productivity, discover whether traditional plants can play a role in managing diabetes or control invasive species. The grant's partnership requirement ensures that other federal and Land-Grant research entities can share resources and knowledge with these, the newest Land-Grants. In addition, this grant places an emphasis on training students in science.

Categories: reservation communities, science, research, tribal education, tribal colleges

Deadline is Ongoing. The Tribal College Extension grant program allows the 1994 Land-Grants to create extension offices for their reservation communities. Each extension office works with reservation communities to build programs that target local needs. The result is a diversified and targeted outreach. Reservation youth participate in fun activities in a safe environment. Farmers and ranchers gain science-based insights to improve their productivity. Financial literacy training enhances rural reservation economies. The 1994 Land-Grants also provide culture-centered family activities to restore Native languages, traditions and agriculture. Within this grant program are two types of funds: Capacity grants and Special Emphasis. Capacity grants fund an entire Extension office which can have many mission areas and clients. Special Emphasis are targeted, short-term pilot projects that allow Extension educators to explore new ways to better serve their community.

Categories: reservation communities, financial literacy training, education, culture, native languages, traditions, agrculture

Tribal Relations personnel facilitate work on research projects, forest and project planning, wildlife management, watershed restoration, cultural resource management, Tribal access and use, subsistence, biomass utilization, renewable energy, and many more topics and issues.

Categories: Research, Planning

The Climate Change Response Program provides basic science information on the effects of climate change, and describes the approach the NPS plans to take to manage uncertainty and potential impacts to NPS parks.

Categories: Research, Mitigation, Adaptation

The Food Access Research Atlas: Presents a spatial overview of food access indicators for low-income and other census tracts using different measures of supermarket accessibility; Provides food access data for populations within census tracts; and Offers census-tract-level data on food access that can be downloaded for community planning or research purposes.What can you do with the Atlas? Create maps showing food access indicators by census tract using different measures and indicators of supermarket accessibility; Compare food access measures based on 2015 data with the previous 2010 measures; View indicators of food access for selected subpopulations; and Download census-tract-level data on food access measures.

Categories: research, food accessibility, data, community planning

This Program Has Been Archived. ArcSEES is a multi-year, interdisciplinary program which seeks both fundamental research that improves our ability to evaluate the sustainability of the Arctic human-environmental system as well as integrated efforts which will provide community-relevant sustainability pathways and engineering solutions. For this competition, interdisciplinary research will be focused in four thematic areas: the natural and living environment, the built environment, natural resource development, and governance.

Categories: Research, Education, Natural Resources, Adaptation, Mitigation, Land, Coastal, Water, Conservation

Drought is one of the most costly natural disasters affecting the U.S.The National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) was established in 2006 (NIDIS Act) to help begin to move society from a reactive response to drought to a proactive stance. NIDIS was envisioned to be a dynamic and accessible drought information system that provides users with the ability to determine the potential impacts of drought and the associated risks they bring, and the decision support tools needed to better prepare for and mitigate the effects of drought.

Categories: Research, Education, Emergency Response

The U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP) coordinates and integrates federal research on changes in the global environment and their implications for society. Thirteen federal government Departments and Agencies participate in the USGCRP, which was known as the U.S. Climate Change Science Program from 2002 through 2008. The mission of the USCRP is to build a knowledge base that informs human responses to climate and global change through coordinated and integrated federal programs of research, education, communication, and decision support.

Categories: Research, Education

USDA/ERS is a primary source of economic information and research that conducts applied social science research, analyzes food and commodity markets, produces policy studies, and develops economic and statistical indicators involving food, farming, natural resources, and rural development.

Categories: research, economic analysis, social science, food and commodity, statistics, natural resources, rural development, mitigation

Seeds of Success (SOS) is the national native seed collection program, led by the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) in partnership with a variety of federal agencies and non-federal organizations. SOS’s mission is to collect wildland native seed for research, development, germplasm conservation, and ecosystem restoration. The long-term conservation outcome of the SOS program is to support BLM's Native Plant Materials Development Program, whose mission is to increase the quality and quantity of native plant materials available for restoring and supporting resilient ecosystems. Healthy ecosystems provide the essential ecological services upon which all life depends, including our own. Native plant communities provide the foundation for fish and wildlife habitat such as the sage grouse.

Categories: research, development, germplasm conservation, ecosystem restoration

Established in 1983, the Northeast Regional Climate Center (NRCC) is located in the Department of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at Cornell University. It serves the 12-state region that includes: Connecticut, Delaware, Massachusetts, Maryland, Maine, New Hampshire,
New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Vermont, and West Virginia. Major funding is provided through a contract with the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. The Center's staff works cooperatively with the National Climatic Data Center, the National Weather Service, state climate offices, and other interested scientists in the Northeast to acquire and disseminate accurate, up-to-date climate data and information.

Categories: Research, Climate Science

The Alaska Native Science Commission (ANSC) was established in 1994 to bring together research and science in partnership with the Native community. It serves as a clearinghouse for proposed research, an information base for ongoing and past research and an archive for significant research involving the Native community. ANSC provides information, referral and networking services for researchers seeking active partners in the Native community and communities seeking research partners.

Categories: research, clearinghouse, ethics

Welcome to the Current Research Information System (CRIS) web site. The Current Research Information System (CRIS) provides documentation and reporting for ongoing agricultural, food science, human nutrition, and forestry research, education and extension activities for the United States Department of Agriculture; with a focus on the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) grant programs. Projects are conducted or sponsored by USDA research agencies, state agricultural experiment stations, land-grant universities, other cooperating state institutions, and participants in NIFA-administered grant programs, including Small Business Innovation Research and Agriculture and Food Research Initiative. The Planning, Accountability, & Reporting Staff office of NIFA is responsible for maintaining CRIS.

Categories: research, agriculture, food science, human nutrition, forestry, education, NIFA

The Columbia River Inter-Tribal Fish Commission and its member tribes are aggressively addressing climate change and its effects on tribal fisheries and water resources, as well as other natural and cultural resources. There is an important need for the tribes to prepare for, mitigate and adapt natural resource programs and policies to manage the effects of climate change. CRITFC is supporting these efforts through collaboration, coordination and development of science and technology (i.e. conducting technical research on climate change impacts on tribal lands), and development and coordination of tribal mitigation and adaptation strategies and actions in state, federal and other venues.

Categories: Research, Adaptation, Mitigation, Fisheries

Using research and case studies from 2013, this report explores and attempt to determine the attribution of extreme climate effects to human influence. This research found that while events such as droughts and storms have been difficult to attribute to human-caused climate change, pattern heat waves can be connected to human-climate-influences.

Categories: Research

NOAA's research laboratories, Climate Program Office, and research partners conduct a wide range of research into complex climate systems and how they work. These scientists want to improve their ability to predict climate variation in both the shorter term, like cold spells or periods of drought, and over longer terms like centuries and beyond. NOAA researchers will continue their consistent and uninterrupted monitoring of the Earth's atmosphere that can give us clues about long-term changes in the global climate. The data collected worldwide by NOAA researchers aids our understanding of, and ability to forecast changes in, complex climatic systems.

Categories: Research

The National Oceanic & Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) is a national leader on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The Climate Program Office manages NOAA funding of high-priority climate science. The newly reorganized Climate Service will allow NOAA to provide a reliable and authoritative source for climate data, information, and decision support services and to more effectively coordinate with other agencies and partners.

Categories: Research

Earn visibility as a solar leader from the U.S. Department of Energy. SolSmart is a national recognition and a no-cost technical assistance program for local governments designed to drive greater solar deployment and help make it possible for even more American homes and businesses to access affordable and renewable solar energy to meet their electricity needs. The SolSmart designation program, coupled with robust and agile technical assistance, will spur communities across the country to earn recognition for achievements that distinguish them from their peers as they become more solar-friendly, and in doing so, ignite local solar markets while establishing consistency in solar practices across the country. SolSmart supports the goals of the SunShot Initiative to make it faster, cheaper, and easier to go solar.

Categories: Renewable Energy, Solar Energy, Infrastructure

The overarching aims of the project are to create and test a set of community-based indicators of indigenous health specific to Native American tribal communities in the Puget Sound/ Salish Sea region of the Pacific Northwest. Indigenous Health Indicators (IHIs) are necessary because current U.S. government public health regulations and policies are based on a position that views risks and impacts as objective measures of dose-response assessments and physiological morbidity or mortality outcomes but does not otherwise connect them to social or cultural beliefs and values integral to Native American definitions of health.

Categories: Public health, Tribal Health, TK, Environmental Health, Climate Change, data

The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) considers climate change to be one of the top public health challenges of our time. Our mission to protect the health and well-being of people in the United States depends on healthy and sustainable environments.

Categories: Public Health, climate change, resources, information

Climate change is one of the greatest public health challenges of the 21st century. The health impacts of climate change will affect us all, but will have a greater impact on disadvantaged communities and threaten the systems on which human life depends – our air, water, food, shelter and security. In response to this pressing public health issue, in 2010 the San Francisco Department of Public Health created its Climate and Health Program. Our Climate and Health Program is working to develop solutions to support healthy and climate-ready communities.

Categories: Public Health, climate change, air, water, food, shelter security, adaptation

The Public Health Working Group's task is to address cross-cutting issues related to climate change and health. The Working Group is responsible for providing public health input into the AB 32 implementation process, as well as other public health issues related to climate change mitigation and adaptation.

Categories: Public Health, climate change, adaptation, planning, mitigation

The Oregon Climate and Health Network will provide a forum for local public health practitioners and partners to stay connected and apprised of current climate science, health implications, and opportunities for action. It will serve as a forum for sharing information and best practices across various programmatic areas of public health. 

The network will include a list serve for e-mail communications and a quarterly conference call that will feature member updates and guest speakers. Oregon's Climate and Health program will manage the list serve and facilitate the conference calls. 
The network is open to all those who are interested and will include members in local health departments, other local agencies, state and non-profit partners. We expect members to work in various fields (including environmental health, emergency preparedness, chronic disease prevention, land use, transportation and natural resource planning, social services, etc.) and we also expect members to have different levels of experience and expertise. If you are interested in participating in the Oregon Climate and Health Network, contact Emily York at: emily.a.york@state.or.us

Categories: Public Health, Climate Adaptation, Collaborative Projects, Environmental Health, Emergency Preparedness, Chronic Disease Prevention, Land Use, Transportation, Natural Resource Planning, Social Services