Attention: Your regular Adaptation Maven broadcast has been interrupted to bring you this update…your opinion is needed!

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This year the Mavens are offering you some unsolicited advice— Read more »

Dear Mavens,

I’m all for this virtual world of ours, and I love that I can go to CAKE to find all kinds of cool adaptation examples and enthusiasts. I love that there are a growing number of on-line communities of practice related to adaptation, and some emerging on-line collaboration spaces like the Adaptation Collaboratory.

The thing is, despite all of this virtual interaction, I still feel lonely. I would LOVE to get together with lots of creative, energized people from a diversity of backgrounds to just, you know, hang around and develop brilliant adaptation ideas, share our collective wisdom, and develop BAFFs (Best Adaptation Friends Forever). There have been a couple of really interesting-sounding adaptation meetings over the past few years (Adaptation 2011, National Climate Adaptation Summit 2010), but they were invite-only. It would be great to have similar meetings that are open to newbies like me, still has all those brilliant experienced adaptationists, and invites a slew of humble municipal planners and managers of all stripes.

Do you know of any such opportunities? I’m ready to make the move from being a virtual adaptation onlooker to real-world adaptation practitioner.

Lonely in “Laramie”

Dear Lonely,

You’re in luck! At this very moment, people are coming together to plan EXACTLY the kind of event you’re looking for. It’s the first National Adaptation Forum (NAF): Action today for a better tomorrow. The goals of NAF are to: Read more »

Dear Mavens,

I live on the beautiful shores of Lake Erie. We’ve long ago cleaned up problems like the burning Cuyahoga River, and we’re learning how to live with challenges like invasive zebra mussels, but now climate change is contributing to the return of a problem we thought we’d gotten under control—algal blooms. I worry what this will mean for our community. Any thoughts?

Sincerely,

Worried on the Water (a.k.a. Tom Fuhrman)

Dear WoW,

Although photosynthesis fuels much of life on Earth, harmful algal blooms are a troubling event when they become primary production gone bad. The mavens have spent quite a bit of time in places like the Gulf Coast and Puget Sound where algal blooms have meant not only diminished water quality and beach closures, but bad air quality, inability by native peoples to engage in culturally important activities, and economic losses due to closed shellfish harvest too.

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