USU climate science program prepares students to blend management and policy - Utah Public Radio
USU climate science program prepares students to blend management and policy | Utah Public Radio
USU climate science program prepares students to blend management and policy
Utah State University's climate adaptation science program prepares graduate students to integrate science with management and policy.
Nancy Huntly, who recently retired as USU's ecology center director, has been a central part of the program since the beginning.
“Twice a year, the CAS program holds a meeting that we call a Science Management Policy Exchange," Huntly said. "They’re venues for exchange of information and ideas that involve scientists, managers, policymakers, and bring people together to put science to work in the world. “
The spring conference is held each February in the Moab Arts Center, where students get to explore and network with professionals throughout the Southwest.
“Our featured speakers at the exchange had in common collaboration with indigenous people. The ideas about how you collaborate with people who often haven't been included at the table apply much more widely," Huntly said.
Kari Norgaard, a professor of sociology from University of Oregon, spoke about her work with the Karuk tribe in Northern California and why she chooses to collaborate with this program.
“In particular, it's important for there to be applied knowledge getting out in the community and thinking about those relationships between science and policy [and] recovering narratives about survival and possibility in the future, especially in the context of climate change," Norgaard said.
For Stacia Ryder, an assistant professor in the department of sociology at USU, inclusion is the most important part of interdisciplinary meetings like this one.
“The big takeaways for me are always being really intentional and thinking about who is in the room when decisions are being made, and who might be excluded, but should be included and who is involved changes, what decisions are made and how they're made," Ryder said. "And sometimes exclusion is very intentional and sometimes it's very unintentional, but it really requires a focused effort to get that right.”
Related Knowledge Center: Climate economics
Climate change is now a driver of the world’s economy. The impact is profound:
- Catastrophic weather events — hurricanes, floods, droughts, high temperatures — are more frequent and more extreme. The cost can be measured in both the initial damage caused and the longer-term impact on the economy.
- Vulnerable communities are increasing climate-related investments, hardening infrastructure and taking other protective measures.
- Investment in carbon capture and storage technologies is increasingly rapidly.
- Governments are making investments and crafting regulations to reduce emissions of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases.
On top of all of this is the cost of uncertainty. As the Fourth National Climate Assessment, released in 2018 by the U.S. Global Change Research Program, says, “The assumption that current and future climate conditions will resemble the recent past is no longer valid.”