It Starts With a Question: “How Will Climate Change Impact the Next Four (or Five) Years?"

November 3, 2008

I think it’s safe to say that most people living in the United States can agree that we need to reduce our dependence on foreign oil. But perhaps what we really need to agree upon is a reduction in our consumption of energy, especially nonrenewable energy that contributes an inordinate amount of CO2 to the atmosphere, thereby contributing to global warming. Either way you look at it, there is going to be a diverse group of people gathering this week from the DC-MD-VA area who want to play a part in finding solutions to the climate crisis, and I am proud to be one of them.

Over the next week, I’ll be participating in the HSBC/Earthwatch Institute Climate Change Fellowship as part of a five-year project going on in five countries. Along with ten other participants from all walks of life, I’ll be given an opportunity to get out of my desk chair (wohoo!) and get dirty, learning and experiencing first hand some of the field techniques and quantitative scientific approaches being used to monitor the effect that our changing climate and human-related activities have on temperate and tropical forests. The project itself is entitled: “Sustainable Forest Management in a Changing Climate.”

Our particular field site is located at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center, a forested area around Edgewater, Maryland, right in the heart of the Chesapeake Bay watershed. The other forest field sites being studied as part of this global project are located in Brazil, India, England and China. Beyond tasting a piece of the science behind our changing climate, this week we’ll also discuss several themes surrounding it, including the cultural perceptions of climate change, its socio-economic impact and meeting the challenges of the future.

It may be a week in the woods, but this is no ordinary week. Getting to experience real fieldwork and brainstorm solutions that may help mitigate the effects of climate change on our planet is one thing. Getting to experience it in the middle of a presidential election is quite another. Many scientists and other climate change experts agree that our window of opportunity to change our current course for the better is very narrow, and considering that the United States’ portion of global Carbon Dioxide (CO2) emissions is quite large as a whole (let alone per capita), it’s going to take great leadership at the helm to ensure that we find a myriad of alternatives to the status quo – and encourage other world leaders to do the same. Our entire week will be framed by the results of this historic presidential election, and it will be exciting to see how those results add fuel to our discussions.

Each member of our team has his or her own stake in what happens to our warming planet – whether for personal or professional reasons – and we each want to do something about it. I am representing The National Geographic Society, in part, because of my work as a member of our Green Initiative’s subcommittee on Employee Practices. Building upon our mission of increasing and diffusing geographic knowledge, National Geographic also seeks to inspire people to care about the planet. In order to speak to the public through our media on issues like climate change, it is necessary for our staff to embody that mission.

With the idea that our organization’s carbon footprint should continue to be refined and reduced, our Employee Practices subcommittee has decided to focus on how our employees get to work in the first place. As a result, we developed an event called ECOmmuting Awareness Day for National Geographic staff at our headquarters in Washington, DC. For the last two years, our ECOmmuting Awareness Day has been organized into four sections: Biking, Driving, Flexible Work Options and Public Transportation. In a fun forum, we’ve managed to create a successful and replicable event that has provided a plethora of transportation-related resources to our over 1400 staff, educating them about alternative ways to get to work with the goal of increasing their health and well-being and ultimately reducing our overall CO2 emissions.

For our efforts in implementing and marketing ECOmmuting Awareness Day to our staff, National Geographic received the Washington Council of Governments Commuter Connections Award in June 2008. This team-oriented and carbon-reducing approach is what I hope to bring to the discussions with my fellow climate change stakeholders this week as we share best practices from our respective organizations and communities.

Furthermore, we’re working from a blank canvas. As members of the North American (MD) team, we’ve been told that we'll be the first to get together and brainstorm ideas for community-level solutions to the climate crisis, projects that will connect our newfound understanding of the science behind climate change to the ways in which we can reduce our impact on it. As the team from the United States, we’re setting the precedent for this global five-year project, and the symbolism is not lost on me.

With so much at stake in this election and in our changing climate, I am eager and excited to start my week of scientific learning and collaboration. The next four (or five) years depends on it.

Danielle Williams