The City of Ashland recently finalized its Climate and Energy Action Plan, which includes efforts to reduce greenhouse gas pollution and strategies to build local climate resilience. Despite its green ethic, Ashland struggled to determine the best way to approach climate change locally. What tools are most useful given our...
Author Archives: Geos Institute
Climate Issues on the DC Front
Dominick DellaSala, Ph.D – Chief Scientist at the Geos Institute I recently met with Congressional aides in the U.S. House and Senate to do my part at blocking the Trump Administration’s draconian budgetary cuts to science, popular wildlife and recreation programs. My message was simple – we need science and...
Building Climate Resilience in our Drinking Watersheds
Water is ground zero for climate change in the West. From more frequent and intense winter rainstorms to drier summers, extreme flooding and drought are often how we first experience the impacts of climate change. The good news is that we can reduce risks to people and wildlife by strengthening...
This Ain’t Your Grandma’s Climate Party
The Geos Institute, Oregon Shakespeare Festival, Rogue Climate, SOCAN, and Citizens Climate Lobby invite you to come out on Friday night, March 17th, to celebrate all of the great progress that has been made to halt climate change and to take action to keep that momentum up. Did you see...
We Have Two Big Reasons to Celebrate Here in Southern Oregon!
On January 12, southwest Oregon saw two major victories that protected nearly 150,000 acres of wildlands for climate change resilience, biodiversity, and clean water! South Kalmiopsis climate refuge protected for 20 years The federal government removed over 100,000 acres from the threat of industrial nickel mining! This region is one...
What’s Your Commitment to a Safe Climate?
As we come to the end of 2016, we have great concerns about the incoming Trump administration’s plans related to forests, rivers, and community-based resilience. In the first 100 days, President-elect Trump has promised to expand domestic fossil fuel production, move the Keystone Pipeline forward, cancel payments to the U.N...
Mother Nature Makes the Best Drinking Water
Fourteen years ago, the Geos Institute dedicated itself to helping salmon and steelhead reach their historic habitat in the Rogue River basin. For over 13 years, we helped coordinate the removal of dams on the main stem and fixed problematic irrigation diversions on tributaries so that native fish could once...
Whole Community Solutions to Climate Change
We are already seeing the impacts of climate change in the Rogue Valley. Temperatures have increased 2.5°F over the last century, and are expected to increase up to 11°F by the 2080s (from Oregon Climate Change Research Institute’s 2016 report). More frequent heat waves, smoky summers, and lower stream flows...
Public Forests Are Nature’s Lungs and Water Towers
Each and every day, our public forests cleanse the air we breathe, purify our drinking water, and nurture the wild things that make our region a great place to live, work, and play. Like a big sponge, older forests soak up and store massive amounts of atmospheric carbon in vegetation...
Geos Institute
If you have ever had a climate change conversation get away from you, you know how frustrating it can be. Here are three simple concepts that may help. Climate change is simple. The Earth is warming. We know this because we know that “greenhouse” gases (carbon dioxide and methane, for...