The Northwest Climate Resilience Collaborative, hosted at the UW Climate Impacts Group, is excited to launch our first-ever Science Justice Summer School. This two-week program for graduate students and postdoctoral fellows will dive into a range of justice-related topics through lectures, discussion groups and more. The Science Justice Summer School will run from July 10 to […]
By Addie Candib and Chantel Welch, American Farmland Trust Given ambitious state and federal goals for reducing greenhouse gas emissions, the pace of solar energy development is accelerating rapidly in the Pacific Northwest, placing significant pressure on the region’s agricultural land and its stewards. According to a US Department of Energy study, by 2050, 90% […]
By David I. Gustafson, Adjunct Research Faculty at Washington State University This article is part of a series, Climate Friendly Fruit & Veggies, highlighting work from the Fruit & Vegetable Supply Chains: Climate Adaptation & Mitigation Opportunities (F&V CAMO) project, a collaborative research study co-led by investigators at the University of Florida and the Agriculture & Food […]
By Karen Hills Models suggest that climate change in our region will involve an annual temperature increase of 3-4°F by the 2050’s, accompanied by changes in precipitation patterns, including drier summers despite a 5-15% increase in annual precipitation (Kruger et al. 2017). Even with this information, uncertainty still exists about what climate change will mean […]
By Karen Hills Though severe erosion can quickly deplete topsoil, rebuilding topsoil is an extremely difficult and slow process, so conserving this resource is imperative. Soil erosion is one of the biggest challenges in agricultural production in the inland Pacific Northwest. Conventional tillage can lead to soil degradation and erosion by wind and water, which […]
By Karen Hills It is human nature to be entranced by the latest electronic gadget that is promised to make our lives easier. Sometimes gadgets really do help us, and other times this help is counterbalanced by the hours spent trying to troubleshoot when things go wrong. Because I’m not really a “gadget person” by […]
By Karen Hills Diversifying crop rotations is a key strategy used to break pest and disease cycles and improve yields. But in the driest areas of the Pacific Northwest the low precipitation amounts limit the diversification strategies that are feasible. These areas have some of the least diverse cropping systems in the region, often with […]
By Georgine Yorgey Reprinted from: WSU CSANR Perspectives on Sustainability Those of us who have been watching the drought conditions in the Yakima Watershed of Eastern Washington got a welcome bit of news on Wednesday: significant precipitation. Cliff Mass, from the University of Washington, did a nice job of summarizing the latest, and explaining why […]
By David Schmidt Reprinted from: Animal Ag I am in Seattle this week attending the Waste to Worth conference. A great conference and a beautiful city!! Part of the sponsorship of this conference is through this Animal Ag and Climate Change Project. As such, many of the lectures and keynotes have been highlighting the interconnectedness […]