Climate Change Strategy for the Pacific Northwest Region, USDA Forest Service

1. Climate Change Strategy for the Pacific Northwest Region, USDA Forest Service Tom DeMeo Regional Ecologist Acting Climate Change Coordinator

2. USDA Strategic Plan • Strategic Goal 2 – Ensure our national forests and private working lands are conserved, restored, and made more resilient to climate change, while enhancing our water resources. • Objective 2.2 – Lead efforts to mitigate and adapt to climate change • Performance measure 2.2.3- Percent of National Forests in compliance with a climate change adaptation and mitigation strategy.

3. National Roadmap for Responding to Climate Change USDA Forest Service July 2010

5. Agency Capacity • Employee education • Designated climate change coordinators • Develop program guidelines and training Mitigation and Sustainable Consumption Assess and manage carbon Reduce environmental footprint Partnership and Education Integrate science and management Develop partnerships USFS Response to Climate Change • Adaptation • Assess Vulnerability • Set Priorities • Monitor Change

6. Regional strategy with seven major points: • Improving climate change awareness and literacy • Vulnerability assessment • Adaptation strategy • Monitoring • Guidance to field • Collaboration • Sustainable Operations

7. Strategy with seven major points: • Improving climate change awareness and literacy Survey: 42% of Forest Service employees either don’t believe the climate is changing, or that there is nothing we can do about it This probably reflects views of the general public

8. Strategy with seven major points: • Improving climate change awareness and literacy Social science tells us: • Public is arrayed in groups from “urgent action needed” to “active opposition” • You can influence the groups in the middle • Environment is never a top issue with the public at large • Interest in the climate change issue waxes and wanes (Credit: Suzanne Moser, consultant)

9. Strategy with seven major points: • Improving climate change awareness and literacy Social science tells us DON’T • Scare people. They will give up. 2. Think providing more information is sufficient (the information deficit paradigm). People receive information through cultural, political, and experience filters. Don’t underestimate how strong these are.

10. Strategy with seven major points: • Improving climate change awareness and literacy Social science tells us DO • Embrace “reasonable hope” • Move the discussion away from “them, there, then” to “us, here, now” • Show people a reasonable pathway to success

11. Strategy with seven major points: • Improving climate change awareness and literacy Examples of reasonable hope: Consider recycling, hybrid cars, organic gardening, reusable grocery bags, and the local food movement Not so long ago all these were considered fringe ideas; now they are mainstream. Practical education and incentives brought this about.

12. Strategy with seven major points: • Reasonable hope for climate change: 1. Show people they can save money. Example: home solar panels in Oregon 2. Show the numbers for carbon saved by using local food 3. Show how land use laws improve their quality of life ….Making it “us, here, now”

13. Strategy with seven major points: • Vulnerability assessment • Adaptation strategy • Monitoring

14. Strategy with seven major points: • Vulnerability assessment --Development underway --Interim products by the spring of 2011 --Final products in the fall of 2011

15. Strategy with seven major points: • Vulnerability assessment --Terrestrial --Aquatic --Socio-economic

16. DRAFT Terrestrial

21. Strategy with seven major points: • Adaptation strategy • Monitoring --Following the vulnerability assessment, develop these two together --Will probably involve expert panels

22. Strategy with seven major points: • Adaptation strategy The best adaptation strategy is a well-thought out and defensible restoration strategy --Need (active or passive) --Efficacy --Public support

23. Strategy with seven major points: • Guidance to field --Field wants to know: - What do we do about climate change? - Show us the game plan.

24. Strategy with seven major points: • Guidance to field --”What’s the plan?” --Carbon accounting --Vulnerability assessment --Restoration priorities

25. Strategy with seven major points: • Collaboration --Necessary but not sufficient --Moving beyond talk to specific projects can be difficult --People protect their interests; reduce anxieties --Be specific about what you are asking them to contribute, and what they will gain

26. Strategy with seven major points: • Sustainable Operations --Reducing fleet fuel use, more energy-efficient buildings, teleconferences.

27. Any mule can kick a barn down, but only a carpenter can build one. --Sam Rayburn