Climate Change Conference

. . . this week one of the things I've been excited about checking out has been a great conference happening over at the Embarcadero Hyatt. You can find out more and check out some of the presentation materials for yourself on their website (click the box) and even see some of the sessions here. The ones that I've seen have been some pretty top notch work by folks mostly at the Fish & Wildlife Service, and the US Geological Survey, which stands to reason as they're the hosts of the event. And what gracious hosts they are, the conference is free so I'll not complain about the lack of coffee . . . I'll try and update a bit more as the day two progresses.

Day Two

Climate Change Session:

• Tim Doherty from the San Francisco Bay Conservation & Development Commission, presented on what climate change means for the Bay Area.

• Dolan Eversole, from the University of HI discussed what sort of planning & policy initiatives are taking place in Hawai'i given the implications of sea level rise (powerpoint) (not good, the implications not the initiatives).

• the next presentation was interesting, in that it came from the tourism sector. David Edgell & Carolyn McCormick described what that sector's take on the climate change issue is. Given that a) it is such a large sector & b) so much of it takes place in areas that are susceptible to climate change, it was an interesting voice adding some diversity to the discussion.

• Meghan Higgins (big ups) had some very interesting points on what sea level rise means when it comes to the legal aspects of how we define the coast, ownership issues, etc. etc.
  

Land & Watershed session:

• I didn't stay long for this one because it was largely a lot of geology, some of which went clear over my head. However, the session was titled Starving the Pacific Coast Beaches of California, Oregon, and Washington, and there were (to me anyway) a couple of shockers provided by Orville Magoon & Co., namely that sand & gravel mining contribute to over half of the sediment loss on our western coastlines.
  

I then ran to the Effective Intergration* session:

• Danielle Bamford had a presentation on the use of Participatory GIS. The NOAA CSC Habitat Priority Mapper seems like a great tool and I'd be neat to see how it is used by future projects.
  
• Mara Dias (mp3 interview) shared the efforts of the Surfrider Foundation's Blue Water Task Force.
  

• Susan Lovelace discussed the differences in attitudes and knowledge between decision makers and stakeholders along coastal communities, and how this disconnect is making our jobs as coastal planners & managers that much more difficult.

Land & Watershed session (pt.2)

• Began with some interesting conclusions drawn by the research of Jeffrey Onsted on the effectiveness of the California Coastal Act.
  
• Wes Shaw gave a great presentation on his work within the Massachusetts "StormSmart Coasts" Program. I, unfortunately didn't manage to catch up with Wes during the conference but think everybody should take note of his presentation particularly his points about making material and resources interesting, useful and pertinent to stakeholders.

Conference (cont'd)

Day One (finally)-

International perspectives session:

• Midori Kawabe discussed the interesting situation of a coast in Japan, and what locals do in light of no centralized ICZM system.
• Arwen Edsall, over at NOAA's International Program Office gave a really interesting presentation on her work in Guyana.
• Roche Mahon spoke about the Grande Anse Bay, Grenada experience during Hurricane Ivan and the Carribean Disaster Emergency Response Agency (CDERA) work there after the event.
• AND Mark Rauscher did a fellow Surfrider Foundation member a real solid by presenting some of their work on erosion of beaches in New South Wales

Social Equity Session (to be honest, I didn't catch this in its entirety, but what I did see was really good):

• Robert Atanasio covered some of the work that he did in Bocas Del Toro, Panama concerning fishing communities & resource use.

• Kristina Peterson & Rosina Phillipe also gave a great presentation on how a community in the Louisiana Bayou, came together after the Katrina disaster to rebuild their economy & community into something stronger and more resilient than what was there before.

"How's your blog doing?"

. . . a friend of mine asked me that question recently and I winced when I heard it. The truth is that I've been really busy with a whole host of things in the last couple months that have kept me from focusing much energy on the site . . . and yet, I can't help but feel that there's been alot of changes recently that will make an official launch of the site much more likely in the very near future . . . the very near distant future (to be on the safe side) . . .

I have moved to California (the whole state) and am currently attending TCS 21. It's only the end of Day One, and already I've met a great group of folks and sat in on some pretty interesting sessions. Dr. Geraldine Knatz kicked off the conference with a really great talk about some of the innovative approaches that the Port of Los Angeles is taking to make their operations (and the whole of the LA basin) a bit greener. . . no, make that a whole lot greener. Some of their projects seemed pretty darn innovative, and certainly readjusted my understanding of just how "green" ports could be.

With that as a kick off, it was easy to be in a hopeful mood heading into the rest of the day. Due to the fact that I have to be back in the fray in another eight hours I'm not going to get into the rest of Day One right now. But I'll definitely be posting more about the conference in the next couple of days . . .

. . . In contrast to last year, my name badge now reads Coastopolis.com at the bottom of it and quite a few folks have mentioned that the idea seems like a good one. I'm still looking for a good tag line to describe the whole thing but if you're reading this I might have explained the concept to you already. Anyway, what I wanted to say, to anybody that I've discussed the idea with (or for anybody that I speak to in the near future), is that your ideas and/or encouragement are invaluable. The more I hear that it seems like a good idea, and the more ideas that I receive for its growth, the more likely that the product in the future will become a useful resource for varied sectors of the coastal equation . . . hmm, I like that. That's mine. I just googled it and didn't find anything pertinent so I'm officially coining the phrase and there's my tagline . . . Coastopolis.com - providing an online portal for varied sectors of the coastal equation.

. . . or something to the effect. See you at Day Two.

Coastal Zone 07

This week I'm attending Coastal Zone 07 in Portland, OR and will more than likely be covering my experience on these pages to see how it goes. I attended this biennial conference in 2003 in Baltimore, MD and it had a great impact on my choice in "careers" . . . where else do people attend professional conferences in shorts, hawaiian shirts and flip flops? That wasn't the only thing that I came away with from the experience, however. CZ03 was definitely a big push in convincing me that I could find really satisfying work in the "coastal zone." While four years ago I attended not knowing all that much about the field and being pretty naive about how things worked, I look forward to approaching this year's conference with a slightly more sophisticated outlook and the possibility of making contacts and working on leads toward, dare I say it, gainful employment. Furthermore, I'm going to kind of float the idea of Coastopolis and see how it is received with people, and potentially make some friends that would be willing to help with content and/or development. We'll see how successful I am. I wish that I had much more completed on the site to show to people, but these last couple of weeks have proven slightly less productive than I would have liked. Prehaps tonight I can add a bit more content and/or spruce up some of the pages and have a bit more to offer than what is currently up.

Anyway, I just checked in to the HI where I'm staying and am headed down to the conference center to register now. We'll see how it goes.