Fighting Climate Change on the Farm

FIREBAUGH, Calif. — Many farmers probably haven’t read the new report from the United Nations warning of threats to the global food supply from climate change and land misuse. But we don’t need to read the science — we’re living it.

Dead almond trees during a drought in
Coalinga in California’s Central Valley, 2015.

Here in the San Joaquin Valley, one of the world’s most productive agricultural regions, there’s not much debate anymore that the climate is changing. The drought of recent years made it hard to ignore; we had limited surface water for irrigation, and the groundwater was so depleted that land sank right under our feet.

Temperatures in nearby Fresno rose to 100 degrees or above on 15 days last month, which was the hottest month worldwide on record, following the hottest June ever. (The previous July, temperatures reached at least 100 degrees on 26 consecutive days, surpassing the record of 22 days in 2005.) The heat is hard to ignore when you and your crew are trying to fix a broken tractor or harvest tomatoes under a blazing sun. As the world heats up, so do our soils, making it harder to get thirsty plants the water they need.

Read the story from The New York Times by Alan San - “Fighting Climate Change on the Farm.”

The Science We Need for the Cities We Want.

The Science We need for the Cities We Want: Working together to implement the global research and action agenda on cities and climate change.

On March 7, 2018, On the last day the CitiesIPCC Cities and Climate Change Science Conference in Edmonton, 10 of the leading urban and scientific global organizations presented “The Science We Need for the Cities We Want: Working together to implement the global research and action agenda on cities and climate change” a joint statement describing how they will work together to support the implementation of the global research and action agenda on cities and climate change.

Relevant organizations interested in lending their support of this Joint Statement and the implementation of the global research and action agenda on cities and climate change are invited to contact us using the form below.  In your message,  please include a short statement on why your organization is interested in supporting the global research and action agenda on cities and climate change and ways you envision engaging in this initiative.

Read the full joint statement here - “The Science We Need for the Cities We Want.”