A first-of-its-kind climate adaptation clinic in Salt Lake City last week brought together conservationists and scientists from 14 different countries with 20 projects.
Organized by The Nature Conservancy, the idea is to coordinate diverse conservation projects to equip Mother Earth and mankind to cope with the impacts of climate change.
"There's been plenty of attention put on the problems, but there's not been the direction to find the solutions," said Jon Hoekstra, the conservancy's managing director of climate change.
"The risks are real and significant," he added, "but changing our ways sooner than later means we have more options."
Hoekstra describes the clinic as cutting edge and hopes it will foster ideas to implement adaptation strategies from coastal projects like the northern reefs of Palau to the mountain project of Dugout Ranch on the Colorado Plateau in Utah.
Putting aside the often controversy-charged notion of reducing man-caused carbon emissions, the clinic instead focuses on what solutions exist to help nature and people buffer a warming climate.
"We want to make sure these stresses on the ecosystems are diminished — that we keep our rangelands, our forests, our waterways as healthy and as intact as possible. Just as a healthy person is able to resist an illness — if you are tired, run-down, you are more likely to get sick."
More than 100 "earth doctors" met for several days to exchange ideas, pose challenges for their projects and identify practical steps that can be taken to shore up the environment and humanity's "immune" systems to the impacts of increasing temperatures.
"I think society as a whole is beginning to recognize and appreciate that the environment is changing and it is affecting our lives," Hoekstra said.
Hoekstra, who has a doctorate in zoology, points to Seattle, the place where he makes his home. This summer was the city's hottest summer on record and was endured by ill-equipped residents.
He said that many residents there don't have air conditioning because Seattle just doesn't get that hot, Hoekstra said, or it isn't supposed to.
But severe weather events — drought, floods, hurricanes, wildfires — are a reality that must force land managers, government officials and others to find a way to prepare, and mitigate by helping nature recover, he said.
"I think the other thing that is happening is that in conservation is that we are beginning to recognize that we are not just about protecting nature," he said. "We are beginning to appreciate how our work, for example, in the upper part of protecting a watershed, is also important in protecting that water supply that runs downstream that communities rely on."
For more information on Hoekstra and the conservancy's climate adaptation initiative, go to www.nature.org/initiatives/climatechange/features/art26193.html
e-mail: amyjoi@desnews.com