Events

In the face of accelerating climate disruption, the Columbia Climate School is committed to helping communities become more resilient through a number of methodologies, including directed action, consistent with the university’s “fourth purpose” of advancing human welfare and confronting the great challenges of our time. This seminar will illustrate how scientific research and analysis, coupled with directed action, can improve public policy outcomes in climate and related areas.

Examples of LDEO’s long record of support for directed action will be provided, focusing most particularly on cases involving water quality and microplastics sampling in the Hudson River Estuary, which helped drive important new clean water legislation and funding at the state level. Some typical elements of successful directed action will be presented, such as whether the project team is able to: acquire sufficiently robust and reliable data to allow for the development of effective policy solutions; establish equitable and just partnerships with community and advocacy stakeholders committed to solving the problem at hand; develop public awareness both that there is a problem and that a solution is available; and, form effective partnerships with the public officials empowered to take meaningful action.

Finally, the directed action goals of the Climate School’s newly-established “Resilient Coastal Communities Project'' (RCCP) will be discussed.  The RCCP, which launched on November 1 under the auspices of the Center for Sustainable Urban Development, will address the growing threats to coastal communities and ecosystems presented by storm surge, sea level rise and extreme precipitation, utilizing a collaborative, supradisciplinary approach based on scientific research, community engagement, teaching and innovation, in order to help establish just, innovative, locally initiated and readily fundable strategies for protecting our coastal communities and ecosystems.