SEFS Associate Professor Greg Ettl was featured in a Seattle Times article about redwood forests in the Pacific Northwest. As drier conditions, rising temperatures, and wildfire impact native tree species in the region, coast redwoods may become more common due to their decay-, fire- and disease-resistant nature. In UW’s Pack Forest, Ettl leads ongoing studies comparing the growth of coast redwoods and Douglas fir. He is working to understand how redwood seedlings fare in conditions that are less common on California’s coast, such as drought and under frost. He is also looking to survey the coast redwoods and Douglas firs growing alongside each other across the state to compare their growth rates under different conditions and soil types.
SEFS associate professor studies impact of changing snow conditions on predatory-prey interactions
In a warming climate, changing snow conditions and consistency could play a notable role in how predators hunt prey. SEFS associate professor Laura Prugh is working with UW professor of civil and environmental engineering Jessica Lundquist to measure snow properties that led to a “danger zone,” where prey would sink but predators would not.
Their research was featured in a UW News article and video highlighting findings from a recent publication.
SEFS researchers awarded climate change planning grants
The Population Health Initiative announced today the award of a dozen planning grants to University of Washington researchers to support the launch of new climate-focused collaborations
Congratulations to SEFS researchers Sameer Shah, Jonathan Bakker, Heidi Gough, Joshua Lawler, who were among the 12 teams awarded $10,000 grants to support the launch of new projects ranging from net zero emissions to native plant production to wastewater reuse.
Dr. Vera Trainer awarded the Seattle Aquarium Conservation Research Award
As a local and international leader in the field, Dr. Trainer was awarded the Seattle Aquarium Conservation Research Award this month for her work on understanding harmful algal blooms (HABs): proliferations of algae that cause environmental and economic damage. Dr. Trainer joined SEFS last month as research lead for the Olympic Natural Resources Center marine science program and director of the Olympic Region Harmful Algal Bloom (ORHAB) program in Forks, WA.
The Seattle Aquarium Conservation Research Award honors leaders and innovators in marine conservation research, with a particular focus on climate change, plastic pollution, sustainable fisheries and tourism, marine protected areas, and socioeconomics. Fellow honoree Governor Jay Inslee was awarded the Sylvia Earle Medal for his leadership in addressing climate action and ocean health.
2018 Sustaining Our World Lecture: Jonathan Foley
Guest Post by Daniel S. Feinberg, SEFS Staff Assistant and Ph.D. Candidate
On Thursday, April 26, SEFS had the pleasure of hosting Dr. Jonathan Foley, executive director of the California Academy of Sciences, for the annual Sustaining Our World Lecture, along with a variety of other activities throughout the day. Dr. Foley studies global sustainability and is one of the most cited environmental scientists in the world.
Dr. Foley’s visit began with an informal lunch and discussion that touched on topics such as the accessibility (or lack thereof) of scientific journals, as well as the need for scientists to inspire children from under-represented communities. He also expressed his appreciation for the intersection of science and art, which manifests itself through exhibits at the California Academy. Following the discussion, Dr. Foley spent the afternoon in individual meetings with faculty members to explore shared interests and potential opportunities for collaboration.
Although Dr. Foley began his lecture with examples of pressing environmental problems (e.g., methane pollution from cows), he went on to offer corresponding solutions (e.g., eating less red meat). He described the perceived state of political polarization in the U.S. and its implications for climate change, noting that many Americans are actually undecided and might still be swayed to support or oppose climate action.
Dr. Foley described himself as having hope for the future, without being blindly optimistic; he stressed that we (i.e., humans) must take it upon ourselves to create a better world, rather than waiting for an invisible hand to correct our errors. The California Academy’s Planet Vision initiative provides specific guidance for how we can start to make changes in our day-to-day lives.
The evening concluded with dinner at Ivar’s Salmon House, where a combination of faculty, staff, students, alumni, and friends continued the conversation with Dr. Foley. As one of the students who attended the dinner, I had the chance to learn about various environmental career paths, such as academia and the non-profit sector. In addition to the extra time with Dr. Foley, I appreciated being able to chat with SEFS faculty outside of the classroom.
Watch the full UWTV recording of Dr. Foley’s 2018 Sustaining Our World Lecture here.
Climate Change Video Awards: Watch the Winning Videos!
At the conclusion of our second UW Climate Change Video Contest, we screened the 10 finalists at an awards show on Saturday, May 14, at Town Hall in downtown Seattle. We now have the winning videos uploaded and ready to share, and we invite you to enjoy the creativity and vision of the top three entries in each category—high school and undergraduate—all three minutes or shorter!
High School
First Place: Yuna Shin
Henry M. Jackson High School
Second Place: Naveen Sahi, Vibha Vadlamani, Allison Tran and Suraj Buddhavarapu
Nikola Tesla STEM High School
Third Place: Luke Brodersen
Shorewood High School
Undergraduate
First Place: Tommy Tang and Audrey Seda
UW-Bothell and Eastern Washington University
Second Place: Charles Johnson, Ben Jensen and Anthony Whitfield
University of Washington
Third Place: Aaron Hecker
University of Washington
Director’s Message: Winter 2015
Last weekend, I woke up early and pored over newspapers and websites looking for a place to ski with my sons. I was extremely disappointed to see rain again forecasted for Snoqualmie Pass, with more rain predicted in the next two days, all the way up to 6,000 feet. A few ski areas were open, but those that were had limited runs available, or the conditions were icy and ragged and threatened to tear up your skis. Another time of year, such a soggy forecast would be welcome news. But it was a grim outlook for the first weekend in January.
As an avid alpine and Nordic skier, I am acutely aware of the poor early-season snow conditions that have plagued the Pacific Northwest since my family moved here in 2012. As a natural scientist, I am also keenly aware of the complexities of regional weather patterns, and I have to resist the temptation to ascribe all poor ski conditions to a warming climate. At the same time, climate change is predicted to bring warmer, wetter winters to the region, and the existing conditions at Snoqualmie Pass are bearing that out. I know some might chide me and argue that a shortened ski season is hardly cause for global panic. Yet the effects of our warmer winters will eventually ripple throughout the natural resources sector, threatening forest productivity, widespread insect outbreaks, stand-replacing fires, mudslides and all sorts of critical wildlife habitat, including salmon-spawning streams.
I couldn’t sleep later that night, and I found myself thinking about personal responsibility and how we can inspire collective action. Scientists have long understood and attempted to communicate the risks of CO2 emissions from fossil fuel burning, and the links between our behavior and climate change are very real and well-documented. Yet after decades of trying to build awareness, we have largely failed to move the voting public or our elected leaders to take determined action. During the holidays, I even read several reports that the recent downturn in gasoline prices has spurred higher sales of larger, fuel-consumptive vehicles. This type of short-term thinking reflects the gulf between what we’re constantly warned about climate change, and how we actually react as citizens.
The most frustrating part for me is wondering why these warnings won’t stick, so maybe we need to rethink our approach. Maybe we need to change the message. Or maybe we just need to change who is delivering the message and give prominent voice to younger generations—the future leaders who will inherit and confront the greatest impacts of climate change.
With that goal in mind, this year we are trying a new approach to addressing the climate issue. Rather than asking our scientists to tell a story of modeled predictions of a warming climate, we are hosting a video contest that challenges high school and college students in the state of Washington with a simple prompt: What does climate change mean to you? In the space of three minutes or less, they can approach the issue through virtually any artistic style. How to make this climate message resonate on a personal and actionable level, after all, is all that matters at this point.
So I’m really looking forward to seeing how students frame this issue. I’m excited to see what inspiration and ideas we can draw from them in communicating—and solving—the enormous environmental challenges ahead of us.
I’ll keep eyeing the forecast and hoping for more snow, of course, but always in the much broader context of achieving a sustainable balance with a changing climate and world.
Happy trails,
Tom DeLuca
School of Environmental and Forest Sciences
Alumni Spotlight: Cassie Gamm
Last week, we caught up with SEFS alumna Cassie Gamm, who graduated as an ESRM major in 2012 and is now in her first year as a master’s student at the University of Alaska Anchorage. She had taken a year off school to research graduate programs, including options in Montana and Colorado, but she had always wanted to live in Alaska. So when she found an exciting opportunity to work with Professor Patrick Sullivan and study ecosystem CO2 exchange in the Arctic—a position fully funded by the National Science Foundation—she jumped at the chance.
Gamm, who grew up near Snohomish, Wash., drove up to Anchorage this past August and spent the fall taking classes. She had never been to Alaska before, and she’s loved exploring the trails that snake throughout the city, as well as the proximity to the mountains.
At the university, working with the Sullivan Lab in the Environment and Natural Resources Institute, Gamm’s current research focuses on the dynamics of plant respiration in three dominant Arctic species in Southwest Greenland.
In the context of climate change, in particular, she’s investigating how warming temperatures and longer summer growing seasons will impact the ecosystem. Will increased leafy area with expanding shrub growth lead to more photosynthesis, making the region a carbon sink? Or will the thawing permafrost release more carbon than the new greenery will store? Great questions, and they’ve launched her down a new and challenging scientific path.
“Going to UW and the forestry school, we focused on big trees and studying ecosystems on a landscape scale,” says Gamm. “Coming up here to the Arctic, I’m now studying ecology more on a molecular level with respiration and photosynthesis. It’s been a big learning curve, but it’s also been really interesting to study a whole new ecosystem!”
In the Field
As for that new ecosystem, Gamm already completed her first field season in Greenland last summer. The field camp, made up of 8 to 12 researchers in tents, is about a mile from the Greenland ice sheet, and about 20 miles from the nearest town. There’s no running water, and they use water from a nearby lake for drinking and dish washing. The team shares a car to drive into town about once a week to access the Internet, take showers and buy any food they can find. Most of what they eat—lots of pasta and oatmeal, for instance—gets prepped and mailed out in boxes beforehand. And there’s not much locally in the way of fresh produce—maybe a potato or onion every once in a while—so cravings for fruits and veggies can get overwhelming.
“Oh man, it takes a toll on your body,” she says. “We’d talk about making gigantic salads all the time!”
Still, despite the stresses and privations of remote field work on the tundra, Gamm has taken to the research with gusto. “I’d never been to Alaska, let alone the Arctic,” she says, “and it’s awesome!”
In fact, in case the Greenland experience sounds equally intriguing to you, Gamm is currently looking for a field assistant to join her out there this coming summer for roughly two months from late May to late August. You have until March 1 to apply, and there are quite a few perks, from the incredible hands-on research experience to getting to live in and explore a stunning Arctic ecosystem. That said, Gamm doesn’t soft-pedal the field conditions and expectations, so make sure to read the official posting and description below as carefully—and honestly—as possible before applying!
Ecosystem Ecology Field Assistant, Southwest Greenland
A field research assistant position is available for the summer of 2014 in Southwest Greenland. The field assistant will be working on a project funded by the National Science Foundation to study the differential responses of grasses and shrubs (i.e. cycling of carbon and nitrogen) to a changing climate. The project is a collaborative effort between the University of Alaska Anchorage (Sullivan Lab) and Penn State University (Post and Eissenstat Labs). I am seeking a motivated and enthusiastic student with previous field experience. The research assistant will work one-on-one with me on my project examining both above and belowground carbon fluxes in grasses and shrubs. Duties will include taking accurate baseline measurements such as soil moisture and soil temperature, processing plant samples, data entry and operation of a Picarro isotopic gas analyzer. Experience with gas analysis is not required, but willingness to learn and troubleshoot technical issues is preferred. The field season will run from late May through late August. The fieldwork is based out of a tent camp about 20 miles from Kangerlussuaq, Greenland. Visits to town, which offers a wide range of amenities, will be made approximately once per week. Due to the remoteness of the tent camp, extensive camping experience and willingness to endure periods of poor weather is required. We are particularly interested in hiring college juniors or seniors who may be interested in pursuing graduate research in Arctic or Boreal ecology.
Travel from upstate New York to Kanger via the Air National Guard will be covered, as well as basic camping gear such as a tent and sleeping pad. The summer will be spent camping with a small group of researchers at a scenic site on the tundra about one mile from the ice sheet. Applicants should be physically fit and willing to learn and work as a team. A weekly stipend will be provided and compensation is dependent on experience level.
Please email a resume and cover letter to Cassie Gamm (cmgamm@alaska.edu). Review of applications will begin March 1 and will continue until the position has been filled.
Photos © Cassie Gamm.
UW Students Press for Divestment
A group of University of Washington (UW) students—led by the College Greens and the Student Association for Green Environments (SAGE)—is calling on the University to divest its endowment from fossil fuels and take concrete action against climate change.
Two students leading the charge of the “Divest UW” campaign are Sarra Tekola from the School of Environmental and Forest Sciences and Robert Marsh from the Program on the Environment. They and other supporters are running a petition and gathering further backing, on top of their endorsement from the ASUW Student Senate, in the run-up to a presentation before the UW Board of Regents on Thursday, June 13, at 12:30 p.m., and a simultaneous rally on the HUB lawn. Regents meetings are open to the public, and organizers are hoping to pack the room to exercise their political voice as students in favor of divestment.
What is divestment? Championed by Bill McKibben and 350.org on the national scale, the divestment movement seeks to effect broad social change by shifting investment away from fossil fuel companies and other direct drivers of climate change. McKibben is widely known for his “Do the Math” tour, during which he traveled the country stressing that if we’re going to keep global temperatures rising less than 2°C, then we can only allow about 565 gigatons more CO2 into the atmosphere in the next four decades or so before reaching a tipping point, after which life as we know it will be fundamentally altered. However, says Tekola, the amount of carbon contained in the proven coal, oil and gas reserves of national oil companies and private corporations is about five times higher than that—roughly 2,796 gigatons—and burning all of it would have disastrous results.
The Divest UW campaign, in turn, is focusing on the UW’s reputation for environmental sustainability and stewardship—and how taking a stand on divestment would make a huge statement about the importance of investing in a cleaner energy future right now.
It’s true, says Tekola, that the UW’s direct investment in fossil fuel companies—which is variable, but right now represents about $10 million of a total $2.2 billion endowment—won’t make a big individual impact on the profitability of these companies. But hurting stock prices isn’t the immediate goal. The deeper aim, she says, is to revoke their social license and to put public pressure on these industries. And the only way to combat the financial and political leverage these companies hold is with a mass movement, and with universities at the forefront of social change. Seven other colleges have already divested, and another 300 other campuses have campaigns going on just like Divest UW, so the momentum is growing. On top of that, Tekola says that Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn has pledged to divest the city’s general fund from fossil fuels.
Tekola and Marsh cite multiple studies that divestment won’t harm the UW’s endowment or endanger its financial viability. To the contrary, they argue that divestment will put UW on safer long-term financial ground. The Divest UW campaign is designed to hedge against increased risk and potential profit losses, and to preserve the health of the endowment for future generations of students.
A similar divestment tactic, says Tekola, was effective with the tobacco industry, which had stymied health science, label laws and taxes through incredible congressional influence until scientists and universities joined forces to sound the alarm of the dangers of cigarettes.
Now, the Divest UW campaign is hoping to overcome the assault against climate change science. Their message is clear: There is no possible way fossil fuel industries can continue business as usual while preserving a stable climate, and investing in a business-as-usual scenario presents incredible financial, social and ethical risks to the UW endowment.
“Climate change isn’t something that only affects polar bears,” says Tekola. “It will submerge Harbor Island and the shores of West Seattle and South Park, and we are already seeing the impacts. Last year the Atlantic Ocean was in the subways of New York City, on top of it being one of the hottest years on records, there is no denying climate change is here. Continued support for the use and investment in fossil fuels is signing a blank check for the destruction of our home. There are many better alternatives, but first we have to take a stand. Supporting divestment is about protecting our future.”
Divest UW is an entirely student-led initiative, and you can find more information, sources for statistics and information, and studies regarding the impact of divestment on an endowment financially on the group’s Facebook page or website.
Thesis Defense: Jesse Langdon!
Nothing gets the nervous/excited juices flowing like more faces in the crowd, so come out and support Jesse Langdon tomorrow afternoon, Wednesday, April 24, as he defends his thesis, “Forecasting the impacts of climate change on terrestrial species and protected areas in the Pacific Northwest!”
Part of the Landscape Ecology and Conservation Lab, Langdon’s faculty advisor is Professor Josh Lawler, and his other committee members are Professor Steve West and Elizabeth Gray. He will be giving his talk in the Forest Club Room from 1-2 p.m., with snacks and refreshments provided.
It’s a great opportunity to support a fellow colleague and student, and to help commemorate his years of research and contributions to the SEFS community!