Coastal Climate Extension

OK, so I know I promised to catch up on stuff I did a couple of months ago, but this is too good to pass up for a quick post.  Last week, we had an all-hands meeting for the NC/SC climate extension team – so me, Bob Bacon (SCSG extension director), Jack Thigpen (NCSG extension director), and all the folks from CISA.  We met to talk about how the program is going and what we should do next, and at some point after lunch the talk turned to creative ways to reach coastal users.  It’s pretty well established in the scientific literature that the old model of distributing climate information – toss it out there, give a few workshops, and write a white paper or two – isn’t cutting the mustard for what decision makers need.  And in my travels in the Carolinas, I’ve had lots of folks tell me that all the back-and-forth in the media is confusing, and they feel they just don’t understand the science involved.  So in our meeting, we talked a bit about how to get basic climate information out there.  But how?  There are already lots of web sites, and of course now I get asked to talk at meetings and workshops.   Now, I’ve got the blog, too.  Clearly, it’s not enough – or it’s just not the right kind of information.  So I need your help – what are some new ways that we can start using to get you the basic information you want to know about climate?  A few of our ideas and other creative possibilities I’ve found after the jump…

1. One of the groups I’ve had the chance to interact with now is the Kitchen Table Climate Study Group of McClellanville, SC.  Yes, they do take some political positions (for example, they sent a YouTube video to Sen. Lindsey Graham about renewable energy targets), but the reason they’ve come up with their positions is (in my opinion) pretty nifty.  They started as a group of folks who decided that they needed to learn more about climate change, and so after a discussion around a member’s kitchen table, they formed a group and charged off into the web to sort out for themselves what is and isn’t credible climate information.  Despite their positions, they remain an education-oriented group – they exist to learn about the science, and their positions are made on that informed opinion.  It’s an idea that’s being explored elsewhere.  The Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO) of Australia, one of the most well respected climate-related research agencies in the world, recently studied three grassroots community groups and their interest in climate change, with findings supporting the idea that more informed people are more interested in making changes based on the information.  And theclimateproject.org has trained over 2600 citizens to give community climate presentations – but from what I can find I don’t think they do sustained support to groups.   So, the idea (which I still need to call David Stoney, the group leader, about) is:  what about helping more people start their own KTCSGs?  By doing so, Sea Grant could help them learn based on the best available information we have to get them started.  And once group members are more informed, they’re just that many more climate-literate people out there chatting about it intelligently at dinner parties.  Of course, there’s the advocacy-danger aspect of it – once you get groups started and provide them with information, what happens if their group decides to advocate for different policies, but still uses your name with their origin?  Is there a way to get around that?
2. Kirstin Dow, an associate professor at the University of South Carolina Department of Geography (and one of the CISA researchers), said she wants to see my Facebook page.  Um, no… I do have lots of Sea Grant friends now, but I don’t think any of you really want to know about my continuing war with the bugs in my container garden.    But NOAA Fishwatch has a Facebook group.  And the Sea Grant extension agents, communicators, and educators have our own private Sea Grant Climate Network now on Ning that we’re enjoying (sorry, Sea Grant and a select few workshop planning assistants only).  So we could have a Sea Grant Carolinas Climate facebook group.  But if I ignore your friend request, please don’t take it personally.
3. Twitter got mentioned as an idea, too.  I got curious this weekend when I found out that there’s a local Twitter account that sends updated National Weather Service forecasts, watches, and warnings (chswx).  So I started a Twitter account: SCSGclimate.  I have not, however, spent any additional time figuring out how to tweet (and why is it “tweet” and not “twit”?).  I’m also clueless about what I should tweet about.  Does anyone out there want to know, “Just talked 2 Carl Beckmann @ Folly – wish I had TV in my office dedicated 2 Wx Channel”?  No?  Then what else would I tweet? 
4. So what other creative options are there?  I stumbled across this this morning – South Carolina’s Department of Health and Environmental control is using geocaching to raise awareness about water management issues.  For those of you who don’t know about geocaching,  people create these “caches” of stuff, which they hide somewhere and post the location’s coordinates to a geocaching group online.  People then use GPS units to go track down the cache, where (depending on the type of cache) you look at the stuff that’s there, replace an item in the cache with something of equal or greater value, or sign a logbook.  It’s kind of like a treasure hunt, but with GPS.  So DHEC has these caches out that all contain information on various aspects of water quality management – and if you check the posts to the sites, people are actually going to look for them.  Maybe a climate awareness geocache series?

Got other ideas?  Comments?  Please post them – I’d love to have your help.