Talking climate education
In May, the Wild Center and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) hosted a workshop for climate educators around the country. Representatives from K-12 schools, universities, museums, nonprofits and other institutions who use NOAA data visualizations and grants met for three days at the center in Tupper Lake.
Louisa Koch, who has served as NOAA’s director of education since 2006, and I sat down on the Wild Center’s patio for an interview about climate change education, the Adirondacks and the challenges of balancing conservation and renewable energy development.
Koch, who remembered visiting the Adirondacks as a student at Middlebury, discussed what she sees as declining climate denial and the tricky tradeoffs of developing renewable energy and conservation.
While the Adirondack Park’s population continues to slide, there is a growing discourse within the park over the future impacts of climate change on the region. If temperatures rise and drought grow, will more and more people turn to the water-rich, mountainous terrain of the Adirondacks?
Koch said she thinks so.
“The Adirondacks are becoming more appealing, in many ways, because of climate change. A warmer world is not necessarily a tremendous threat to a lot of people who live in the Adirondacks. The abundance of water is a huge asset. The people here have a very desirable location for other people to join.”
So… watch this space. Read more here.
The Lake George Park Commission last week approved funding to apply the herbicide ProcellaCOR in two bays this summer in its fight against invasive Eurasian watermilfoil. To do so, they will need approval from the Adirondack Park Agency at its June 20 meeting and drop the herbicide by the end of the month.
The Lake George Association, though, promises to continue standing in the commission’s way as it mounts a defense against the herbicide plan, in the courts and the court of public opinion.
LGA Board President Peter Menzies in a recent interview said he hopes APA or the park commission will hit the brakes on the plan and continue to discuss how to manage invasive milfoil over the long run. If they don’t, he promised, LGA is working on the legal filings to seek an order stopping herbicide use.
“We would absolutely seek legal action,” Menzies said.
Photo at top: The Science on a Sphere exhibit at The Wild Center in Tupper Lake. Photo by Zachary Matson.
This first appeared in Zach’s weekly “Water Line” newsletter. Click here to sign up.
“The Adirondacks are becoming more appealing, in many ways, because of climate change.” REALLY!!?? So let’s all go buy giant gas-hog SUVs, so we can complete this appealing transformation (satire). Has it occurred to Koch that the very things that make the Adirondacks such an amazing place and so appealing now (including the water she takes note of) may disappear during this change? The area is already seeing fewer days of snow/ice cover. All of the web of life in the Adirondacks, including the people and visitors, is connected, and if we pull a few threads apart, the whole may come apart.