SWCS 2013 Annual Conference: Call for Presentations

The Soil and Water Conservation Society is seeking oral and poster presentations and symposia proposals for the 2013 International Annual Conference in Reno, NV.

Each year SWCS identifies topics or a theme for special attention at the Annual Conference. The overarching theme for the conference this year is Resilient Landscapes: Planning for Flood, Drought & Fire. 

At the 2013 SWCS Annual Conference, we would like to explore conservation planning, policy, and practices that, by improving system resilience, help adapt to and mitigate the adverse effects of Flood, Drought, and Fire. This may include urban, suburban and rural natural resource environments and landscapes as well as working agricultural lands. We hope that your abstracts for oral presentations, posters, and symposia submissions will address the technical, educational, and informational needs of conservationists as we work together to address the challenges encountered in creating resilient landscapes.

In the face of pressures from a highly dynamic climate, changing markets, and evolving environmental conditions, agriculture must produce not only food, feed, and fiber but also fuel and a broader array of landscape or ecosystem services. Conservation professionals need to adapt to new resource demands and changes in our client base and needs. Conservation must deal with larger spatial-temporal scales of soil and water management and conservation, such as landscape and watershed scales, and planning for extreme events. Achieving these changes will require improved collaborations with different agencies and research institutions to plan and apply on the ground conservation. It may also require returning to our conservation roots to invigorate local coalitions to prioritize and plan conservation needs and programs.

The submission deadline is December 17, 2012. Download the full call for presentations here. 

Smart Solutions to Climate Change

Smart Solutions to Climate Change: Comparing Costs and Benefits
Edited by Bjorn Lomborg
The failure of the Copenhagen climate conference in December 2009 revealed major flaws in the way the world's policy makers have attempted to prevent dangerous levels of increases in global temperatures. The expert authors in this specially commissioned collection focus on the likely costs and benefits of a very wide range of policy options, including geo-engineering, mitigation of CO2, methane and 'black carbon', expanding forest, research and development of low-carbon energy and encouraging green technology transfer.
413 pages, Cambridge University Press. Softcover ISBN-13: 9780521138567
'This book provides not only a reservoir of information on the reality of human induced climate change, but raises vital questions and examines viable options on what can be done to meet the challenge. In the introduction itself Bjorn Lomborg catalogues the impacts of climate change, highlighting the problem of sea level rise, pressure on water resources, and declining food production in some countries, 'possibly becoming a source of societal conflict'. It allows different authors to articulate their views on a range of solutions, and then leaves the book's readers to form their own conclusions on what might be the best set of actions to adopt. Even though its pages present a diversity of options, at the end the average reader would stand better informed, and would have formed his or her own compelling logic on the answer to this planet's problem of climate change. I would recommend this book as much for the fact that Lomborg supports the view that we have 'long moved on from any mainstream disagreements about the science of climate change', as for the rich diversity of analysis it presents on a range of possible solutions.' Rajenda K. Pachauri, Chairman, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change

NWF & SWCS Carbon Workshop Conclusions

Carbon Workshop Proceedings and Presentations Available

Carbon sequestration through agriculture could provide farmers and forest owners with a new revenue stream worth billions of dollars, concluded presenters, panelists and attendees at a National Wildlife Federation and the Soil and Water Conservation Society workshop held in July. Read more conclusions in the workshop proceedings, abstracts, and presentations. Click here... 

National Academies Releases Free Executive Summary of America’s Energy Future: Technology and Transformation: Summary Edition

The America's Energy Future project was created by the Committee on America's Energy Future, the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, and the National Research Council. The goal of this project is to evaluate energy in relation to the US economy, national security, and climate change. Results from this project have been compiled in a book called America’s Energy Future: Technology and Transformation: Summary Edition and a free executive summary is available. This summary edition is part of a set; the final version of America’s Energy Future: Technology and Transformation is scheduled for release later this year.

To view the table of contents, read the executive summary, or purchase the summary edition, visit the National Academies Press Web site. The full version can be preordered here.

Forum on Forests and Climate Change: To Copenhagen and Beyond

Climate Change: Catalysing Synergies

Climate change is affecting the entire forest sector with all its stakeholders and is perceived as a common challenge. A decision for whether and how forests will be dealt with in the post 2012 climate arrangement is expected to be negotiated at the UNCCC COP 15 at Copenhagen, Denmark, in early December. In preparation for Copenhagen 2009, the XIII World Forests Congress invites the global community to a Forum on Forests and Climate Change, a unique occasion for debate which aims to produce a recommendation of a technical nature, which will be presented to the UNCCC COP 15.

Forests are linked with climate change in various ways - they are affected by climate change, when degraded or removed, they contribute to climate change through greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, and they contribute to climate change mitigation by sequestering carbon dioxide from the atmosphere during afforestation and reforestation. Furthermore, the use of wood for products and fuel reduces GHG emissions from competing, more carbon-intensive products.

According to the FAO (2005), deforestation worldwide, mainly conversion of forests to agricultural land, continues at an alarming rate (approximately 13 million hectares per year for the period 1990–2005). Deforestation and forest degradation result in immediate release of the carbon originally stored in the trees as CO2 emissions, particularly if the trees are burned, and the biomass decays. The IPCC WG III (2007) estimated emissions from deforestation in the 1990s to be at 5.8 GtCO2/yr, accounting for roughly 17% of global greenhouse gas emissions. The IPCC also notes that reducing and/or preventing deforestation and forest degradation are the mitigation option with the largest and most immediate global carbon stock impact in the short term, per hectare and per year, as the release of carbon as emissions into the atmosphere is prevented.

With the IPCC’s Fourth Assessment Report has come more certainty that climate change is an inevitable consequence of past and present human activities. Observations of current impacts of climate-mediated events on forests include diebacks and mass mortality and changes in tree physiology, forest biodiversity, forest growth and productivity. Forests interact intimately with climate and are also an essential part of many societies, especially in the developing world. Climate change is already affecting people and livelihoods and in despite of incomplete knowledge and uncertainties, forest adaptation is possible, but it is necessary to have a plan and act rapidly.