The second conference of the Initiative on Climate Adaptation Research and Understanding through the Social Sciences, or ICARUS, will take place at SNRE in the Dana Building May 5 to 8. The theme is Climate Vulnerability and Adaption: Marginal Peoples and Environment. More than 150 papers will be presented by scholars and researchers from around the world. ICARUS II is twice as large as the first conference, held at University of Illinois in 2010, in terms of papers submitted and registered attendees.
April 13, 2011
Rosina M. Bierbaum, dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment, has been named to the National Climate Assessment Development and Advisory Committee to plan the nation's next assessment report.
Rosina M. Bierbaum, dean of the School of Natural Resources and Environment, has been appointed a Fellow at The World Bank under a new global fellowship program designed to bring expertise into the Bank's development work. Dean Bierbaum co-directed The World Bank's 2010 World Development Report, which focused on climate change. In her role as Fellow (an advisory position that is not full-time), she will remain based in Ann Arbor while working with the Bank's climate-change team to develop screening tools for lending operations in low-income countries.
SNRE Dean Rosina M. Bierbaum co-chaired a Working Group on Biodiversity Preservation and Ecosystem Sustainability, which has submitted its report titled "Sustaining Environmental Capital: Protecting Society and the Economy." The report states that the grand challenge is in maintaining ecosystems to assure the continued flow of ecosystem services, while also meeting society's demands for those services. "We need to view ecosystems comprehensively if we are to sustain the ecosystems that sustain us," the report states.
Two University of Michigan professors contributed to a White House report this week that calls for the United States to craft a government-wide federal energy policy and update it regularly with strategic reviews every four years. The report provides a roadmap for the federal role in transforming the U.S. energy system within one to two decades—a transformation that is necessary, the report concludes, for reasons of economic competitiveness, environmental stewardship and national security.
The report on national climate-change adaptation that was delivered yesterday to the White House science adviser is now available to the public. Dean Rosina M. Bierbaum, who co-chaired the D.C. climate adaptation summit last spring held by the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research (UCAR) that formed the basis of the report, was one of the committee that introduced the report to Dr. John Holdren, the President' Science and Technology Adviser. The report identifies seven priorities:
Dean Rosina M. Bierbaum is joining science colleagues from around the nation today in delivering a National Climate Adaptation Summit Report to President Obama's science adviser. The report is based on last springí¢â‚¬â„¢s National Climate Adaptation Summit, of which Dean Bierbaum was co-chair. The report's release can be viewed as a live streamed webcast. The event begins at 3:30 p.m. EST, and takes places in the main auditorium of the American Association for the Advancement of Science Building in Washington, D.C. The report, as well as webcast instructions, can be found at http://www.joss.ucar.edu/events/2010/ncas/report_release_webcast.html.
SNRE Dean Rosina M. Bierbaum and Professors Andy Hoffman, Maria Carmen Lemos and Ted Parsons contributed to a series of recently published national reports on climate change. The National Research Council of the National Academies of Science produced the series, called America's Climate Choices, at the request of Congress.
Three SNRE researchers have been selected to contribute climate-change adaptation research and analysis to the fifth climate assessment report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). The comprehensive assessments examine climate change in terms of physical science, adaptation, and mitigation of impacts, and provide governments with sound scientific knowledge of climate change.
The Ecological Society of America (ESA) has recognized SNRE Dean Rosina M. Bierbaum for her "long and distinguished service" to the scientific community and her ecological work in the public interest. Dean Bierbaum will receive the Distinguished Service Citation at the ESA's 95th annual meeting in August in Pittsburgh.