The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) today announced the launch of the Resilience Dialogues, a collaborative effort to help local communities address climate-related vulnerabilities. The American Geophysical Union’s (AGU) Thriving Earth Exchange is spearheading the effort with its lead partner, the U.S. Global Change Research Program (USGCRP).
Resilience Dialogues will extend TEX’s ability to connect AGU members with community leaders in ways that leverage Earth and space science to make local impacts.
During the past 3 years, the Thriving Earth Exchange (TEX) has created a growing program that brings together communities facing challenges related to the geosciences, such as adapting to climate change and protecting water quality, and pro bono geoscientists who are experts in pertinent fields. TEX also connects the communities and their scientific partners with funding sources, expert networks, software, and other resources that help those communities implement solutions to challenges. The Resilience Dialogues will extend TEX’s ability to connect AGU members with community leaders in ways that leverage Earth and space science to make local impacts.
Intended to address climate change specifically, the Resilience Dialogues approach helps community leaders identify, access, and tailor scientific information and expertise to solve or inform their unique local climate challenges. To help foster effective and productive communication among community leaders, scientists, and other facilitators with relevant skills and experience, the Resilience Dialogues service provides an extended online platform for open and ongoing discussion and in other ways encourages resilience-focused dialogue among participants. It also gives access to a network of scientists and community leaders who can share real-world experience.
The success of programs like TEX inspired the collaborative approach of Resilience Dialogues. That’s one of the reasons why TEX was invited to help lead the Resilience Dialogues team assembled by the OSTP.
TEX is partnering with 6 federal agencies and 10 other nonprofit organizations, private partners, and community-based resilience networks to tackle local problems.
TEX is partnering with 6 federal agencies and 10 other nonprofit organizations, private partners, and community-based resilience networks to tackle local problems. OSTP formally announced the program today in a rollout of three initiatives that address the growing issue of climate change.
The Resilience Dialogues project is funded by a grant from the Kresge Foundation’s Environment Program, which focuses on helping communities build resilience in the face of climate change.
Federal agency partners, led by the interagency USGCRP, include the following:
- Federal Emergency Management Agency
- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
- U.S. Department of Agriculture
- U.S. Department of Energy
- U.S. Department of the Interior
The Resilience Dialogues leadership team includes the following nonprofit and private partners, in addition to TEX:
- American Association of Adaptation Professionals
- American Meteorological Society
- Institute for Sustainable Communities
- Meridian Institute
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s Climate CoLab
To develop a service that community-based networks can use to advance their work with diverse communities, the Resilience Dialogues team is working closely with several resilience networks:
- Resilience AmeriCorps
- California Governor’s Office of Planning and Research
- ICLEI–Local Governments for Sustainability
- Community and Regional Resilience Institute
- Southeast Florida Regional Climate Change Compact
Learn more about the Resilience Dialogues here.
—Raj Pandya (email: [email protected]), Program Director, Science, AGU
Citation:
Pandya, R. (2016), AGU’s TEX program to lead climate effort launched by White House, Eos, 97, https://doi.org/10.1029/2016EO062277. Published on 31 October 2016.
Text © 2016. The authors. CC BY-NC-ND 3.0
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