Amber Pairis, Director of the Climate Science Alliance, joins KPBS Midday Edition to share the Alliance’s new project, “San Diego Wildlife, Climate Change, and You!”, a web page and pocket guide for the public to learn more about climate change impacts to San Diego’s wildlife and explore 10 things we can all do to help.
Last month Dr. Amber Pairis, Director of the Climate Science Alliance (Alliance), joined the KPBS Midday Edition team to share the Alliance’s new project “San Diego Wildlife, Climate Change, and You!” with listeners all over San Diego County. This project, available online and in a “pocket guide”, was made for the public to learn more about climate change impacts to local wildlife and explore 10 things we can all do to help. “San Diego Wildlife, Climate Change, and You!” is based off the findings from the Alliance-led research project, “San Diego County Ecosystems: The Ecological Impacts of Climate Change on a Biodiversity Hotspot”, part of California’ Fourth Climate Change Assessment released at the end of August 2018.
“We know from these impacts that these extremes are going to be harder on people and wildlife,” stated Dr. Pairis, “and there's a lot of things we can do to help reduce these existing stressors on our wildlife and help give wildlife a break — to take that pressure off of them.” On one side, the pocket guide breaks down the report’s findings on how climate change is predicted to impact temperature, precipitation and drought, wildfires, and the thick blanket of fog we call the “marine layer”, as well as how San Diego’s conservation and management strategies will be influenced. The other side of the pocket guide provides solutions — 10 things you can do — so we can all help give wildlife a break. These pocket guides will be available in all 36 branches of the San Diego Library system later this month and will soon be available to order through the Alliance website. View the pocket guide online here.
The “San Diego Wildlife, Climate Change, and You!” represents the Alliance’s method of taking recent, regional research and making it accessible for all levels of the community. By utilizing our broad network of partners, we were able to better understand how climate change is impacting San Diego’s ecosystems and wildlife. This project is currently being incorporated into our Climate Kids curriculum and Traveling Trunks, with games and activities built on the scientific findings. “By working with kids and using hands-on science, art, and storytelling we're giving them that science information,” explained Dr. Pairis, “but we're also giving them solutions they can take right now to address those impacts and to be leaders in our community.” Learn more about our Climate Kids program here.
Listen to the full interview here.