The Climate Science Alliance team was excited to reflect and connect with over 78 attendees in celebration of our past year of programming. With the theme “The Stories that Connect Us”, we invited 12 climate leaders to share how they’re building a more resilient community in collaboration with the Climate Science Alliance.
The Climate Science Alliance invited members, partners, and friends to join us at the San Diego Natural History Museum on October 31st for the 2019 All Alliance Annual Meeting. Over 78 attendees gathered to share the stories that connected us this year and discuss the meaningful and innovative climate partnerships and projects 2020 holds.
Climate Science Alliance Director Dr. Amber Pairis opened up the meeting with an overview of our boundary-spanning projects and our incredible achievements by the numbers:
Our network of diverse partnering organizations grew to over 340
We brought in 12 successful collaborative grants totaling over $950,000 to support our partners and projects in the region
We connected with 60,000 people in 160+ events and expanded our Climate Kids model to new locations and topics
We organized two successful summits for a total of 393 attendees
2019 San Diego Climate Summit: Over 250 attendees convened to explore solutions and share results from CA’s 4th Climate Change Assessment and the San Diego Regional Report
2019 Southwestern Tribal Climate Change Summit: Over 143 practitioners representing 34 Tribal nations from across North America gathered to focus on strategies and solutions that advance Tribal resilience
Dr. Pairis also highlighted significant achievements made within four projects: Connecting Wildlands and Communities (CWC), Descendents United for Nature, Adaptation, and Sustainability (DUNAS), Tribal Resilience initiatives, and our most recent Resilient Roots projects (webpage coming soon!).
Next, Climate Science Alliance Deputy Director Alexandria Warneke led an activity for attendees to think about their own triumphs and challenges this year, and opened up a space for them to share and collaborate.
As part of the meeting’s overarching theme, “The Stories that Connect Us”, we invited 12 climate leaders to share how they spent this past year building a more resilient community in collaboration with the Climate Science Alliance. These climate leaders included:
Dr. Julie Kalansky of the California-Nevada Climate Applications Program (CNAP)
Dr. Jeanette McConnell of the NSF Center for Aerosol Impacts on Chemistry of the Environment (CAICE)
Dr. Nigella Hillgarth, our 2019 Summer Climate Art Fellow
Connor Magee of the Solidarity Farms / Pauma Tribal Farms and the Climate Science Alliance
Dr. Keith Lombardo of the National Park Service and Terra Peninsular
Ana Lutz of the San Dieguito River Valley Conservancy
Dr. Isabel Rivera-Collazo of UC San Diego and project lead of the DUNAS project
Prof. Martha Aide Escalante Garcia of Climate Kids - Mexico
Andrew Pittman of Condor Visual Media
Alexandria Warneke of the Climate Science Alliance to share the youth leaders from the Youth Climate Challenge
Dr. Megan Jennings of San Diego State University and project lead of the CWC project
Dr. Megan Jennings presented updates and next steps for the Connecting Wildlands and Communities (CWC) project, and invited the attendees to share their feedback and ideas to the CWC team.
While 2019 is coming to an end, Dr. Pairis shared how the Climate Science Alliance team and partners are already on the ground running with exciting new plans and continued project developments in 2020.
Thank you to all who attended this year’s All Alliance Annual Meeting! Stay tuned for our 2019 Impact Report for more information.
Special thank you to the San Diego Natural History Museum for their continued partnership and for hosting this meeting.