Boston Flora

Tag: climate change

  • Saturday, October 13 – Things Fall Apart: Land-Use History, Non-Native Insects, Climate Change, and the Decline of a Forest

    The October New England Botanical Club meeting will take place Saturday, October 13 at the Harvard Forest in Petersham, Massachusetts. The featured speaker is Dr. Aaron Ellison, Senior Research Fellow in Ecology at the Harvard Forest. From late morning to mid-afternoon, there will be a tree coring and dendroecology workshop with Dr. Neil Pederson, and filed trips to sites of botanical interest around Petersham. In the late afternoon and evening, you will enjoy a tour of the Hemlock Hospice installation with Dr. Ellison at 4 pm, followed by a potluck dinner with NEBC members and guests (6 pm), and a 7 pm presentation from Dr. Ellison in the Fisher Museum at the Harvard Forest. For more information visit www.rhodora.org. Image courtesy of The Harvard Crimson.

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  • Monday, September 24, 7:00 pm – Tales from an Uncertain World

    On Monday, September 24, at 7 pm, author L.S. Gardiner will speak at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge on her latest book, Tales From an Uncertain World: What Other Assorted Disasters Can Teach Us about Climate Change. So far, humanity hasn’t done very well in addressing the ongoing climate catastrophe. Veteran science educator L. S. Gardiner believes we can learn to do better by understanding how we’ve dealt with other types of environmental risks in the past and why we are dragging our feet in addressing this most urgent emergency. Weaving scientific facts and research together with humor and emotion, Gardiner explores human responses to erosion, earthquakes, fires, invasive species, marine degradation, volcanic eruptions, and floods in order to illuminate why we find it so challenging to deal with climate change. Insight emerges from unexpected places—a mermaid exhibit, a Magic 8 Ball, and midcentury cartoons about a future that never came to be.

    Instead of focusing on the economics and geopolitics of the debate over climate change, this book brings large-scale disaster to a human scale, emphasizing the role of the individual. We humans do have the capacity to deal with disasters. When we face threatening changes, we don’t just stand there pretending it isn’t so, we do something. But because we’re human, our responses aren’t always the right ones the first time—yet we can learn to do better. This book is essential reading for all who want to know how we can draw on our strengths to survive the climate catastrophe and forge a new relationship with nature.

    L. S. Gardiner is the author of two and illustrator of nine children’s books about science. She works at the UCAR Center for Science Education, and resides in Boulder, Colorado. The talk is free. More information may be found at https://www.portersquarebooks.com/event/ls-gardiner-tales-uncertain-world

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  • Tuesday, July 24, 9:00 am – 10:30 am – Extending the Flowering Season

    Adding new plants to the collections at Mount Auburn Cemetery which flower in late spring or summer is not just about adding color to the landscape. This initiative is also a response to climate change and the general trend of plants flowering earlier and earlier each year. Join Dennis Collins, Horticultural Curator, on this walking tour to learn about this important horticultural initiative. The event will take place Tuesday, July 24 at 9 am, and is $7 for Friends of Mount Auburn, $12 for general public. Register at http://mountauburn.org/event/extending-the-flowering-season-3/

    Funding for programs has been provided in part by the Massachusetts Cultural Council.

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  • Saturday, April 21, 10:00 am – 1:00 pm – Addressing Climate Change in Your Yard

    Climate change is here, and it is affecting our landscapes due to increased flooding, more frequent droughts, more extreme weather events, and increasing temperatures. Want to help fight climate change at home? Learn how the plants you choose and the landscape practices you use can help reduce the impacts of climate change and improve the environment around you. This New England Wild Flower Society class will be held Saturday, April 21 at 10 – 1 at Garden in the Woods in Framingham, taught by Kim Eierman. $40 for NEWFS members, $48 for nonmembers. Register at http://www.newfs.org/learn/our-programs/addressing-climate-change-in-your-yard

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  • On the Chesapeake: A Precarious Future of Rising Seas and High Tides

    Maryland’s Dorchester County is ground zero for climate change on Chesapeake Bay, as rising seas claim more and more land. High Tide in Dorchester, a film by Tom Horton, Dave Harp, and Sandy Cannon-Brown, explores the beauty of this liquid landscape and how the bay’s communities are at risk from high tides and erosion.

    Tom Horton has covered the environment for newspapers and magazines since 1972 and has authored several books on Chesapeake Bay. He currently writes for the monthly Bay Journal and teaches at Salisbury University in Maryland. Sandy Cannon-Brown, founder and president of VideoTakes, Inc., is an award-winning environmental filmmaker and teacher. She was an associate director for American University’s Center for Environmental Filmmaking. She lives in St. Michaels, Maryland and focuses her independent films on issues affecting the Chesapeake Bay. A lifelong Marylander, Dave Harp operates a corporate and editorial photography business in Cambridge, Maryland. He served as the staff photographer for the Hagerstown Morning Herald and was the photographer for The Baltimore Sun Magazine for nearly a decade.

    The short film may be viewed in its entirety at http://e360.yale.edu/features/on-the-chesapeake-a-precarious-future-of-rising-seas-and-high-tides

  • Wednesday, February 28, 7:00 pm – 9:00 pm – How Forests Will Define the Future of Our Climate

    Join The Kestrel Land Trust  and the Smith College Center for Environment, Ecological Design and Sustainability in the Weinstein Auditorium in Wright Hall at Smith College in Northampton for a talk by internationally renowned climate scientist Dr. Bill Moomaw: Forests, the Critical Component for Addressing Long-Term Climate Change.

    Human civilization evolved in a global climate that enabled us to thrive over the past 10,000 years. Unfortunately, this relatively benign climate is being dramatically disrupted because of human activities. Science tells us that to slow or reverse this trend, it’s essential that we quickly reduce heat-trapping gas emissions, and begin removing carbon dioxide from the atmosphere. What role do forests play in all of this?

    On Wednesday, February 28 at 7 p.m.,  Dr. Bill Moomaw, Professor Emeritus of International Environmental Policy at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University, will conduct the  discussion of how our forests can help mitigate global climate change. Dr. Moomaw will present his perspective on a crucial part of the solution — how the protection and restoration of forests, wetlands, and grasslands could enable us to sequester carbon dioxide for many centuries to come. He will also share his insights on the drawbacks of using bioenergy as an alternative to fossil fuels. There will be time for a facilitated Q&A session after the presentation. Free and open to the public, but registration is strongly encouraged at https://www.kestreltrust.org/calendar/bill-moomaw-2018/

  • Volunteer Opportunity – Counting on Ginkgos for Climate Change

    Ginkgo trees evolved before the dinosaurs, survived three mass extinctions, and one species is still living today. The Smithsonian Institution’s Museum of Natural History staff are researching how the cells of leaves on ginkgos have changed over time, and whether we can use them to learn about the ancient atmosphere of the Earth. We want to create a record of how the atmosphere has changed through time by calculating the ratio of two different types of leaf cell (stomatal and epidermal) for many leaves, from the present and the geological past. It is important for us to understand what effect climate change might have on life on our planet in the long term.

    One way we can understand the effect of climate change is to look at the geological past – millions of years ago – and the fossil record, to see what happened to organisms during periods of time in Earth history when there were similar changes in the atmosphere and climate. If we want to build an accurate picture of these past changes, we need to know what the atmosphere was like back then.

    Our planet’s atmosphere is composed of many different gasses, one of which is carbon-dioxide (CO2). Through extensive research we now know that CO2 concentration in the atmosphere has a very important influence on Earth’s climate. There are several ways researchers try to reconstruct past climates; we call these climate proxies. One proxy for CO2 concentration comes from plants, and is known as stomatal index. This is a measure of the number of gas-exchange holes on the surface of a leaf, relative to the number of normal cells. Count cells of modern and fossil leaves and help them track climate change over millions of years. You will count oval-shaped stomata in highly magnified images of both fossilized and living ginkgo leaves. Learn how to do it at https://www.zooniverse.org/projects/laurasoul/fossil-atmospheres

  • Wednesday, July 12, 6:30 pm – 8:00 pm – Pros and Cons of Assisted Plant Migration

    Climate change poses many challenges to plants that are adapted to particular environmental conditions. Conservation biologists ask: How best can we protect plant diversity in light of these challenges? Should we actively move plants or genes, protect land that enables plants to migrate on their own, or take other steps? Engage in a moderated, lively discussion led by Dr. Elizabeth Farnsworth, based on provided readings and your own opinions. Call this a botanical ethics class, if you will. The session will take place at Garden in the Woods, Hemenway Street in Framingham, on Wednesday, July 12 from 6:30 – 8, and is $20 for NEWFS members, $24 for nonmembers. Register online at www.newfs.org.  Image of purple marshlock from www.frontierscientists.com.

  • Monday, June 26, 7:00 pm – The Ends of the World: Volcanic Apocalypses, Lethal Oceans, and Our Quest to Understand Earth’s Past Mass Extinctions

    As new groundbreaking research suggests that climate change played a major role in the most extreme catastrophes in the planet’s history, award-winning science journalist Peter Brannen takes us on a wild ride through the planet’s five mass extinctions and, in the process, offering us a glimpse of our increasingly dangerous future.

    Our world has ended five times: it has been broiled, frozen, poison-gassed, smothered, and pelted by asteroids. In The Ends of the World, Peter Brannen dives into deep time, exploring Earth’s past dead ends, and in the process, offers us a glimpse of our possible future.

    Many scientists now believe that the climate shifts of the twenty-first century have analogs in these five extinctions. Using the visible clues these devastations have left behind in the fossil record, The Ends of the World takes us inside -scenes of the crime, – from South Africa to the New York Palisades, to tell the story of each extinction. Brannen examines the fossil record–which is rife with creatures like dragonflies the size of sea gulls and guillotine-mouthed fish–and introduces us to the researchers on the front lines who, using the forensic tools of modern science, are piecing together what really happened at the crime scenes of the Earth’s biggest whodunits.

    Part road trip, part history, and part cautionary tale, The Ends of the World takes us on a tour of the ways that our planet has clawed itself back from the grave, and casts our future in a completely new light. Peter Brannen will discuss and sign copies of his book at Porter Square Books, 25 White Street in Cambridge on Monday, June 26 at 7 pm. For more information call 617-491-2220, or visit www.portersquarebooks.com.

  • Friday, May 5, 6:45 pm – Identifying Species at Risk from Climate Change and Considering Alternative Conservation Strategies

    The New England Botanical Club will hold its May meeting on Friday, May 5 at Garden in the Woods in Framingham, beginning at 6:45 pm.  Dr. Dov Sax, Associate Professor of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Institute at Brown for Environment & Society, Brown University, will speak on Identifying Species at Risk from Climate Change and Considering Alternative Conservation Strategies.  The event is free and open to the public.  For more information visit http://rhodora.org.