Boston Flora

Tag: climate change

  • Sunday, June 11, 9:00 am – 4:00 pm – Sea Level Rise and Extreme Precipitation: Preparing for Boston’s Uncertain Future

    How should communities build resilience for dealing with weather and climate-related hazards in the coming decades? On Sunday, June 11 from 9 – 4, participants will use visualizations to explore potential vulnerabilities to our infrastructures, social networks, and ecosystems from sea level rise and extreme precipitation events, then discuss potential strategies for addressing these threats, focusing on the priorities and needs of relevant stakeholders. At the event’s conclusion, participants will make recommendations for increasing Boston’s community resilience. The event takes place at the Museum of Science, Boston.

    Apply to participate in this free day-long forum. The event is designed to gather the opinions of a diverse range of people from different backgrounds, experiences, and perspectives. You don’t need to have knowledge about the topic to be selected. This project is supported by a NOAA Environmental Literacy Grant. In collaboration with Expert and Citizen Assessment of Science and Technology.

    For application and more information: ecastonline.org/climate/boston

  • Friday, March 31, 6:30 pm – 8:30 pm – Mexico City at a Crossroads: Designing an Urban Future in the Era of Climate Change

    Join the Harvard Graduate School of Design on Friday, March 31 from 6:30 – 8:30 in Gund Hall’s Piper Auditorium, Quincy Street in Cambridge, for the Keynote Lecture for Mexico City at a Crossroads: Designing an Urban Future in the Era of Climate Change.

    Mexico City’s Mayor Miguel Mancera will discuss current challenges for the nation’s capital city, which was recently named the World Design Capital for 2018 by ICSID. The mayor will share lessons learned so far and engage in a dialogue about the built environmental future of CDMX (Ciudad de México) going forward. Mexico City has emerged out of a complex history to take a role as a leading global metropolis but is now in flux. Renowned for its architecture and design aesthetics, the city also faces major infrastructural scarcities in transportation, water supply, and affordable housing. Its enormous scale poses environmental, energy, and public health problems associated with pollution, carbon emissions, and urban sprawl. Recent efforts to write a new city constitution have amplified conflicts over how to build, govern, and finance its future. This keynote lecture—which launches a day-long conference on Harvard’s campus sponsored by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies that will include participation by governing officials and activists as well as leading researchers on CDMX—will highlight Mexico City’s tripartite identity as global leader, national powerhouse, and sovereign urban authority confronting the multi-scalar territorial and environmental challenges of the twenty-first century.

    Co-sponsored by the David Rockefeller Center for Latin American Studies and the Interdisciplinary Urbanism Initiative, Department of Urban Planning and Design.

    Anyone requiring accessibility accommodations should contact the events office at (617) 496-2414 or events@gsd.harvard.edu.  Free and open to the public.  Image from www.planetsave.com.

  • Monday, March 6, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Director’s Lecture Series: Naomi Oreskes

    Naomi Oreskes, PhD, History of Science and Affiliated Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, Harvard University will speak as part of the Director’s Lecture Series at the Arnold Arboretum on Monday, March 6, beginning at 7 pm in the Hunnewell Building. Her research focuses on the earth and environmental sciences, with a particular interest in understanding scientific consensus and dissent. Her 2004 essay The Scientific Consensus on Climate Change (Science 306: 1686) has been widely cited, both in the United States and abroad, including in the Royal Society’s publication, A Guide to Facts and Fictions about Climate Change, in the Academy-award winning film, An Inconvenient Truth, and in Ian McEwan’s novel, Solar. Her 2010 book, Merchants of Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from Tobacco to Global Warming, co-authored with Erik M. Conway, received the 2011 Watson-Davis Prize from the History of Science Society. Fee Free. Members only. Registration required as seating is limited.

    Register online at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.

  • Friday, February 3, 6:45 pm – Invasive Plant Risks and Advantages with Climate and Land Use Change

    The New England Botanical Club will hold its February meeting on February 3 with Dr. Jenica Allen, Assistant Professor, Department of Natural Resources and the Environment, University of New Hampshire, Durham, discussing Invasive Plant Risks and Advantages with Climate and Land Use Chang.  Meeting will begin at 6:45 at Harvard University, in Haller Lecture Hall (Room 102), Geological Museum, 24 Oxford St., Cambridge, MA 02138  (door to right of Harvard Museum of Natural History entrance).  Free and open to the public.  For more information visit www.rhodora.org.

  • Sunday, January 22, 2:30 pm – 3:30 pm – Botany Blast: Seeing Climate Change in Your Backyard

    Learn what you can do to help scientists in their studies of the effects of a changing climate on plants and animals. Alyssa Rosemartin of the USA National Phenology Network will speak on Sunday, January 22 at 2:30 pm in the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum about the science of the seasons and the power of citizen science initiatives, like Tree Spotters. Interested in improving communication between scientists, the public and decision-makers, she will discuss how phenological data informs natural resource conservation and national policy. Learn how to gather data and engage with the scientific method in support of science’s key role in society. She will also discuss the history and future direction of the National Phenology Network and the importance of individual contributors. Fee Free, registration requested. Register at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.

  • Wednesday, November 30, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Six Ice Ages in One Billion Years, Climate Change, and Boston’s Earthquake Problem

    Our planet has experienced six ice ages in the last billion years. The first two at about 800 and 600 million years ago may have covered all or most of the earth in ice and is referred to as the “Snowball Earth.” The most recent Pleistocene ice age, perhaps not done, involved over 16 glacial cooling and warming events over the past 2.5 million years.

    Geologist James Lawford Anderson of the Department of Earth and Environment at Boston University will speak on Wednesday, November 30 from 7 – 8:30 at the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum, 125 Arborway, about various ice ages, today’s climate, and end his lecture with Boston’s glacially-influenced earthquake problem. $5, free for Arnold Arboretum members and students. Register at www.my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277. Image from www.air-worldwide.com.

  • Tuesday, November 1, 1:00 pm – 2:00 pm – Webinar: Urban Tree Selection in a Changing Climate

    Urban and community forests are likely to be among the first ecosystems impacted by climate change since projected temperature increases will be exacerbated by urban heat island effects. Based on current climate projections urban trees will experience dramatically warmer temperatures during their lifespans than the climates under which they evolved. Identifying appropriate tree genotypes for future climates is fraught with uncertainty and the potential for unintended consequences. In this program, Dr. Bert Cregg, Associate Professor of Horticulture and Forestry at Michigan State University will discuss on-going research and the challenge of identifying landscape trees for a warmer world.

    Dr. Bert Cregg is an Associate Professor and Extension Specialist for landscape, nursery, and Christmas tree production at Michigan State University. His expertise includes stress physiology, plant nutrition, and plant response to environmental stresses. Dr. Cregg writes frequently on landscape and nursery topics regular and is regular contributor the MSU Extension News, the Michigan Landscape magazine, and the Great Lake Christmas tree journal. Prior to joining the MSU faculty in 1999, Dr. Cregg was a Tree Physiology Project Leader for International Paper and a Research Plant Physiologist of the USDA Forest Service. He earned his Ph.D. in Forest Resources at the University of Georgia and holds a Master of Science in Forestry from Oklahoma State University and Bachelor of Science in Forest Management from Washington State University.

    Free for ELA members, $10 for nonmembers. Register at http://www.ecolandscaping.org/event/webinar-urban-tree-selection-in-a-changing-climate/#sthash.wMy5ZWyT.dpuf

  • Tuesday, October 4, 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm – Responses to Anthropogenic Climate Change: Predicting the Future Requires Knowing the Past

    The Arnold Arboretum’s Director’s Lecture Series kicks off Tuesday, October 4 at 7 pm in the Hunnewell Building of the Arnold Arboretum with a talk by Camille Parmesan, Professor, School of Biological Sciences, Plymouth University, UK, and the Department of Geological Sciences, University of Texas at Austin. Camille’s work focuses on the impacts of climate change on wildlife, from field studies of American and European butterflies to synthetic analyses of global impacts on a broad range of species on land and in the oceans. She has participated in US and international assessments of climate change impacts and provided formal testimonies for the US House Select Committee on Energy Independence and Global Warming, and the Texas Senate Natural Resources Committee. Camille has served as a lead author for the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, which in 2007 was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.  Fee Free. Arboretum Members only. Registration required as seating is limited.

    Register online at my.arboretum.harvard.edu or call 617-384-5277.

  • Wednesday, September 14, 9:30 am – 11:30 am – Climate Change and Its Impact

    On Wednesday, September 14, from 9:30 – 11:30 at the Scottish Rite Masonic Museum and Library, 33 Marrett Road in Lexington, Quentin Prideaux will cover the impacts and causes of climate change, the actions we need to take, and what it all means for Massachusetts and the Northeast. His highly informative free presentations are visually appealing and even funny! The event is sponsored by the Lexington Field and Garden Club. For more information call 781-860-7440, or email lfgc.pr@gmail.com.

  • Saturday, March 12, 10:00 am – 12:00 noon – Can I Grow It Here, Now, and How?

    Today’s horticultural climate offers a vast selection of native and exotic plants, soil amendments, watering systems, fertilizers, and methods of pest management. And today’s changing gardening climate offers a vast array of shifting seasons, unexpected storms, early-season heat spikes, late frosts, floods, and droughts, as well as a host of new diseases and insects. What’s a New England gardener to do in the face of all these challenges and choices? On Saturday, March 12 from 10 – noon at the Berkshire Botanical Garden, Dr. Kim Tripp, former Director of the Botanic Garden of Smith College and of the New York Botanical Garden, will identify immediate and pressing climate-change problems while sharing specific solutions for planning, planting, and keeping gardens and gardeners vital. Drawing on her extensive experience with growing thousands of different plants from around the world in stressful native and non-native environments, she will discuss how to design, plan, plant, and maintain diverse garden styles and plants in the northeastern U.S. in the face of increasing environmental change and unpredictability.

    Kim Tripp, D.O., Ph.D. After an extensive career dedicated to plants and botanical gardens, Dr. Tripp is now also a fully licensed osteopathic physician in practice at Goldman/Tripp Osteopathic Healthcare in Sharon, CT. She completed her post-doctoral work in plant science at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University and has taught and lectured on a broad range of horticultural and botanical subjects. $35. Register online at www.berkshirebotanical.org.