Weaving nature more deliberately into the fabric of our urban communities can improve our quality of life. From urban parks to sustainable infrastructure, integrating nature into our cities makes us healthier, happier, smarter and safer.
On Oct. 25, the College of the Environment’s 2023 Doug Walker Lecture at Town Hall Seattle explored these topics and more with UW alum Heather Tallis, an environmental scientist and professor.
We invite you to join us for an evening with Dr. Heather Tallis to explore how weaving nature more deliberately into the fabric of our urban communities can improve our quality of life. From urban parks to sustainable infrastructure, integrating nature into our cities makes us healthier, happier, smarter and safer.
Building Resilience: Future-forward solutions for nature, health and the urban environment, with Dr.
Many people are now aware of climate change, the need to curb greenhouse gases and to prepare for coming environmental shifts. But knowing how best to prepare can be a challenge, both for individuals and for local agencies.
The University of Washington’s Climate Impacts Group has released an interactive tool that lets state agencies and local governments see what climate scientists project for their county and what they might want to consider when developing their districts’ comprehensive plans.
Scientists have documented a previously unknown subpopulation of polar bears living in Southeast Greenland. The polar bears survive with limited access to sea ice by hunting from freshwater ice that pours into the ocean from Greenland’s glaciers. Because this isolated population is genetically distinct and uniquely adapted to its environment, studying it could shed light on the future of the species in a warming Arctic.
Earlier this year, the United States officially re-entered the Paris Climate Agreement, an international accord that brings many nations together to address climate change. This reconciliation puts the U.S. on track to adopt cleaner energy policies in the pursuit of eventual carbon neutrality. This return also reinforces the importance of advancing environmental research to decrease our dependence on fossil fuels, which is critical to curbing carbon dioxide emissions.
It may seem counterintuitive, but on the heels of the most recent IPCC report on our changing climate, Kyle Armour finds reasons for optimism.
“The degree of climate change we’ll experience this century depends on our future greenhouse gas emissions, which depend on the collective choices we make. Our future is up to us,” says Armour. He posted his thoughts on Twitter when many headlines about the report’s findings were overwhelmingly grave.
The word “conservation” is a common one, and conjures up visions of protected land- and sea-scapes, species being walked back from the brink of extinction and using sustainable approaches to manage precious natural resources. It makes sense that these kinds of images come to mind; they fit the mold of conservation as many of us know it.
But what if we thought about conservation in a broader and more inclusive way, acknowledging that humans and ecosystems are inextricably linked?
In pre-COVID times, a group of students would huddle around a computer practicing their skills to create professional-grade weather graphics like the ones seen on local news channels or practice giving weather reports while standing in front of a green screen in a mini-TV-studio classroom. They are part of The UW DawgCast, a year-long club offered in the Department of Atmospheric Sciences jointly with a broadcast meteorology course that welcomes weather-loving students of all majors to teach them how to read, synthesize, and communicate weather.
Last year for International Mountain Day, we visited the shores of Mauna Kea in Hawaii and learned that it’s the tallest mountain in the world when measured from the base underwater up to the top. This year, we are travelling to colder climates to the highest mountain in the world when measured from sea level: Mount Everest. Department of Earth and Space Sciences’ Howard Conway officially had one of the most scenic offices in the world when he conducted field work on the Khumbu Glacier, one of the four major glaciers that flank Mount Everest.
Marine life off the West Coast, from Mexico up through Canada, inhabit the California Current. The cool, nutrient-rich water supports life from invisible phytoplankton to the economically important salmon, rockfish and Dungeness crab to the majestic orcas.
A new study led by the University of Washington finds that the animals’ ability to breathe in that water may be key to where and when they thrive.
The Doris Duke Conservation Scholars program at the UW was started in 2014 when it became clear that the environmental movement had made no strides in decades to address its lack of racial and gender diversity, a problem commonly known as the Green Ceiling. Simply put, no more than 12 percent of all employees in non-governmental organizations and foundations that work with natural resources could be described as ethnic minority or multiracial.
In the quest to produce affordable biofuels, poplar trees are one of the Pacific Northwest’s best bets — the trees are abundant, fast-growing, adaptable to many terrains and their wood can be transformed into substances used in biofuel and high-value chemicals that we rely on in our daily lives. But even as researchers test poplars’ potential to morph into everything from ethanol to chemicals in cosmetics and detergents, a commercial-scale processing plant for poplars has yet to be achieved.
As humans pump carbon dioxide into the atmosphere and global temperatures rise, many questions loom. One major issue is how much fresh water will be available for people, forests and agriculture.
A study led by the University of Washington shows that popular long-term drought estimates have a major flaw: They ignore the fact that plants will be less thirsty as carbon dioxide rises.
Researchers have discovered a handful of “bright spots” among the world’s embattled coral reefs, offering the promise of a radical new approach to conservation.
We are squarely in the age of the Anthropocene, the first time in the history of our planet where humans are driving major environmental changes. Researchers in our College are at the leading edge of uncovering the fundamental changes occurring in the Earth system with implications at local to global scales. This research, the science of the Anthropocene, is both exceedingly exciting and profoundly important work.