June 2011 Greetings! People often ask how Carpe Diem West’s small staff is able to have such an effective presence in the vast and complex world of western water and energy. The answer lies in our wide-ranging and accomplished Network leadership - and that when they come up with a good idea, we pay attention, roll up our sleeves, and figure out how to put it into action. A great example of that is the brand new Carpe Diem West Academy website and project. At our Network gatherings over the past few years, a recurring theme raised by water and energy managers has been the need for some kind of central portal to help make sense of the vast array of tools available to incorporate climate uncertainty into their work. In response, and with the generous support of the S.D. Bechtel, Jr. Foundation, we joined forces with the team led by Dr. Holly Hartmann at the University of Arizona/CLIMAS to develop this Carpe Diem West Academy. The first phase of the Academy website features a compendium of select climate tools screened according to a rigorous set of criteria, and organized via a logical roadmap of the decision-making process. Future phases of the site will be increasingly dynamic and interactive, and will incorporate customized training modules. For this month’s Confluence, we spoke with Dr. Holly Hartmann - now also the Director of the Carpe Diem West Academy - for the story on how the Academy got started, what it does now, and where it’s going in the future. Regards,
Q: How did this idea of developing a website to help water and energy managers figure out the best available tools for dealing with climate change get started? HH: We started the Academy as a project to help water managers do a lot of the initial sorting of climate tools, and perhaps provide some more focused training down the road. The idea emerged from some of the convenings Carpe Diem West held in recent years. A recurring comment we got from water managers was the need for help in making sense of the huge number of climate tools being thrown at them, addressing different areas of water management. Their experience was that they could spend days looking at different tools and still not get a sense that they had taken a comprehensive look at what’s out there, much less figure out which tools were best for their particular situation. So we thought it would be helpful to our Network to do a lot of that work up front, by applying a set of criteria designed to identify particular tools that are robust and scientifically supported, and most relevant to different stages of practical decision making. |
Check out the Carpe Diem West Academy website. Watch the video of Dr. Hartmann introducing the Academy website. Thank you!! Continue this conversation through our In The West blog. |