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tv   [untitled]    November 24, 2010 6:00am-6:30am PST

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both mentioned we have models now but that's not a problem, we have the regional models now. it seems one of the key areas to implement is in the california environmental quality act. the planning and conservation league is hosting series of workshops across the state helping planners and community leaders integrate climate change in all the work they do, so i'd like to get your thoughts on that and specifically from jeff, when do you see metropolitan, integrating climate change into their analysis? >> good question, except i'm the moderator. >> that's an excellent question and that's what we wrestle with, how to incorporate it into a type of
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analysis where, yes we can see more constant variables in volatility and we don't know how things will be driven. certainly we see things warmer, but as the models it could be more snow melt and perhaps we have not been able to confidently say what all the impacts of it are. but it is something we have looked at. we are going through - every five years we have an integrated resource plan we update and the following year after that, we try to up date our urban water management program and the next cycle is suppose to have a chapter on that. and you know we assume over time, it will get more sophisticated and what it
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actually means in actual actions. hopefully that answers that. >> for one specific example of another agency that should be looking at climate change is the california recreation board that's responsible for protectg the central valley for flooding and it's particular striking they have done so in the delta where there's a lot of housing constructed and where they are now , we don't know the risk those communities would be in risk of flooding. are we building another katrina in the delta and are we doing so that increases the delta failure that has profound water shortage implications and we have them claiming yes climate change is real, yes, it has
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implications, but, no, they would not evaluate them. so being the reasonable people we are, we sued them. but we think it require as real analysis especially when agencies are making long-term issues with profound effects for public safety and we hope the courts resolve that rapidly and the legislature can do that as well. >> as far as regional exercises, i think i'm all for it. they do have their limitations but the way to improve these models and to understand their capabilities is to use them and try to confirm that they work on big events that we actually have observed, and so you know,
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typically, we look retrospective simulations and try to introduce as much independence in the tests that are used, in order to gain confidence that the models work in future situations. i'm not familiar with the environmental quality act or activity that you mentioned but i think it's worth discussing. >> just time for a few more questions. >> this one is for dan, i want to pick up on some things you mentioned, just reiterate, especially ten years back, we don't know about regional climate scene just through temperatures. my sense is science is improving and you mentioned the business about regional change in precipitation and the
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tendency to get dryer moving north and the models also showing tendency for wetter winters and dryer summers and whether the model shows heatwaves and that's interesting not just as temperatures being higher but more sustained and more precipitation, and planning knowing how to apply these things could be very useful but i wanted to comment on that. >> yeah, thanks joel. well, precipitation is still roblematic but there's this >> there's a tendency for more wetness in tropical climates. it's kind of if you shift the
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whole frequency distribution of temperature to the warm side and naturally the tail shifts as well and you get a propensity of more extremes. because the temperature impacts snow,packs you propose more run off in certain mountain settings. there's a little evidence of increase in heavier precipitation and that's showing up in some observations across the united states and i think you'll see this in the,ip sfpuc, but it's not real real strong. i would say that's kind of a second order effect. you know, if we were living in the gulf states we probably would be worried about the
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tendency for more tropical storms and we really have not seen that in these models in the eastern pacific but i don't know that they would show that. so, there is more specificity developing as we do more and more work on this. there's more models and you know we've gone from maybe a dozen models to 20 or so, in the fourth assessment and their contributing all of this. it's an interim process and one that which, incremental changes and improvements are being made. >> i think we're going to end it there and i'll thank the panel one more time. thank you, very much. [applause] >> thank you very much.
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jeff, panelists great job. lanl we are going to have a reception that way, and we encourage you to join us. i just have a couple of comments. we are doing to be having a synopsis of the panels today. those are going to be available for you - there will be at each place tomorrow morning, so that will be away to start off the day so get here early so you can read that synopsis. i suggest that you enjoy the reception and have a rest full evening and come here with very clear heads because we've heard a lot today and we're going to really try to full together some action items where we can leave here tomorrow and at least come away, many of you as
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leaders of water utilities and those of you that advise us. hopefully we'll come up with real concrete plans on how to move forward, or at least some strategies to move forward. i know this panel has been very helpful in providing us with more ideas and thoughts on things we really need to take into account moving forward. i want to take a couple of house keeping items - . . .
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>> everybody still looks bright ayed today. that's a good sign. i'd like to take this moment to introduce the moderator. this is a tough job today. this is someone that's got to be a,b erb er, woman want to be. you maybe one after this panel. one of my director of communications warned me i may have some protests from, i don't know, some action because i made that comment but whatever - that's what we all love about the city. any way i'd like to introduce emily loyd taking on the job of moderator and developing a plan of action. emily is up to this tough job.
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she's commissioner emily loyd and the head of department of environmental protection of new york city and appointed by mayor bloomberg to head this agency in 05. the department is responsible for imagining new york cities waist water and treatment, drinking supply, handling hazard materials and emergency x toxicities and removal of those and enforcing cities air and noise codes. they also have substantial responsibility outside of new york city managering 2 thousand square miles of the hudson valley. prior to heading up this agency commissioner loyd served as executive vice president for public affairs at colombia
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university and was in the administration for ten years and commissioner for sanitation under mayor, jenkins and was ma developer at port an authority and commissioner for traffic and parking for the city of boston. emily, thank you so much. we are so glad to have your energy, your smarts to lead us to this tough topic this morning. thank you. [applause] >> thank you, susan. well, as the only - at least self identifying water system manager from the east coast, i had originally planned briefly present some highlights of our climate change experience in new york city but after listening yesterday i thought i
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could spare you anguish and tell you a brief new york story in a brief new york minute. i live in brooklyn and a little backyard in the back and stone walk in the front. years back my son was in the front and we left our backyard and there was a huge august moon rising and we up the block and out into a neighbors backyard when there was a party and when my son got to the party, he said we've got a moon just like that in our backyard. let me say we've not a climate change just like yours in our backyard. the time spent yesterday, at least for me, was very well spent and leads up to the business of today. yesterday we talked about the
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state of knowledge. some of it was wonderfully obvious. and water goes down hill and collection areas and some of it was breathtakingly vague trying make a billion dollar decision about something. we talked about simple solutions and bold actions and diverse drinking water systems in san diego and we heard about thinking about discipline, winning over regulators and economic development agencies and environmental groups as getting them to work with us. today, we have the opportunity to make it much more useful because it's amply, clear
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climate change is happen together all of us right now, as water system manager's and we can work together and act together, we can probably be more effective, more quickly. so that's what we're going to try to do today and here's how we're going to do it. we're going to use those five topics up on the screen to frame the sib jekt. we don't want them to constrain, it's just to give them structure. we want to hear from as many people as possible. panelists certainly, but you as well. what decisions you think need to be made quickly and what strategies you think have been useful. decision making, taking action in your field of work. we want to hear about what you need that this group could help you with, so you could be more
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effective in taking on and acting effectively on climate change. we're going to spend about 20 minutes on each area and as we begin each discussion area i'll ask a volunteer panelist to speak briefly and try to get comments from two or three of you on the floor and if we have time we'll go back to panelist. i'll ask people to stick to three minutes and the crew of eagle aye and microphone carriers i assume are available today i assume will find you and then when three minutes is up, they will leave you. tough love so we can hear from as many people as possible. we will break at forty five minutes after five so i can eat
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a muffin if there's one left and we'll talk about engineering and leave time for last thoughts. that won't be your last chance. i'm told the website is opened for several days so if you leave and have not had a chance to speak or you think of something later, please write to the website so the staff can see what your thinking. you've been given cards and i want to remind you about two particular questions. what can our agencies do collectively to come back and respond effectively to climate change. question two, what specific actions are you doing now or what specific ideas do you want to hear from others about climate change? and if you will and those in to staff all
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of those will be taken by them and synthesized into an action plan and focused on not what we're doing for the next 30 years, but steps in the near future to continue to develop our capacity to work together and lend incite and support. having said that, we're going to start with the first topic, public engage meant. will one of our panelists speak briefly about public engagement? barry. i see volunteering in your,e yes. >> two things. a terrific start to public engage meant is evidence by this conference. not just to the water community
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but attention from the stake holders and media and increaseing a warness so building on this conference is something that i think is tremendous valuable and not just for the inside water community. second, simple public awareness i want to mention because it came out of our experience in california. a number of agencies decided to support, the bill, ab 32, that started because they asked themselves conversation with folks working on climate issues, if they thought we needed a mandatory cap on greenhouse gases, and the answer after it got a great deal of thought the answer was yes, it's not a silver bullet but it is part of the solution. >> a number of them said why
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don't you start with saying that publically. it's not taking opposition on legislation but that sort of policy statement to the general public that climate change has significant impact and we can't just plan for the worst case scenario, we have to think of it's an a policy issue before we get to regulatory and that's something we urge to get the public to think about. >> i think conveying to people what we realize and getting it on the radar screen is important. is there a participant that can help us think about participation or public engage meant? >> hi we're focused on local
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solutions to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. our approach to this issue is develop a community climate action plan which we're currently launching and that's one reason i'm here is to probe the knowledge that the audience as a group to find out what can be done specifically in the waist water sectors but we're trying to conceive this thing pass being sort of a synergistic combination of transportation - looking at transportation, land use, water use, waist water, and solid waist and energy. all of those things working together to bring up a focus on how we can achieve significant reduction in the community. like jarrod said, it actually
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occurs locally. that's what we focus on. public outreach is a key element for us and we work with community environment groups and just but - using the plan kind of as a faveus cuss in terms of how you do it and in terms of what specific actions can be taken. >> thank you. >> i'm paul the general manager of the grand municipal water district. one of the things we're doing in california and this is sponsored by proposition 50 and proposition 84, is regional water management integration planning and all the reamal entities have participated in this for the last year. but in the bay area we talk about overlaying that planning process with a focus on climate change and i talked to lester
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snow last night about this and i'm glad to hear the department will be promoting that but that's a good forum for the work we're talking about here today. with all the partners the local agencies and others and there is a public engage meant component as part of that. when we develop the plan one element we try to do is reach out to community groups and stake holders. i think that's one place california already has a process in place and it would be helpful for all of us to focus on climate change as part of that process. >> thank you. >> good morning. larry wilson. i'm thinking as a product of this summit that we should come up with a statement of the reality of science as we see it
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today. we all agree that certain things really happening. we ought to state the obvious. a statement from this summit signed on to by the participants here and if we can do that along with some of the back up issues about the action plans and stuff like that we can probably put out a product with a value of national interest. >> i think we're not going to try to take action today, but in the follow up that we'll be circulating and there will be on going dialogue through that mechanism and those are things we can consider, because i think everyone feels a lot of need to get out with some of the things we've formed consensus about over the past day. let me go back to a panelist now.
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>> well a couple of thoughts in terms of public engagement. my mind goes to the whole need for a sustained marketing strategy. this is a big, long-term issue. we all talk about it in different terms and sound bites and there's no sustained product. when we try to get the public interested we're competing with iraq, healthcare, just to name all the things out there in the media all the time and there's no uniform way we describe this. it's this abstract thing way off in the future and unless we make it marketable for the public they're going to support the billions and billions to address this now for the future. it's not just the city of san
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francisco or the department of resource there has to be a much more sustained campaign to address these issues. >> i think that's very true and i will talk about new yorks plan to engage the city to think about the problems. two often problems are war memorial complex sorry, water related and hard decisions that need to be made in the city regarding water issues. this is the first outreach which was a supplement in new york times and daily news which
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i think is the most circulated paper in new york city. and getting bigger as time goes on we'll try to engage in some of this thinking where people are thinking of this early and not just presented with a plan to go, thumbs up or down on it. the idea of putting sustained conversation with consistent information is very important. this is new york city does not preclude the water utilities thinking about climate change and water and the things that go along with that and trying reach out nationally. one more. last one. >> i'm representing the endangered species coalition. made up of four hundred different groups. i guess my question from
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yesterday revolved the impacts of global warming like the, eco basis. >> i don't want to disappoint you but we're not going to be able to do questions. so i hope you can make this a comment. >> i would encourage water managers and people included in water matters try to preclude or include other species and in the process early on rather than late in the game which has occurred down through history where water decision implications have negatively impacted species that we end up dealing within confrontational ways so if we can get started with that earlier rather than later, that would be good. >> thank you. i think we need to move on.
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i apologize. let's take a few minutes thinking about legislative actions and that's local, state and several times in conversations yesterday i heard congress comments and how to engage them, certainly california, the local water authorities have a lively relationship as with their legislatives as we do in new york so i would love some thoughts about that. chuck, i thought we would start with you. >> i think there's a couple of things relating back to public engagement issue. i thought about my city council sitting here yesterday and one member is really a climate change geek. he's the chair of my subcommittee so for him it's easy to sit down a