Climate Vulnerability and Community Capacity for Adaptation
This event has passed.
Flooding in the Rockaways in New York City in September 2023. photo / Mui Ho Center for Cities
Overview
The workshop focuses on community-level vulnerabilities to climate change risks and community capacity for environmental stewardship and care. Workshop participants will discuss what it means to be vulnerable to climate change hazards and risks. Looking at vulnerability index data spatially in their specific communities, participants will share if these data confirm or deviate from their lived experience, expertise, and knowledge of how climate change manifests on the ground. They will also draw a map of their community and narrate their relationship to individuals, groups, and networks that care for the natural environment. The workshop will conclude with a discussion of the challenges of navigating and nurturing mutually beneficial, productive, and sustained university-civil society-community partnerships.
If you have questions, please contact the Center for Cities at centerforcities@cornell.edu.
Schedule
8:30–9 a.m. | Registration, Breakfast, and Welcoming Remarks
9–10:30 a.m. | Community and Project Introductions and Objectives of the Day
Introduction of Rockaway and Brownsville community members. Explanation and background on the purpose of the proposed center on climate adaptation in New York City.
10:30–12 p.m. | Session 1: Community Capacity for Environmental Care
Prompt: What does community capacity to adapt to climate change mean? What are your networks for environmental care and climate change adaptation?
12–1 p.m. | Lunch
1–2:30 p.m. | Session 2: Household Vulnerability to Climate Change
Break out groups: What does climate change vulnerability mean in your context? How do widely used vulnerability indexes correspond to your lived experience? What is right, wrong, or missing?
2:30–3:30 p.m. | Session 3: Navigating Research and Community Partnerships
Panel: University-community relationships are notoriously difficult to navigate, given different needs, pressures, and expectations. This panel will discuss common challenges and potential approaches to these relationships.
3:30-3:45 p.m. | Coffee Break
3:45–4 p.m. | Summary, Next Steps, and Closing
Prompt: What are areas we need to do more work on? How should we move forward? What are we still missing?
Project Team
Co-lead: Victoria A. Beard, Cornell University
Co-lead: Jesse LeCavalier, Cornell University
Lindsay Campbell, USDA Forest Service
Elizabeth Cook, Barnard College
Alana Danieu, RISE Rockaway
George Del Barrio, Universe City NYC
Jeanne DuPont, RISE Rockaway
Michelle Johnson, USDA Forest Service
Sophie Oldfield, Cornell University
Natalia Piland, USDA Forest Service
Peter Robinson, Cornell University
Avery Sirwatka, Cornell University
Erika Svendsen, USDA Forest Service
