News | Study of Environmental Arctic Change
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One of SEARCH’s graduate research fellows at Middlebury Institute of International Studies, Imane Darkaoui is on-site participating in COP30. After a logistically challenging journey from Monterey, California, to Belém, Brazil, earlier this week, Amany’s first report from COP30 has arrived. _____ The Conference of the Parties (COP) is the annual meeting for all the parties…
What Is COP? COP is the “Conference of the Parties,” an annual United Nations summit where world leaders, diplomats, scientists, and other stakeholders gather to address climate change issues. The “Parties” refer to the 198 countries (plus the European Union) that have signed the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC), a treaty adopted…
Slushy sidewalks, falling flakes, and brisk breezes indicate April’s late-winter tendrils are yet to relinquish Anchorage from their grasps. None of it freezes folks in their footsteps. Over 1,000 people from many corners of the globe have traveled to Alaska’s metropolis for the 10th anniversary Arctic Encounter Symposium (AES), North America’s largest Arctic policy and…
SEARCH Highlights: How we're working together to share what we know
Dr. Jamie Donatuto has spent decades advancing the environmental health and well being of the communities in which she works. That service and success was recently recognized by the National Science Foundation as, in partnership with The Kaleta A. Doolin Foundation, Jamie was named as one of 31 Ocean Decade Champions. Women leaders at the…
SEARCH honored the life of Craig George earlier in October with the making of music. Tragically lost in a rafting accident this past July, Craig George was known—among many other talents—for his love and sharing of music in his community of Utqiagvik and far beyond. Memories of Craig were shared throughout SEARCH’s annual all-hands convening…
The Fairbanks North Star Borough has its newest candidate for mayor: Savannah Venetis Fletcher. A member of SEARCH’s Drivers and Ecological Consequences co-production team, Savannah announced her mayoral run earlier this October with supporting a thriving community, communicating openly and transparently, and staffing and operating the Borough fairly and efficiently chief among her goals. “I…
Mary Blair holds her Sámi heritage close to her heart. For the longest time, however, she didn’t even know it existed. A member of SEARCH’s Human Well Being co-production team and Director of Biodiversity Informatics Research at the Center for Biodiversity and Conservation at the American Museum of Natural History, Mary was working through her…
For Arctic Indigenous People, food is far more than just something to eat. Where most of America drives to grab the same groceries that can be found at supermarkets across the country, folks living in rural Alaskan villages like Kiana and Kotzebue regularly head out onto the land to hunt and forage for traditional foods.…
Once covered in meters-thick sea ice, the Central Arctic Ocean—an area the size of the Mediterranean at the top of our planet—is opening up for the first time in human history as climate change warms the Arctic. Categorized as “high seas” over which no country has jurisdiction, the Central Arctic Ocean is a recent center…
Sometimes, reading a good paper can give folks decent food for thought. Sometimes, it can spark a team to examine some of its fundamental objectives and strategies. In a recent SEARCH reading group, the latter outcome was realized. In discussing both Arctic: Traditional Knowledge, Livelihoods and Community Engagement Setting the Scene by Manrique de Lara…
Community perspectives on using solar geoengineering to limit the impacts of climate change were the topic of conversation in a recent SEARCH reading group. SEARCH members and Arctic researchers from Arizona State University gathered to discuss “Bog here, marshland there”: Tensions in co-producing scientific knowledge on solar geoengineering in the Arctic by Ilona Mettiäinen and…
SEARCH has been hosting regular meetings of Arctic minds for nearly two years. Through bi-weekly reading groups led by SEARCH executive director Athena Copenhaver, practitioners and community members from across the Arctic research world gather to discuss innovative, provocative, and novel Arctic literature. From papers on integrating Indigenous Knowledge with scientific forecasting to keep community…
Electric conversations are the norm for SEARCH’s Arctic Energy Synthesis Group. Zooming in from across the country, team members crackle with enthusiasm as meeting discussions bounce from sustainable power financing in rural Alaska to achieving equitable energy transitions for communities across the circumpolar north. The experts at work offer a taste of the diversity of…