Local climate resources
- Clean technology to improve and protect your home and reduce your bills:
- Clallam County Wildfire Protection Workshop
- The Switch Is On: General guide to consumer clean tech
- U.S. Government guide to energy savings incentives
- Home upgrades – OCA member Dave Large–good overview–Passcode: ^?GISu0*
- The Ultimate Guide on Water Conservation: How To Save Every Drop
- Rainwater Collection 101 by CJ Huxford of Northwest Rain Solutions–Passcode: f1ed+sKF
- Local government climate planning:
- Jefferson County/Port Townsend Climate Action Committee
- Clallam County:
- Local climate impacts & resiliency planning:
- North Olympic Development Council:
- North Olympic Peninsula Climate Resiliency Planning 2022
- Climate Action Toolkit 2022
- North Olympic Peninsula Natural Disaster Resiliency Planning 2022
- Planning for Climate Change on the North Olympic Peninsula — 2015
- Final report (including Adaptation Progress Dashboard)
- Resources used in the report
- North Peninsula climate resilience spatial planning project–collaboration of the Jefferson and North Olympic Land Trusts
- NOAA climate modeling mapping tool–helps foretell local risks
- Landscape Disturbance in Pacific Northwest National Parks
- Olympic Coast National Marine Sanctuary climate change study
- Ocean acidification in the Pacific Northwest
- Ideas for local mitigation strategies and actions — OCA 2022
- Spatial trends in local climate resiliency planning – North Olympic Land Trust 2021
- Projected impacts on streams – UW Climate Impacts Group
- Projected sea-level rise in Clallam County – Ian Miller, WA Sea Grant
- Wildfire impacts of climate change – Bob Lynette, OCA member
- Water supply concerns (draft) – Ann Soule, OCA member
- Olympic National Forest & Park study of climate adaptation needs
- Study: Olympic glaciers will be gone in 50 years (2022)
- Presentation by the researcher, Dr. Andrew Fountain, to OCA, 6/15/22
- Olympic National Park: glacial & snowpack recession
- Presentation by Bill Baccus, Olympic National Park 2019
- 2015 scientific paper
- North Olympic Development Council:
- Peninsula Tribal climate planning:
- Ocean acidification vulnerability of Peninsula coastal Tribes (video)
- OA impacts on coastal Tribes–Congressional briefing summary
- Coastal tribes collaborate to confront climate change
- Quileute Tribe Climate Action Planning
- Makah Tribe Climate Planning 2018
- Lower Elwha KlallamTribe climate planning
- Jamestown S’Klallam Tribe climate planning
Regional climate-change references
- Map tool: Changes in Climate-Related Natural Hazards for WA
- Climate Q&A from the League of Women Voters of WA
- Washington State Climate Policy Group: Excellent starting point for a layperson
- How WA State can transition to 100% renewable energy – Mark Jacobson et al.
- University of Washington Climate Impacts Group: Compendium of science, analysis, and news about climate change, focusing on WA state, including Climate Change Impacts and Adaptation in Washington State: Technical Summaries for Decision Makers and this summary of expected impacts. State of Knowledge: Climate Change in Puget Sound is a comprehensive synthesis report summarizing relevant research on the likely effects of climate change on the lands, water, and people of the Puget Sound region
- National Climate Assessment Regional Reports, including Chapter 21, Northwest
- Climate Change Effects & Adaptation Approaches in Marine & Coastal Ecosystems of the North Pacific Landscape Conservation Cooperative Region: Executive Summary
- Sightline Institute: researches best practices in public policy for a sustainable Northwest Good analyses of proposed coal ports, etc.
- Climate Change and Our Natural Resources, Northwest Indian Fisheries commission
- Carbon fluxes of Washington forests – by DNR & USFS
- Municipal Research & Services Center of WA: information on climate science and policy, focused for local governments
- Seattle Times series on ocean acidification
Forests and Climate (graphic from Law et al. 2022–see below)
- Primer on Forests as Natural Climate Solutions
- Forests FAQ from 350 Seattle
- Annotated Bibliography on Climate Mitigation in Pacific Northwest Forests
- Global Forest Watch tree cover loss/gain maps
- Values of our mature/older/pre-1945 forests:
- Compendium of science on the values of older forests
- What the old forest taught us: Forest stewardship in the 21st century–Jerry Franklin
- Older trees sequester and store more carbon than younger ones (Birdsey et al. 2023)
- Older trees are more resilient to climate-related mortality (Acker et al. 2023)
- Temperate evergreen forests are the best biome on earth for storing carbon (Keith et al. 2009) and will become even more important as tropical and boreal forests are impacted by climate change (“Feedback Loops” 2020)
- Why forest soil carbon is so important (Rath and Ramirez 2023)
- Mature forests in the US are critical to global climate goals (Birdsey et al. 2025)
- Federal forest practices need reform:
- Proforestation (letting forests grow) is the best thing we can do to protect the climate (Moomaw et al. 2019)
- 9-minute PBS animated interview with Dr. Beverly Law describing why (PBS 2022)
- 50 million acres of older federal forests need protection (DellaSala et al. 2022)
- Extending industrial harvest rotations stores more carbon and yields more timber (Sightline 2022)
- To protect climate/biodiversity/water, we must create Strategic Forest Reserves (Law et al. 2022)
- Best strategy: Longer rotations on private lands, reserves on public lands (Law et al. 2018)
- Forestry Gone Awry: An Evaluation of Projects Using Ecological Rationales to Log Mature and Old-Growth Trees on Federal lands (Frost and Enser 2024)
- Wildfire management should focus on homes and communities, not wildlands (Calkin et al. 2023)
- Proforestation (letting forests grow) is the best thing we can do to protect the climate (Moomaw et al. 2019)
- State forest practices need reform:
- In WA, DNR & industrial forest lands are net emitters (see p. 13) (USDA & WADNR 2020)
- WA State must reform forest practices to achieve its climate targets (Robertson et al. 2021)
- 77,000 acres of older state forests need protection (Center for Responsible Forestry)
- League of Women Voters webinar on protecting older state forests:
- Map: Forest loss on the Olympic Peninsula (Global Forest Change, U. of Maryland 2021)
- Washington State undercuts its climate commitments via a little-known 2020 law declaring logging to be climate-friendly (Earth Island Journal 2022)
- Science refutes timber industry claims that logging stores carbon, produces carbon-neutral energy, and helps reduce wildfire risks:
- 200 scientists’ letter to Congress 2020 refuting all of these claims
- 15′ video re: older forests breaks & takes down industry’s carbon claims
- Industrially-managed forests are more prone to fire (Levine et al. 2022)
- Purported climate virtues of industrial logging are based on skewed accounting (2023 news article; Peng et al. 2023 ; Searchinger et al. 2023; Moomaw & Law 2023; Harmon 2019; Hudiburg et al. 2019)
- Wildfire “thinning” & “salvage” is scientifically and economically questionable:
- Thinning involves trade-offs that often are counterproductive (Lindenmayer et al. 2026)
- How climate changes fuels increasing wildfire disasters (written by a student: Christensen 2025)
- Increased logging will not help the fire problem in Cascadia (Reilly et al. 2022)
- Most “fire-suppression” logging is wasteful and counterproductive (DellaSala et al. 2022)
- Falsification of the science in government-funded wildfire studies (Baker et al. 2023)
- Webinar: The Truth about Carbon, Wildfire, & Biodiversity, with panelists Drs. Bev Law, Chad Hanson, and Monica Bond (1.5 hr)
- The key to wildfire protection is “best practices” on home lots (Sightline 2022)
- Biomass is a boondoggle that lays waste to forests & pollutes more than coal:
- Timber economies weaken local communities:
- How the timber industry weakens rural communities – Niemi 2025
- Webinar: Climate and Social Costs of Industrial Timber Practices (passcode: Kh$Y?&21)
- Organizations working for forest reform:
- The WA Forest Defense group works for sustainable & just forest management
- The Legacy Forest Defense Coalition & Center for Responsible Forestry campaign for conservation of older state forests
- A Green New Deal for Forests: How rural communities can balance the ecological, social, and economic needs of our times
- The Climate Forests campaign aims to protect older federal forests
- National Congress of American Indians and Affiliated Tribes of Northwest Indians resolutions re: protecting Mature & Old Growth Forests on federal ancestral lands
National/Global climate-change references
- Animated history of fossil fuels in 300 seconds, narrated by Richard Heinberg
- What is Climate Change? Comprehensive Study Guide
- State of the Climate Report 2026
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Synthesis Report
- Carbon Brief – latest developments in climate science & policy
- Climate Solutions Simulator model–plot out your own climate solutions!
- National Climate Opinion Maps – broken down by state & county
Climate-action organizations
- 350.org. Founded by Bill McKibben, 350 represents the number of parts per million of carbon that the atmosphere can hold without a catastrophic degree of climate change; we are already well beyond 400. OCA is affiliated, and there’s a WA State chapter.
- Climate Solutions is a Pacific Northwest-based organization accelerating clean-energy solutions to the climate crisis through research, partnerships, and advocacy.
- Union of Concerned Scientists’ Climate Action Button will guide you to effective climate actions tailored to your passions and talents.
Science of climate change
- The “climate clock” keeps ticking
- This graph shows how quickly and radically we have to act
- Which countries have emitted the most CO2?
- Climate Literacy: Essential Principles for Understanding and Addressing Climate Change –from the US Global Change Research Program, 2024; no longer available from the US Government website as of 2025 😦
- NASA: Global Climate Change, Vital Signs of the Planet
- My NASA Data: graphically powerful, well-organized tool, esp. for educators
- The Climate Toolbox — A collection of web tools for visualizing past and projected climate and hydrology of the contiguous United States of America
- How data science can help address climate change
- Climate science summarized by the National Academies of Science & Royal Society
- Summary of risks from the American Academy for the Advancement of Science
- Extreme weather risks, from Union of Concerned Scientists
- Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change Fifth Assessment Report:
- Working Group I: The Physical Science Basis
- Working Group II: Impacts, Adaptation, and Vulnerability
- Working Group III: Mitigation of Climate Change
- Skeptical Science explains what peer-reviewed science has to say
- Direct info from a group of climate scientists: RealClimate.com
- Hitchhiker’s Guide to Climate Change, 2-page graphic by Ned Hammar of OCA
- Global warming explained in a 2-minute video (or try the 5-min. “long” version)
- Global warming explained in an 18-minute video by scientist Katharine Hayhoe
- Global weirding: Why do a couple of degrees matter? by Katharine Hayhoe
- Global warming explained in Q&A format
- Climate research 1-page summary
- Global temperatures since the last Ice Age, in one loooong cartoon strip
- What’s really warming the world?–series of graphs showing relative contributions
- How the fossil fuel industry manufactured doubt about climate change
- The Lancet: Countdown on Health & Climate Change
- Mental Health and our Changing Climate – American Psychological Assn. 2017
The path to a sustainable human society
- Paul Hawken, Regeneration: Cascade of Solutions – beautiful storyboard guides you to make your own personal action checklist and share with others
- Deep Carbonization Pathways Project
- Model Laws for Deep Decarbonization
- National Academies of Sciences 2021 report on Accelerating the US Energy Transition
- House Select Committee on the Climate Crisis report 2020
- Climate Crisis Policy Digest – a compendium of policy ideas
- Equitable & Just National Climate Platform 2018
- Post-Carbon Institute: preparing communities for the rest of the 21st Century
- State Climate Policy dashboard
- Climate Justice Field Manual – a lively, practical guide to saving civilization
- Racial Justice is Climate Justice – 350 Seattle Video Library 2020
- Climate Adaptation Knowledge Exchange (CAKE)
- Climate Resilience Tool Kit from NOAA
- Guidelines for Considering Traditional Knowledges in Climate Change Initiatives
- Why All the Excitement about EVs? – slides from OCA member Tony Billera
- Teaching Resources on Climate and Energy
- Activities To Teach Kids About Environmental Issues
- “What’s the most important thing I can do?”
- New York Times
- National Park Service
- 9 Steps to reduce your climate impact – OCA
- Climate change impacts and your home – OCA & Local 2020
How to talk to one another about sustainable progress
- Crucial Conversations: Tools for Talking when the Stakes are High
- 100 memes to help in the climate crisis – Sarah Lazarovic
- The Aspiring Thinker’s Guide to Critical Thinking
- Having climate conversations – 350.org
- Sustainable World Sourcebook and Engagement Circles Convener Guide
- ecoAmerica: How to build public support for climate solutions
- Science Insights — A Climate Basics Series – 10 articles — Nan Bray
- Science Insights — Biodiversity — Nan Bray
