Let’s Talk Story - Be a Witness to Climate Change

By Robert Westover

On our way into work this morning my husband, Tom, was reading an article in The Atlantic about Microsoft founder Bill Gate’s perspective on climate change when Tom abruptly turned to me and said: I hear so much about the science of climate change but I rarely hear people tell how it has affected them...on an individual level. I want to hear about their personal experiences.

Tom enjoying New Zealand's great outdoors
 (Photo credit Robert Westover)

I was astounded that I hadn’t thought to promote this type of anecdotal climate change awareness on a more focused level in the ten years I’ve been writing about global warming. (Full disclosure: for many years I’ve been a “true believer” in the effects of climate change, as a man-made phenomenon. Tom has always been a keen observer and skeptic of political/environmental trends but he now agrees wholeheartedly with me that climate change is one of the greatest challenges facing mankind and we need to do something about it.)

Well, I got to work—immediately (as in today).  And here's the start.

I’ve launched a Facebook page called Witness to Climate Change https://www.facebook.com/witnesstoclimatechange/ to capture in one location as many personal storied of how climate change has affected You and Me—all of us on an individual level. This is how the story needs to be told. This is how people learn. Anecdotes of this-is-what-happened-to-me have guided humanity for millennia and I now feel this should be the focus of a worldwide climate change awareness campaign I’m calling (like the Facebook handle) Witness to Climate Change.  

Shortly after meeting Prince Charles
 (Photo credit Robert Westover)

Back a few years ago, I had the opportunity to meet one of the great climate change spokespersons (if you will) in the world. I shook hands with Prince Charles and told him I worked on climate change issues to which he responded, “But is anyone listening?" to which I replied, "We're making progress. They will listen..."

I hope the Witness to Climate Change grassroots awareness campaign is an answer so that many more will start “listening”.

Please go to the new Witness to Climate Change Facebook page https://www.facebook.com/witnesstoclimatechange/ and share your own experiences of what you've seen, lived or how you’ve been affected by climate change. I’ll choose stories to be promoted on this blog and my Twitter site @MrClimateChange.

Let’s fight Climate Change one story at a time!

Why do I care about the natural world?

By Robert Hudson Westover

My love of the great outdoors was instilled in me many years ago when my parents loaded up the car and took us kids on an epic camping trip to a pine covered area of Northern California near the Shasta-Trinity National Forest.

It was here, surrounded by the splendor of the natural world, in a secluded campsite near a stream that we sat around a campfire and Dad explained to us how lucky we were to have this great outdoors wilderness—owned by all Americas--that we can come to whenever we want.

I never forgot that trip.

Later in life I was further inspired by the tireless environmental conservation work of HRH Prince Charles and tangibly through my honorary Godmother, Olga C. Morgan and her work with Green Peace.  So at an early age I began working on environmental issues. However, this was on a voluntary basis and included things like urban and wilderness area trash clean ups and informally educating inner city kids on the importance of green areas.

I didn’t start making my living in conservation until 2005 when I landed a job with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service and now the U.S. Forest Service.

Since then I have been fortunate enough to be exposed to some of the most brilliant minds in environmental conservation including several winners of the IPCC Noble Peace Prize for climate change science.

Now I blog and tweet regularly on environmental issues. Below are some of my blogs (and articles) on climate change and sustainability dating back to 2006:

  

Switch grass as a renewable bio fuel Chesapeake Bay environmental issues

  

DNA Research that can Assist with Understanding the Effects of Climate Change

  

Study Shows Mangroves are a Major Player in Climate Change

US Forest Service Research of Black Fingers of Death Fungus May Lessen the Intensity of Wildland Fires

U.S. Forest Service Receives EPA Clean Air Excellence Award in Technology Transfer Effort

Baseball bats are safer thanks to the U.S. Forest Service Forest Products Lab

High Wood Product Output Doesn’t Correlate to Higher Carbon Emissions According to US Forest Service Research

US Forest Service Reforestation Efforts a Win-Win for Healthy Forests

Methuselah, a Bristlecone Pine is Thought to be the Oldest Living Organism on Earth

Wood to Energy – Removing Woody Biomass from National Forests Helps Local Economies

USDA Forest Service’s Fuels for Schools program Turns Biomass into Energy

Students Impact Forest Service Planning Rule Process

US Forest Service Helps Young Adults Bring Awareness to National Forests Though a Cross-Country Adventure

U.S. Forest Service Study Finds Climate Change to Affect Future Western Trout

Resilient like a Fox

Working to Reduce the US Forest Service Carbon Footprint

Fort Valley Experimental Forest: First in the Nation to Discover the Effects of a Changing Climate on Pines

Monitoring Bald Eagles to Help Prevent Deaths from Collisions with Wind Turbines

Forest Service Research Indicates Yellow-Cedar and Other Trees in Alaska Hold Biomass and Carbon

US Forest Service Study Finds Sparse Marten Detections Linked to Decline in Habitat

Carbon Study Conducted on US Forest Service Land Reveals Unexpected Results

US Forest Service Harnesses Hydropower without Having to Build a Dam

With New Interagency Agreement US Forest Service Works on the Loss of Whitebark Pine in Yellowstone Region

My Green Hawaii

The first stories of Hawaii were told to me by my grandmother who visited there in the 1950s. She wasn't the first family member to be there, that distinction was held by my great grandmother. It seemed only natural that my family would visit the most remote archipelago on earth since Hawaii's closest continental landmass was the west coast of the United States -- a region of the country my ancestors pioneered in the mid to late Nineteenth Century. And since the 1930s, we have lived, visited and loved these beautiful islands.

Classic postcard set sent to my grandmother in the late 1930s by my grandfather

My life-partner, Tom, and I will be going to Hawaii on our tenth trip there together (not including the year we lived there in 2003). We'll be staying at the Hilton Hawaii Village resort on the island of Oahu. Since I work in environmental public affairs, I will be taking particular interest in the sustainability programs this and other Waikiki resorts have to offer. You can keep up with what I'm discovering about "Green Hawaii" on my twitter at #mrclimatechange and my follow up postings on this blog. Until then, Aloha!

The Day I Met His Royal Highness, Charles, The Prince of Wales (updated Nov 2020)

Prince Charles with the author in the background, (Courtesy photo.)

Prince Charles on a visit to Washington, DC. (Photo Credit: Robert Westover)

On an official royal visit, His Royal Highness, Charles, Prince of Wales visited a local DC farm, the Common Good City Farms, (the only such farm in DC). My husband, Tom, had told me The Prince would be there, so being not only a royal enthusiast, but also a climate change advocate, I had to try to meet His Royal Highness as he too is a proponent of global warming issues.

I was not disappointed. He shook my hand and we spoke for about a minute on climate change issues. He then said, "But is anyone listening? [about climate change]" to which I replied, "We're making progress. They will listen..."

God bless the Prince of Wales!

Robert Hudson Westover

Washington, D.C.