Climate Impacts Group

Building resilience to climate change requires many diverse areas of expertise, experiences and knowledge. Though they have historically been marginalized from climate preparedness efforts, people of color, Indigenous peoples, people with lower incomes and people whose lives depend on natural resources — known collectively as “frontline communities” — have innovative solutions for building resilience to climate change impacts. 

The Northwest Climate Resilience Collaborative and partners are piloting a groundbreaking method for elevating first-hand experiences and visions of climate resilience and solutions, with the goal of incorporating community knowledge into efforts to prepare for climate impacts. Partnering with the documentary storytelling organization Tikkun Olam Productions and the Pacific Research on Island Solutions for Adaptation program, a trans-disciplinary research team will record the oral histories of frontline communities facing flooding and other climate change impacts. Oral history is a method of documenting first-hand experiences, memories and reflections through in-depth conversation and deep listening. The team will incorporate these stories into climate adaptation efforts, testing the oral history process as a novel method for co-producing science and guiding adaptation. The project is funded by a grant from the NOAA Climate Program Office. 

Dr. Rishi Sugla, a lead scientist at the Climate Impacts Group, is drawing on his expertise in community organizing, documentary filmmaking and the natural sciences to lead this project. “Storytelling approaches, like oral histories and documentary film, provide rich context that can inform place-based and community-led solutions to the most pressing problems facing frontline communities” he says. “This work is about creating just climate futures that center the knowledge and experiences of communities first and foremost. At the same time, we want to make sure we are co-generating resources that build capacity and power in our community partners along the way, through storytelling work oriented around our partner’s expressed needs. We are excited that NOAA sees the potential of multimedia storytelling as part of a climate justice focused adaptation practice. ” 

Over the course of three years, the project team will work with Indigenous communities in Washington and Hawai’i that are at increased risk of flooding due to various social, economic and political stressors. The team of researchers and storytellers will hold community sessions to co-create a production guide, facilitate 10 community members’ oral histories, edit the oral histories to highlight collective narratives and work with researchers to analyze the oral histories for relevant data for adaptation projects. The project is “an innovative and human-centered approach to accelerating climate adaptation,”  Dr. Victoria Keener, co-lead principal investigator from the Pacific Research on Islands Solutions for Adaptation Program, says. “We need more than data to communicate the impacts of climate change in frontline communities, and the strong history of storytelling in the Pacific Islands can help inform and implement needed changes,” she says. Dr. Keener and Dr. Guillaume Mauger of the Climate Impacts Group are co-Principal Investigators on the project. Maggie Lemere and Marielle Olentine, both of Tikkun Olam Productions, will lead filming and production of the oral histories and support the creation of community design sessions. 

Marielle Olentine, a storyteller and producer at Tikkun Olam, describes the production company as “a team of regenerative storytelling practitioners.” “Our team believes in the power of collective narratives to inform and reinforce the resilience of communities on the frontlines of climate change. This work centers and amplifies the legitimacy and value of the lived experiences of those that have been inhabiting these landscapes for generations,” she says. “Inviting living experts into the design process through community design sessions is a core part of what makes this research context-specific and will ideally allow these oral histories to interweave with scientific approaches to disaster response and climate adaptation in a way that promotes community autonomy and buy-in. We’re grateful to those who are already doing this work and look forward to growing the depth of knowledge in this area through NOAA’s support.” 

The trans-disciplinary team will start developing the project this fall, and plan to hold their first community meeting in Washington early this spring.