1. Your design skills can save lives: Can Parsons and the Red Cross help each other? Pablo Suarez, Ph.D. Red Cross / Red Crescent Climate Centre & Boston University Nov 3, 2009 Parsons School of Design

2. Evidence of change: Andean glacier (Yanamarey, Perú) 1987 1997 2005 1987

3. Unusual climate anomalies and events (2005)

4. Remarkable progress (collect, store, process, disseminate) Need to adapt What about marginal communities? Challenges of New Climatic Predictions A. Patt, with data from IRI

5. Mme. Khin Cho Cho Shein vs Cyclone Nargis (Myanmar)

6. Reaching out: "Parachuting in" with new info? Photo: A. Patt

9. Apocalypsis? Climate Change is a Humanitarian Problem

12. Participatory Workshops for Adaptation Intro: “learn & share” Flood impacts? What during flood? Causes? Info: predictability What can be done differently? Exposure Vulnerability Adaptive Capacity  

13. Community-level preparedness for a changing climate Planning access to flood shelters in Bangladesh

14. Community-level preparedness for a changing climate Water transport in southern Africa

17. Columbia U: Masters in Climate & Society

18. Internship example #1: Emergency appeal in West Africa

19. Forecast Maproom (from Columbia U, for Red Cross)

20. Movie time! ~10 Red Cross colleagues from East Africa

21. Internship example #2: Malawi farmers become filmmakers Movie time! 0.6% 11.9% 6. People living with HIV (15-49 years old) 70% 0.4% 8. Internet users (2005) 13 1,100 5. Maternal mortality ratio (per 100,000 births) 7 120 4. Child mortality (per 1,000 live births) 1% 36% 2. Adult illiteracy rate $41,890 $ 667 1. GDP per capita US MW MDG indicators

22. Our new ducks float during floods. Chickens used to drown and die

23. Communicating Climate Change in Argentina Advocacy through Urban Art

24. Communicating Climate Risks and Decision Capacity: Disaster management explorations via games

28. Communicating Climate Risks and Decision Capacity: Disaster management explorations via games

29. The gap between forecasters and humanitarian workers Given what we know as of May 15 2008, we can say that, for the period June-August 2008 in the areas of West Africa highlighted in the map, the probability of seeing precipitation that would rank in the top 15% of the historical record is now enhanced to between 40% and 50% SCIENTISTS What is their job? Predictions (information) What matters? Predictable events (extreme rain, temp, etc) What timeline matters? Time between prediction and actual event What “chances” matter? Probability of event materializing RED CROSS STAFF Decisions (action) Avoidable losses (death, hunger, etc) Time needed to implement decisions Risk of losses so high as to deserve action

31. Community workshop to design flood contingency plan Activation of community early warning procedures Preparation of shelters/camps Refreshment training of Red Cross volunteers (search & rescue, first aid, etc) Evacuation of people at risk Pre-disaster assessment of capacity to respond to imminent crisis Activation and implementation of existing contingency plan In-country procurement of relief supplies to replenish minimum stocks Procurement of relief supplies from abroad to respond to catastrophic event Pre-positioning of relief supplies, logistics and human resource assets Communications (both telecommunications and media) Other? Examples of disaster management options

33. Columbia U: Masters in Climate & Society

34. Sample forecasting maps from scientists

35. Forecast Maproom (from Columbia U, for Red Cross)

36. Movie time! ~10 Red Cross colleagues from East Africa

37. Existing web-based tool that we can work on