Crowdscoring Place: Engaging Crowds to Assess Local Risk & Readiness by ClimatePlaceProject

In both the content of our proposal and through the process of developing our concept, the Climate Place Project has fully embraced the Climate Co-Lab spirit of crowdsourcing climate solutions. Our proposal has evolved through the collaborative involvement of team members, which has grown to 13 people from across the U.S. and Europe. Team members participate from Montana, California, Massachusetts, Arizona, Washington State, Great Britain, and the Netherlands. The impressive professional biographies and breadth of experience of this team is not fully captured in the contributor profiles posted by these 13 contributors. So in one place, here is a brief biographical sketch of the Climate Place Project Team, ordered alphabetically. Cody Benkelman is Product Manager for Mapping and Charting Solutions at ESRI. ESRI has offered to build a prototype of a modern mapping site if this proposal moves forward to implementation. The mapping site would include access to a variety of existing data layers, including public data available through NOAA's National Climatic Data Center, and the ability to share interactive maps with users on desktop, web, and mobile devices. The platform would allow users to input crowdsourced data developed under Action 2. Mikhail Chester is Assistant Professor of Civil, Environmental, and Sustainability Engineering at Arizona State University. He runs a research lab focused on infrastructure design and climate vulnerability. His group largely focuses on questions of heat vulnerability and how the design of infrastructure can contribute to social vulnerability. Elizabeth Dowey is a math instructor for Northeastern University Foundation Year in Massachusetts. She is the mother of two boys. She’s interested in how we get the media to integrate talk of climate change as deeply as they integrate talk of the economy. She also has submitted a separate proposal to the Climate Co-Lab: Break climate conversation out of its shell! Elizabeth will work with colleagues to develop and beta test a community preparedness scoring methodology that can be applied by high school and post-secondary students in the United States. Oliver Heidrich is a Senior Researcher in Urban Resource Modelling at Newcastle University in the UK. He has been a practicing civil engineer for more than 20 years. He has developed new approaches in modelling life cycle assessments in urban environments, especially in relation to climate impacts, transport and the built environment. He was the lead author of an article in Climatic Change journal about development and implementation of methods to assess community preparedness for climate change. Together with Diana Reckien, he will help the Climate Place Project adapt the Europe-focused methodology for crowdsourcing community assessments in the U.S. Steve Loken is the founder and owner of Loken Builders, a green building and development company in Missoula, Montana. He is a member of the Climate Realty team where he is helping produce risk and readiness assessments and serves as an instructor for a continuing education course for real estate professionals. Diana Reckien is an Assistant Professor for Climate Change at the University of Twente in the Netherlands in the Department of Urban and Regional Planning and Geo-Information Management. Her work there focuses on social issues related to climate change, including the impact on cities. She is an affiliated researcher at the Earth Institute, Columbia University. She is the lead author of a paper in Climatic Change that analyzed climate adaptation and mitigation plans from 200 urban areas in 11 countries. Together with Heidrich, she will help the Climate Place Project adapt the European methodology for crowdsourcing community preparedness assessments in the U.S. Nikki Reed teaches high school in Whitefish, Montana. She and her colleague, Eric Sawtelle, are leading a community effort to develop a greenhouse and renewable energy systems at a new high school. They provide faculty leadership for the school’s Environmental Club, Project Freeflow and GIS activities. They will work with the team to develop and beta test a community preparedness scoring methodology that can be applied by high school students in the United States. Brett Rosenberg, currently a sustainability consultant in Missoula, MT, is a former sustainability director for the American Institute of Architects. Brett has also worked with many dozens of mayors and cities across the US in committing to and undertaking local actions that reduce the causes and impacts of global climate change. He is a member of the Climate Realty team where he is helping produce risk and readiness assessments and serves as an instructor for a continuing education course for real estate professionals. Steven Running is a Regents Professor of Ecology at the University of Montana and a member of the International Panel on Climate Change. He directs the Numerical Terradynamic Simulation Group (NTSG), a research laboratory pioneering new approaches for ecological and hydrological analyses. Using computational process modeling, satellite remote sensing and GIS, NTSG applies ecological theory and environmental analysis to understand how terrestrial vegetation responds to climate variability. He is a member of the Climate Realty team where he is helping produce risk and readiness assessments and serves as an instructor for a continuing education course for real estate professionals. Eric Salathé is an Associate Professor of Climate Science and an Adjunct Associate Professor of Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Washington. He is the UW Director of the Northwest Climate Science Center and a principal of UW's Climate Impacts Group. The primary focus of his research work is to transform global climate change simulations into information suitable for studying regional impacts of climate change. He is a member of the Climate Realty team where he is helping produce risk and readiness assessments. Eric Sawtelle teaches high school in Whitefish, Montana. He and his colleague, Nikki Reed, are leading a community effort to develop a greenhouse and renewable energy systems at a new high school. They provide faculty leadership for the school’s Environmental Club, Project Freeflow and GIS activities. They will work with the team to develop and beta test a community preparedness scoring methodology that can be applied by high school students in the United States. Steve Thompson founded Climate Realty LLC in August 2014 and the Climate Place Project in April 2015. A former journalist, he has held leadership positions in Montana's non-profit conservation community for 24 years. He has been a journalist, philanthropic advisor and writer/editor for National Geographic Maps. He has a sociology degree from Cornell University. He leads the Climate Realty team producing risk and readiness assessments and serves as an instructor for a continuing education course for real estate professionals. Laurie Yung is an Associate Professor of Natural Resource Social Science in the Department of Society and Conservation at the University of Montana College of Forestry and Conservation. She directs the College's Resource Conservation Program. Among her research priorities is a project to assess community and social vulnerability and adaptive capacity in the context of climate change. She co-directs the Community Vulnerability Working Group, a collaboration with the US Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station to build knowledge of social vulnerability and better integrate that knowledge into decision-making, especially in a rural context. She is a member of the Climate Realty team where she is helping produce risk and readiness assessments.

I just posted two additional comments here, then noticed the judges' post that our proposal has not been selected as a finalist. Thank you for considering our proposal.