The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers, ASABE held their very first Climate Change Symposium a few weeks ago (May 3-5) in Chicago, Illinois. The focus was “Adaptation and Mitigation.”
ASABE is an international educational and scientific organization dedicated to the advancement of engineering applicable to biological, food, and agricultural systems. For three days, the symposium sought to bring together researchers, practitioners and policy makers from all over the world to exchange and discuss creative solutions related to the impacts of global climate change. Experts looked at global warming and its impact on agriculture, land and water resources, among other related topics. The three keynote speakers included Dr. Chris Milly, a Research Hydrologist for the U.S. Geological Survey and a world-recognized expert on hydrologic aspects of climate change, Dr. Sonny Ramaswamy, Director of the USDA’s National Institute of Food and Agriculture (http://nifa.usda.gov/), and Dr. Cynthia Rosenzweig, a senior Research Scientist at the NASA Goddard Institute for Space Studies and head of the Climate Impacts Group. After the symposium ended, Dr. Rosenzweig said “While we can’t minimize the importance of climate change, we can meet the challenge by leading the planet to sustainability. Here, at the ASABE Symposium on Climate Change, is a great opportunity to do just that. After all, everybody knows that “Engineers can fix anything!”
