Extension Climate/Extreme Weather Programming

● “ I'll tell you how I defuse arguments ...when people come off as combative. Basically, I acknowledge their concern. I say ‘oh, I can tell from the way that you're talking about this that you're really passionate about it because, you know, I think we can all agree there's a lot at stake. And so for now, why don't we agree to disagree?’ And I'll go on with my talk, and we can have an offline conversation, and that actually seems to work because I'm acknowledging that they’re concerned about it ...Everybody wants to make sure that we're getting it right. ” (R06) Transdisciplinary & “Nexus” Programming Crossing boundaries, working at the nexus of different topical and disciplinary issues, and deliberately structuring programs to identify areas of common ground among clientele who may hold competing interests were identified by early adopters as key to effective C/EW programming. ● “ The ways we can adapt are as broad

as the field of agriculture , from livestock animal scientists to agronomists to plant scientists and everything in between. So we just need all these people working in their particular field on resilient solutions ...it can't be up to me as a climate change generalist.” (R09) ● “There's also an opportunity with these so-called “nexus” issues, like food-energy, water security-climate, water-land use, or climate and cascading hazards like drought, forest fires and then floods that follow forest fires that send debris flows cascading into

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communities. I think there are big opportunities to work at those intersections and it can be very fruitful because you could work with a lot of other extension colleagues and other state and federal agency colleagues on those kinds of issues.” (R06) ● “We visited three communities in rural

[STATE] to talk about climate and energy and agricultural water use . We kind of mushed those three topics together. They are always of interest to folks in [our] state ...so the energy issues are interesting, the water is scarce, so that's always interesting, and the climate part kind of brought all the pieces together .” (R06)

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