Report: Extension Climate & Extreme Weather Programming

● “...there was some playing with the idea that it could be human-caused and some people were like, ‘yeah, I totally get it’ and others were like, ‘there’s no way’. And that is still an ongoing challenge. In certain groups, we’re not quite there yet because it signals regulation and government oversight and those kinds of things. It’s not even really about the science ...climate and extreme weather …it’s more about policy. ” (R04) ● “We were look ing at perceptions of climate change [among Extension faculty] and we got a lot of the scientists and educators saying this is real and these are the solutions we can come up with, but particularly when we talked with the practitioners, the foresters, they ’ve just learned that this is not really going on …[that] it was a political effort to kind of take control of their management and they just thought it was unnecessary.” (R07) ● “All of the farmers I work with, they feel climate risk on a day -to-day basis, they understand it. They understand that farming is not like it used to be. They understand that we're in these postmodern crazy industrial farming systems. But it's like they're trapped in the system and they don't know how to get out of it, and I think they're so tired of being blamed for being sort of the public enemy number one. ” (R13) ● “A lot of Extension’s money comes from the agricultural industry and if [for example] The Farm Bureau has in its little red book of rules that climate change is not real, and [they are] a huge supporter of the university, it's an issue. I think the structural issues of how Extension and the ag industry are intertwined , which is so important because there are partnerships there, but if there's a topic that people don't want to talk about ...there's just a very strong industrial push on the system. And I think that's challenging in this case because climate change doesn't really fit some of those agendas.” (R13) Funding Availability, Allocation & Stability The continuous ebb and flow of funding, discontinuity, and lack of federal funds has constrained Extensio n’s ability to not only offer these programs in the first place, but also to develop and deliver them effectively, at the scale and scope necessary to reach target and underserved audiences, and in consistent and sustained ways over extended periods of time. ● “It [funding] is really challenging and you have to be kind of creative in that the funding for applied climate work has really gotten sort of pulled off in different directions in the last ten years. And my hope is that that changes again and we start really getting focused on the right scale of information and funding local efforts.” (R04) ● In response to community demands for a new climate program, one respondent stated that “I say ‘sure, we can do that… it’s going to cost some money, sadly. I wish it didn’t.’ I wish I could just educate people and do the work without having to worry about where the funding comes from to pay my salary and that of the people who I work with.” (R05)

● “I am fully funded 100% - including my fringe benefits - by the USDA and because of that, I mean the university is very supportive of whatever I do and doesn't ask questions. But they have not

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