One of the greatest challenges posed to climate researchers and environmental advocates is how to communicate the effect humans have on the land in a way that hits home. An interdisciplinary group of scientists, artists, and writers have approached the task with their own brand of hyperlocal, speculative storytelling. Yahara 2070, an initiative from the Water Sustainability and Climate Project at UW-Madison, explores the future of the Yahara Watershed through four distinct, potential scenarios that reflect different choices and actions carried out in the present. This undertaking, the goal of which is to inform policy discussions and help provide valuable information to decision makers, is unique in that it combines many kinds of quantitative and qualitative thinking, from computer modeling and biochemistry to illustration and science fiction. Two members of the team, science writer Jenny Seifert and lead researcher Steve Carpenter, shared some of their thinking behind the project with Brian Standing of the Monday Buzz.
