Podcast: Climate Equity Growing Pains, Adaptation Research and Why Universities Struggle to Offer Resilience Programs with Dr. Eric Chu of UC Davis

In episode 180 of America Adapts, Doug Parsons hosts Dr. Eric Chu. Eric shares the challenges of integrating climate curricula into universities and the functions of the UC Davis Climate Adaptation Research Center. We also discuss the importance of working with university students to determine their professional adaptation work needs. We take a closer look at Chapter 6 of the National Climate Assessment (NCA) and discuss why it isn't used more frequently by adaptation professionals. Furthermore, we explore the NCA's efforts to avoid replicating the IPCC report process. We discuss the growing pains that climate equity is going through as Eric highlights the need to define an idealized climate equity goal before we can realistically accomplish it. We also discuss the emptiness of much of the rhetoric surrounding climate equity discussions. Finally, we touch on the fact that adaptation research typically lags behind adaptation practice.