Should we plan for 8 inches or 10 feet of sea level rise by the year 2100?

A panel discussion and audience participation with David Behar and Jim Steele.

David Behar is the Climate Program Director, San Francisco Public Utilities Commission. He  manages climate adaptation policy for the SFPUC.  The SFPUC delivers drinking water to 2.6 million Bay Area residents, generates hydroelectric power, and manages wastewater and stormwater facilities in San Francisco.

David served as founding chair of the Water Utility Climate Alliance (WUCA), a coalition of 12 of the largest water utilities in the U.S. that collaboratively advances water utility climate change adaptation. In 2013-14 he chaired San Francisco’s Sea Level Rise Committee, which created the City’s first SLR policy, “Guidance for Incorporating Sea Level Rise into Capital Planning in San Francisco,” the winner of the 2017 “Prize for Progress” from the American Society of Adaptation Professionals.

He has co-authored several recent articles exploring the boundaries of climate science and decision making and has served on the Working Group on Regional Climate of the World Climate Research Program and the Steering Committees for the 2017 National Adaptation Forum and the 2018 California Adaptation Forum. In May 2013 former Interior Secretary Sally Jewell appointed him co-chair of the federal Advisory Committee on Climate Change and Natural Resource Science.

Jim Steele is retired director of SF State’s Sierra Nevada Field Campus and member of Pacifica’s Community Working Group on Sea Level Rise.