By Jennifer Adkins, Executive Director, Partnership for the Delaware Estuary

Published on March 6, 2008
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Predicting the future is risky, as we have seen from both the housing market and the stock market recently. A couple years ago, a widely distributed essay predicted “The Death of Environmentalism.” And yet today, you can’t pick up a mainstream publication without seeing news related to global warming and renewable energy, or advertisements featuring nature as the backdrop for products ranging from cars to candy bars.

The business community has not only adapted to “green” thinking, they seem to have embraced it as an economic opportunity (see article on page 14), challenging the notion that financial prosperity and a healthy environment are incompatible. Innovation and the environment are converging outside the business sector as well. Conservationists are using new technologies to reach new and younger audiences and municipalities are using GIS technology to improve stormwater management (see articles on pages 9 and 12 respectively).

While predicting is risky, planning for the future is a necessity. To address pressing issues like climate change, for example, we are forced to plan for impacts we cannot yet fully predict with a high degree of accuracy; in part because they are shaped by our actions today. This spring, the Partnership will take an important step toward addressing future climate change in the Delaware Estuary when it teams with the Philadelphia Academy of Natural Sciences to convene a climate change workshop and “Town Square” meeting on May 6 (see update on page three).

Like most organizations, the Partnership is challenged to balance planning for the future with taking action today. But after so many changes in the last year, including a new “Strategic Plan” and an upcoming “State of the Estuary” report, we cannot help but look to the future. That is why we are making “The Future” the theme for not only this edition of “Estuary News,” but also the Delaware Estuary Science and Environmental Summit taking place next winter (see article on page seven). In this issue you will get a preview of events and programs to come and an introduction to some futuristic thinking in estuary science and management.