SBCAST

This pivot is so beautiful and necessary -

Consider bookmarking -
https://www.climate.us

The Trump administration laid off the scientists who ran the government's climate website, then shut the site down. So the scientists rebuilt it themselves, with their own money, and put it back online this week.

As reported by NPR, the site is called Climate. us, and it launched this week to replace Climate.gov, the trusted government source that nearly a million people visited every month for clear, official data on a warming country.

Last year, the administration's Department of Government Efficiency laid off the entire team that ran it. Then, under an executive order, the government took the site down. Visitors now hit a page saying the data has moved to NOAA.gov, where, in practice, it is buried and nearly impossible to find.

Rebecca Lindsey ran Climate.gov for years before DOGE cut her job. She put it plainly: NOAA "renovated a store, and they had the front door open into a closet." So in August she and two other laid-off colleagues started rebuilding the whole thing from scratch.

They crowdsourced about $280,000 to cover the technical work. They recruited roughly 80 volunteer scientists to fact-check everything the site publishes. An anonymous donor gave a one-time grant to keep it running into next year.

Because the underlying data is public, they were able to download it and rebuild the dashboards, the 15-year archive of climate stories, the maps, the classroom materials, all of it. The hardest part, Lindsey said, was rebuilding the search function the government had made too expensive to keep.

A climate scientist at Texas Tech who used to send people to the old site said the new one closes the gap. A data-preservation expert called it "a success story" born from the brain drain the administration created, all that expertise now sitting outside a government that didn't want it.

Lindsey says the team is debating whether to hand the site back to a future administration or keep it independent for good. She is leaning toward keeping it out of reach.

"The fact that they got rid of it so easily is proof that we shouldn't make it vulnerable again."

They fired the messengers. The messengers bought a new megaphone and went back to work.

First Thursday, June 4th, 6pm-10pm at SBCAST - 513 Garden Street. Parking at SB City Lots 10 and 11.

UCSB Media Arts and Technology End of Year Show - always one of the most engaging and provocative art exhibitions in Santa Barbara.

Art that elucidates the boundaries between technology, media and humanity.

MAT End of Year Show - Re: agency re: imagine, re: purpose, re: configure The MAT department will showcase the cutting-edge research and new media artworks of our students, presented on June 4th at the Santa Barbara Center for Art, Science, and Technology (SBCAST).

Early Bird Pricing Ends on May 5th!

The Art and Power of Storytelling with Former Disney Animator Dave Zaboski
Saturday, May 9th, 10am - 4:30pm

SBCAST, 513 Garden St.

The Technology of Imagination: How belief, story and care shape the reality we create.

Stories are how we shape our world. Storytelling is a technology humans use to make meaning, move people, and design the lives we actually want to live.

Hosted at SBCAST in Santa Barbara, this daylong experience, drawn from Dave’s book Grimoire: A Storyteller’s Book of Spells, is for creatives, storytellers, and meaning-makers who sense that story is a form of power and want to use it wisely.

Across three acts, Discovery, Discipline, and Devotion, you’ll explore how belief is formed, how narrative shapes the world you inhabit, gain tools and practices for great storytelling and learn why care is the secret ingredient that separates master storytellers from those who merely persuade.

You’ll leave with deeper self-knowledge, genuine confidence in your craft, and a grounded practice for the work ahead, connected to a community on a kindred quest to make the world better for all life.
One day. Three acts. A story worth telling.

Limited seating!

Early Bird! Available until May 5th, 11:59 PM
$222.00

Standard: $333.00
Available starting May 6th, 12:00 AM

About the Dave

Dave Zaboski is the co-founder and Chief Creative Officer of Laetro.com, a tech-enabled community of the world’s finest creatives serving enterprise customers with best in class design services. He is a classically trained painter and was an animator at Disney, Sony and Warner Bros. during the Second Golden Age of Animation. He worked on “Beauty and the Beast,” “The Lion King,” “Pocahontas,” “Aladdin,” “The Hunchback of Notre Dame,” “Hercules,” “Fantasia 2000,” and others. He has illustrated several acclaimed children’s books, including titles for Dr. Ken Dychtwald, Dr. Deepak Chopra, finance guru Ric Edelman and actor Paul Michael Glaser.

TICKET LINK

https://sbcast65936.acemlna.com/lt.php?x=4lZy~GE6J3nM78J.ztA9guJu~nMnjtL1luhjY5PHJnPP5a_-0Ey7weJuPbKRikAn~MkybHPHMnHs5HB7