Majora Carter video link

This is a link to a speech by Majora Carter - Executive Director of Sustainable South Bronx - who has been brought up several times in discussions in recent weeks.

It is very interesting and inspiring.

http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/view/id/53

CRP Film Series movie TOMORROW ... Holding Ground: The Rebirth of Dudley Street

Screening this week for the NEW CRP FILM SERIES:

Holding Ground: The Rebirth of Dudley Street

THIS Wednesday, October 31, 2007 (that's right, Halloween!!)

MOVIE: Holding Ground: The Rebirth of Dudley Street
WHEN: Wednesday, October 31, 2007, 5-7pm
WHERE: Sibley 211

Pizza and Refreshments will be served!

Holding Ground is at once a cautionary tale of urban policies gone wrongand a message of hope for all American cities. In 1985, African-American,Latino, Cape Verdean, and European-American residents in Roxbury, MAunited to revitalize their community. The Dudley Street NeighborhoodInitiative went on to gain national recognition as residents fought toclose down illegal dumps, gain unprecedented control of land from CityHall and create a comprehensive plan to rebuild the fabric of theircommunity. Through the voices of committed residents, activists and cityofficials, this moving documentary shows how a Boston neighborhood wasable to create and carry out its own agenda for change.

*Leading Authority on Climate Change **To Lecture at Cornell Plantations*

Here is a copy of a recent email annoucement for an interesting lecture at Cornell:

*FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE: October 22, 2007*
Contact: Kevin Moss, Community Outreach Coordinator
Phone: 607-254-7430
E-mail: km274@cornell.edu
**
*Leading Authority on Climate Change **To Lecture at Cornell Plantations*
* *
ITHACA, N.Y. — David Wolfe, professor of plant ecology in the Department
of Horticulture at Cornell University, will deliver the lecture “Climate
Change and our Gardens, Farms, and Natural Landscapes” on Wednesday,
November 7th. The lecture will take place at 7:30 p.m. in the Alice
Statler Auditorium in Statler Hall, on the Cornell University campus.
Dr. Wolfe’s presentation is part of the annual Fall Lecture Series
offered by Cornell Plantations, and is free and open to the public.

Dr. Wolfe’s lecture will focus on the opportunities, risks, and
challenges for gardeners, farmers, and land managers as the climate of
the Northeast changes. He will discuss invasive insects, disease, and
weed pests, and their control; the effects on biodiversity in our
natural landscapes; how our forests are likely to change; and the risks
to our agricultural sector, particularly the fragile dairy industry. A
variety of ways in which individual gardeners can help mitigate
greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to climate change will also be
addressed.

David Wolfe currently serves on the advisory boards for Cornell
Plantations, the New York Water Resources Institute, and the New York
Department of Environmental Conservation Climate Change Planning
Committee. He is a leading authority on the effects of climate change
and rising atmospheric carbon dioxide on plants, soils, and ecosystems,
and has published numerous articles on this topic.

Cornell Plantations is the arboretum, botanical garden, and natural
areas of Cornell University, and is open free of charge to the public
during daylight hours. For more information about out upcoming fall
lectures, and other exciting tours, classes, and events throughout the
year, please visit our website at www.plantations.cornell.edu
, or call 607-255-2400.

New York Climate Summit

** November 16-18, 2007 **

** Cornell University **

WHAT: The New York Climate Summit will unite campus and community leaders to create a plan of action on how to pressure Albany to pass legislation requiring the state to reduce its greenhouse gas emissions 80% below 1990 levels by 2050.

WHERE: Warren Hall, Cornell University

CONTACT: Carlos Rymer, carlos.rymer@gmail.com

VISIT: www.rso.cornell.edu/kyotonow

"EPA@35 - Where To From Here" Speaker TUES 10/23

“ EPA@35 - Where To From Here”

Richard D. Otis, Jr.U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency
Deputy Associate Administrator
Office of Policy, Economics, and Innovation

Tuesday, October 23, 2007
141 Sage Hall
12:30 – 1:30pm
Lunch will be provided.

Sponsored byThe Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise As part of theCSGE Speaker Series

CRP Film Series THIS WEDNESDAY: "New York - A Documentary: the City and the World"

WHAT: Screening this week for the NEW CRP FILM SERIES
WHEN: Wednesday, October 17, 2007, 5-7pm
WHERE: Sibley 211

Pizza and Refreshments will be served!

New York – A Documentary: The City and the World
PBS documentary on the history of New York City, deals with Urban Renewal,urban decline and the role of Robert Moses, and includes the opposition to Moses led by people like Jane Jacobs. Focuses mostly on urban renewal, historic preservation and planning-related topics.

Big Box Evaluator

Although this class is all about living without ... I thought this would be of interest esp as a tool to fight.
FYI




Announcing Release of the

Big Box Evaluator Website and Tool


The tool that helps you learn
about the impacts of big box retail stores



October 10, 2007

For Immediate Release



Middlebury, VT -- The Orton Family Foundation enthusiastically
announced its release of the Big Box Evaluator tool, designed to help
communities and individuals learn about the impacts of big box retail
stores. The unbiased tool is designed not to take a stand on big
box development, but to help citizens make informed decisions based on
each community's specific characteristics and values.


Available free to the public at

www.bigboxevaluator.org, the web-based interface allows users to
learn about commercial and retail development in general, but also to
input specific information from their communities and receive customized
reports on economics, values, planning and municpal services, and ways to
improve the development process.


Citizens in communities facing proposals for big box development can
select the type of town that most closely resembles their own, and the
type of development proposed (neighborhood store to large
"supercenter"). Users can then enter specific information
and personal values in four categories (Economy, Environment, Society,
and Visual), ranging from expected tax revenues to amount of signalized
intersection work required, runoff mitigation requirements to the
importance of community character.


The Big Box Evaluator creates a customized report for each user based on
the specific inputs, with information like projected municipal costs and
revenues, change in average wages, and annual price savings for
family. Users are also given a list of action items based on the
input values, which store developers can consider in order to help meet
the community's concerns.


The Orton Family Foundation is a Colorado- and Vermont-based operating
foundation supported by profits from the

Vermont Country Store.




For more information contact:


The Orton Family

Foundation


802.388.6336

PO Box 111

Middlebury, VT 05753



bigboxevaluator@orton.org

www.orton.org

Step It Up: National Day of Climate Change Action

For anyone interested in getting involved with increasing awareness of issues of climate change, here is an exerpt of a recent email update about upcoming Step It Up events that are planned for Ithaca and across the country:

The plans for the Ithaca activities for National Day of Climate Change Action are developing rapidly, with only about three weeks left until our November 3 events. There will be two events in the Ithaca area:

--Tutelo Park, 12:00 noon
--Arts Quad at Ezra Cornell statue, Cornell Campus, 2:00 pm

If you can help us promote the event by passing this email along to others, please do so. A document is attached to this email which includes a "save the date" notice to use to cut and paste, or print and circulate. Attached also are a map to show the location of Tutelo Park, and a leaflet suitable to post, which has more information. A press release on the national effort we are coordinating with is at: http://www.stepitup2007.org/downloads/9_17%20Press%20Release.pdf


If you would like to volunteer to help, contact Carlos Rymer at CMR55@Cornell.edu (Cornell Campus event) or Krys Cail at KLC32@Cornell.edu (Tutelo Park event). We could use your help!

Even if you can't volunteer, you can help by going on the Step It Up web site and sending an invitation to our federal representatives to join us. The site is configured so that it is very fast and easy to send a message of invitation-- try it! Here is the info (same as from last week's update) on the web site:

Please check out the Step It Up web site at http://www.stepitup2007.org . There you can read about our Nov. 3, noon-3pm Tutelo Park event (http://stepitup2007.org//article.php?id=4710) and also about the other events going on around the country. Also, you can sign up to attend an event, and/or invite our federal elected officials to attend our event via a quick-and-easy web-based interface. We are trying to have as many people as possible invite our Congressmen and Senators to attend, in order to let them know how important this is to us.


--
Krys Cail
3110 DuBois Rd.
Ithaca, NY 14850
(607) 342-5679
email: KLC32@Cornell.edu, Krys.Cail@gmail.com

The Center for Sustainable Global Enterprises Speaker

“From the Front Line of the Climate Change Debate:
Myths, Realities and Opportunities”
Benjamin T. Ho - Assistant Professor of Economics

Johnson School at Cornell
Tuesday, October 23, 2007141 Sage Hall
3:00 – 4:00pm
Refreshments will be provided.
Sponsored by
The Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise
As part of the
CSGE Speaker Series

Benjamin Ho uses economic tools such as game theory and experimental economics to analyze social institutions that have traditionally been the purview of sociologists and psychologists. Ho was the lead economist for energy and transportation at the White House Council of Economic Advisers. He received his PhD in economics from Stanford Graduate School of Business, and holds master's degrees in education and political science from Stanford and electrical engineering/computer science from MIT, as well as bachelor's degrees from MIT. He has also worked as a research analyst for Morgan Stanley and helped found a short-lived e-commerce startup.

Environmental Justice Screening WED OCT 3 6:00pm

THIS WEDNESDAY, October 3rd, 6:00pm

HEC Auditorium, Goldwin Smith What:


Radiation Power: Past and Present


Screening Two Documentaries:


FROM CHECHNYA TO CHERNOBYL

A documentary about the hundreds of thousands of refugees that have fled wars and political turmoil in Chechnya, Tajikistan, Georgia and Azerbaijan in order to find peace in the radioactive pastures surrounding Chernobyl, scene of the world's worst nuclear accident in 1986.

SURVIVORS

Twenty survivors of the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atomic bombings tell their stories.



Roots and Shoots contact: Caitlin Corner-Dolloff cac94@cornell.edu

TCAT website

http://www.tcatbus.com/system.php

In case you don't often use the bus, you can use the above link to identify which will be the best route for you to take to the Commons for the upcoming field trip.

Pigeon Paradox

The Pigeon Paradox: Dependence of Global Conservation on Urban Nature by Robert Dunn, M. Gavin, M. Sanchez, and J. Solomon.

An exciting article in the December 2006 issue of Conservation Biology discusses achieving global conservation by promoting direct experiences with urban species. It is thought that people are more likely to become involved in conservation action when they have direct experiences in the natural world. 80% of people are found in cities, therefore, humans mostly experience nature though much maligned urban species such as pigeons and other introduced species thought of as urban pests. The paper examines the idea that perhaps global conservation will depend more and more on people's interactions with urban ecosystems.

Read the short article here.

Reardon powerpoint is posted

click on the Class Resources, Powerpoints link for access.

Bil Mckibbin at Cornell Wed 9/26 at 7

Author, Educator, and Environmentalist

Bill McKibben
"Building the Climate Movement"

Wed. September 26 David Call Auditorium Kennedy Hall
Cornell University
at 7PM

Free and open to the public.

Scott Perez
Natural Resources/American Indian Program
607-255-1055
sp287@cornell.edu

"It will be the stroke of midnight for the rest of our lives. It is too late for heroes. We need an accelerated intertwining of the over 1 million nonprofits and 100 million people who daily work for the preservation and restoration of life on earth.... The language of sustainability is about ideas that never end: growth without inequality, wealth without plunder, work without exploitation, a future without fear. A green movement fails unless there's a black-, brown-, and copper-colored movement, and that can only exist if the movement to change the world touches the needs and suffering of every single person on earth." -
Worldchanging.org 12/26/06

This will be cool!! --> Founder of Free the Children Lecture Sept. 10 "Me to We"

Iscol Family Program for Leadership Development in Public Service

Date: September 10, 2007
Time: 7:30 PM
Location: Kennedy Hall-Call Auditorium
Department: FLDC
Speakers: Craig Kielburger
Speaker Title: Founder of Free the Children
Contact: jl638
Additional Information:
Iscol Lecture 2007Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material WorldReception and book signing following the lecture.
Craig Kielburger will speak on how university students can create positive social change.
This event is presented in collaboration with the Entrepreneurship and Personal Enterprise Speaker Series (AEM121).
Craig Kielburger is an accomplished child rights advocate, leadership specialist, New York Times best-selling author and a speaker with a powerful message. He is the founder of Free The Children, the world’s largest network of children helping children through education, and the co-founder of Leaders Today, a world renowned youth leadership organization. He has a degree in peace and conflict studies from the University of Toronto and is the recipient of two honorary doctorates.
Craig has received many awards for his work, including the Nelson Mandela Human Rights Award, the World Economic Forum GLT Award, the Roosevelt Freedom Medal, the State of the World Forum Award and the World’s Children’s Prize for the Rights of the Child, also known as the Children’s Nobel Prize.
When Craig was 12, he was shocked to learn about the murder of a child laborer-turned-child rights activist. Eager to take action, he established Free The Children to help free children from poverty, exploitation and powerlessness . The organization began as a small group of classmates and quickly evolved into an international phenomenon.
Under Craig’s leadership, Free The Children has now changed the lives of more than one million young people around the world. The organization has built more than 450 primary schools, providing daily education to more than 40,000 children.
Free The Children’s many accomplishments in the areas of education, alternative income, health care, water and sanitation provision and peacebuilding have earned three Nobel Peace Prize nominations and facilitated high profile partnerships with organizations such as the United Nations and Oprah’s Angel Network.
Convinced of the importance of leadership development in empowering youth, Craig co-founded Leaders Today in 1999. Leaders Today empowers young people through leadership education, providing them with the inspiration and tools to affect positive social change. The organization delivers one-of-a-kind local and international training experiences, reaching more than 350,000 youth every year.
Now 24, Craig has traveled to more than 50 countries, visiting underprivileged children and speaking out in defense of children’s rights. An internationally renowned speaker, Craig frequently addresses business groups, government bodies, educators, unions and students. He has shared the podium a number of times with former U.S. president Bill Clinton, as well as with such world renowned leaders as Nelson Mandela, Queen Noor, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and the Dalai Lama.
Craig’s first book, Free The Children, won the prestigious Christopher Award and has since been translated into eight languages. He is co-author of the bestsellers Take Action!—A Guide to Active Citizenship and Take More Action. His most recent book, Me to We: Finding Meaning in a Material World, is a New York Times best-seller co-authored with his brother Marc and published by Simon & Schuster. This inspirational volume empowers people of all ages to live the Me to We philosophy of volunteerism, service to others and social involvement. Together with Marc, Craig now writes a regular column for Canada’s largest newspaper, the Toronto Star.
Craig has shown the world that no one is ever too young to make a difference. His work has been featured on The Oprah Winfrey Show, CNN, BBC, 60 Minutes and profiled in The Economist, Time and People magazines and numerous newspapers.
CLICK HERE to download poster