Tag Archive: environment
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Creative Reconnection in the Anthropocene
Leave a CommentIn the face of climate change and the Anthropocene, artists are embracing social practice, community art, and collaboration to support a just and sustainable future. In this workshop, we’ll consider how best to apply our skills in analysis, envisioning, and pattern recognition to understand how we have arrived at this historical moment of human impact and how to move forward as artists.
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Confronting Green Inequities with Kofi Boone
Leave a CommentThe Inspire Speakers Series is thrilled to partner with the EcoDistricts Summit to present award winning landscape architect and environmental justice advocate Kofi Boone. A Detroit native, Boone has been at the forefront of addressing racism through democratic design. His nationally recognized work reconciles the legacies of structural inequality with authentic cultural landscapes, creating places that weigh equally community and environment. Kofi will illustrate his research and insights in his provocative keynote presentation concluding the EcoDistricts Summit.
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Utility-Scale Wind & Solar Power: Industry Insights for 2019 and the Evolving Influence of Storage
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Join the Wilton E. Scott Institute for Energy Innovation at Carnegie Mellon University for a Distinguished Lecture by Michael O’Sullivan, Senior Vice President of Development at NextEra Energy Resources. -
Decolonizing Green Power
Leave a CommentPresented by The Natural History Museum, Phipps Conservatory and Botanical Gardens presents “Decolonizing Green Power,” a panel discussion focused on efforts to decolonize green energy among Indigenous activists.
Decolonizing Green Power is presented as part of Power Beyond Extraction, a mobile and pop-up museum curated and organized by The Natural History Museum and founded by the art collective Not An Alternative in 2014. An ongoing art intervention, The Natural History Museum has a mission to unleash the power of museums as agents of change.
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Pittsburgh welcomes EcoDistrict Summit Nov. 4-5
Leave a CommentThe city of Pittsburgh is home to the 10th annual EcoDistrict Summit, taking place November 4-5, 2019 in the August Wilson Center in downtown Pittsburgh.
Welcoming over 400 urban change-makers, the Summit focuses on creative and strategic collaboration to design the neighborhoods of the future while improving the communities of today.
Join Sustainable Pittsburgh and other community development professionals, green builders, municipal innovators, urban design and planning practitioners, neighborhood leaders and civic entrepreneurs at this dynamic two day event as we come together and focus on creating & maintaining neighborhood- and district-scale sustainability.
EcoDistricts.org, a national organization located in Portland, Oregon, is formalizing the eco-district process through neighborhood and professional certifications. Four steps define the EcoDistricts certification:
- Commitment to equity, resilience, and climate protection
- Formation of collaborative governance
- Creation of an implementation roadmap to guide projects and programs
- Tracking and measuring impact over time
Local work to date with a number of regional communities shows that EcoDistricts align well with the Sustainable Pennsylvania Community Certification, a free voluntary municipal recognition program of the Pennsylvania Municipal League (PML) and Sustainable Pittsburgh. Sustainable Pittsburgh readily endorses the EcoDistrict process as an effective means for municipalities to create and reach their community development goals.
Registration for the Summit is still open and can be done online. Register Here.
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PRP-PCM Implementation and Tracking Workshop
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FREEStill figuring out projects to implement to meet Preferred Risk Policy (PRP) requirements? Built a Best Management Practice (BMP), but wondering what to report? Have Pollutant Control Measures (PCMs) requirements that need attention? Come learn more about PRP/PCM management at Southwestern PA Commission’s Water Resource Center’s May workshops.
Presented by: Mike LaSala, LandStudies
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Join us for I Am Sustainable Pittsburgh
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Challenge Yourself and Others to Take Small Actions for Big Collective Impact
Looking to make your community an even better place to live, work, and play, but not sure how? Be part of Sustainable Pittsburgh’s new bi-annual competition that sparks collective action for a more sustainable Pittsburgh region. Invite your residents (and friends and coworkers!) to participate in I Am Sustainable Pittsburgh, a free, 3-week competition that champions hometown pride and your personal commitments to being more sustainable!
I Am Sustainable Pittsburgh is based on the online EcoChallenge platform, and just as the EcoChallenge has engaged more than 200,000 people around the world, I Am Sustainable Pittsburgh enables all our region’s residents to take small steps that lead to big changes. As an added bonus, participants can earn prizes for making strides in their sustainable behaviors and for sustainable practices they have already mastered.
The Spring competition starts February 27th! Participating individuals can be part of teams at campuses, communities, or workplaces, or they can do it on their own. Learn more and register today at www.IAmSustainablePGH.org. Please share this opportunity with your town through social media, email, or newsletters. Contact Sustainable Pittsburgh for resources.
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Cafe Sci: Straw Forward
Leave a CommentDoors 6 pm; Event 7-9 pm
FREE
Register here
Please join us for an insightful panel discussion at Carnegie Science Center’s Café Sci! Learn more about the larger issue of plastic pollution and go behind the scenes with the team that created the art installation, Straw Forward.
Straw Forward is a collaborative effort of restaurants, businesses, and nonprofits to collect used and littered plastic-based items and turn them into a work of art in order to raise awareness and foster meaningful dialogue around the global-scale issues of single-use plastic waste and plastic pollution.
The Straw Forward art installation is made from yarn made from saved plastic bottles, plastic barrels, a pool solar cover, pool noodles, Styrofoam, over 25,000 plastic straws, plastic bags, crates, and other discarded plastic items. All items used were donated, gathered from participating collection locations, or picked up as litter.
The Straw Forward art installation will be visible for public viewing at the Carnegie Science Center through February 15, 2019.
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SCDN Webinar: Urban Agriculture – From Vacant Properties to Green Space
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FREEThe presence of vacant properties is a challenge that municipalities face every day, but these spaces can be utilized to benefit the community in several ways: returning properties to the tax rolls, improving community engagement, fostering economic development, and combating food insecurity.
Interest in urban agriculture and community gardening has seen a major resurgence in the last 15 years. As municipal leaders seek ways to improve the quality of life for their neighborhoods, community gardens have shown to cultivate resident engagement and productive community partnerships. Utilizing vacant lots as green space in some communities has also revealed an improvement in air and water quality, helping with stormwater issues and even calming local traffic.
As a response to rising interest in community gardening, Grow Pittsburgh formed in 2005 and has since become a go-to resource when it comes to self-sustaining urban agriculture in the region. Join Local Government Academy in partnership with Sustainable Pittsburgh’s Sustainable Community Development Network (SCDN) as we host speaker Rayden Sorock, Director of Community Projects at Grow Pittsburgh, for a webinar describing best practices for starting an urban agricultural project. Learn which policies municipalities can adopt to facilitate growing food, and then hear from Rebecca Bradley, Manager of Wilkins Township, about a real community garden project.
About the presenters:
Rayden Sorock is the Director of Community Projects at Grow Pittsburgh. Since 2008, Rayden has been working in community-focused agriculture, and has worked with communities to start or support 80+ community gardens throughout Allegheny County. He lives in Wilkinsburg with his family and backyard garden.
Rebecca Bradley has been the Manager for Wilkins Township, Allegheny County for the last 15 years. She also serves as a peer-to-peer consultant for the DCED Governor’s Center for Local Government Services. Prior to working for Wilkins, Rebecca spent ten years as the Administrator for the City of Aliquippa, Beaver County. Rebecca has a Masters in Business Administration from Geneva College. Hobbies including running, reading and weeding.
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Nicaraguan Coffee Tasting with Cooperative Aldea Global
Leave a CommentTaste the coffee and meet the leaders and farmers behind the internationally recognized Nicaraguan coffee cooperative, Aldea Global, during an interactive tasting and light reception.
Social impact investor Oikocredit is teaming up with Building New Hope, a Pittsburgh based non-profit who collaborates with Central Americans to build sustainable livelihoods, to introduce you to the delicious taste and compelling stories behind quality organic coffee and the communities that produce it.
Maria Mercedes Aleman will join us from the Jinotega region of Nicaragua to share the stories and experience of Aldea Global. Aldea is a recognized leader not only in producing delicious coffee but in building strong and thriving communities where women own land and hold positions of leadership, where farmers retain more of their profits, and where a diverse array of community programs contribute to a sustainable and productive future.
