A forum for exchanging ideas

This blog has three functions: (1) a repository of ideas, findings, reflections, readings, and observations from a faculty travelling seminar on sustainability in 2011, and (2) a space for continuing exchange of ideas about how we can carry forward lessons from that tour into our classrooms, our colleges, and our communities, and (3) a place to post links to the many amazing developments that are in the news. The purpose of this space is to help sustain an ongoing seminar-like exchange that can capture and build on ideas from our original seminar.


Updates to this blog will be irregular and occasional, but it can provide a resource for colleges and classes
and other groups that share our enthusiasms, concerns, and common challenges.

Our initial sustainability seminar was funded by the Mellon Foundation,
whose support has been critical to initiatives in faculty development and intellectual exchange.







_Links to readings and sources

Sources we have found useful:


Thomas Friedman on NY Time "the earth is full". Here the quality of life argument is highlighted to seek  a devoice from energy consumption.


Comments from Timothy Beatley, one of the authors of Resilient Cities: Creating a Livable World.

Transportation 
San Francisco urban planners took a trip just like ours, and were just as thrilled!



New DOT policy promotes bikes, claims to be a sea change
http://fastlane.dot.gov/2010/03/my-view-from-atop-the-table-at-the-national-bike-summit.html


Just for fun:  Short you-tube movie about bike lanes in the U.S.:
German Chancellor Angela Merkel says nuclear power would never again be a viable option for her country. Now Merkel has embarked on the world’s most ambitious plan to power an industrial economy on renewable sources of energy:

IPCC says Renewable energy could meet 77 percent of the world’s power needs by mid-century
http://e360.yale.edu/digest/ipcc_says_renewables_could_meet_most_of_energy_needs_by_2050/2935/
(thanks to Becky Gould) 

Foundation for Environmental Education (FEE) is a non-governmental and non-profit organisation aiming to promote sustainable development through environmental education (formal school education, training of staff and general awareness raising).  The headquarters are in Copenhagen.

Public transportation in US cities: 30% of jobs are reachable within 90 minutes, typically.

C40 is a group of large cities (including Copenhagen, Freiburg) committed to tackling climate change. On this website you will find news and updates on current C40 initiatives, information about each of the cities involved, and links to useful documents.

Now in its seventh year, the EU’s carbon emissions trading system is the only international program designed to use market mechanisms to control CO2 emissions. But critics contend it has done little to slow the release of CO2 and argue that it should be significantly reformed — or scrapped. http://e360.yale.edu/content/print.msp?id=2396

Renewable energy technologies have deployed rapidly in Germany since 1990 largely as a result of energy policies adopted by the German government and the European Union. For example, installed wind capacity has grown by more than 2000% since 1990, biomass by more than 500%, and solar photovoltaic installations by more than 15,000%. While the 1990 baseline for each of these technology areas was very low, the steady rise of renewable energy in Germany is noteworthy nonetheless.

Food
Nature: trying to stop EU overfishing, new rules proposed
Proposal to pay fishing boats to catch plastic

Subscribe to: Posts (Atom)