The 2011 TMC New Person Award winners are members of the Marcellus Shale Protest Group, an alliance of western PA groups & individuals who have joined together to build a broad movement to stop the destruction of our environment and communities caused by Marcellus Shale gas drilling, as well as to support affected communities. The TMC New Person Award event will feature short speeches by the awardees, light snacks, refreshments, and activist display tables featuring the works of local peace and justice organization.The Pennsylvania Nutrition Education Network’s Annual Conference 2011, Let's Keep Moving Toward Better Nutrition, will be held on April 26-27, 2011 at the Sheraton Harrisburg-Hershey Hotel in Harrisburg, PA.
Find Everything You Need to Keep Moving Toward Better Nutrition:
If you work with the low-income audience you need to attend this conference! Share ideas, challenges and insights on emerging food and nutrition issues and initiatives by networking with nutrition professionals from Pennsylvania. Expand your professional network while enhancing your personal skills and knowledge.
If you have any questions please contact Rose at rcleland@phmc.org or 717.233.1791.
The City of Pittsburgh is embarking on PLANPGH, the City’s first Comprehensive Plan. The purpose of PLANPGH is to create a shared vision and policies for the next 25 years of our City’s development.
OpenSpacePGH, the City’s Open Space, Parks, and Recreation Plan, is one of the initial components of PLANPGH, and will provide the City with goals and strategies for its parks, recreation, and formal open space systems, as well as a tool to assist in putting its vacant properties into productive re-use.
The outcome of these meetings will create the City’s vision for its open spaces, parks, and recreation areas, so get involved and help make Pittsburgh an even better place to live, work, play, and thrive!
More information can be found online at http://www.planpgh.com/ . Upcoming meetings include:
Upper East End: Monday, April 25 (6-8 PM)
Boys & Girls Club of Western PA, 4600 Butler Street (Lawrenceville)
Transit - 91 & 93 Bus Lines
South / West: Wednesday, April 27 (6-8 PM)
Mount Washington Senior Center, 122 Virginia Avenue (Mt. Washington)
Transit - 40 Bus Line
Lower East End: Thursday, April 28 (6-8 PM)
Greenfield Senior Center, 745 Greenfield Avenue (Greenfield)
Transit - 58 Bus Line
South Hills: Tuesday, May 3 (6:30-8:30 PM)
Seton Center, 1900 Pioneer Avenue (Brookline)
Transit - 41D Bus Line
Northside: Wednesday, May 4 (6-8 PM)
Pittsburgh King Pre K- 8 School, 50 Montgomery Street (Allegheny Center)
Transit - 16 & 500 Bus Lines
On Earth Day, Slippery Rock University will be hosting a symposium, “Towards a Sustainable Pennsylvania.” While the main focus of the event is on the Marcellus shale gas drilling issue, there will be simultaneous sessions for various groups and individuals to make presentations related to the symposium's overall topic.
Speakers will include former head of DEP John Hanger, economist Dr. Tim Kelsey (PSU), energy expert Dr. Michael Griffin (CMU), environmental expert Dr. John Stolz (DU), environmental expert Jon Laughner (PSU), health expert Dr. Charles Christen (Pitt), legal expert Ben Price (CELDF), economist Paul Dudenas (PIOGA), consulting geologist Dan Billman, and others.
9 a.m. to 7 p.m. at SRU's University Union.
Choose Today, a humurous stop-motion animated short; GoodWood, a look at sustainable forestry and its effects on different global communities; Lurking in the Trees, a film about devestating invasive insects in the northeastern United States; Ascending the Giants, featuring two climbers searching for Oregon's largest Sitka spruce; and Taking Root, the biography of Nobel Peace lauriate and Green Belt Movement founder Wangari Maathai. There will be a short intermission before Taking Root. 7 p.m. at the Kelly-Strayhorn Theater. Suggested donation $5. |
Edible Ecosystems Emerging: Food Forestry for the 21st Century, a nine-day forest garden design intensive with Dave Jacke and friends.
April 15-24, 2011 at Wild Meadows Farm, 456 Smith Road, Schellsburg, PA 15559. Sliding scale fee of $850-$1100 includes course instruction and materials, as well as wholesome vegan/vegetarian meals. Lodging is not included and scholarships are available. For more information, contact Kim Walsh via e-mail info@wildmeadowsfarm.com or call 814-839-4962. To register, go to http://wildmeadowsfarm.com
Forest ecosystems exhibit many beneficial properties we humans would be wise to emulate in our culture, agriculture and horticulture: they maintain, renew, fertilize and propagate themselves without human inputs; they build, store, and conserve clean air, clean water, nutrients, soil quality, and biodiversity; and they exhibit stability, resilience, and adaptability. These qualities emerge from the dynamics of the forest as a whole system, not from any one or more of the elements that comprise the forest alone. To design productive edible ecosystems that express these same qualities, we must understand forest structures, functions, patterns, and processes and use this knowledge wisely.
In this nine-day intensive course, you will dive deeply into the vision, theory, and practice of designing wholesome, dynamic, and resilient edible ecosystems using temperate deciduous forests as models. Dave Jacke and his Pennsylvania-based teaching team will offer lectures, site walks, and experiential exercises to help you understand how the architecture, social structure, underground economics, and successional processes of natural forests apply in the design of edible ecosystems of all kinds. You'll learn a variety of ecological design processes while designing a range of food-producing ecologies at our host farm. We'll also engage with issues of garden management, economics, and the deep paradigmatic shifts required to succeed at cocreating “humanatural” landscapes and cultures. You will leave inspired and empowered to design food forests at home for yourself, and your friends, neighbors and clients.
A collaboration of CHEARS, Dynamics Ecological Design, Pittsburgh Permaculture, and Wild Meadows Farm
“Between Earth and Earth’s atmosphere, the amount of water remains constant; there is never a drop more, never a drop less. This is a story of circular infinity, of a planet birthing itself. “
The water molecules that we use and treasure today are the same water molecules that have always been on Planet Earth. We never get new water; therefore conservation and protection are essential.
Rainwater harvesting is an effective, ecological and economical method for the conservation and protection of this precious natural resource. By catching, storing and re-directing your roof water for on-site usage you can take advantage of this free source of precious water while at the same time contributing to a reduction in the combined sewer overflow (CSO) problem that plagues the Greater Pittsburgh and Philadelphia areas, helping to reduce flooding and nonpoint source pollution, and contributing to recharging our groundwater supply. You’ll also have a free source of non-chlorinated water for use in your yard and garden.
Learn how to harvest rainwater from your roof and divert it for on-site usage in the landscape. Attend a rain barrel workshop and return home equipped with the knowledge and hardware needed (not the 55-gal. drum) to assemble and install a rain barrel. It’s easier than you might think.
6:30-8 p.m. at the CCI Center on the Southside (64 South 14th Street, 15203). You can register online by clicking here. $35/person and $45/couple.
For more information please call (412) 488.7490 ext. 247 or email Nancy Martin. For information on workshop gift certificates, click here. Additional workshops in the series are listed below:
Wednesday, May 4th
Phipps Garden Center
7pm to 8:30pm
Tuesday, May 11th
Mt. Lebanon Library
7pm to 8:30pm
Tuesday, May 19th
East End Food Co-op
6:30pm to 8pm
This course is packed with imaginative and inspiring ways to catalyze, support and engag e your community Training4Transition delves into both the theory and practice of Transition that has worked so well in hundreds of communities in the U.K. and around the world.
• Explore ways of increasing community resilience
• Learn to describe the challenges of Peak Oil, climate change, and economic instability in ways that bring people together and inspire action
• Receive tools for community outreach, education and creating shared vision
• Learn ways to work with obstacles that have prevented our communities from responding to the challenges
• Learn how to facilitate community collaboration -- supporting existing activities and expanding the number and diversity of people involved
• Meet others in your region who share your concerns and want to transition to greater stability and security
• Become a part of a rapidly growing positive, inspirational, global movement!
Who should attend: People interested in learning ways to transition their community, people already creating a Transition Initiative, and communities wishing to become an internationally-recognized Transition Initiative.
Instructors: Tina Clarke, certified Transition Trainer will be making her forth trip to Pittsburgh! She will be joined by Fred Brown, of the Kingsley Association in Pittsburgh and certified TransitionUS trainer.
9am-5pm on both Saturday and Sunday at Cedars of Monroeville. We will be setting up carpools from the city. Cost: $160. Refreshments and study materials included. All food is Potluck! (Lodging not included.) If you can donate extra money for scholarships, your generosity will help those with low incomes to attend! A small amount of work-trade spots and scholarships are available.
Registration: Send an Email with your info (name, neighborhood, affiliations) to Jeff Newman: jnewman11@gmail.comThe University of Pittsburgh Law Review and the Innovation Practice Institute present Developing the Law of the Marcellus Shale: Innovation for a Prosperous Community, a Safe Environment, and a Common Law. Join an innovative group of national scholars and practitioners as this symposium addresses the recent developments in the law of the Marcellus Shale as well as whether government rebulation and moratoriums are necessary in light of innovations within the field.
The morning session of this symposium includes the following topics and speakers:
Opening Speaker Lieutenant Governor Jim Cawley
Lt. Governor Cawley was inaugurated as the 32nd Lieutenant Governor of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania on January 18th, 2011.
The Lt. Governor will be speaking about the Corbett Administration’s efforts to promote prosperous communities and safe environments relative to the Marcellus Shale.
"What a Short, Strange Trip It's Been: Moving Forward After Five Years of Marcellus Shale Development"
Professor Ross H. Pifer, Pennsylvania State University, Dickinson School of Law
"Developing a Common Law of Hydraulic Fracturing"
Professor David E. Pierce, Washburn University School of Law
"Recent Decisions Affecting the Development of the Marcellus Shale in Pennsylvania"
Attorney Kevin C. Abbott, Partner, Reed Smith LLP
Attorney Nicolle R. Snyder Bagnell, Partner, Reed Smith LLP
Kathryn Z. Klaber, President and Executive Director of the Marcellus Shale Coalition, will deliver the lunchtime Keynote Address.
The afternoon session of this symposium includes the following topics and speakers:
"Legal and Commercial Models for Pore-Space Access & Use for Geologic CO2 Sequestration"
Professor Owen L. Anderson, University of Oklahoma College of Law
R. Lee Gresham, Post-Doctoral Research Fellow, Carnegie Mellon University
"Finding Environmental Solutions Through Innovation, Regulation, and Prohibition: A Pittsburgh Case Study" -- a Panel Discussion
Panel Moderator: Attorney Matthew McK. Mohn, Senior Associate, Reed Smith LLP
Panelists: Professor Jules Lobel, University of Pittsburgh School of Law
Professor Radisav D. Vidic, University of Pittsburgh School of Engineering
Professor Emily A. Collins, University of Pittsburgh School of Law
Attorney Blaine A. Lucas, Partner, Babst Calland Clements & Zomnir PC
“Today, Dr. King’s vision of a just, equitable America is under attack by corporate polluters and their political allies across the nation,” said Sierra Club Executive Director Michael Brune. “The Sierra Club is marching on April 4 in solidarity with the working families of America, and we are committed to protecting Americans’ fundamental rights to bargain for good jobs and fair treatment, to breathe clean air and drink clean water.”
PennFuture will host two global warming conferences at opposite ends of the Commonwealth. First, we’ll be in the Southwest talking about how clean energy can lead to a cool Pittsburgh. Then we’ll be in the Northeast to discuss global warming and its potential to wreck recreation. Details on our region's event are below.
Southwest Pennsylvania Clean Energy for a Cool Pittsburgh Sunday, April 3, 1:00 - 5:30 p.m. Registration, networking and refreshments from 1:00-1:30 p.m. Duquesne University Power Center, 1015 Forbes Avenue Pittsburgh, PA 15219 Space at this conference is limited, so register today. For information about exhibit space, contact Tiffany Hickman at 412-258-6682. (free for allied public interest organizations) Changing how we use energy and what kinds of energy we use are the most important things we can do to combat global warming and clean our air. The Pittsburgh region can lead and build our clean energy economy and create green jobs or we can ignore the problem and lag behind, continuing our legacy of creating deadly pollution that causes our children and jobs to leave the area. This conference provides a road map for a cleaner future, with national and local experts in clean energy, electricity generation, transportation and buildings leading the charge. You’ll leave the event empowered with the information you need to take action personally and to create the vitally needed new policies in the Pittsburgh region, statewide and nationally. Our speakers include:
Conference is free to PennFuture members and students (with ID); $10 for all others. Space is limited and registration is required. Parking is available at the facility. Click here for full details. Register today so you don’t miss it! |
