Program to look at One Health Initiative

doctor in lab for GB2Links between human, animal and environmental health — factors in the current Ebola outbreak in West Africa, for example — are the focus of the May 1 breakfast program of the Environmental Professionals Network. Lonnie King, dean of Ohio State’s College of Veterinary Medicine, will give the keynote talk, sharing details on the college’s participation in the global One Health Initiative.

The best time to plant a tree is … now: 8 days till Wooster’s green fair

tree for GBArbor Day, a holiday meant to encourage the planting of trees, is officially on Friday, April 25, in Ohio, but CFAES’s Secrest Arboretum will get a head start. The arboretum will hold an Arbor Day tree-planting ceremony at 3 p.m. at the April 22 Wooster Scarlet, Gray and Green Fair. The fair and ceremony are free, and everyone’s welcome. Also at the fair, the arboretum will hold hourly drawings for people to win free trees.

Getting, growing a greener good: 11 days till Wooster’s green fair

oak leaf

Like trees? You can try to win some at the Wooster Scarlet, Gray and Green Fair April 22. Folks at the Secrest Arboretum exhibit will be drawing names hourly for people to win native trees, including scarlet oak and Ohio buckeye. Why plant trees? For their good looks, sure, and for their quantifiable, for generations to come, green in more ways than one social and environmental benefits, wrote CFAES tree guru Jim Chatfield in a 2011 Akron Beacon Journal column. The arboretum (Latin for “plantation of trees”) is on the Wooster campus of CFAES’s research arm, OARDC, the fair’s host. (Photo: Quercus coccinea, 1819, public domain, via Wikimedia Commons.)

Solar vortex: 13 days till Wooster’s green fair

sun and blue skyThinking about adding solar? Talk to three of the exhibitors at the April 22 Wooster Scarlet, Gray and Green Fair: Ashland’s Hyperion Energy Solutions, which offers solar power consultation and management; Sugarcreek’s Paradise Energy Solutions, which installs solar in homes and businesses; and Cleveland’s Carbon Vision, which has designed, installed and managed solar systems at such places as Hiram College and the College of Wooster. Solar power, of course, is renewable and helps cut greenhouse gas emissions. Also of note: Carbon Vision’s solar project manager is giving the fair’s keynote talk.

April 10: Free screening of Arctic ice loss film

Chasing IceThe film Chasing Ice, about climate change and acclaimed nature photographer James Balog documenting the Arctic’s rapid ice loss, gets a free screening at 4 p.m. Thursday, April 10, at Ohio State in Columbus and video linked to the Wooster campus of CFAES’s research arm, OARDC. Hosting the screening is CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources. Watch the trailer.

Kudzu be a problem? Yes, it kud

kudzu for GBCFAES specialists have created and are distributing a new identification poster for kudzu. The “plant that ate the South” is in Ohio. It smothers street signs, utility poles and anything else in its way. It also chokes out other plants, including trees. Even more, experts fear a new invasive insect may follow kudzu north. Like the multicolored Asian lady beetle, the kudzu bug swarms on and often in people’s homes. But it also could hurt Ohio’s soybean crop. It feeds on both kudzu and soybean plants. Read the story. (Photo: Rebekah D. Wallace, University of Georgia, Bugwood.org.)

Good time to eat: 14 days till Wooster’s green fair

child eating appleSpeaking of local foods, of the Wooster Scarlet, Gray and Green Fair, and of the fact that at the time of this writing it’s almost time for lunch, here are the fair’s scheduled food vendors: Hartzler Family Dairy (ice cream and milk from grass-fed, naturally raised, artificial hormone-free cows), Get Stuffed solar-powered mobile eatery (gourmet hot dogs and more), Pig Lickin’ Good BBQ (award-winning ribs, pork and chicken), The Orange Trük (local, seasonal artisan cuisine), and the strEAT Mobile Bistro (local, seasonal gourmet foods). The fair, a celebration of green living, is April 22 in Wooster.

Three points of view on new gas drilling impacts

Joseph Campbell of CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources, who heads the college’s Social Responsibility Initiative, will be one of three featured speakers at “The Effects of Fracking” from 6 to 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 9, at Ohio State in Columbus. Presenting the program is Ohio State’s chapter of the Alexander Hamilton Society.

A better place to bee?

bumblebeeUrban ecologist Kevin Matteson, Miami University, presents “Pollinators in the City: Ecosystem Services and Conservation” from 3:30 to 4:30 p.m. Wednesday, April 9, on Ohio State’s Columbus campus and live streamed to the Wooster campus of CFAES’s research arm, OARDC. Details. Matteson is assistant director of the master’s program for Miami’s Project Dragonfly and previously was coordinator of the American Museum of Natural History’s Great Pollinator Project. (Photo: Bumblebee, USDA-ARS.)