Local response to global warming

The Environmental Professionals Network (EPN) presents its next breakfast program, “Climate Action: Our Local Response to a Global Challenge,” from 7:15-9:30 a.m. Jan. 15 in Ohio State’s Nationwide and Ohio Farm Bureau 4-H Center, 2201 Fred Taylor Drive, in Columbus. Registration is free for EPN members and Ohio State students, $10 for nonmembers, and includes breakfast. Find out more and register.

EPN is a statewide professional group coordinated by CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources. Membership is free and is open to anyone studying or working in an environmental field.

Support Stone Lab at Cleveland boat show

Attend the Progressive Mid-America Boat Show, set for Jan. 17-21 in Cleveland, and you can talk with and learn experts from Ohio Sea Grant. Go on Jan. 21 specifically — designated as Lake Erie Day — and you can do that plus support CFAES’s Stone Laboratory on the lake with the purchase of your ticket.

(Photo: Stone Lab’s M/V BioLab research vessel, Ohio Sea Grant, via Flickr.)

Hemp farming in Ohio? TBD

Peggy Kirk Hall, agricultural and resource law field specialist with CFAES, was interviewed for a recent story by WOSU Public Media headlined “Hemp Is Poised For A Production Boom, But Ohio Might Get Left Out.” Read the story.

The 2018 Farm Bill, approved by Congress but awaiting President Trump’s signature at the time of this writing (Dec. 18), allows states to decide for themselves if they want hemp farming. (Graphic by Getty Images.)

Sign up for series for new and small farmers

CFAES’s New and Small Farm College starts in three counties in January: in Montgomery County (southwest Ohio) on Jan. 8 (register by Jan. 2); in Vinton County (southeast Ohio) on Jan. 15 (register by Jan. 8); and in Adams County (southern Ohio) on Jan. 16 (register by Jan. 8). The series runs once a week for eight weeks.

The program, its website says, “introduces new and seasoned farmers to a wide variety of topics,” with the aim being to “get the most out of your few acres.”

Find out more. (Photo: Getty Images.)

Greenhouse guru

CFAES scientist Chieri Kubota, one of the scheduled speakers for our Jan. 17-18 Greenhouse Management Workshop, was profiled in fall on our CFAES Stories website. “There’s only so much you can do in open fields,” she said in a story headlined “Greenhouse Guru,” “but there’s tons you can do in controlled environments.” Read the full story, plus hear about her work in the video above.

Study: Artificial light harms ecosystem health

Artificial light at night isn’t just a health problem for those of us sitting in bed scrolling through Instagram instead of hitting the sack — it hurts entire outdoor ecosystems.

When the critters that live in and around streams and wetlands are settling into their nighttime routines, streetlights and other sources of illumination filter down through the trees and into their habitat, monkeying with the normal state of affairs, according to new research led by CFAES scientist Mažeika Sullivan.

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