Today at noon: How coastal communities can plan for changing Great Lakes water levels

How to plan for lake level changesDoug Marcy and Brandon Krumwiede of NOAA’s Office for Coastal Management present “Mapping and Visualizing Lake Level Changes for the U.S. Great Lakes” from noon to 1 p.m. today, May 19, in a free webinar hosted by Ohio State’s Climate Change Outreach Team. The focus: NOAA’s Lake Level Viewer, a planning tool for coastal communities. Get webinar details and register here.

Tackling hunger, growing more food in cities

There’s “increased recognition that a large percentage of urban residents in predominantly poor neighborhoods lack access to healthy food,” says the flier for today’s seminar by Christopher Peterson of the Institute of Environmental Sustainability at Loyola University Chicago. He’ll talk about that and more in “Addressing Issues of Food Security Through Integration of Curricula, Outreach and Service” at 4 p.m. Free. CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources and Agroecosystems Management Program are the event’s co-sponsors.

New partnerships for, and the benefits of, getting more people outside

picture of people kayakingOhio has great potential for outdoor recreation and the good that can come from it. So says CFAES’s David Hanselmann, coordinator of the Environmental Professionals Network. On Dec. 9, the network will host a program on tapping and growing that potential, and you’re invited to attend. Read more. (Photo: iStock.)

U.S., China reach ‘historic’ deal to cut carbon emissions

From yesterday’s (Nov. 11) New York Times:

“China and the United States made common cause on Wednesday against the threat of climate change, staking out an ambitious joint plan to curb carbon emissions as a way to spur nations around the world to make their own cuts in greenhouse gases.”

Read the story. CNN reported on the plan here, the BBC here, Business Insider (via Reuters) here and Fortune here.

In case you missed it

The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change recently released a new report summarizing the panel’s three massive climate change studies. “Human influence on the climate system is clear and growing, with impacts observed on all continents,” a press release about the report said. If left unchecked, climate change threatens “irreversible and dangerous impacts.”

IPCC Chair R.K. Pachauri of India, quoted in that press release, said:

“We have the means to limit climate change. The solutions are many and allow for continued economic and human development. All we need is the will to change, which we trust will be motivated by knowledge and an understanding of the science of climate change.”

Read the report (PDF).

Today at 4: Sustaining urban water cycles

rain barrel for GBBill Shuster of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency speaks on sustaining urban ecosystems at 4 p.m. today, Oct. 9, in the autumn semester seminar series of CFAES’s School of Environment and Natural Resources. Shuster is a Ph.D. graduate of Ohio State’s Environmental Science program. A U.S. EPA “Science Matters” bio about him says:

“His work involves the design and testing of ‘green infrastructure’ approaches to urban stormwater management, exploring residential and neighborhood-based technologies such as rain gardens and rain barrels, and how they may impart sustainability through social equity, economic stabilization and environmental quality.”

Details.

In Columbus, ‘Creating an urban food oasis’

weinland park food districtOhio State’s Randy Gammage looks at the planned new Weinland Park Food District in Columbus in a recent issue of onCampus, the university’s faculty-staff newspaper. Specialists from CFAES’s outreach arm, OSU Extension, are collaborators in the project, which aims to ramp up urban farming in the neighborhood, and with it, even further economic growth. (Image: Artist’s rendering from onCampus.)

Help shape the next 5 years of sustainability in Columbus

Downtown Columbus Ohio.(Jodi Miller)Ten years ago, Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman launched the Get Green Columbus initiative. Now you can help the city shape its next five years of sustainability by commenting on “The Columbus Green Community Plan: Green Memo III.” CFAES researchers have been working with the city to build a survey to gather this feedback to help prioritize actions in the domains of transportation, water, energy, climate, the built environment, local food, ecological systems, waste reduction and community engagement. Click here to fill out surveys for as many of these domains as you’d like! For more information: Jeremy Brooksbrooks.719@osu.edu. (Photo: Jodi Miller.)

Or just, he says, call Bono

jeffrey sachs interviewHere’s Jeffrey Sachs (see our previous post) speaking on the water, climate and energy crises on The Daily Show in 2008: “If you look at the technologies we have, if you look at the willingness of other countries to cooperate with (the U.S.), and actually realize that we share the same problems, there are some very practical things to be done.”