I just received this message from New American Dream - follow that link for a nice webpage on spring cleaning. One of the great disasters of our consumer economy is the proliferation of dangerous household construction practices, lifestyles and cleaning processes, and harmful products in use in and around our homes on a daily basis. In renovating our historic house in East Cleveland, Evelyn and I have made all living spaces as toxin-free as possible, and we certainly intend to keep it that way in maintaining it. I think the following message offers some good advice - I don't endorse any of the products mentioned, as I don't know anything about them...the make-your-own approach mentioned here is more my style.

When: 6-7:30 p.m.
Where: Neighborhood High Schools--Collinwood HS, East HS, East Tech HS, Glenville HS, JFK HS, Lincoln-West HS, John Marshall HS, Rhodes HS, South HS  and specialty high schools Max Hayes HS, John Hay HS, Martin Luther King HS.

Location

If we hear nothing else all year, let's hear this"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5g8cmWZOX8Q

Carolyn Strauss of slowLab speaks at the Talalay lecture series.

Don't think "silver bullet" or "big" in the ways you have been. Ah... the shrapnel of social and natural capitalism... it's more like a mushroom colony... Here's one of my favorite projects - Min Tanaka Body Weather Farm (reminds me of Ted Shawn at Jacob's Pillow).

Here's a preview:

slowLab is an emerging organization based in New York City and with activities worldwide.

Location

Winner of the 2006 TED [Technology, Entertainment Design] Prize, the motto of Sinclair’s group, Architecture for Humanity, "design like you give a damn" sums up his design vision. With projects ranging from designing mobile health clinics combating HIV/AIDS in Sub-Saharan Africa to establishing mine clearance programs and building playgrounds in the Balkans his mission is to create sustainable and innovative living standards for the masses.

Location

April 1, 2008

What does tomorrow look like? For Fritz Haeg it is a place where rather than waste precious natural resources on vanity-scapes like the ubiquitous front lawn we learn to work with the earth and find both beauty and functionality in personal and social investments such as his  “Edible Estates”. It is a tomorrow that includes architecture as a way of relocating animals to their natural habitats. Haeg will discuss his work as an architect, designer, educator, curator, artist, in short---visionary, as well as his ideas about an alternate model to the artist as isolated creator.

fritzhaeg.com
NY Times
Metropolis
www.cia.edu/tomorrow

Location

So often people have asked "what can I do to be Green?", or "what can I do to help the environment".  This of course is all in the context of, "... as long as I don't have to lift a finger or spend an extra dime".

April 1st is "Energy Wasting Day"

A Great Idea, and A Great Video...

http://www.energywastingday.com/

It seems like many people, especially in the big media, are obsessed with whether or not that hybrid/plug in hybrid/electric car/etc will "pay for itself" with fuel savings. The latest example is the (misleading) "The payoff for plug-in hybrids: 95 years?".

24)  Lead Outreach and Training
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency requests proposals for the
National Community-Based Lead Outreach and Training Grant Program.
This grant will support the partnership of national organizations

Coal Power's Deja-Meltdown

By Denis Du Bois

03/12/08

The government's futuristic "clean coal" power project has joined the long list of scuttled coal plants. The death spiral of coal energy is reminiscent of the 1980s popular blockade of nuclear plant construction. Investors and even the Bush administration are backing out.

On March 12, 2008, Cleveland Plain Dealer deputy editorial page director Kevin O'Brien published a snide, pointless editorial taking the position global warming is over-hyped. His conclusion is a Russian scientist predicts the world is entering a new Ice Age, which trumps Global Warming, so do nothing about Global Warming. I googled the Russian scientist O'Brien references - Oleg Sorokhtin - and came across a February 25th National Post column, by conservative Canadian columnist Lorne Gunter, to which O'Brien's March 12th column is so similar as to be plagiarism, in my book.

From the Cuyahoga County Planning Commission blog:

The U.S. Board on Geographic Names approved names for five tributaries of Euclid Creek yesterday: Claribel Creek, Redstone Run, Stevenson Brook, Verbsky Creek, and the East Branch of Euclid Creek.

Labels: Lake Erie, Richmond Heights

There is a need for the thoughtful people of Northeast Ohio to speak up loud and clear - sound an alarm - about environmental issues here, and our impact here on environmental issues worldwide.  We should do this in our everyday life, and we should participate in community efforts to speak in harmony about saving planet Earth. One way to shout-out that "This is a state of global emergency" is to become an "Alarmist". As posted on REALNEO here, for this April 11, at 11 AM local time, for one minute, and each 11th of the month thereafter, at 11 AM,  Alarmists declare, "We need to set off the world's alarms. Join in. It could be the alarm on your phone, in your home, in your car. You could gather some friends to make some noise. Organise a flash mob. Schedule a company fire drill. Borrow a vintage air raid siren... Be creative. Raise the alarm." So, people of REALNEO, how should we sound the first Alarmism minute?

Location

School design has been on my mind. Here is a thumbnail of an almost perfect Cleveland school.  Benjamin Franklin School slated for demolition in the CMSD Facilities Plan.  It also has beautiful adjacent gardens.

A group of influential green professionals are pushing for activism to go viral. Keeping themselves deliberately incognito and going by the name of The Alarmists they are proposing to make some serious noise about Global Warming. Not just at one event, but at 11 am on the 11th of every month for one minute. They say, "This is a state of global emergency. According to the IPCC, we must cut emissions within eight years, to avoid catastrophic global warming. There is nowhere near enough action yet to make that happen. We need to set off the world's alarms. Join in. It could be the alarm on your phone, in your home, in your car. You could gather some friends to make some noise. Organise a flash mob. Schedule a company fire drill. Borrow a vintage air raid siren... Be creative. Raise the alarm." :: Alarmism

AND GREAT SMILE!

I attended the KennedyConCenter meeting this morning - held before the scheduled meeting of the Cuyahoga County Board of Commissioners.  

All the TV cameras and paper reporters were there.   Big news was afoot!

Each of the last two winters, Cleveland Plain Dealer writer Kevin O'Brien wrote that it sometimes snows in Cleveland so there is no global warming. His latest scientific position on this is posted on Cleveland.com here (and included below). O'Brien is such a strange writer I cannot tell if he is kidding, but in the interest of good public information it seems important for all people to consider what O'Brien published in the Plain Dealer and discuss if it is intelligent, misleading, incorrect or perhaps true. Who has an informed position on global warming and what O'Brien writes below?

Climate Watchers Place Own Big Bet On Alaska's Thaw
March 7, 2008; Page B1

Every winter since 1917, people in Nenana, a village 55 miles southwest of Fairbanks, have wagered on the exact moment that the ice breaks up on the nearby Tanana River. For the 450 townsfolk, the annual Alaska ice lottery, called the Nenana Ice Classic, is a financial lifeline that offers some their year's only employment. Winners last year shared a jackpot of $303,272.

Tonight I saw the hot new mockumentary The Green Chain at the film fest.   The best part is that we used our 'private screening' tickets from Pat and Dan Conway's gig tonight to get past the ticket taker then re-appropriated our access rights to see this mockumentary that got started around the same time slot.   To wrong the right... I offer up a nice plug:

Join us Thurs. April 3, 5:30PM - 7:30PM, Webtego for Midtown Brews with Meet The Bloggers. Live Broadcast and Chat.

Location