Native Pollinator-Plant Interactions: Designing Landscapes + Corridors to Support Regional Biodiversity (virtual)

New York’s Invasive Species Awareness Week (#NYISAW) is June 5th – 11th!

Presented by Founder and Principal of Landscape Interactions Evan Abramson, who will lead attendees through a discussion and discovery about the key role that biodiversity plays in solving the climate crisis. The team at Landscape Interactions specializes in designing landscapes and planning corridors that build biodiversity and strengthen ecological resilience to a changing climate at the ecosystems level. (www.landscapeinteractions.com).

Registration:

https://hws.zoom.us/meeting/register/tJcocOGrpzkiGNaUgssLhlqYlxXUV_tt37Ij#/registration

 

Book Talk: Rescuing the Planet with Tony Hiss (virtual)

In Rescuing the Planet, Hiss sets out on a journey to take stock of the “superorganism” that is the earth: its land, its elements, its plants and animals, its greatest threats – and what we can do to keep it, and ourselves, alive. Hiss invites us to understand the scope and gravity of the problems we face, and also makes the case for why protecting half the land is the way to fix those problems. Register here!

Fall Kill AquaBlitz 2022 (in person)

The Fall Kill AquaBlitz is a community event that will explore the under-appreciated living things in the Fall Kill. Teams of volunteers will visit a site along the creek to collect data about what is living in this urban stream. Feel free to come anytime between 2pm – 6pm. REGISTER HERE.

Transportation will be provided from Vassar to the Fall Kill stream site.
Volunteers are needed to get in the stream and help our team collect organisms. We will be looking for: fish, bugs, plants, herptiles, algae, and microbes. Boots and nets will be provided. Photos from the AquaBlitz will be uploaded and identifications verified using iNaturalist, the open source data collection app. Use your phone or your favorite camera.
If possible, please download the iNaturalist app on your phone before you arrive. Click here to get to find it in the app store. We will provide instructions on how to use the app to make observations and collect data.

Your Role in New York’s Climate Action (virtual)

When New York’s draft scoping plan, written by the Climate Action Council, is finalized later this year, it will impact every New Yorker: our energy choices, the industries we work in, the communities we live in, the investments we make in affordable energy, and the ways we can protect ourselves and our neighborhoods against climate change. The River Newsroom climate reporter, Lissa Harris, will talk with people who have been following the state’s climate planning process closely about what the scoping plan means for all New Yorkers—and what action you can take.

Register here!

Driving Change in the Transportation Sector? NY’s Draft Scoping Plan, and How You Can Get Involved (virutal)

Transportation is one of the largest sources of climate-damaging emissions in New York, and a major source of other harmful pollutants that damage our health, particularly in disadvantaged communities. Eliminating those emissions will be critical to reaching the emissions and equity goals of New York’s Climate Act. Join New Yorkers for Clean Power for this teach-in on Tuesday, May 24th at noon about the transportation section of the State’s proposed Scoping Plan. Learn about what the Climate Action Council is recommending and whether those recommendations go far enough.

Register here!

Meeting New York’s Ambitious Climate Goals: Conflict, Compromise, and NIMBY in Renewable Energy Siting (virtual)

10th Annual Woodstock Land Conservancy Film & Discussion Series

Hosted by Scenic Hudson. Register here!

In 2019, NYS passed the most ambitious, hopeful, and solution-oriented legislation in the country to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. By 2030, 70% of our electricity must come from renewables. In our part of the Hudson Valley, this means solar farms. Where will they go, who will make the decisions, and what will be the competing demands of agriculture, housing, tourism, and aesthetics?

We all want action on climate change. How do we balance people’s reservations against the pressing need to act now? Engage with short videos and live interviews plus Q&A with some of the climate leaders in the Hudson Valley, including Jen Metzger, former State Senator and current advisor to New Yorkers for Clean Power, and Audrey Friedrichsen, Land Use and Environmental Advocacy Attorney for Scenic Hudson.

Implementing New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (virtual)

The NYS Climate Action Council has released, for public comment, a much-awaited draft plan to implement New York’s Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act (CLCPA), the most ambitious climate law in the country.  Attend this Zoom Q&A with Jen Metzger, who will give an overview of the plan and issues and recommendations that are important for communities to know about and weigh in on. She will also highlight actions that state and local governments need to begin taking now if New York is to reach its emissions targets.

This event is brought to you through the combined efforts of the New York State Climate Reality Project Coalition, Hudson River Sloop Clearwater, Riverkeeper, Sierra Club Atlantic Chapter, New Yorkers for Clean Power, and Scenic Hudson.

Register here!

Talk: Chantal Bilodeau, Co-founder of Climate Change Theater Action (remote)

Chantal Bilodeau, Co-Founder of Climate Change Theater Action will speak to the Hudson Valley and Catskills Climate Reality Chapter on Sunday, October 17th at 6pm. All are welcome.

To attend via Zoom, please email evemorgenstern@gmail.com

Chantal is a Canadian playwright now living in NYC who has been instrumental in getting the theater and educational communities, as well as audiences in the U.S. and abroad, to engage in climate action. Founded in 2015, Climate Change Theatre Action is a worldwide series of readings and performances of short climate change plays presented biennially to coincide with the United Nations COP meetings. Every other year, 50 professional playwrights, representing all inhabited continents as well as several cultures and Indigenous nations, are commissioned to write five-minute plays about an aspect of the climate crisis based on a prompt. This year’s prompt is The Green New Deal. The collection of plays is then available to producing collaborators interested in presenting an event during the project’s time window, typically in the fall. Events can be in-house readings, public performances, radio shows, podcasts, film adaptations and more. Chantal Bilodeau is also Founding Artistic Director of The Arctic Cycle and she is writing a series of plays that look at the social and environmental changes taking place in the eight Arctic states. In 2019, she was named one of “8 Trailblazers Who Are Changing the Climate Conversation” by Audubon Magazine.

Compost Basics + a DIY Compost Garbage Can Demo (remote)

As the impacts of climate change intensify worldwide, there is an urgent need for resilience in ecosystems and human societies.

How can we contribute to this on the scale of our homes and neighborhoods? This workshop will explore the contributions home, community, and neighborhood gardens can make to multiple forms of climate resilience – food security, wildlife habitat, watershed restoration, and community building. Bring your ideas, questions, and dreams for playing an active role in the health of the living systems that you are part of!

Connor Stedman, M.S. is an ecological designer, farm business planner, and climate change educator based between the Hudson and Connecticut river valleys. Connor has spent over a decade supporting businesses and communities to implement industry-leading carbon farming and climate adaptation systems, and to reimagine how they affect and can be guided by land. He is lead faculty at the Omega Institute for Sustainable Living and a professional affiliate instructor with the University of Vermont’s innovative Leadership for Sustainability graduate program.

Register here!