(This may not appear here as a clickable link.  Cut and paste into your browser’s caption window.  Worth the couple of clicks you’ll spend.)

Ralph

Big news.  Good news.  Because if you live here, you are part of a growing congregation of local folks who want to make Lawrence sustainable.  And who are serious enough to institutionalize it.

Give thanks.  To the Planning Board and the task force of folks who had been meeting since last August to put this together.  And to the Township official who served on the task force and supported the process throughout.  Lots of gratitude to spread around here.

What this means: the Sustainability Element provides clear, strong guidance (note: it’s not a law; it does not force anyone to do anything) on how we treat the challenge of new buildings, neighborhood redevelopment, transportation, pedestrian accommodations, energy use, land preservation, and much, much more, as we go forward.

We did good here.  How about a collective (all 32,000 of us) reaching around to pat ourselves on the back.  Not a bad idea.

Now, of course, begins phase two of this work: converting the good ideas now embodied in the Master Plan into ordinances.  With teeth.  How far we will get with this, or how soon, remains to be seen.  We cannot arbitrarily require everything to be green.  Not yet anyway.  But that day may come.

Cannot exit this post without thanking and praising Beth McManus for the work she did to help the Sustainability Element emerge in the form it has.  Beth, a Sustainable Lawrence board member, is also the professional planner hired by the Township to manage the process of developing the Sustainability Element.  She showed more than a little skill, creativity, and herd-management ability as she moved the whole thing along.  People of this township are in her debt.

See the Sustainability Element at: http://www.lawrencetwp.com

Ralph

Offshore wind turbine collapses!
Makes huge splash
Startles fish

OK, I made that up.

(From Peter Javiscas, a clever guy I know on a Philadelphia sustainability listserve.  Get it?)

Ralph

EARTH DAY CELEBRATION 2010 at THE LAWRENCE NATURE CENTER

Saturday, April 24th • 1:00 to 5:00 pm • Rain or Shine • Free Admission

Come and Discover the First Signs of Spring!

Guided Nature Hike * Wild Animal Show

*Paint a Rain Barrel*

*Hands-on activities for Kids*

*Bluegrass & Jazz Music*

Bring your galoshes and binoculars!

Presentations:

1:00         “Guided hike” by naturalist Rick Dutko

1:30         “The Story About Stuff” movie

2:15           “Chimney Swift Bird Talk” Eriks Svarcberg

2:30         “Sustainable Products”- Karen Nathan

3:00         “Wild Animal Show”- Diane Nickerson

3:45         “ Non-point Pollution”- Girl Scout Lindsay Jorgensen

For more information, go to www.lawrencenaturecenter.net

or call The Lawrence Township Recreation Dept. at

609-844-7067.

Our congressman will advance our request to the federal budget, and we have asked one of our senators to do the same.  It is not clear he will.  We’ve been told it’s wise to have the request placed before congress from both houses.  So I’m looking for a volunteer to spearhead a letter-writing campaign to persuade the senator he needs to back us up here.  He has advocated successfully on behalf of other bike routes, so he’s presumably sympathetic.  It becomes a question of raising the profile of the project in his mind.

Are you that volunteer?  Take a step by contacting me directly: rcopleman@sustainablelawrence.org.  Let’s talk it over.

Ralph

We may yet hire others, but I’m excited we’ll have another bright young mind to stimulate us this summer.  Laura studies environmental science at a New England college.  I told her SL is an experiment in changing social behavior, and she seemed genuinely excited to get involved in our particular brand of community-focused mischief.

Of course, she had the job the moment I saw she’d ridden to the interview on her bicycle.

Ralph

Somebody threw a party last Saturday evening.  ‘Twas a surprise thrown in the home of the guest of honor, and the organizer thoughtfully decided to save her friend a lot of clean-up trouble by using plastic (throw-away) plates and cups.

I was there, and I knew I had evolved into an eco-monster when I quietly went about replacing all these same plates  and cups with china and glasses from the hosts’ cupboards.  Most folks never even noticed.

Yay me!

Hey, these are the things you gotta do.  Sometimes you have to behave like a pain in the butt in order to be a “hero”.  There’s probably a more iconic, clever way to word that, but you get the idea.

Ralph

To anybody out there who thought that yours truly has been living the perfectly green life, well, we’re trying.  And, as I say, nobody’s perfect.  Sometime we’re even, well, dumb.

Lying on my back just now, playing on the floor with my grandson, I glanced up at the ceiling and noticed the vents for the air conditioning system (which we keep at 78 on the few days it runs) were open.  OPEN!

As in, allowing all the cold air from the attic to flow down to the second floor bedrooms and chill them.  As I say, dumb.

In the house it has felt like a cold winter alright.  I chalked it up to the weather outdoors, old bones (mine), and an aging heating system – anything except my failure to traipse around the house in October, as I have regularly done for years, and snap the darn things shut.

I could beat myself up for this, load on the guilt, engage in a round of serious emotional self-punishment.  I will not.  There’s no room for guilt in the run-down of feelings about achieving sustainability.  The guilt belomgs to folks like Imhofe, Cheney, Exxon execs, and other clowns who would have you think there is something wrong — even unpatriotic — about you if you get really serious about cutting back your use of fossil fuels.  But go ahead, incur the wrath of the dinosaurs, see if it helps your bank account.

And make sure your air-conditioning vents are closed.

Ralph

All very cool and every one a resume builder.  Here’s a sampling:

Radio program producer — take over production of our weekly Rider University radio show and web-based podcast service.

Photographer/Videographer – document SL events with your camera and/or camcorder.  See all your work on the web.

Survey Supervisor – Take charge of our unique project to measure how sustainable Lawrence Township is actually becoming.

We have more.  Want to run a cooking context?  Organize a fund raising dinner (best way in the world to build a network of great contacts)?  Help out in the office and keep the staff on track (not as easy as it sounds)?

If any of these appeal to you, or if you have your own idea about how you can make Lawrence Township even greener, contact me by phone.  If you want to make a significant difference in your community, call 895-1629.  Thanks for thinking seriously about this.

Ralph

BHP-259 Honors Seminar: The Environment: A Conflict of Interest

This course will examine critical environmental issues such as global warming [sic]; food, water, and energy resources; population trends; and global industrialization.  Topics for context will include the origin of the elements, the origin of solar systems, and the origin of life as well as the basic principles of the current biotechnical revolution.  This scientific understanding of how the past relates to the present and to the choices we can make for the future, in conjunction with knowledge about strategies for raising community awareness and (re)formulating public policy, provides the basis for inter-disciplinary problem solving.  In teams, students will be asked to define the problems; research available and prospective solutions; identify the technical, social, political, and economic constraints; and finally propose a workable strategy for making progress toward solutions.

Mondays and Wednesdays, 2:50-4:20 p.m.

Okay, sorry about this burst of academese.    I didn’t write it.  The course will be about how the story of the universe can frame the solution to all our sustainability challenges.  We’re gonna have fun and do some good work.

Ralph