What Grows On in Rhode Island News

Save the Bay Movie Night at Feinstein Imax ~ October 2, 2007

   

There are many benefits of becoming a member of Save The Bay. First and foremost, you'll be helping protect and restore the Bay. In fact, we'll show you how to get involved in personally rewarding ways as a volunteer or an advocate. And, there are those great member events.

    Sign up today and be our guest next Tuesday at IMAX.

ANOTHER SAVE THE BAY MOVIE NIGHT AT FEINSTEIN IMAX
        THEATRE PROVIDENCE PLACE!

Join Save The Bay on
  Tuesday, October 2, at 7 p.m.
      Please arrive no later than 6:45 p.m.      

Stunning photo-realistic computer-generated animation transports audiences back to the Late Cretaceous period, when a great inland sea divided North America in two. The film follows a curious and adventurous dolichorhynchops – familiarly known as a 'dolly' – as she travels through the most dangerous oceans in history. Click on the image to discover more.   

Online RSVP Save The Bay members may reserve up to four complimentary seats.  Just click here.         

IMAX movie screenings are a benefit of Save The Bay membership.

Farmer's Market Update ~ September 28, 2007

From Farm Fresh Rhode Island:

Dear Farmers' Market Fans, What a hot week! I am not sure if this is cause and effect, but there are so many melons at market right now. Yellow or red, seedy or seedless, have a RI watermelon. They're good!

One More Month! And a little more, too, at Brown and Hope High. It's going to be a long winter of grocery store veggies folks. Enjoy what's fresh and local now!! Bonus Shopping At the Fall Downcity Sidewalk Sale, on Westminster Street between Union and Eddy Streets in downtown Providence. There will be a preview on Friday from 11-2, and then the real deal on Saturday from 11-6. Learn more here.

Your neighborhood market is the first stop for a tasty weekend. See you at the Market. Friday: Downtown Providence Market, 11am-3pm Saturday: Hope High Market, 9:30am - 12:30pm Sunday: Pawtucket Market, 12-3pm - Jessica, Noah, Pam, Sheri and the rest of the Farmers' Market Team

Farm Fresh Rhode Island

Forestry & Wood Expo ~ October 14, 2007

From The Rhode Island Forest Conservators Organization (RIFCO)

RHODE ISLAND’S SECOND ANNUAL FORESTRY & WOOD EXPO

TO BE HELD IN WARWICK OCTOBER 14^th

 

 

WARWICK, RI – The Rhode Island Forest Conservators Organization (RIFCO) has announced that they will hold the 2007 Forestry and Wood Expo at the Crowne Plaza in Warwick on Sunday, October 14^th.

The event will be held in conjunction with the 2007 Energy Resources Expo organized by the Rhode Island Office of Energy Resources. Both events were held separately last year, and have come together to offer a comprehensive focus on the themes of energy efficiency, alternative energy, and the uses of forest and wood products.

The Forestry & Wood Expo is both an educational and business-to-business event with the goal of promoting the use of locally grown forest products in building, manufacturing and small enterprise. The Expo will include outdoor exhibits, interactive seminars, "how-to" demonstrations and an indoor vendor and exhibit hall all open to the public. The Expo will be open from 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. and admission and parking are free.

The Forestry & Wood Expo is sponsored by RIFCO, the Rhode Island Department of Environmental Management, the University of Rhode Island College of Environment and Life Sciences, the Rhode Island Rural Development Council, the Rhode Island Resource Conservation and Development Area Council, the American Tree Farm System, and the Natural Resources Conservation Service.

For more information, visit www.energy.ri.gov or www.rifco.org

2007 Forestry & Wood Expo and Energy Resources Expo

Contact: Marc Tremblay, Outreach Coordinator PO Box 53, North Scituate, RI 02857 www.rifco.org

Power Shift 2007

From the Sustainable Food Initiative at Brown University:

I've learned through someone at Brown University that Power Shift 2007, the first youth summit on  climate crisis, is November 2-5, 2007, at University of Maryland at College Park and in Washington, D.C. Many thousands of young people will come together to discuss how to "build a clean energy economy, achieve energy independence, create millions of green jobs, increase global equity, and revitalize the American economy."

They have 3 goals, which I quote here:

1. Make the U.S. Presidential candidates and Congress take global warming seriously. It is widely accepted that the next U.S. president must make global warming a priority for us to solve the crisis before we reach a point of no return. With youth voting rates on the rise, we have the opportunity to drastically affect the 2008 Presidential Election and ensure our next president puts us on a path to stopping climate change.
2. Empower a truly diverse network of young leaders. The organizers of Power Shift understand the limitations of mainstream environmentalism and its history of engaging primarily white, highly educated, privileged citizens on the left while leaving behind other communities. We must diversify our movement to include every community in America and shift our culture towards one of sustainability and justice for everyone, addressing traditional racial, ethnic, geographic, and ideological divisions.
3. Achieve broad geographic diversity. We want this convergence to represent nearly every Congressional district in the United States in order to demand scientifically based solutions from all who represent us. Only when this fire is burning in every state of the union with broad awareness and pointed activism from the ground up, will we have the political power needed to take on the fossil fuel industry.

Their ambitious agenda, full of workshops and concluding with a day of lobbying at the Capitol, the list of speakers, materials for publicizing and promoting the weekend, and other background material iare on their well-organized website.

So, who is going from Rhode Island? If you are concerned about climate change, what would you want to see discussed and what would you want the students to learn and to do?

 

Riverside Mills Park Cleanup

From Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council:

Saturday, September 29th

8:00am - 3:00pm

Riverside Park

(Aleppo Street, Olneyville, Providence)

 

 

Help us turn the brand new Riverside Mills Park into a wonderful new greenspace in Olneyville!

Years ago, Riverside Mills was a thriving mill complex along Aleppo St., next to the Woonasquatucket River, but in recent years it has been abandoned land and a blight on the neighborhood. Now the land has been cleaned up and turned into a city park!

Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse; the City of Providence Parks Department; the Woonasquatucket River Watershed Council; and other community partners are joining together to sponsor another James W. Rouse Community Service Day at Riverside Mills. Last year we accomplished an amazing amount in one day. Help us make this year's event another great day!

We need volunteers to...

• Build playgrounds
• Install equipment 
• Prepare community gardens
• Plant trees & shrubs
• Clean out the river 

Free Lunch and T-Shirts for All Volunteers! 

Questions or RSVP to Connie @ 574-2100.  Directions to Riverside Mills Park

Click here for a flyer you can print out and post!

Free Lunch and T-Shirts for All Volunteers!

Buy Nothing Day ~ November 23, 2007

From Greg Gerritt:

Buy Nothing Day

Friends, it is always hard to think about winter coats on these warm August days, but that is when we gear up each year for the Buy Nothing Day Winter Coat Exchange.  This will be our 11th year. 

Over the years we (and while this is a bit of a personal note, I really mean we) have evolved from 10 people collecting 250 coats, to a rather large operation with multiple sites for collection and distribution a yearly turnover of thousands of coats, and a budget of almost zero.  The Pawtucket site now has a dedicated core of volunteers, sets up places to take coats ahead of time, and is working with its own local partners.  The Newport site remains pretty low key, but distributes its collected coats throughout the cold weather.  I have been having a few conversations with folks in other parts of the state and this may be the year we go statewide. If you can help start a site in your neighborhood, I am happy to help.   There are also RI inspired events in Tennessee and Utah. 

Every year the Providence event is a bit different, as we always are seeking to make the event better and more useful to the community.  For the first time ever we almost ran out of coats, possibly due to our free form distribution, so we may need to be a bit more organized about how many coats individuals can take.  We have become such a well known event that used clothing dealers have started to try to stock up rather than letting coats go to those who really need them. We are thinking about this, and appreciate any suggestions and offers of help. 

We also remember the larger mission, beyond getting coats into the hands of people who can use them this year.  It is important to remember the ecological and social devastation the throw away society is causing in our communities and around the world.  War, hunger, and global warming are still with us, and this is one way to draw attention to the need for a better way.  The Buy Nothing Day Winter Coat Exchange was created so that we could combine a community affirming event, an event run on the generosity of Rhode Islanders, with a message that we must change policies that cause harm.

As usual we are asking for your official organizational endorsements, for you to further the message by getting the word out, and for your help in collecting coats. 

And I really look forward to working with everyone again this year. 

Greg Gerritt    [email protected]   331-0529Buy

Brown University Energy and the Environment Fall Lecture Series

From the Environment Council of Rhode Island and the Brown University Environmental Change Initiative:

Energy & the Environment" Fall Lecture Series

These are evening lectures on topics of broad interest, and we expect to draw a good crowd from both inside and outside the University. Please forward this information to interested colleagues and feel free to suggest appropriate mailing lists. Following are the dates and speakers:

-------------------------------

October 11, 7 pm

MacMillan Hall, Room 115

Fire and water: energy efficient technologies for poor communities in the developing world

Speaker: Ashok Gadgil, Senior Staff Scientist and Group Leader in the Environmental Energy Technologies Division, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory

-------------------------------

October 30, 7 pm

MacMillan Hall Room 115

Do Biofuels Make Sense?  Their Impacts on Food, Energy and the Environment

Speaker: David Tilman, Regents' Professor and McKnight Presidential Chair in Ecology, University of Minnesota

The impact on the environment of biofuel production and use can vary dramatically depending on the crops used and how they are grown. Tilman's research suggests that some high diversity grasslands could actually be net carbon sinks while producing biofuels for human use. He will evaluate the extended impact of biofuels derived from a variety of sources.

-------------------------------

November 29, 7 pm

MacMillan Hall, Room 115

The Emergence of a Bioeconomy

Speaker: Robert Brown, Director, Center for Sustainable Environmental Technologies (CSET), Iowa State University

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Environmental Change Initiative
Brown University
401-863-3032
[email protected]
www.brown.edu/eci

Save the Bay Honors Jack Reed ~ November 3, 2007

From Save the Bay's website:

Saturday, November 3, 2007
Rhode Island Convention Center

VIP Pre-Party - 6:00pm
Cocktail Reception, Dinner & Dancing - 7:00pm – 11:00pm

Please join us in this most exceptional opportunity to thank Senator Reed for his tireless efforts to help protect and restore Narragansett Bay and its watershed, while acknowledging his commitment to the entire state of Rhode Island.

All of the proceeds from this event will be committed to a Save The Bay education fund to support our Explore The Bay education program.  Each year, it brings thousands of underserved students to the Bay Center and onto Narragansett Bay to experience hands-on science and environmental education.

Info about tickets, advertising opportunities in the Projo, sponsorships, etc.: http://www.savebay.org/news_Reed_index.asp

IMPACTS OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON OUR TREE RESOURCES ~ October 12, 2007

From the Rhode Island Tree Council:

IMPACT OF CLIMATE CHANGE ON OUR TREE RESOURCES

Rhode Island Tree Council Annual Conference

October 12, 2007 ~ 8:30-3:30

Aldrich Mansion on Narragansett Bay in Warwick, RI

See the Conference Brochure for the Agenda.

We have learned from past experience what it takes to run an entertaining conference; timely subjects, excellent food, and an inviting setting where people are happy to meet and socialize.  We are proud to announce that  in 2007, once again, we will follow this winning combination. 

The topics we will discuss - climate change, storm damage, and the profession of arboriculture - have all become more closely allied since Hurricane Katrina devastated the City of New Orleans in 2004. Our talented speakers will examine this relationship.  Along the way, they will also explain what we need to know and how the rules have changed that govern them, and why these subjects are destined to affect living systems in present and future generations.

Tree Stewards are the heart and soul of the RITree Council.  There are about 550 of them in all. Many give their time freely, helping us spread our message of tree care across the state.  Our records show that nine of them have done something very special;  they have logged over 350 volunteer hours of community service.  They will be honored for this special achievement during the Award’s Ceremony portion of the conference’s morning session.

Finally, the 2007 conference will be held for the first time at the Aldrich Mansion, the former estate home of Senator Nelson W. Aldrich which overlooks scenic Narragansett Bay in Warwick.  The Chateau-styled Mansion has seventy-rooms, many of them adorned with ornate paintings and woodcarvings only found in the 20th century homes of the rich and famous.  The 75 acre grounds surrounding Aldrich Manor are impeccably graced with sprawling emerald-colored lawns and diverse arrangements of many notable trees and shrubs.  We believe it has the right stuff for making this conference a truly memorable experience. So come join us for a nice day of good fun, exciting lectures and other delights - like the guided tour of the estates beautiful trees that will start immediately following the conclusion of the conference.   

Conference registration is $40.00 per person, buffet included and is limited to the first 125 people registered by October 7, 2007.

Formulating a Detailed History of the Last Ice Age in New England ~ September 27, 2007

From the Environment Council of Rhode Island and the RI Natural History Survey:

Geologist, Expert on the History of Glaciers in New England, to speak at Natural History Survey Annual Meeting

Kingston, RI: The Rhode Island Natural History Survey will host a lecture entitled "Varves, Palaeomagnetism, and Radiocarbon: Formulating a Detailed History of the Last Ice Age in New England" by geologist Jack Ridge, Thursday, September 27th, at 7:30 p.m., at the Coastal Institute building on the University of Rhode Island’s Kingston Campus. This lecture is the first event in the Survey's 2007-2008 Mark D. Gould Memorial Lecture Series. The lecture will be preceded by the Survey's 13th annual meeting, which begins at 5:30 p.m. The annual meeting will include a look back at events and discoveries of the past year and a preview of new projects coming up. Both the lecture and the annual meeting are free and open to the public. The entire program will take place in Weaver Auditorium at the Coastal Institute on URI’s Kingston Campus.

At 7:30 p.m., Dr. Jack Ridge, Professor of Geology at Tufts University, will speak on “Varves, Palaeomagnetism, and Radiocarbon: Formulating a Detailed History of the Last Ice Age in New England.” Through extensive field investigations, Ridge succeeded in securely dating the retreat of the glaciers that covered New England during the last glaciation. For any point in New England, the departure of the glaciers marked the beginning of ecological processes that still determine much of our local environment today so dating this sequence was an important breakthrough. Ridge has been able to trace subtle fluctuations in the earth's magnetic field in "varves," fine-grained sediments deposited in lakes near retreating glaciers. By combining advanced radiocarbon dating techniques with the known history of magnetic fluctuations, Ridge created a detailed history of glacial retreat in New England between 22,000 and 11,000 years ago. [Ed. note: The RINHS web page for this event has some photos and illustrations, FYI.]

The lecture will be preceded, at 5:30 p.m., by the Survey’s 13th annual meeting, which is open to the public. During the meeting, executive director David Gregg and president of the board Peter Paton will update RINHS members and the public on the role of the Survey in the course of environmental science and management in Rhode Island in the past year and discuss plans for the future.

The entire evening is free and open to the public. Light refreshments will precede the lecture. For more information and directions call 401-874-5800, email: [email protected] or visit www.rinhs.org

The Rhode Island Natural History Survey, founded in 1994, serves as a non-profit, umbrella organization for ecological information in Rhode Island. It gathers and disseminates information on RI’s biology, geology, and ecosystems, manages the Biota of Rhode Island Information System (BORIIS), the most complete source of information available on the state's animals, plants, and natural communities, and hosts events to highlight the state’s biodiversity and the work of researchers and naturalists. Membership is open to anyone with an interest in Rhode Island’s plants and animals.

Contact: Kira Stillwell, 401-874-5800