Blog

A coalition of Pennsylvania and Ohio students and residents staged a mock wedding today at the EQT Plaza in downtown Pittsburgh to condemn the misguided union of corporations and environmental nonprofits through the Center for Sustainable Shale Development (CSSD).

This Saturday, April 20th volunteers and activists across 34 countries are preparing to take the Arctic to their communities and politicians. Join the global day of action now!

As part of his new role as Secretary of State, Senator John Kerry will be a U.S. delegate on the Arctic Council. A champion for global warming legislation in the Senate, Secretary Kerry now has the power to advocate for Arctic protection through the Arctic Council.  The quote below from the Secretary himself gives us reason to believe that he’ll do the right thing when it comes to Arctic drilling.

“This fight against drilling in the Arctic Refuge is a fight about our principles. It’s about standing up for our environment, our families and our future, and I won’t give up this fight.”

This post is from the Arleta Summer of Solutions program!

My reflection from last Friday’s gathering at Canterbury Elementary where a group of great people put hands on the land that we’ll all be tending for the season. I was very happy to have worked with those who showed up.

We came across a couple of teachers that showed interest in what we as a team of (7) were doing. The teachers asked questions like, “What school do you all go to?” and “Are you high school students?”  We answered that we were all members of the community, some in college etc. Teachers briefly shared ideas and included that they too had worked hard in the garden but that there were to many bugs that were no good for gardening and did not continue. Challenges will come about and part of creating some lube for those challenges will be through communication and meetings.

The post is from Soulardarity, Grand Aspirations' Local Initiative in Highland Park (Detroit).

Bad news first. The house we worked on throughout January, which we were planning to convert into a residence and community resource for sustainable home upgrades, is slated for demolition. There is much commotion with the city right now, other folks are trying to take ownership of the project and move it forward. It isn’t in the ground yet, but its future is definitively uncertain.

All’s going well with Soulardarity. We’re in the midst of a planning stage. After the first light went in, we’ve been revisiting our long-term planning and business model. I’ve been spending a fair amount of time driving around Highland Park, meeting neighbors, and planning community meetings to facilitate active involvement in the planning and implementation of this project. We’ll be developing our master plan, partnerships with the city and neighborhood association, and a design for the streetlights we hope to build right in Highland Park. I don’t want to give away too much detail right now, but the plan right now is to launch a Capital Campaign in the next few months with the goal of raising $1.5 million to install 200 solar streetlights all in one fell swoop.