Climate Change Awareness: Join Earth Hour 2012 - Sat March 31, 8:30pm

Launched in 2007 in Australia, Earth Hour was a public response to highlight the need to take action on countering climate change by reducing energy useage and energy emissions. Now an international 'day of action', you too can sign up to turnoff your lights for one hour on Saturday, March 31st from 8:30-9:30pm.

Go to the Earth Hour website to sign up.

More than 5,200 cities and towns in 135 countries worldwide switched off their lights for Earth Hour 2011, sending a powerful message for action on climate change. It also ushered in a new era with members going Beyond the Hour to commit to lasting action for the planet. Without a doubt, it’s shown how great things can be achieved when people come together for a common cause.

Though I personally believe we each need to take personal responsibility for our impact on this earth, and reduce our energy useage daily. I do believe these kind of actions really help highlight the importance of long term change.

Enjoy the lights out!

Can NYC truly be self-sustaining?

Can New York City, a city of 8 million people, Be Environmentally Self-Sustaining?

This is a question I've been thinking and pondering for a while, especially since last summer when I was researching some census data for a grant and was reminded again just how large of a population resides in this city - 8 million (this includes the boroughs.) Then, in the fall of 2011 I made several trips down to NYC, and each time, as I rode the train down and back up, I found myself pondering 'what would it look like for this city to be truly sustainable?'

Earlier this year I spent some time in the NYC watershed in the Catskills, and got an even greater sense of the vast resources dedicated just to provide this city of 8 million people with clean water. In essence, the NYC watershed begins up in the Schoharie Valley, at the Gilboa Dam, and then it's all down hill from there. More on this in another post. But lets just say, I never before quite understood how many acres of public land were off-limits to human activity just to help keep the water clean. It's fascinating. So, I've been wanting to write a series of blogs on what it would really look like and take for this city to be self-sustaining.

Then today I came across this article: Building the Self-Sufficient City: NYC Covered in Green, posted by SustainableBusiness.com News
An architect has been working for years on a design to 'green' NYC. It's truly in part the vision I had in mind. People growing food on patios and vacant lots; more bicycle paths, individual solar panels and water retention systems on roofs. I think for a city the size of NYC to become more truly self-sustaining, it will require this kind of relocalized effort.

I have attended several sustainable agriculture related conferences the past year, and always find it interesting when researchers studying the 'food shed' needed to feed NYC includes much of upstate NY, NJ, PA. Here's an architect designing a much more self-reliant city of 8 million. Check out the article here and Enjoy......

Building the Self-Sufficient City: NYC Covered in Green, re-posted from SustainableBusiness.com News

Birds on the Move...Winter Raptor Fest 2012

Spring approaches, and with that, many species are on the move, including raptors and other birds. The other day I saw my first Red-winged Blackbird of the season at Spa State Park. On Sunday, I saw a hawk, I believe was a Red-tailed Hawk, hovering around one of the highway overpasses between Albany and Troy. The hawk was clearly after the pigeons roosting in the overpass eaves, as evident by the pigeons that were encircling the hawk.

And, last week looking out my office window at the Community Gardens office in South Troy, which is situated in a commercial-district right along the Hudson River, I saw another Red-tailed Hawk circling the nearby building - it too looking for pigeons.

I love to see these natural "wild" species in such deep urban settings. A colleague and I were just talking about the contrast these kinds of experiences or natural settings in urban areas present. Somehow, this gives me hope that if a Red-tailed Hawk can adapt to changes in 'habitat', so may we humans.

This weekend however, is the opportunity to see some hawks and other raptors in their natural environment. March 10 & 11th is the WINTER RAPTOR FEST in Ft Edward, NY. This always looks like an interesting, family-friendly event. The grasslands around Ft Edward in Washington County are designated by National Audubon Society as an Important Bird Area (IBA).

According to the Friends of the IBA website, "The Washington County Grasslands IBA is one of the few remaining large continuous grasslands in Eastern NY. It provides critical habitat for state endangered Short-eared Owls and “exceptional” grassland breeding and wintering habitat for many other grassland birds, including almost a dozen other threatened, at-risk and rapidly declining grassland bird species."

Protecting our open spaces helps maintain critical habitat for birds and other wildlife and plants, and is essential if we are to maintain regional biodiversity.

I hope some of you will get out and enjoy this event, and, let me know how it is.