Connecting the Dots - Fall 2020 Colloquium Series - Friday, September 4th 3:30pm on Zoom

The Department of Geography, Environment, and Sustainability is excited to host Justin Onwenu, a community organizer for the Sierra Club in Detroit, as part of our Fall 2020 virtual colloquium. Justin was originally scheduled to visit UNCG as part of the Harriet Elliott Lecture Series in the spring. Although we had to cancel his visit because of the pandemic, he will now give his talk ("Connecting the Dots: Evaluating Local and National Challenges and Opportunities in the Fight for Environmental Justice") via Zoom this Friday, September 4th, at 3:30 pm (https://uncg.zoom.us/j/98494309569).He will also stick around after the talk to chat during a "virtual happy hour". For a preview, check out this video from the Democratic National Convention in which Justin was featured: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2xOX6YQfI38

Hope to "see" you at the colloquium!

Farmers Market - Saturdays 10am - 2pm (starting June 27th)

Bountiful Land - Food for All - Farmers Market

Sponsored by the NAACP

Saturdays 10am - 2pm 701 East Washington Dr.  High Point

Engagement Virtual Conference Session: Awareness, Engagement and Action Around Water

Join the Engagement Virtual Conference Session

Awareness, Engagement and Action Around Water

Friday, June 19, 10 – 11:30 a.m.

Join NC Water Resources Research Institute for our third Virtual Annual Conference session discussing recent projects to engage local communities. Speakers will discuss economic development via outdoor recreation, connection with the environment through group cleanups, and education of future community leaders about local watersheds.

Registrants will receive a confirmation email with a link and password to join the Zoom meeting.

REGISTER NOW

Moderator: Christy Perrin, NC WRRI

Speakers:

Rachel Taylor, UNC-Chapel Hill: The French Broad River: Leveraging river recreation to promote economic development

Tatiana Height, UNC-Greensboro: Fostering environmental behavior change in the Cottage Grove neighborhood through community-engaged education, outreach, citizen science and riparian cleanup to enhance stormwater quality and strive for environmental equity.

Christy Perrin: Watershed Wisdom: A lesson plan from NC Watershed Stewardship Network and UNC-TV Science for advancing watershed literacy and action.

Our thanks to McAdams Co. for generously sponsoring this Virtual Annual Conference session. Thanks also to YSI, a Xylem Brand, for their generous continuing support of the Virtual Annual Conference series.

Our mailing address is:

WRRI

850 Main Campus Drive 

NC State University

Campus Box 7912

Raleigh, NC 27695-7912

From Sustain-L

Pondering Skies: New Local Podcast on Sustainability

Matthew Bryant, a writer in UNCG Communications, has started his own podcast called Pondering Skies, which focuses on those working in sustainability, broadly defined. 

The first three guests include: Laine Roberts, Water Resources Public Education Coordinator with the City of Greensboro; Sean MacInnes, Sustainability Specialist at UNCG; and Paige Cox, owner of Reconsidered Goods. 

Trees for trash program by NC Wildlife Federation

Here is a great way to help the community while maintaining social distance.

Trees for Trash Program

[From sustain-l@uncg.edu]

UNC Face Shield Maker Initiative

UNC-Chapel Hill launches web page on COVID-19 Face Shield project.

Book Launch: "Promoting Community and Environmental Sustainability"

The third volume of "Social Work Promoting Community and Environmental Sustainability," a co-edited workbook series by Drs. Michaela Rinkel and Meredith Powers (UNCG Dept. of Social Work faculty and Sustainability Faculty Fellow), launched this week on Human Rights Day 2019! 

This excellent resource offers 17 chapters from social workers around the world demonstrating the many ways social workers are working for expanded, holistic rights for all, as we promote community and environmental sustainability! We hope you will join us in using this resource and sharing it with others.  Click here to download the book for free  

From the news release of the International Federation of Social Workers:

IFSW is thrilled, once again, to create a platform that highlights the important and inspiring work of social workers around the world who are taking up the Global Agenda as they promoting community and environmental sustainability. This is the third volume in the co-edited workbook series by Drs. Michaela Rinkel and Meredith Powers, and it features chapter contributions of 31 social workers from around the world. We have chosen to launch this book on Human Rights Day, 2019, as we recognize that we cannot have human rights without ecological rights.

Rinkel and Powers note: “Some understand human rights from a narrower, human-centered view as they focus on people’s rights to a safe, clean, and healthy environment to further the livelihoods, health, and well-being of our own species. We instead promote embracing of holistic rights with a broader understanding of ecological rights, within an ecosocial worldview (which acknowledges that humans are NOT the ‘top of the nature pyramid’, rather humans are nature; we are a part of a large and complex Web of Life). From this ecosocial worldview, ecological rights means establishing and ensuring the rights of all sentient and non-sentient beings, and the entire ecosystem; this is not merely for the benefit of humans, but in and of their own right to thrive and to maintain well-being. Focusing on ecological rights utilizes the type of long-term, systems thinking that a human-centric rights perspective has, at times, ignored. ” (from the Preface of Volume 3 by Rinkel and Powers, 2019)

Click here to download the book for free