Maryland's Public System of Higher Education

News from Across the USM Campuses

April 16^th - Outreach Seminar: "Chesapeake Bay Ecosystem - Causes and effects of changes in the ecosystem" by Dr. Lora Harris. Lecture will be held on Monday at 1:30pm at Nice Hall at the Chesapeake Bay Laboratory.

Apr. 18^th - Dr. Raymond Najjar, Penn State University, "Climate Change Impacts on Salinity and Circulation in Chesapeake and Delaware Bays." This lecture is a part of the CBL Distinguished Scholar Seminar Series - 2012. This lecture will be held on Wednesday at 3:30 p.m. in Nice Hall at the Chesapeake Bay Laboratory.  

Artificial wetlands to grow in Inner Harbor (By Timothy B. Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun, 4/9/12) [Article quotes Daniel Terlizzi of the University of Maryland's Sea Grant program]

State of Maryland News

Chesapeake Oysters Restoration Plan Unveiled By Army Corps Of Engineers (The Huffington Post - Green Blog, 4/11/12)

Funding for second phase of Metro's Silver Line uncertain (By Dana Hedgpeth and Anita Kumar, The Washington Post, 4/9/12)

Senate gives initial OK to doubling Md. flush tax (By Brian Witte, The Associated Press as reported by DelMarVaNow.com, 4/7/12)

USM Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change Initiative

• Practices
• Programs
• Policies

• Presentations
• Climate Change Definitions
• Facilities Master Planning
• Statewide Sustainability Efforts
• ACUPCC National Benchmarking
• Useful Links and References

April 15^th - 21^st - National Environmental Education Week - Greening STEM: The Environment as Inspiration for 21st Century Learning

Obama Administration Must Say No to Industry Loopholes in Natural Gas Fracking Standards (By Frances Beinecke, Natural Resources Defense Council - Switchboard Blog as reported by CommonDreams.org, 4/15/12)

NASA Climate Change Letter Belongs To Long Tradition Of Fake Expertise (By Lucia Graves, The Huffington Post - Green Blog, 4/13/12)

A Data-Driven Case for Walkability (By Kaid Benfield, The Atlantic Cities - Neighborhoods Blog, 4/13/12)

Insurance Giant Lloyd's of London Warns Of ‘Unique And Hard-To-Manage Risk' Of Arctic Ocean Oil Drilling (By Kiley Kroh and Michael Conathan, Thinkprogress.org - Climate Progress Blog, 4/12/12)

Mexicans try two wheels to beat car culture (By William Booth, The Washington Post, 4/11/12)

Chris Christie's gas tax foolishness: By not budging on decades-old taxes, Republican governors keep gas artificially cheap -- and create big problems (By Will Doig, Salon.com, 4/11/12)

Karl Rove Group That Absurdly Blames Obama For Rising Gas Prices Was Bankrolled By Top Oil Speculator (By Stephen Lacey, Thinkprogress.org - Climate Progress Blog, 4/11/12)

The Crisis in American Walking: How we got off the pedestrian path. (By Tom Vanderbilt, Slate.com, 4/10/12)

The High Cost of Losing Urban Trees (By Nate Berg, The Atlantic Cities Blog, 4/9/12)

The Earth Is Full: Economic and Energy 'Transformation' Needed to Save Planet: '20 year war-like mobilization' needed to transition to sustainable energies and economies (By Common Dreams Staff, CommonDreams.org, 4/9/12)

The Folly of Big Agriculture: Why Nature Always Wins - Large-scale industrial agriculture depends on engineering the land to ensure the absence of natural diversity. But as the recent emergence of herbicide-tolerant weeds on U.S. farms has shown, nature ultimately finds a way to subvert uniformity and assert itself. (By Verlyn Klinkenborg, Environment 360, 4/9/12)

Record Warm March Temperatures Continue Record-Breaking Periods:

More than 15,000 warm temperature records broken during March
(By Common Dreams staff, CommonDreams.org, 4/9/12)

Debate Over How to Teach Evolution and Climate Change (Reported by Diane Rehm, NPR - The Diane Rehm Show, 4/9/12)