Week of March 25, 2013

News from Across the USM Campuses

March 29^th - Dr. Megan Heckert?Swarthmore, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr Colleges - "Greening vacant land to promote revitalization and sustainability: Synergies and trade-offs at urban and neighborhood scales." Seminar will be held on Friday at 2:00pm in the Technology Research Center, Room 206, on the UMBC campus. Event is free and open to the public, and registration is not required. Visitor parking passes for the TRC lot may be purchased for $4.00 in the CUERE office in TRC 102/105, on the UMBC campus shortly before seminar.

April 15^th - 16^th - Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference - Colleges and universities are incubators of innovation, tackling the biggest challenges of society through creative means. The 2013 Smart and Sustainable Campuses Conference provides the setting to learn, share and explore how campuses are using their passion for innovation to develop technologies, infrastructure, programs and curricula that address the world's most pressing sustainability challenges.

April 27^th - Towson University's 5th Annual Environmental Conference - The annual conference addresses the impact of individuals and communities on the environment and actions that individuals and communities can take to positively impact the environment and create a more sustainable world. The conference is designed to raise awareness among students, faculty and staff about environmental topics, issues and solutions. Each year members of the campus community gather to hear presentations from faculty, students and environmental leaders in the Baltimore region.

"Bottle" bill dies in House: Beverage industry, retailers fought measure favored by environmentalists (By Tim Wheeler, The Baltimore Sun, 3/25/13)

House approves higher gas tax, sending bill to Senate: Increase in 23.5-cent rate would be first since 1992 (By Michael Dresser, The Baltimore Sun, 3/22/13)

Energy Administration Announces "EVnomics" Electric versus Gas Vehicle Commuter Cost Calculator (Maryland Energy Administration, Press Release, 3/18/13) [PDF]

USM Environmental Sustainability and Climate Change Initiative

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Scientists link frozen spring to dramatic Arctic sea ice loss: Melting sea ice, exposing huge parts of the ocean to the atmosphere, explains extreme weather both hot and cold (By John Vidal, The [UK] Guardian, 3/25/13)

Protests against tar-sands pipelines heat up in U.S. and Canada (By Susie Cagle, Grist.org, 3/25/13)

Earth Hour 2013 celebrations around the world - in pictures: From Colombo to the Kremlin, major landmarks, businesses and households in cities around the world turned their lights off for one hour at 8.30pm on Saturday 23 March to raise awareness about climate change and show support for renewable energy (The [UK] Guardian, 3/25/13)

Confronting a Senate Beholden to 'Big Oil': An update on the battle to stop the Keystone XL pipeline (By Bill McKibben, 350.org as reported by CommonDreams.org, 3/24/13)

Green Job Growth Outpaced All Other Industries 2010 - 2011 (By Ryan Grenoble, The Huffington Post - Green Blog, 3/20/13 updated 3/21/13)

Climate Science Denier Leads House Science Subcommittee (By Rebecca Leber, ThinkProgress.org - Climate Progress Blog, 3/20/13)

Why Obama's Major Plans for Climate and Energy Are a Major Disappointment: Unfortunately Obama's "all of the above" energy strategy relies on more dangerous fuels and is based on bogus information that reads like gas industry PR. (By Ted Glick, GlobalPossibilities.org and Alternet.org - Environment Blog, 3/20/13)

Real market forces now drive action on climate change: After years of frustration, circumstances are shifting from a global climate treaty serving as the sole impetus (By Graciela Chichilnisky, The [UK] Guardian, 3/18/13)