StudioXero is an internationally recognized garden design firm founded and led by Chilean garden designer Ximena Nazal. The firm pushes the boundaries of innovation to create gardens that take their lessons and inspiration from the natural world.
In this April 15 Garden Conservancy webinar at 2 pm, Ximena will discuss how StudioXero responds to the realities of desert encroachment, climate change, and anthropogenic factors and strives to be part of the solution to our global challenges. Please note that registration will end 24 hours prior to this webinar. $5 Garden Conservancy members $15 General admission
As we begin to consider climate as an everyday problem, it’s valuable to see how people did that in the past. With support from the Guggenheim Foundation, Joyce Chaplin of Harvard University is compiling and analyzing a database of manuscript notes about weather in early American almanacs,1646-1821, out of 10,578 almanacs from nine different archives or libraries. Her March 9 Massachusetts Historical Society talk beginning at 5:15 pm Eastern time focuses on how people recorded the weather in numbers (including degrees Fahrenheit) and in words, ranging from “dull” to “elegant!” These notations are significant as records of a period of climate change, the Little Ice Age, also as records of how people made sense of and coped with that climatic disruption.
The Environmental History Seminar invites you to join the conversation. Seminars bring together a diverse group of scholars and interested members of the public to workshop a pre-circulated paper. Learn more.
Please note, this is an online event held on the video conference platform, Zoom. Registrants will receive an email with links to join the program. Free. Register HERE.
Join the Ecological Landscape Alliance on March 3 & 4, 2021 for the 27th Conference & Eco-Marketplace – all online. We’ll energize your practice and prepare you for spring with two full days of research and field-tested expertise, as well as innovative case studies on a wide range of topics.
In our online conference space, you can pick and choose from presentations in multiple tracks. You can easily move from presentation to presentation with a couple of clicks, and if you miss a presentation, you’ll have access to recordings after the conference. The conference platform also lets you connect with exhibitors in their own conference spaces and network with colleagues and friends in rooms designated for that purpose. A short initial orientation and continuously available technical assistance help support a positive conference experience.
Wednesday sessions will probe landscapes bracing for climate change. How will a changing climate affect our landscapes and our practices, and what can we do to prepare? Learn the latest research and find new information to help you prepare your landscapes for the future. Choose from two educational tracks:
Thursday sessions in three separate tracks provide insightful explorations of landscape design, land care practices, and current hot topics. In the Focus on Design track, you can explore the connection between designs that introduce beauty and landscapes that restore natural systems, provide valuable habitat, and offer climate relief. The Focus on Practice track shares insights into innovative large-scale landscape management; delves into smaller-scale landscape projects that incorporate dry stone walls; and offers a soil update relevant to landscapes of any scale. This year’s Idea Exchanges track explores a wide range of thought provoking topics from rewilding landscapes and reconsidering the concept of Native to the intersection of the landscape profession and the issues of diversity, inclusion, and social justice.
In “Beasts of the Southern Wild,” Benh Zeitlin’s stunning work of cinematic magical realism, six-year old Hushpuppy is faced with both her hot-tempered father’s fading health and melting ice-caps that flood her ramshackle bayou community and unleash ancient aurochs.
Winner of the World Cinema Grand Jury Prize at the 2012 Sundance Film Festival and nominated for four Academy Awards, the film announced the arrival of a major new talent in filmmaker Zeitlin and actress Quvenzhané Wallis.
In this free WBUR online Science on Screen discussion on January 29 at 7, Cristina Kim, associate producer of Here & Now, looks at the film through the lens of climate change and race. She’ll be joined by Dr. Gaurab Basu, health equity fellow at the Center for Climate, Health, and the Global Environment at Harvard’s T.H. Chan School of Public Health and Dr. S. Atyia Martin, CEO and founder of All Aces Inc.
Join the conversation! Submit your questions to us before and during the event here. Find out where to watch “Beasts of the Southern Wild” before the event here.
The future for landscape architecture is immense. And if landscape architects don’t take the opportunity at this point, while our governments are waffling on climate change, if they don’t learn this climate change inside-out, namely storm-water management, limiting footprints, using plants that don’t need much maintenance or water, if they don’t seize that opportunity, then the landscape architects are asleep under the ground. -Cornelia Hahn Oberlander, TCLF Oral History (2008)
Cornelia Hahn Oberlander’s declaration—a challenge to her fellow landscape architects—is the impetus for a June 2020 symposium about the role of the profession of landscape architecture in addressing climate change. Oberlander is the namesake of the new Cornelia Hahn Oberlander International Landscape Architecture Prize, which was conceived by The Cultural Landscape Foundation (TCLF) to honor designers who, like Oberlander, are “exceptionally talented, creative, courageous, and visionary.” Addressing climate change has been a core focus of Oberlander’s practice for more than 30 years, and the symposium will serve as the inaugural Oberlander Prize Forum, the first of many fora to be developed in association with the newly established Oberlander Prize.
Martha Schwartz, an outspoken, iconoclastic, and inventive landscape architect, will deliver the opening keynote. Panels of speakers will address the theoretical – understanding the scope and scale of the climate crisis, especially in New York City – and the practical – including how to navigate bureaucracies to get projects built with environmentally/ecologically sound practices – along with pathways to civic engagement. Ultimately, this is a shared responsibility that will require courage and creativity from the design community, elected officials, governmental agencies, corporations, non-profits, and the public, if we are to confront this problem at a macro and micro scale. This symposium aims to support and inspire those undertaking the challenge.
This event is currently rescheduled for September 18 from 9 – 5 at Highline Stages, 440 West 15th Street in NYC. A reception on the evening prior to the symposium will offer speakers and attendees a chance to mingle and initiate conversations about the day ahead. As with all events planned during the Covid-19 pandemic, please check with TCLF in case a rescheduling is necessary. Early bird conference ticket $245 ($75 students), and reception ticket is $75. Register at www.tclf.org.
Dr. Caitlin McDonough Mackenzie, David H. Smith conservation research postdoctoral fellow and Second Century Stewardship fellow at the University of Maine, will speak at Tower Hill Botanic Garden on March 19 at 6:30 about her research on specifics of climate change’s current effects on local plants and ecosystems. The lecture is free. For more information visit www.towerhillbg.org.
Grow Native Massachusetts is proud to present our 2020 Evenings with Experts lecture series. These talks are free at The Cambridge Public Library, 449 Broadway in Cambridge, and open to all.
Join us at 7 pm on March 4 for this talk with Jesse Bellemare, Associate Professor of Biological Sciences at Smith College.
As our world warms, the distributions of many native plant species
are shifting with the climate. But not all species will keep pace with
modern climate change, and some could face extinction.
This poses a dilemma: what role should we take in helping native
plant populations migrate? How do we balance our instinct for
preservation with the risk of a relocated plant species disrupting the
ecology of its new region?
Jesse Bellemare will explore these questions in the context of the
constant evolution of plant ranges over time, and the current insights
we can gain from native plant horticulture.
Jesse Bellemare’s research focuses on the ecology and biogeography of
forest plants in the eastern United States. He has authored numerous
scientific articles about the impacts of climate change, invasive
insects, and land-use history on plant populations. He is currently the
president of the New England Botanical Club.
Thank you to our community partners: the Cambridge Public Library, Mount Auburn Cemetery and the Boston Society of Landscape Architects — for their support of this series.
After slowly cooling throughout the past millennium, Earth has substantially warmed over the last 40 years, and effects on trees and insects are already apparent. There is a strong scientific consensus that this warming is caused by human emission of greenhouse gases. There also is a substantial discrepancy between this scientific consensus and perceptions of the public regarding climate change.
In this October 29 Ecological Landscape Alliance webinar at 12:30 pm, Dr. Dan Herms will examine the evidence for anthropogenic climate change, including changes in patterns of precipitation; consider current and future impacts; and look at the implications for trees in urban and natural forests, especially their interactions with insects. He will also address the potential for trees to sequester carbon in urban forests as a climate change mitigation strategy. Free for ELA members, $10 for nonmembers. Register at https://www.ecolandscaping.org/event/webinar-climate-change-and-its-effects-on-trees-and-their-relationship-to-insects/
Dr. Dan Herms is Vice President of Research and Development at The Davey Tree Expert Company. Prior to joining Davey in January 2018, Dr. Herms was a professor in the Department of Entomology at The Ohio State University, where he served on the faculty for 21 years. His research has focused on interactions between trees and insects, including effects of climate change, and he was a member of The Ohio State University Climate Change Outreach Team. Dr. Herms received his BS in landscape horticulture from The Ohio State University, his MS in horticulture and entomology from The Ohio State University, and his PhD in forest entomology from Michigan State University. In 2014, he was inducted as a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science.
Solutions to climate change require us to think differently about how the land and sea connect to communities. Laura Parker Roerden, founder/executive director of Ocean Matters and fourth generation farmer will take us on a journey into a new paradigm for farms informed by oceans that holds the key to climate solutions and how engaging with this paradigm can help communities build resilient youth, expand our notion of tribe, and give us new ways to belong. The free lecture takes place September 25 at Wright-Locke Farm in Winchester. The Farm offers a casual picnic supper (sandwiches from Clover Food Lab, iced tea/lemonade & cookies for around $20), starting at 6pm. Please e-mail the Events Manager with any questions and to reserve your meal. RSVP to the lecture, please, at https://www.signupgenius.com/go/60b0445acad2ca1fd0-september
Laura Parker Roerden
Executive Director and founder of Ocean Matters, Laura Parker Roerden has over twenty-five years of experience in environmental education and educating for social responsibility. She is a lecturer and author of many books, curricula and articles on young people’s social, emotional, and ethical development. She is the former publisher and managing editor at Educators for Social Responsibility and former managing editor of the magazine New Designs for Youth Development. Laura currently serves on the board of directors of both Women Working for Oceans (W20) at the New England Aquarium, as well as Earth, Ltd. of Southwicks Zoo and is a member of the Pleiades Network of Women Leaders in Sustainability. She lives on a fifth generation family farm in the Blackstone Valley of Massachusetts.
Join the Massachusetts Audubon Society on Groundhog Day (Saturday, February 2) to dig into the science of climate and weather.
How has our New England climate changed and what can we do to help? Weather and climate activities will take place throughout the day, focusing on simple things families can do to make a difference. Hot cocoa will be provided. Families will also have the chance to see Drumlin’s very own Ms. G, the Official State Groundhog of Massachusetts. Watch her make a prediction about the weather in the coming months—will we have 6 more weeks of winter or will we get an early spring? Suitable for all ages.
Featured Activities
Investigate our local climate with Don McCasland of Blue Hills Observatory & Science Center
Enjoy games & climate action activities with our Teen Stewardship Leaders
Learn the forecast for spring from our woodchuck weather expert at 10:00 am (encore at 1 pm)
Visit with more of our resident wildlife and farm animals, learning about winter tracking, and explore the trails
Make some winter crafts to take home
All event activities are included with the price of admission to Drumlin Farm, South Great Road in Lincoln.
Members & Lincoln residents: Free
Nonmembers: $9 Adults, $6 Children (2-12), $6 Seniors (65+)
EBT Participants: Free for up to 4 people when you show your EBT card
