Earth Week is officially underway! Check the schedule and join in the fun! Events are scheduled all across campus April 18-26. All events, unless otherwise noted, are FREE and open to the public. For a full schedule, please visit http://sustainability.unc.edu/
TODAY:
Spare-the-Air
Time: All day
Location: School of Government
Contact: School of Government (Mary Tiger, mwtiger [at] sog.unc.edu)
Description: The School of Government will celebrate Spare-the-Air day by taking pledges from faculty, staff and students to take alternative transportation to work or school that day. We will have a mug contest and donation. Mugs will be used to replace paper coffee cups in the employee lounge. Keenan McDonald, a local farmer, and Sybil Tate, MPA student and local foods expert, will host a brown-bag lunch seminar on the importance of local food. Later in the week, students and staff will conduct a dumpster dive.
UNC Coal Power Plant Rally
Time: booth 10 AM - 2 PM, rally at 11:50 AM
Location: Polk Place
Contact: SWEAT (jlisetts [at] email.unc.edu)
Description: UNC students unable to attend the Stop Cliffside Power Plant Rally in Charlotte, NC will be having an analogous event on the UNC campus. Following the recent classification of the coal power plant as a "minor" source of pollution by the NC Division of Air Quality (DAQ), students will be tabling to raise awareness on the future destruction that will be caused by the construction of the power plant. Concerned citizens will also be sending petitions and citizen's complaints addressing Gov. Perdue and the NC Division of Air Quality (DAQ), accompanied by a rally in the quad around midday.
Green Architecture Panel: How to Make Buildings Ethical, Functional and Practical (flyer)
Time: 6:30 - 7:45 PM, followed by reception
Location: Michael Hooker Research Center, Lower Level Auditorium 0001
Contact: Renewable Energy Special Projects Committee (RESPC)
Description: A panel discussion on The Challenges of Green Architecture: How to Make Buildings Ethical, Functional and Practical. Panelists include: Mary Jane Nirdlinger, University Land Use Planner; Tom O'Dwyer, President of Green Hybrid Homes; and Michael Chandler, Architect and President of Chandler Design-Build. Moderator: Cindy Shea, Director of UNC Sustainability Office. Discussion will include Carolina Commons, a 166-unit housing community for individuals affiliated with UNC; Pushing the envelope on energy efficiency and sustainable materials; and New certication programs for residential builders and realtors.
Speaker: Larry Gibson, Mountain Top Removal Activist
Time: 7 PM
Location: Union Room 3411
Contact: SWEAT (jlisetts [at] email.unc.edu)
Description: Larry Gibson, a native West Virginian recently featured as a CNN Hero in the piece "Larry Gibson: Defending the Planet", will be speaking following a brief introduction of mountain top removal. Larry Gibson's family has lived on or near Kayford Mountain since the late 1700's. Larry and his family used to live on the lowest lying part of the mountain, and looked "up" to the mountain peaks that surrounded them. Since 1986, the slow motion destruction of Kayford Mountain has been continuous -- 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Eighteen years after the "mountain top removal" project began, Larry Gibson now occupies the highest point of land around; he is enveloped by a 12,000 acre pancake in what was previously a mountain range.
Click here for the EARTH WEEK FLYER!
