The event will be webcasted live from the Fowler Museum at UCLA. You will receive an email with details on accessing the webcast upon registration.

The fossil fuel industry is responsible for decades of climate science disinformation and attempts to obstruct climate action. A recent scientific paper in Climatic Change for the first time quantifies the outsized role that carbon pollution traced to these companies has played in exacerbating climate impacts. In the face of the current climate change policy void at the federal level, legal experts are seriously exploring whether and how fossil fuel companies can be held liable.

A handful of recent lawsuits filed by cities and counties in California have put this issue front and center, and New York City also filed suit for climate damages on January 10. But the fossil fuel industry is fighting back—ExxonMobil is now threatening to countersue in California and has begun legal maneuvers that may be time-consuming and costly for the cities and counties.

Featuring scientific and legal experts, as well as perspectives from affected communities, the panel will address how companies involved in the extraction, production, and marketing of fossil fuels can be held to account for the ever-mounting costs of climate harms and preparation.

For more information, visit ucsusa.org.

Register Today!

Christ the King Evangelical Lutheran Church invites you to a monthly environmental education web meeting series whose theme in 2018 is Stewardship.

At the January web meeting, we welcome Jaime Gonzalez, Community Conservation Director, Katy Prairie Conservancy, who will address Caring for the Plants that Care for Us. 

He will discuss the importance of native plants for biodiversity, water absorption, carbon sequestration, the economy, and creating a sense of place.  He will link the well-being of ecosystems to human well-being. Jaime will also discuss the work of Katy Prairie Conservancy to restore native prairie, “re-wild” Houston with pocket prairies, offer citizen conservation opportunities and a new initiative to encourage residents to plant the “nine natives” in their yards. Jaime will give details on using these native plantings on your property, will provide resources and outlets for getting native plants, and will even delve into the ethics of saving wildlife by providing native plant habitat. After his talk, there will be time for Q&A to answer your native plant questions. 

A generous donor has pledged a donation to the Katy Prairie Conservancy if at least 10 people sign up for and attend Jaime’s talk.  Please register for this talk, and you will receive an invitation to the web meeting.  Contact Lisa Brenskelle at gcs.lrc@gmail.com with any questions.

Stormwater discharges continue to cause impairment of our Nation’s waterbodies. Conventional stormwater infrastructure, or gray infrastructure, is largely designed to move stormwater away from urban areas through pipes and conduit. Runoff from these surfaces can overwhelm sewer systems and end up contaminating local waterways. When stormwater runs off impervious streets, parking lots, sidewalks, and rooftops, it can carry pollutants to streams, rivers, and lakes. Runoff flows can also cause erosion and flooding that can damage property, infrastructure, and wildlife habitat. In addition to runoff problems, impervious surfaces also prevent water from penetrating the soil and recharging groundwater supplies.

Green infrastructure, such as rain gardens, and porous pavement, is becoming an increasingly attractive way to reduce the amount of stormwater runoff that flows into wastewater treatment plants or into waterbodies untreated, and to recharge aquifers. It provides many environmental, social, and economic benefits that promote urban livability, such as improved surface water quality, water conservation, and improved aesthetic and property value. EPA researchers have been studying green infrastructure practices and developing models and tools to help communities manage their stormwater runoff and address nutrient impairment.

EPA’s National Stormwater Calculator is a software application that estimates the annual amount of rainwater and frequency of runoff from a specific site. This webinar will introduce the newest features of the Calculator, which is now available as a mobile web application and can be used on smartphones and tablets.

EPA has also added a cost estimation module that allows planners and managers to evaluate green infrastructure practices based on comparison of regional and national project planning level cost estimates and predicted performance.

Register Here!

The Marine Technology for Teachers and Students (MaTTS) Project invites you to participate in its upcoming webinar series. This series of three webinars (see below) will focus on how to incorporate marine technology builds, ocean exploration expeditions, and live content into your classroom curriculum.

During each webinar, Inner Space Center (ISC) staff and MaTTS Project Teacher Leaders will present an overview of the MaTTS Project, ocean exploration activities, and various marine technology builds.  Learn how to incorporate these topics into your classroom curriculum.

Webinar Series Schedule

Monday, December 18, 2017, 3-4pm Eastern

Ocean Exploration Topic: Connecting Your Classroom to Live Expeditions
Technology Build: Basic Observation Systems

Monday, February 5, 2018, 3-4pm Eastern

Ocean Exploration Topic: Recent Technological Advancements
Technology Build: Remotely Operated Vehicles (ROVs)

Thursday, April 12, 2018, 3-4pm Eastern

Ocean Exploration Topic: 2018 Expeditions
Technology Build: Hydrophones/Oceanographic Sensors

Please use this link to register for one or more of the webinars in this series. Once registered, information on how to connect will be sent, via email, within a week of the scheduled webinar.

Christ the King Evangelical Lutheran Church in Houston invites you to a monthly environmental education web meeting series whose theme in 2018 is Stewardship.

At the February web meeting, we welcome Bruce Bodson, President/Executive Director of Lower Brazos Riverwatch, who will address Stewardship of Water.  Water is a uniquely versatile medium, functioning as a vital resource, a habitat, a recreation venue, and a waste conveyance.  As we have often seen in Houston, it is also a destructive force of nature.  Stewardship of water entails balancing these functions and our management of the hazard in a manner that allows for protection of the resource, for all the human benefits to be obtained, and still leave a reasonably unimpaired habitat for other species.  Here in Houston, the Bayou City, we are blessed with an abundance of waters, but we struggle with maintaining the balance of uses that allows us to enjoy this abundance without causing irreparable harm to the resource.  This presentation will examine the resources we have, and consider the effects of the ever growing demand placed on them.  It will also look at some examples of local programs that strive to bring balance to our consumption and regulation of the resource. After Bruce’s talk, there will be time for Q&A. 

Please register for this talk, and you will receive an invitation to the web meeting.

Contact Lisa Brenskelle at gcs.lrc@gmail.com with any questions.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s Climate Communications Initiative (CCI) aims to coordinate efforts across the Academies to successfully address public questions about climate change, develop innovative approaches for communicating and disseminating climate information, and provide easy access to evidence-based findings and explanations of climate change to various audiences. The CCI will enable the Academies to advise the nation in more nimble and responsive ways, pulling from the deep and diverse body of work from the institution’s seven programmatic divisions and three honorific societies.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine have put in place an Advisory Committee to provide expert oversight and guidance for the plan; part of their process is to convene an in-person meeting (to be held on March 6) to gather input. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine welcomes you to join their meeting via webcast, and participate in this full-day meeting!

To register for the webinar or for more information, visit eventbrite.com.

Join the Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC) for the Parks and Natural Areas (PNA) Roundtable on Monday, March 12, from 1:30 to 3:30 p.m. at H-GAC Conference Room A, Second Floor. The PNA Roundtable is open to anyone interested in participating.

The topic of the meeting is Maintenance and Beyond. Speakers will discuss parks as flood mitigation and park maintenance before and after large-scale events. H-GAC staff will discuss upcoming PNA activities. A roundtable discussion will follow the presentations.

The PNA Roundtable serves as a forum for discussion of issues related to parks and natural areas, promotes the PNA Award Program, and maintains a regional inventory of parks. The PNA roundtable facilitates information exchange and planning efforts between various stakeholders and collaborators to protect and preserve parks and natural areas across the region.

Register to attend in-person or to attend via webinar.

For more information, visit h-gac.com.

H-GAC is hosting a series of seminars and hands-on workshops to learn to use H-GAC’s interactive web applications for community and transportation planning. Participants will have access to computers to participate in an interactive session to master the use of these online applications.

A webinar option is also available; however, hands-on activities will be presented to in-person attendees only.

• Seminar 1: Demographic Explorer and Snapshot - Thursday, March 22
  
• Seminar 2: Regional Employment Snapshot & Commute Patterns - Thursday, April 26
• Seminar 3: Activity-Connectivity Explorer - Thursday, May 24

Seminar 1 focuses on the Demographic Explorer and Snapshot which provides quick and easy access to US Census American Community Survey data

Learn how to customize the data displayed to fit your needs:

• Draw and select an area of interest
• Query the data for more information
• Perform market analysis
• Summarize and download data
• Directly use the demographic snapshot tool and maps for presentations

For more information, visit h-gac.com.

Christ the King Evangelical Lutheran Church invites you to a monthly environmental education web meeting series whose theme in 2018 is Stewardship.

At the March web meeting, the Church welcome John Ferguson, soil scientist & owner of Nature’s Way Resources, a Houston-based composting, mulch & recycling firm. John’s talk is an introduction to a new model of soil science and fertility management called the “Soil Food Web”. It explains how biological (organic) methods work and how they save you time and money in your gardening projects by preventing many problems. The biological methods are sustainable; greatly reduce water requirements, prevent problems, eliminate air and water pollution, sequester carbon, and lower total management costs from property management to erosion control. Learn from the man whose personal garden has been featured in Better Homes & Gardens and several gardening books. After John’s talk, there will be time for Q&A.

For more information, visit eventbrite.com or contact Lisa Brenskelle at gcs.lrc@gmail.com.