Rice Design Alliance’s Fall Lecture Series explore different definitions of the sharing economy as they relate to the built environment. Today, digitally-based platforms, supported by vast physical infrastructures, facilitate new types of exchange. Such platforms bring about liberating possibilities to actualize transnational networks that coalesce around food, shelter, transportation, and talent. Yet, for every emancipatory path an equally restrictive one exists.

This lecture will feature the Chairman of HR&A Advisors, John Alschuler. John will speak on “Innovation Lands in Urbanian: What’s Next?”

Lectures are free and open to the public.

For guaranteed seating, please register for each lecture and arrive to the lecture by 6:45 p.m. Seating will be released to unregistered guests by 6:55 p.m.

Workshop 3- How to build the business case and get financing for energy efficiency projects

Are you involved in developing the business case for energy efficiency projects? This session will detail effective ways to finance energy efficiency upgrades using various measures including Houston PACE and will also highlight key incentives and other resource offerings from CenterPoint Energy.

Speakers-

Paul Knudson – PACE Houston-Building Efficiency
Natalie Goodman, LEED AP O&M, Associate AIA – Incentifind
TBD – CenterPoint

Sponsor: CenterPoint Energy

Join HARC for a series of three lunch and learn workshops that will help small to mid-sized business owners and developers increase energy efficiency and save money.

Register for one, two or the whole series!

Registration is free and lunch will be provided.

Keep Pearland Beautiful and Brazoria County Master Gardener Association invite you to a free lecture entitled “Holiday Plants”. Learn first hand from Master Gardeners Mary Ruthe Miller & Linda Erdman what plants to use this holiday season. There is no charge for these educational garden lectures. Come when the doors open at 6:45 p.m., enjoy dessert and coffee, and visit with other attendees.

The lectures are on the second Thursday of every month at 7:00 p.m.

Dr. Robert Bullard, often described as the Father of Environmental Justice, speaks on the ethical and political questions of “who gets what, when, where, why, and how much” and reveals the gap in recovery from Hurricane Harvey, as well as related toxic conditions. Bullard’s research–from toxic waste to climate vulnerability–has documented why many communities of color have the “wrong complexion for protection,” placing their inhabitants at elevated health and environmental risks. His lecture will explore how the environmental justice framework redefined environmentalism and challenged institutional racism and the dominant environmental protection paradigm.

Admission and parking are free. The talk is part of Emerson Unitarian Universalist Church’s Kilgore Lecture series.

The Woods Project 2018 Fall Luncheon

The Woods Project trips changes lives in a thousand different ways.  In the woods, our students gain new confidence, develop critical life and leadership skills, and find a renewed drive to succeed against all odds.  Join for lunch to meet The Woods Project alumni, hear their inspiring stories of transformation, and learn more about how we are changing the trajectory of Houston’s most underserved youth.

The woods Project are thrilled to welcome keynote speaker Coert Voorhees.  Coert is the author of several award winning novels, including his newest novel On the Free, the story of 3 young campers and the struggles they face while being stranded in the Colorado wilderness.

Your support will help change lives as they expand their programs and the number of children who can benefit from The Woods Project!

Registration ends on the 15th of November.

The Woodlands G.R.E.E.N. is sponsoring the Going Green Sustainability Lecture entitled “Spring Creek and the San Jacinto River-How’s the Water?”

Steven Johnston, a Senior Planner in the Community and Environmental Department at the Houston-Galveston Area Council (H-GAC), will discuss the current quality of water in Spring Creek and the West Fork of the San Jacinto River Watersheds. He will also tell us what we as individuals can do to protect the integrity of these important regional water bodies and what the future brings if we do nothing.

Elizabeth Yeampierre, an internationally recognized Puerto Rican attorney and environmental and climate justice leader, will deliver the 2018 Frances Tarlton “Sissy” Farenthold Endowed Lecture in Peace, Social Justice, and Human Rights. Her lecture is entitled: “Climate Justice: The Time is Now, The Place is Here,”.  Yeampierre is the executive director of UPROSE and co-chair of the Climate Justice Alliance. The lecture is jointly sponsored by the Rothko Chapel and the Bernard and Audre Rapoport Center for Human Rights and Justice at the University of Texas.

Yeampierre will share how vulnerable communities are both experiencing and responding to the unequal burden they bear of climate change.  She will draw on experiences of climate justice activists from Brooklyn to Houston to Puerto Rico, to discuss opportunities for creating a more just and equitable society, beginning at the local level.  Bryan Parras, co-Founder of Texas Environmental Justice Agency Services (T.E.J.A.S) will be in conversation with Yeampierre after her address.

“This political moment demands a different kind of leadership if we are to build and fight the intersection of racial injustice and climate change,” said Yeampierre.  “Climate justice demands we reject extractive cultural practices and embrace intergenerational front-line led solutions and that we do that now.  Our very existence is at stake.”

Online registration for this event is required.

We have all been hearing about how bee populations are declining, which has brought highlighted attention to the vital role pollinators play in our modern world. But how can you help bees and other pollinators in the city? Join the University of Houston’s Office of Sustainability as they welcome Shelley Rice, local bee expert, to teach us all how we can be better allies to our community bees.

This event is free and open to the public.

The lightest, most aerodynamic and energy efficient train series to date–Shinkansen’s N700 Supreme–will be the latest addition to the railroad legacy of Houston, whose official city seal boasts a train engine as a symbol of progress. Michael J. Moore, VP of Texas Central, will present the latest generation of train technology that will link Houston to Dallas in a 90-minute ride at speeds over 200 miles per hour.

Following the presentation train enthusiast Glen A. Rosenbaum will introduce the Trains Over Texas display, and all will be invited to tour the exhibition. Trains Over Texas is the largest indoor “O” scale model railroad in Texas. Multiple trains crisscross the state’s unique geology and physiography. Destinations include oil country salt domes, prairies and wetlands of the Texas coast and state and national monuments such as Enchanted Rock, Pedernales Falls, the Balcones Escarpment and Big Bend National Park and major cities.

Bruce Katz, cofounder of New Localism Advisors, will reveal where the real power to create change lies and how it can be used to address our most serious social, economic and environmental challenges. For more information, visit kinder.rice.edu/events.