Calendar

Nov
13
Wed
GARDENS Exhibit @ Mercer Botanic Gardens
Nov 13 @ 12:00 pm – 1:00 pm

From the Garden of Eden to the Hanging Gardens of Babylon – gardens have played a central role in human history and have been a popular subject for artists throughout time. Join us to explore the gardens depicted in the collections at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. GARDENS is sponsored by the Museum of Fine Arts Guild and is presented by Gerry Aitken, past president of the Museum Guild and a current docent and coordinator of the Speakers Bureau at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Bring lunch and enjoy a different gardening topic each month during these presentations. Lunch Bunch is recommended for ages 12+. Call Mercer Botanic Gardens to RSVP. Please note: Location temporarily outdoors in main garden under staff building.

Nov
14
Thu
Light Right to Bring Back the Night @ United Way
Nov 14 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

The focus of this presentation will be on light pollution and the adverse impact from unshielded light on plants, animals and humans, including glare and visibility problems and health effects. Deborah will discuss the threat of the proliferation of bright white street lighting and present solutions that double down on the advantages of LED light. Learn how to light with minimum impact for greater visibility at the least energy use and where to buy good quality lighting.

Nov
15
Fri
Houston Urban Tree Conference @ Weekly Community Center
Nov 15 @ 8:00 am – 3:30 pm

Interested in Urban Forestry? Come join Texas A&M AgriLife Extension, HAUFC and ISA-TX for a great day of education. Topics include: Emerald Ash Borer – Coming to a City Near You, Using Tree Growth Regulators to Reduce Pruning Costs, and Greening the Houston Region – Partnerships and Projects that Support the Urban Forest.

Nov
24
Sun
Webinar: The Ecological Crisis & The Response of Faith @ online
Nov 24 @ 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm

Christ the King Evangelical Lutheran Church invites you to a monthly environmental education web meeting series whose theme in 2019 is environmental issues, and what you can do. In November, Lisa Brenskelle, head of the Lutherans Restoring Creation Team for the Texas Louisiana Synod of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA), will discuss the U.N.’s Global Environmental Outlook, a report issued earlier this year, and how faith enables our response to this ecological crisis. Lisa will address: What is our present ecological crisis? & What specific issues are central? She will examine the science that explains the present state of our world and the major environmental issues we face. Lisa will then consider how our faith both informs and enables our response to this crisis. The first half of this talk reviews the Global Environmental Outlook. The second half of the talk discusses how faith enables a response. Lisa holds a PhD in engineering, and has worked on a volunteer basis in earthkeeping ministry for decades. Join her for this thought-provoking talk! Contact Lisa Brenskelle at gcs.lrc@gmail.com with any questions about this talk.

Dec
1
Sun
Chimney Rock Market @ Chimney Rock Plaza
Dec 1 @ 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Chimney Rock Market is an outdoor market that features local artists and farmers. Beginning on Feb. 18, 2018, are open the first Sunday of each month.

Image may contain: 1 person, plant and foodTheir vendors sell mouth-watering eats and artisan gifts the whole family can enjoy. As always, four-legged friends are welcome. There will be plenty of treats for them too!

When you’re done shopping, stop in Sean Anthony Salons to browse the beautiful art gallery brought to you by Creative Energy. Art Reception is from 2pm-4pm. Meet the Artisits! Refreshments will be served.

Also, enter for your chance to win a cut and color or Brazillian blowout treatment worth over $300 donated by Sean Anthony Salons.

If you are interested in becoming a vendor, please email chimneyrockmarket@yahoo.com.

Visit the Chimney Rock Market’s Facebook page.

Three Ways Forests and Climax Ecosystems Cool Our Planet @ First Unitarian Universalist Church of Houston, Museum District Campus
Dec 1 @ 12:00 pm – 2:00 pm
We can cool our planet by restoring forests and growing food using permaculture methods. We need your help to pick this low hanging fruit.

About this Event

The biomass in climax ecosystems such as forests, prairies and coastal wetlands cool our climate in three ways.

Leaves reflect more of the sunlight back into space than bare ground or concrete.

Plants sequester carbon. Most of that carbon goes underground as roots or sugars exuded to feed beneficial microbes. This massive soil life makes the soil spongy and better able to absorb water.

Plants create more rain. They transpire water and so recycle the rain. They put it back into the air and it rains again. As the plants pump it up into the air, the water vapor moves further inland. This supports inland forests which pump it yet further inland. 95% of planetary cooling is from hydrology and only 5% from carbon dioxide’s greenhouse effect.

Restoring land is low hanging fruit. Project Drawdown researched 22 ways folks are doing this. These include regenerative agriculture and multi-strata agroforestry. You can learn about these from Permaculture classes on www.urbanharvest.org

We could drawdown 30 gigatons of carbon per year according to Dr. Walter Jehne in Regenerate Earth. See also Www.GlobalCoolingEarth.org and Dr. Walter Jehne.

We need your help. Please eat organic. Please compost organic waste.

Dec
4
Wed
Dr. Andrea Ballestero, Author of A Future History of Water @ Rice University, Huff House
Dec 4 @ 7:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Duke University Press Description of Book:  “Based on fieldwork among state officials, NGOs, politicians, and activists in Costa Rica and Brazil, A Future History of Water traces the unspectacular work necessary to make water access a human right and a human right something different from a commodity. Andrea Ballestero shows how these ephemeral distinctions are made through four technolegal devices—formula, index, list and pact. She argues that what is at stake in these devices is not the making of a distinct future but what counts as the future in the first place. A Future History of Water is an ethnographically rich and conceptually charged journey into ant-filled water meters, fantastical water taxonomies, promises captured on slips of paper, and statistical maneuvers that dissolve the human of human rights. Ultimately, Ballestero demonstrates what happens when instead of trying to fix its meaning, we make water’s changing form the precondition of our analyses.”

Dec
5
Thu
Rice Scientia presents “Environmental Diversity” @ Duncan Hall McMurty Auditorium
Dec 5 @ 4:00 pm

Scientia Lecture Series featuring Caroline Masiello

Scientia Lecture Series on PANOPLY

Scientia Logo

Speakers:

  • Laura Schaefer, Burton J. and Ann M. McMurtry Chair in Engineering, Professor, Department Chair
  • Laurence Yeung, Assistant Professor, Earth, Environmental and Planetary Sciences
  • Jim Elliott, Professor and Sociology Department Chair

Our environment is changing in myriad interconnected ways, with both short and long-term developments expected that will be felt differently in different communities and continents. We bring together three perspectives – from Engineering, Earth Sciences, and the Social Sciences – to illuminate not only the complex changes we are seeing today, but also the diversity of their impacts on society and of technological approaches being developed at Rice to address this most pressing challenge facing humanity.

A small reception will follow the event.

Jan
5
Sun
Chimney Rock Market @ Chimney Rock Plaza
Jan 5 @ 12:00 pm – 4:00 pm

Chimney Rock Market is an outdoor market that features local artists and farmers. Beginning on Feb. 18, 2018, are open the first Sunday of each month.

Image may contain: 1 person, plant and foodTheir vendors sell mouth-watering eats and artisan gifts the whole family can enjoy. As always, four-legged friends are welcome. There will be plenty of treats for them too!

When you’re done shopping, stop in Sean Anthony Salons to browse the beautiful art gallery brought to you by Creative Energy. Art Reception is from 2pm-4pm. Meet the Artisits! Refreshments will be served.

Also, enter for your chance to win a cut and color or Brazillian blowout treatment worth over $300 donated by Sean Anthony Salons.

If you are interested in becoming a vendor, please email chimneyrockmarket@yahoo.com.

Visit the Chimney Rock Market’s Facebook page.

Jan
9
Thu
Behind the Scenes at the High Island Sanctuaries @ United Way of Greater Houston
Jan 9 @ 7:00 pm – 8:30 pm

Behind the Scenes at the High Island Sanctuaries
with Pete Deichmann, Coastal Sanctuaries Manager

High Island is world renowned for its productive rookery island and excellent birding during Spring Migration, but that’s not all. Houston Audubon is constantly working to improve habitat for both birds and visitors alike. Come hear more about what it takes to manage High Island. Coastal Sanctuaries Manager Pete Deichmann will talk about ongoing and past habitat projects as well as plans for the future.

Social at 7:00 PM; Presentation at 7:30 PM

This event is free and open to the public. Please register so we have an idea of how many are attending.