Hubevents http://hubevents.blogspot.com is the web version.
If you wish to subscribe or unsubscribe to Energy (and Other) Events email gmoke@world.std.com
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Local Food Network: Cambridge, MA http://www.dailykos.com/story/2012/03/17/1075413/-Local-Food-Network-Cambridge-MA
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Monday, March 19
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Webinar: Addressing the Crisis in Employment and Consumer Demand -- A Systems Approach
Monday, March 19, 2012
12:00p–1:00p
Location: Virtual -- see url below for registration link.
Speaker: Nicholas A. Ashford, PhD., JD Professor of Technology and Policy Director, MIT Technology and Law Program
MIT System Design and Management Program Systems Thinking Webinar Series
This series features research conducted by SDM faculty, alumni, students, and industry partners. The series is designed to disseminate information on how to employ systems thinking to address engineering, management, and socio-political components of complex challenges.
At present, national and global reforms are focused on improving the financial system, which is not synonymous with reforming the economic system or improving the economic status of individual citizens. The session discusses the root causes of the crisis and offers specific policies and initiatives that need to be considered to ensure sustainable employment and livelihoods in the context of a well-functioning and equitable economic system.
Web site:http://sdm.mit.edu/news/news_articles/webinar_031912/webinar-ashford-
employment-consumer-demand.html
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Tickets: See url above
Sponsor(s): Engineering Systems Division, MIT System Design and Management (SDM) Program
For more information, contact:
Lois Slavin
617-253-0812
lslavin@mit.edu
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Climate Change and New England
Monday, March 19, 2012
12:00p–1:00p
MIT, Building 54-915, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Alan Betts
The climate feedbacks at northern latitudes associated with land-atmosphere coupling are driving rapid climate change in New England. The winter season is shrinking most rapidly as spring is coming earlier and fall later by several days per decade. Adaptation to climate change has become a critical issue both for our built infrastructure, agriculture and for natural ecosystems.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MIT Atmospheric Science Seminars
For more information, contact:
Daniela Domeisen
ddaniela@mit.edu
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"Graphene: a novel platform for capturing and manipulating light at the nanoscale"
Monday, March 19, 2012
12:00p–1:00p
MIT, Building 4-331, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Dr. Frank Koppens - ICFO - Barcelona, Spain
Web site: http://web.mit.edu/physics/cmt/chezp.html
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Physics Department
For more information, contact:
Monica Wolf
617-253-4829
mwolf@mit.edu
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The 4th Amendment and the Modern Grid
Monday, March 19, 2012
12:00pm - 1:00pm
HUCE Seminar Room, 24 Oxford Street 3rd Floor, Cambridge
Environmental Law Society March "Energy Series"
Can police use your meter to find out what you're doing? Listen to HLS’s own Sonia McNeil, JD ’12, discuss the complex legal issues that come with a smarter, more intrusive electric grid. She recently published on this topic for the Harvard Journal of Law and Technology.
Contact Name: Sachin Desai
sdesai@jd13.law.harvard.edu
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"Simultaneously Mitigating Near-Term Climate Change and Improving Human Health and Food Security"
Monday, March 19, 2012 - 12:00pm - 1:30pm
Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, HKS, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
with Joel Schwartz, Harvard School of Public Health
Contact Name: Louisa Lund
louisa_lund@harvard.edu
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Israel & the Arab Spring: Risks and Opportunities
Monday, March 19, 2012
12:00p–1:30p
MIT, Building E40-496, Pye Conference Room, 1 Amherst Street, Cambridge
Speaker: Dr. Ehud Eiran
The historic changes in the Middle-East are bound to affect Israel's strategic environment and its relationship with its neighbors, in profound ways. These changes create new risks for the Jewish state, but also provide it with new opportunities. The talk will explore both, as well as some of the possible effects on the internal Israeli arena.
Dr. Ehud Eiran is a post-doctoral fellow at the Department of International Relations at the University of Haifa, Israel. Eiran held research appointments at Harvard and Brandeis Universities and is a former assistant to the Foreign Policy Advisor to Israel's Prime Minister.
Introduction by Prof. Stephen Van Evera, Ford International Professor in the MIT Political Science Department.
Light refreshments will be served.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): MISTI MIT-Israel Program, Center for International Studies, Security Studies Program
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"Simultaneously Mitigating Near-Term Climate Change and Improving Human Health and Food Security"
Monday, March 19, 2012
12:00pm - 1:30pm
Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, HKS, 79 JFK Street, Cambridge
Joel Schwartz, Harvard School of Public Health
Contact Name: Louisa Lund
louisa_lund@harvard.edu
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Finding a Drinking Water Supply for Rural Bangladesh that Reduces Exposure to both Arsenic and Diarrheal Diseases
WHEN Mon., Mar. 19, 2012, 12:30 – 1:30 p.m.
WHERE HSPH Kresge Bldg, 677 Huntington Ave., Room 907 (Epidemiology Library), Boston
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Health Sciences, Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR HSPH Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Center for Communicable Disease Dynamics Spring Seminar Series
SPEAKER(S) Michael Emch, professor, Department of Geography (adjunct, Department of Epidemiology), fellow, Carolina Population Center, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill
COST Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO Linda Coventry: lcoventr@hsph.harvard.edu
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BUILDING TECHNOLOGY SPRING LECTURE SERIES: Environmental performance simulation - From evaluating performance to suggesting new forms
Monday, March 19, 2012
12:30p–2:00p
MIT, Building 7-431, Long Lounge (AVT), 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Christoph Reinhart, Associate Professor of Building Technology, Department of Architecture, MIT
For decades building performance simulation research and tool development have focused on producing increasingly reliable numeric models which are now capable of predicting the physical performance of commonly used building typologies and technologies. With the growing use of these tools in practice and education, a new set of requirements is emerging. How can we make sure that novice users are using the tools accurately? Instead of "just" getting a performance evaluation at the end of design, how can we make simulations an integral part of the design process itself? This presentation will deal with a series of related research projects and classroom exercises that demonstrate how integrated daylight and energy simulations can act as form-givers for architecture at the building and neighborhood scale.
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): Department of Architecture, Building Technology Program
For more information, contact:
Alexandra Golledge
253-0463
agoll18@mit.edu
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How Science Can Contribute to Poverty Alleviation in Africa: Lessons from the International Centre of Insect Physiology & Ecology
WHEN Mon., Mar. 19, 2012, 1 – 2:30 p.m.
WHERE Harvard University Center for the Environment Seminar Room, 24 Oxford Street 3rd Floor, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Environmental Sciences, Lecture
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Harvard University Center for the Environment; the Science Technology and Globalization Program; the Sustainability Science Program; and the Center for International Development
SPEAKER(S) Christian Borgemeister, director general, International Centre of Insect Physiology & Ecology
CONTACT INFO Lisa Matthews: matthew@fas.harvard.edu
NOTE Christian Borgemeister spent time in a variety of developing African and Asian countries, and for the past seven years, has directed the International Centre of Insect Physiology & Ecology, an independent pan-African research center headquartered in Nairobi, Kenya. Its mission is to improve the livelihoods and environments of people through the sustainable control of insect pests and disease vectors.
LINK http://environment.harvard.edu/events/2012-03-19/huce-special-seminar
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Incentives, Computation, and Networks in the Era of the Social Web
Mar 19, 2012
4:00 pm - 5:15 pm
Maxwell Dworkin G125 (Refreshments at 3:30 outside MD G125)
Yaron Singer , Postdoctoral Researcher at Google
Throughout the past decade the internet has been going through a dramatic change. Developments in web technologies, increasing connectivity, and the emergence of online social networks enable billions of people to easily create and share content across the web. In response to this change, this coming generation of internet platforms focuses on optimizing complex objectives while taking input from humans and leveraging petabytes of online social interaction data. Incentives, computation, and network effects all play a major role in the social era of the internet and their reconciliation presents some of its greatest challenges and opportunities.
In this talk we will discuss the principles and applications of algorithm design in the era of the social web. We will first introduce a novel framework for combinatorial optimization under incentive constraints which enables designing social systems with provable guarantees. After discussing some of the main theoretical results in this framework, we will present their application to word-of-mouth advertising, information and crowdsourcing markets and give experimental evidence to the performance of these systems in practice. We will conclude by discussing several open theoretical and practical challenges for designing social systems in this coming decade.
Speaker Biography:
Yaron Singer is a postdoctoral researcher at Google. He recently obtained his PhD from UC Berkeley where he was advised by Christos Papadimitriou, and before that he completed his undergraduate studies in Mathematics and Computer Science at Tel Aviv University in 2007. He is the recipient of the 2012 Best Student Paper Award at the ACM conference on Web Search and Data Mining, the 2010 Facebook Fellowship, the 2009 Microsoft Research Fellowship, the 2010 UC Berkeley Venture Lab Award, the 2010 UC Berkeley IT&Web Startup Competition Award, and a 2010 Qualcomm Innovation Finalist Prize.
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A Review of Ion Transport Membrane Reactors for Hydrocarbon Conversion
Monday, March 19, 2012
4:15p–5:15p
MIT, Building 3-333, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Patrick Kirchen, Mechanical Engineering Department, MIT
ABOUT THE SPEAKER
Pat Kirchen is a research scientist in the Reacting Gas Dynamics Laboratory at MIT. His research focuses on the application of high temperature membranes for low carbon emission power and heat generation. Pat earned his doctorate in 2008 from the ETH Zurich, Switzerland, where his research focused on exhaust stream and in-cylinder diesel engine soot emission measurements and modeling. After working as a post-doctoral associate in similar fields at the ETH Zurich, he moved to the RGD Lab at MIT in October 2009. He received his M.Sc. and B.Sc. from the University of Alberta in Canada.
ABSTRACT
Ion Transport Membrane (ITM) reactors provide a novel technology for combining gas separation and reaction, and hold the potential to improve the performance of numerous carbon capture oriented hydrocarbon conversion processes. At temperatures above ~800C and under oxygen chemical potential gradients, ITMs transport oxygen ions with a very high selectivity (>99%). This enables them to be a cost effective and efficient alternative to conventional, cryogenic air separation units used in oxy-combustion carbon capture power plants. When a reactive sweep gas is utilized, the resulting ITM reactor configuration can provide significantly higher oxygen permeation rates compared to non-reactive ITMs, as well as higher conversions and product selectivities than traditional co-feed reactors (e.g. for syngas production).
In this presentation, a review of the state of the art of ITM systems with regard to the fundamentals of ITM reactors, the influence of operating conditions on ITM reactor performance, potential applications of ITM reactors for low carbon power generation, and the major challenges facing ITM development will be discussed. In addition, an overview of the ITM based activities at the Reacting Gas Dynamics Laboratory will be given, highlighting a novel ITM reactor, complimentary ITM reactor simulations, and a concept for ITM based CO2 capture and reuse.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): RGD Lab
For more information, contact:
Jeff Hanna
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CDD Forum - Shrinking Cities
Monday, March 19, 2012
6:00p–8:00p
MIT, Building 10-485, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Jill Desimini
Jill Desimini is a landscape architect and an Assistant Professor of Landscape Architecture at the Harvard University Graduate School of Design. Her research focuses on landscape strategies for shrinking cities in North America. The work attempts to re-frame the normative dialogue surrounding population loss towards a productive outcome. Prior to joining the GSD, she was a senior associate at Stoss Landscape Urbanism. She holds MLA and MArch degrees from the University of Pennsylvania.
The 2012 City Design and Development Forum public lecture series will bring to MIT emerging and leading thinkers in disciplines influencing the urbanism of shrinking cities, including: landscape, architecture, planning, and photography.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Architecture, Department of Urban Studies and Planning
For more information, contact:
Sandra Elliott
617-253-5115
sandrame@mit.edu
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MUSIC 2.0: TOOLS + TECH FOR MUSICIANS, MARKETERS, AND MANAGERS
3/19/2012
6:00 pm - 9:00 pm
Microsoft New England R&D Center, One Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA 02142
Description: Boston + New England have an impressive number of companies creating tools and technologies to help promote and fund music projects. We also have a vibrant and diverse music community. Music 2.0 keeps connecting the two for the benefit of both.
With 200+ attendees, at both the 2010 and 2011 events, they were terrific evenings, pulling together many of the music, tech, and event companies from Greater Boston.
For 2012, we are going to have more music-related companies present, quick updates from some companies that presented in years past, and more time to meet friends new and old (read: networking!) and a chance for companies that are hiring to press the flesh with folks who are job hunting.
Music 2.0 is a terrific event for:
Musicians of every genre (rock, hip hop, jazz, folk, classical, electronic, opera, etc.)
Marketing folks from venues, arts organizations, etc.
Managers and agents
Investors
Members of the media
Promoters and presenters that work at venues, music organizations, etc.
Register at http://www.eventbrite.com/event/2870380385
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Occupy Boston Nonviolence Working Group on Bayard Rustin's 100th Birthday
Monday, March 19
6:00-9
Community Church of Boston, 565 Boylston Street, Boston
Please join the OB Nonviolence Working group for an evening of community-building, participation, exploration and engagement on nonviolence (in honor of
Bayard Rustin's 100th birthday).
The program will be grounded in the history of nonviolent political action as well as contemporary issues of theory and organizing.
Clips from a film about Rustin - Brother Outsider: The Life of Bayard Rustin
Opening remarks from Rustin comrade, Reverend Canon Ed Rodman.
Opportunities for questions and discussion, political exercises and activities on non-violence.
Food 6 - 6:30. Program begins at 6:30.
For more information, catherinebhoffman@gmail.com
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A Conversation about Small Group Facilitation
Monday, March 19, 2012
7:00 PM - 8:00 PM EDT
Webinar Registration at https://www3.gotomeeting.com/register/582600926
Join us for a conversation with leaders of Resilience Circles and other small groups. Below are some of the topics facilitators have suggested we discuss, please add more in the "Questions and Comments" box below.
- How to handle strong disagreements (including from co-facilitators)
- How to be a more effective “participant leader”
- How to interrupt when necessary
- Following up on absent members
- When and when not to adhere strictly to an agenda
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Nerd Nite
Monday March 19, 2012
8pm
Middlesex Lounge, 315 Mass Ave, Cambridge (In Central Square)
$5
Featuring Nerd-appropriate tunes by Claude Money
Talk 1. “Pan American Music, from Buddy Bolden to Los Rakas.” by Galen Moore
Talk 2. “The future of retail… Coming to a store near you” by Aaron Chio
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Tuesday, March 20
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Origins of Japan’s Electric Power and the Fukushima Disaster: A Historical Perspective
WHEN Tue., Mar. 20, 2012, 12:30 – 2 p.m.
WHERE Bowie-Vernon Room (K262), CGIS Knafel Building, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Sponsored by the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations; co-sponsored by the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies
SPEAKER(S) Takeo Kikkawa, professor of Japanese business history, Hitotsubashi University
COST Free
CONTACT INFO xtian@wcfia.harvard.edu
LINK http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/us-japan/schedule/schedule.htm
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What can 21st century open government learn from open source, open data, open innovation and open journalism?
Tuesday, March 20, 12:30 pm
Berkman Center, 23 Everett Street, second floor, Cambridge
RSVP required for those attending in person at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/luncheon/2012/03/howard#RSVP
This event will be webcast live at 12:30 pm ET at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/interactive/webcast and archived on our site shortly after.
Alexander B. Howard, Gov 2.0 Washington Correspondent for O'Reilly Media
In the 1990s, the Internet changed communication and commerce forever. A decade later, the Web 2.0 revolution created a new disruption, enabling hundreds of millions of citizens to publish, share, mix, comment, and upload media to a more dynamic online environment. In 2012, we're now living in the era of big data, where mobile devices and a real-time Web are dramatically shift the dynamic between governments and the governed. In the years since the first social networks went online, the disruption has spread to government, creating perceived shifts in power structures as large as those enabled by the introduction of the printing press centuries ago. As the means of publishing have become democratized and vast amounts of data have become available, new possibilities for civic advocates, activists, journalists, developers and entrepreneurs have emerged.
The historic events of the last year, from Egypt to #Occupy to the SOPA debate, have breathed new life into the idea of open government fueled by technology. At the same time, a new spectre of new cutting edge surveillance states has arisen, where digital autocracies apply filtering, propaganda and tracking technologies to suppress speech, distort public opinion and capture or kill dissidents and protestors. Life is increasingly reflected and refracted by the cameras and screens of ubiquitous smartphones, accompanied by hazy norms around privacy, security and identity and Industrial Age laws and regulations that appear inadequate to the needs of the moment.
In this talk on the power of platforms, Howard will talk about where the principles and technologies that built the Internet and World Wide Web are being integrated into government and society -- and by whom. These new digital platforms for communication, enabled by highly accessible and scalable Web technologies, have reinvigorated the hope that collective action can reforge the compact between citizens and government.
About Alexander
Alexander is the Government 2.0 Washington Correspondent for O'Reilly Media, where he writes about the intersection of government, the Internet and society, including how technology is being used to help citizens, cities, and national governments solve large-scale problems. He is an authority on the use of collaborative technology in enterprises, social media and digital journalism. He has written and reported extensively on open innovation, open data, open source software and open government technology.
He has contributed to the National Journal, Forbes, the Huffington Post, Govfresh, ReadWriteWeb, Mashable, CBS News' What's Trending, Govloop, Governing People, the Association for Computer Manufacturing and the Atlantic, amongst others. Prior to joining O’Reilly, Mr. Howard was the associate editor of SearchCompliance.com and WhatIs.com at TechTarget, where he wrote about how the laws and regulations that affect information technology are changing, spanning the issues of online identity, data protection, risk management, electronic privacy and cybersecurity. He is a graduate of Colby College in Waterville, Maine.
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Hiroshima: The Geneva of Asia?
WHEN Tue., Mar. 20, 2012, 4 – 5:30 p.m.
WHERE CGIS South Building, 1730 Cambridge St, Room S250, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR WCFIA Fellows Program Special Seminar; co-sponsored by the Edwin O. Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies
SPEAKER(S) Osamu Yoshida, professor and chair, Hiroshima University Partnership Project for Peace Building and Capacity Development (HiPeC)
LINK http://www.wcfia.harvard.edu/node/7395
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Documentary Film and New Technologies
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
5:00p–7:00p
MIT, Building E15-070,
Speaker: Gerry Flahive, National Film Board of Canada; Shari Frilot, Sundance Film Festival; Patricia Zimmermann, Ithaca College; Moderator: William Urricchio, MIT
Emerging digital technologies are opening powerful new ways to create and even to reconceptualize the documentary film. How will handheld video cameras and ubiquitous open-source computing change the nature of documentaries? What are the implications for makers and viewers of documentaries of today's unprecedented access to online editing and distribution tools, to an ocean of data never before available to the general public? These and related questions will be central to our discussion. Panelists will include a scholar of digital culture, a producer who has begun to exploit emerging technologies, and a representative of a newly important specialty of the digital age -- a curator of digital artifacts.
Web site: http://web.mit.edu/comm-forum
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): Communications Forum
For more information, contact:
Brad Seawell
617-253-3521
seawell@mit.edu
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Visualizing Science: All In Your Head
Tue. 3/20
6:00 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.
MIT Museum, Building N51, 265 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
How do humans recognize and remember images? Can these processes be artificially created? Join MIT professors Aude Oliva, James Di Carlo, and Antonio Torralba in a dynamic conversation about the intersection of vision and cognition in humans and machines.
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Boston New Technology Meetup #BNT15
Tuesday, March 20
6:30
Microsoft NERD, 1 Memorial Drive, Cambridge, MA
Come learn about 7 innovative and exciting technology products and network with the Boston/Cambridge startup community! Each product gets 10 minutes
for presentation, demo and Q&A. See Idea SuperCollider, @RejoinerApp,
@DynInc, @PointKnown, @GivingSomeThing, @HelpScout and @NUODB.
RSVP: http://bit.ly/bntech15
Sign up to Present: http://bit.ly/BNTdemo
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GreenPort Forum: How Can We Prepare for Climate-Related Emergencies?
Tuesday, March 20
7:00pm
Cambridgeport Baptist Church, 459 Putnam Avenue, Cambridge
Extreme weather events have escalated in recent years – floods, droughts, and storms. Progressive climate change, rising ocean levels, and depletion of basic resources such as land and water make future emergencies more and more likely. We need to find ways as a community to prepare for these threats. Hear about practical steps we can take, and share your ideas. Our panel will include:
Sam Lipson from the Cambridge Public Health Department [invited]
Helen Kobek, community activist and co-leader of Do-It-Ourselves workshops
George Mokray, Cambridgeport resident and longtime solar activist
GreenPort envisions and encourages a just and sustainable Cambridgeport neighborhood
For more information, contact Steve Wineman at swineman@gis.net
Editorial Comment: Your editor will be presenting on Solar IS Civil Defense: http://solarray.blogspot.com/2008/05/solar-is-civil-defense-illustrated.html
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Wednesday, March 21
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Silicon-Chip-Based Nonlinear Photonics with Milliwatt Powers
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
11:00a–12:00p
MIT, Building 36-428
Speaker: Prof. Alex Gaeta, Cornell University
Web site: http://www.rle.mit.edu/oqe/seminar/
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Optics & Quantum Electronics Seminar Series
For more information, contact:
Donna Gale
253-8529
dgale@mit.edu
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China Urban Development Discussion Series: Making the Clean Energy City in China
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
12:30p–2:00p
MIT, Building 1-190, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Prof. Dennis Frenchman & Prof. Christopher Zegras, MIT Department of Urban Studies and Planning; Discussant: Prof. Ralph Gakenheimer, MIT DUSP
The Chinese urban landscape is being dramatically transformed through rapid urbanization, changing standards of living, and a massive shift to private motorized transportation. These changes are inducing cities to consume ever more energy in the face of decreasing supplies. The speakers present advances from an ongoing research project, focused on the city of Jinan, that attempts to confront the Chinese urban energy challenge by intervening at the scale of neighborhoods, commercial districts, and real estate projects - the fundamental building blocks of urban growth. The work takes a life-cycle energy use perspective and integrates empirical evidence, urban design studios, and an assessment tool, the "Energy Pro-forma", which enables urban designers and developers to estimate the net energy use implied in urban development proposals. The ultimate goal is to not only help designers and developers create more energy efficient urban projects, but also to facilitate the creation of new public policies and standards for neighborhood energy performance for application at the local and national levels.
Please RSVP at http://www.surveymonkey.com/s/5Y5F8YQ. Complimentary lunch will be served at 12:15 pm; talk starts at 12:30 pm and ends by 2 pm.
Web site: http://dusp.mit.edu/cud/cud_series.html
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Graduate Student Life Grants, Department of Urban Studies and Planning
For more information, contact:
Shan Jiang
shanjang@mit.edu
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How Do We Transform Rocks to Carbonates? CO2 Sequestration and Storage in Basalts
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
4:00p–5:00p
MIT, Building 54-915, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Professor Andri Stefansson, Institute of Earth Sciences, University of Iceland
EAPS Department Lecture Series
Web site: http://eapsweb.mit.edu/events/lectures
Open to: the general public
Cost: $0.00
Tickets: N/A
Sponsor(s): Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences (EAPS)
For more information, contact:
Jacqui Taylor
617-253-2127
jtaylor@mit.edu
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CDD Forum/Special Lecture - Transformative Terrains: Choosing Places for Protest
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
6:00p–8:00p
MIT, Building 10-485, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Speaker: Tali Hatuka, Head, Laboratory for Contemporary Urban Design (LCUD) Tel-Aviv University
The potentially political role of urban design -- wherein the professional is politically complicit -- is currently under scrutiny, especially with regard to intensified surveillance and the power of built space to affect the construction of a national identity. In this presentation I analyze the role of urban space in the act of dissent. I look at the ways in which architecture and urban design influence the citizen-state relationship, analyzing what they contribute to the shape of protests staged in public spaces.
Dr. Tali Hatuka is an architect, urban designer, and the Head of the Laboratory of contemporary Urban Design, in the Department of Geography and Human Environment at Tel Aviv University. Hatuka works primarily on social, planning and architectural issues, focusing on the relationships between urban renewal, violence, life in contemporary society. Her most recent book is Violent Acts and Urban Space in Contemporary Tel Aviv: Revisioning Moments published by the University of Texas Press in 2010.
Open to: the general public
Sponsor(s): Department of Urban Studies and Planning
For more information, contact:
Sandra Elliott
617-253-5115
sandrame@mit.edu
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The Role of Scientists in Shaping the American Response to Climate Change: Experiments and Lessons Learned
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
6:30pm
Harvard Medical School, Tosteson Medical Education Center, 260 Longwood Ave, Boston
Peter C. Frumhoff is the director of science and policy at the Union of Concerned Scientists (UCS), and chief scientist of the UCS Climate Campaign. There, he guides organization-wide initiatives to bring robust science to bear on strengthening public policies, with a particular focus on climate change.
A global change ecologist, he has published and lectured widely on topics including climate change impacts, climate science and policy, tropical forest conservation and management, and biological diversity. He is a lead author of the 2007 Fourth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) and the 2000 IPCC Special Report on Land Use, Land-use Change and Forestry, and the Chair of the 2007 Northeast Climate Impacts Assessment (NECIA). He serves on the Board of Directors of the American Wind Wildlife Institute and is a member of the Harvard University Center for the Environment.
Dr. Frumhoff has taught at the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, Harvard University and the University of Maryland. He also served as an AAAS Science and Diplomacy Fellow at the U.S. Agency for International Development, where he designed and led conservation and rural development programs in Latin America and East Africa. He holds a Ph.D. in Ecology and an M.A. in Zoology from the University of California, Davis and a B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, San Diego.
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Social Media and Networks – Bridging the World Together One Click at a Time
Wednesday, March 21, 2012
6:30 - 8:30 p.m.
Northeastern Alumni Center, 716 Columbus Avenue, 6th Floor, Boston
Recently, online social networking sites have exploded in popularity. What makes them so popular? In this lecture, Professor Alan Mislove will provide an overview of his recent research about social media sites and networks and how they bring people together, as well as the sociological impact they have on society.
Speaker: Alan Mislove, Assistant Professor, College of Computer and Information Science
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Deng Xioaping and the Transformation of China
Wednesday, March 21
7 pm
First Parish Church, 3 Church Street, Cambridge
Harvard China scholar Ezra Vogel discusses his highly acclaimed biography of transformational Chinese leader Deng Xiaoping. How did Deng succeed in finding a path to make China a wealthy and powerful member of the international community? What personal and cultural factors contributed to his success? What obstacles did he face? How did Vogel go about researching and writing this masterful study of Deng’s life and legacy?
http://www.cambridgeforum.org/
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Thursday, March 22
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City Week Panel: Strengthening Cities Through Experiential Learning
WHEN Thu., Mar. 22, 2012, 11:45 a.m. – 1 p.m.
WHERE Bell Hall, 5th Floor, Belfer Building, Harvard Kennedy School
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Business, Education, Humanities, Lecture, Social Sciences, Special Events
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Mossavar-Rahmani Center for Business & Government and the Office of Career Advancement
SPEAKER(S) Panelists include: Susan Crawford, HKS Visiting Stanton Professor of the First Amendment; Carolyn Wood, assistant academic dean and SLATE director; Jennifer Nash, M-RCBG associate director; James Solomon and Kendra Bradner, organizers of the Community Development Project, a student group working on economic development projects in underserved areas
CONTACT INFO Please RSVP to mrcbg@ksg.harvard.edu
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Energy 101 : The UN Framework for Climate Change
Thursday, March 22, 2012
12:30p–1:30p
MIT, Building 66-144
Speaker: Louise Yeung
Energy 101 lectures series
The Energy 101 lectures aim at providing basic understanding on various topics in the energy field.
Climate change is regarded as one of the greatest challenges facing today's society, requiring science, engineering, political will, and cooperation across national boundaries. The UN Framework Convention on Climate Change serves as the primary international forum for countries to address global climate change, but after 18 years, it has only yielded incremental progress. Coming out of the most recent negotiations in Durban, South Africa, this talk will discuss the implications of Durban outcomes, barriers toward international agreement, and the role of non-state actors in pursuing climate action.
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): MIT Energy Club
For more information, contact:
Aziz Abdellahi (MIT Energy Club)
aziz_a@mit.edu
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A conversation with Julie Brill, Commissioner, Federal Trade Commission
Thursday, March 22
6:00 pm
Wasserstein Hall Room 1015, Harvard Law School
RSVP required for those attending in person at http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/events/2012/03/brill#RSVP
John Palfrey of the Berkman Center will engage Commissioner Julie Brill on the Federal Trade Commission’s policy and enforcement initiatives in the area of online privacy and data security. Every day we hear about privacy issues surrounding Facebook, Google, mobile apps, smartphones, Big Data and data brokers. Learn about the Federal Trade Commission’s efforts to protect consumers in this area.
About Commissioner Brill
Julie Brill was sworn in as a Commissioner of the Federal Trade Commission April 6, 2010, to a term that expires on September 25, 2016.
Since joining the Commission, Ms. Brill has worked actively on issues most affecting today’s consumers, including protecting consumers’ privacy, encouraging appropriate advertising substantiation, guarding consumers from financial fraud, and maintaining competition in industries involving high tech and health care.
Before she became a Commissioner, Ms. Brill was the Senior Deputy Attorney General and Chief of Consumer Protection and Antitrust for the North Carolina Department of Justice, a position she held from February 2009 to April 2010. Commissioner Brill has also been a Lecturer-in-Law at Columbia University’s School of Law. Prior to her move to the North Carolina Department of Justice, Commissioner Brill was an Assistant Attorney General for Consumer Protection and Antitrust for the State of Vermont for over 20 years, from 1988 to 2009.
Commissioner Brill has received several national awards for her work protecting consumers. She has testified before Congress, published numerous articles, and served on many national expert panels focused on consumer protection issues such as pharmaceuticals, privacy, credit reporting, data security breaches, and tobacco. Commissioner Brill has also served as a Vice-Chair of the Consumer Protection Committee of the Antitrust Section of the American Bar Association.
Prior to her career in law enforcement, Commissioner Brill was an associate at Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison in New York from 1987 to 1988. She clerked for Vermont Federal District Court Judge Franklin S. Billings, Jr. from 1985 to 1986. Commissioner Brill graduated, magna cum laude, from Princeton University, and from New York University School of Law, where she had a Root-Tilden Scholarship for her commitment to public service.
Commissioner Brill is married to Mark Miller, and has two sons.
About John Palfrey
John Palfrey is Henry N. Ess Professor of Law and Vice Dean for Library and Information Resources at Harvard Law School. He is the co-author of "Born Digital: Understanding the First Generation of Digital Natives" (Basic Books, 2008) and "Access Denied: The Practice and Politics of Internet Filtering" (MIT Press, 2008). His research and teaching is focused on Internet law, intellectual property, and international law. He practiced intellectual property and corporate law at the law firm of Ropes & Gray. He is a faculty co-director of the Berkman Center for Internet & Society at Harvard University. Outside of Harvard Law School, he is a Venture Executive at Highland Capital Partners and serves on the board of several technology companies and non-profits. John served as a special assistant at the US EPA during the Clinton Administration. He is a graduate of Harvard College, the University of Cambridge, and Harvard Law School.
-----------------------------
Open by Any Means: How Sunlight's Open State Project Hacked for Democracy
Thursday, March 22, 2012
7:00 PM
Boston Globe, 135 Morrissey Blvd., Dorchester
Knowing how your state legislator is voting - and what they're voting on - seems a fairly basic requirement for a functional democracy. Strangely enough, however, this information is often buried on state congressional websites, tied up in unsearchable PDFs or layered deep within an unnavigable subsection of the net.
The Sunlight Foundation's Open State Project has started changing all that, by parsing almost every state's available data and breaking it down into a consistent, open and usable format, allowing greater transparency and accessibility into data on votes, bill schedules, committees and more.
James Turk, the head of the Open State Project (OpenStates.org) and the Sunlight Foundation's new Boston satellite office, will explain how and why the Open State Project was conceived, what sort of feasibility testing Sunlight did, and will help explore how you can take the lessons he's learned back into your own civic or journalistic projects, from the grunt work of code scraping to energizing and coordinating an active volunteer base.
Also come and share your own projects, hacks and questions as this joint meet up of Hacks/Hackers and Boston Sunlight Foundation brainstorms what could be the next big innovation in data wrangling.
Also: The usual free cookies and coffee!
RSVP at http://meetupbos.hackshackers.com/events/50334062/?eventId=50334062&action=detail
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Friday, March 23
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#OccupyData Hackathon 2: Data Visualization for the 99%!
OccupyResearch, DataCenter, R-Shief.org, and the MIT Center for Civic Media are excited to announce OccupyData Hackathon Round II! Join us at the locations below or organize your own.
When: March 23-24, 2012
Where: Cambridge | Los Angeles | San Francisco | Oakland | Utrech | NYC | CyBeRspace |irc.lc.freenode/occupydata | SIGN UP HERE: http://bit.ly/occupydatavizmarchhackathon | *ADD YOUR LOCATION*
What:
#OccupyData Hackathon 1 brought you visualizations of 13 million occupy tweets (see summaries by OccupyResearch, R-Shief, Fast Company, and Utrecht University). People participated from Utrech, LA, Boston, NY, and Spain.
#OccupyData Hackathon 2 builds on the demos and tools from the first round, and turns our collaborative energy on visualizing the 5000+ responses to the OccupyResearch General Demographics and Participation Survey (ORGS), R-Shief Twitter #occupy tags aggregated since September 2011, and Occupy Oakland Serves the People survey, as well as other datasets people might want to explore. This event is not only for hackers or coders, but for anyone who’s interested. Bring your ideas, skills, creativity, questions and critical perspectives as we explore occupy datasets using free and open source tools and software. We’ll make connections from one place to another – open to all participants! The model is for people to arrange local venues for f2f meetups, work locally, and share/collaborate real time via skype/chat/twitter/google docs and etherpads, etc. If you can’t make it to one of the physical locations, you can still join in remotely.
How: Sign up here to a particular location! Or organize a local space and add it to the list.
Location Details: http://bit.ly/occupydatavizmarchhackathon
More info and coordination: http://bit.ly/occupyhackathon
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Currencies, a dis/Conference
Harvard University
March 23, 2012
12n-5p
Harvard, Northwest Labs Basement, 52 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Currencies are telling of our current time. Debt, labor, commodification, ownership, and consumerism structure and characterize contemporary life and academia. From the monetization and protection of intellectual property to the debts that students accrue, from the exploitation of adjunct labor to the re-productions of class lines, this dis/Conference seeks critical engagement with what has currency and what serves as currency in education and life today.
In contrast to traditional conference formats, this dis/Conference seeks to facilitate open, horizontal education through substantive knowledge sharing, inquiry, critique, and discussion. Together with David Graeber
- anarchist
*
/We invite you to take an active role in shaping and leading this
dis/Conference/*/. /
Register at http://www.currenciesdisconference.info/
----------------------------
Earthsickness: Circumnavigation and the Origins of Planetary Consciousness
Friday, March 23, 2012
2:30p–4:30p
MIT, Building E51-095
Speaker: Joyce Chaplin, Department of History, Harvard University
Seminar on Environmental and Agricultural History
Web site:http://web.mit.edu/history/www/nande/modTimes%202011-2012.html
Open to: the general public
Cost: Free
Sponsor(s): History Office
For more information, contact:
Margo Collett
253-4965
history-info@mit.edu
-------------------------
Greenpeace in China: The Emergence of Autonomous Civil Society in Authoritarian Regimes
WHEN Fri., Mar. 23, 2012, 4:15 – 6 p.m.
WHERE CGIS North, Room K262, 1737 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Humanities, Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Fairbank Center Chinese Politics and Foreign Policy Workshop
SPEAKER(S) Jessica C. Teets, Middlebury College
COST Free and open to the public
CONTACT INFO lkluz@fas.harvard.edu
NOTE Professor Teets examines the rapid emergence of civil society in China and contends that after two decades of experience with autonomous civil society groups, local officials have learned the governance benefits offered by civil society. Gradually their relationship with these groups has transformed from corporatism to “consultative authoritarianism.”
LINK http://fairbank.fas.harvard.edu/node/6370/edit?destination=node%2F6370
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Saturday, March 24
-----------------------
Boston Baseball Hack Day
Saturday, March 24, 2012
8:30 AM
Boston Globe, 135 Morrissey Blvd., Dorchester
Are you a web developer, designer or a hack programmer who is interested in baseball?
Or a passionate baseball fan with ideas? Boston Baseball Hack Day is a one-day hacking event where area baseball geeks come together, form a team, and collaborate to create baseball-related Web Apps, Websites, Data Visualizations, etc. and bring an idea to life.
Register now to attend. (Pls RSVP on this site as well, but you need to register so we get an accurate count.)
It is also a great to place to network and socialize among like-minded people. At the end of the day, projects will be judged by area experts, and a brief awards ceremony will conclude the event.
Our distinguished panel of judges:
Ben Fry
An information designer Ben is principal of Fathom, a design and software consultancy in Boston. He is a co-developer of Processing, an open source programming environment for teaching computational design and sketching interactive media software. He is the author of Visualizing Data published by O'Reilly. In 2007, Casey Reas and Ben published Processing: A Programming Handbook for Visual Designers and Artists with MIT Press, and in 2010, they published Getting Started with Processing with O'Reilly. Read Ben's interview with Slate. Follow him: @ben_fry
Andy Andres
Andy, a professor at Boston University, teaches Sabermetrics 101 at Tufts University and MIT's Science of Baseball summer program. He also works as Fenway Park Datacaster/Stringer for mlb.com and MLBAM (Gameday), and writes columns for BaseballHQ.com. Read an article about him in BU's Collegian. Follow him: @sabermetrics101
Matt Pepin
Matt is sports editor at Boston.com and directs the online presentation of Boston sports news and features created by Boston.com producers and Globe sports reporters. He has been with Boston.com since 2009. Prior to that, he was sports editor at the Times Herald-Record and Varsity845.com in Middletown, N.Y., and sports editor at the New Haven Register in Connecticut. Follow him: @mattpep15
New to hack days? No need to fear. There’ll be people of all skill levels and skill sets participating. And here are some resources to get you prepared. Baseball Hack Day is free to attend, thanks to our sponsor, The Boston Globe, but registration is required. So register now.
Schedule:
SCHEDULE:
* 8:30-9:00 Registration, meet and greet, and coffee.
* 9:00-9:30 Welcome, introductions, and pitch
* 9:30-5:30 Code! (Lunch will be served)
* 5:30-6:00 Presentation, judging and awards
* 6:30 optional beer social -- location to be decided later.
You need to bring a lap top computer, power strip and your ideas and skills.
RSVP at http://meetupbos.hackshackers.com/events/52425952/?a=me1.1p_grp&eventId=52425952&action=detail&rv=me1.1p&rv=me1.1p
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Monday, March 26
---------------------
Rebuilding Japan after Fukushima
WHEN Mon., Mar. 26, 2012, 12:30 – 2 p.m.
WHERE Tsai Auditorium (S010), Japan Friends of Harvard Concourse, CGIS South Bldg., 1730 Cambridge Street, Cambridge
GAZETTE CLASSIFICATION Lecture, Social Sciences
ORGANIZATION/SPONSOR Sponsored by the Program on U.S.-Japan Relations; co-sponsored by the Reischauer Institute of Japanese Studies
SPEAKER(S) Yoichi Funabashi, president, Rebuild Japan Initiative Foundation, and editor-in-chief, Asahi Shimbun (2007-10)
COST Free
CONTACT INFO xtian@wcfia.harvard.edu
-----------------------
Wrongful Convictions
Monday, March 26
5:00 - 6:30 PM
Austin Hall, North Classroom, Harvard Law School, 1515 Massachusetts Ave., Cambridge, MA
Johnnie Lee Savory entered prison at age 14 and left 30 years later for a crime he didn't commit.
A panel discussion featuring:
Johnnie Lee Savory
David Meier, former Suffolk County District
Attorney Dennis Harris, BPD Detective
Moderated by Judge Nancy Gertner
Co-sponsored by: Prison Legal Assistance Project, HKS Program in Criminal Justice Policy and Management, Office of Clinical and Pro Bono Programs, and Criminal Justice Institute
Free and open to the public. Dinner will be served.
*RSVP* to Jeanne Segil jsegil@jd14.law.harvard.edu
***********
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Upcoming
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***********
Currencies dis/Conference
Harvard University
March 23, 2012
12n-5p
Currencies are telling of our current time. Debt, labor, commodification, ownership, and consumerism structure and characterize contemporary life and academia. From the monetization and protection of intellectual property to the debts that students accrue, from the exploitation of adjunct labor to the re-productions of class lines, this dis/Conference seeks critical engagement with what has currency and what serves as currency in education and life today.
In contrast to traditional conference formats, this dis/Conference seeks to facilitate open, horizontal education through substantive knowledge sharing, inquiry, critique, and discussion. Together with David Graeber, anarchist, and anthropologist - we will engage the economies of academia by subverting its dominant forms of knowledge production. In the process, we will participate in the purposeful creation of an alternative model for scholarly engagement, beyond mere discussion. Under this model, our primary resources will be ourselves. Everyone - inside or outside of academia - is welcome.
We invite you to take an active role in shaping and leading this dis/Conference.
Register at http://www.currenciesdisconference.info/
--------------------------------
Weatherization barnraising at
St. John /St. James Church
Saturday, March 24th, 9 am to 1 pm
149 Roxbury Street, Roxbury
This beautiful historic church's heating bill is over $30,000 per year and there are only 50 people in the congregation.
Help the congregation lower these crippling bills. (HEET is also advising the church in how to get rebated or free professional work to lower the energy bills a lot further).
Sign up at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dGpieXVLWnczbTRIMDViWjVfdXVRblE6MQ#gid=0
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Lecture and Meeting with Bill McKibben
Sunday, 25 March, 2012
03:00 PM - 06:00 PM
The Congregational Church of Weston, Weston
The Environmental Action Group of The Congregational Church of Weston, UCC, will be hosting its annual Harnish Lecture, and we're pleased to announce that we have secured a very exciting speaker, Bill McKibben. He will be speaking at the Weston High School on 3/25/2012 at 3pm. As one of the nation's leading environmental activists, Bill will be sharing his thoughts about ways to shape the public debate about climate change and to influence energy and environmental policy at all levels of government.
Immediately following his lecture, we will be holding a "Forum" where members of various environmental action groups from MetroWest will have a chance to sit down with Bill and discuss ways we can all work together to be most effective at influencing policy. We would like to invite one to two delegates from your organization to participate in this forum on your behalf. Please RSVP with the name(s) of these delegates by March 9 to skuhrccw@comcast.net, to help us plan the most meaningful event. We hope that this forum will generate new and exciting strategies for working together to create a more sustainable environment for our children and grandchildren. We look forward to working together with you in this endeavor.
PS: Please find and 'like' us on facebook at https://www.facebook.com/pages/CCW-Environmental-Action-Group/325395654165705 for more information and updates as the date approaches.
Contact skuhrccw@comcast.net
----------------------------
Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University presents
Strategery: SNL’s Remarkable Influence Over Politics Through Satire
the Annual Louis P. and Evelyn Smith First Amendment Award presented to James Downey
with moderator Bill Murray
Tuesday, March 27, 6:30-8:00 pm
C. Walsh Theater at Suffolk University, 55 Temple Street, Boston
preceded by a special First Amendment Award Reception, fundraiser held from 4:00-5:30 pm at the
Offices of Prince Lobel Tye LLP (Boston, MA 02114) , MA. Wheelchair accessible and conveniently located near the Park St. MBTA Station. For more information, contact Ford Hall Forum at Suffolk University: 617-557-2007, http://www.fordhallforum.org.
----------------------------
Health care and workplace safety advocates, environmental activists, residents, patients, concerned neighbors:
Please be advised of the upcoming air quality forum at the Dorchester House Multi-Service Center. Updated flyer & release linked. Forward widely!
Harvard's NIEHS Center for Environmental Health will hold "Change in the Air," a forum on Asthma and Air Quality in Boston on the evening of
Wednesday, March 28.
6:15 - 7:30 p.m.
Dorchester House Multi-Service Center, 1353 Dorchester Avenue, Dorchester
National Environmental Health Official Linda Birnbaum, PhD will join local panelists (including Dorchester's Parent Leader Mary White) in a conversation with guests to discuss the complex picture of issues and policies that impact asthma rates and clean air. *Your input could help shape the priorities for future projects in your area*. Check out an (updated) forum flyer
or
view the press release
.
The forum will run as a moderated dialogue between the panelists and members of the community. No presentations, no lectures. Bring your questions and ideas. All are welcome to participate! Vietnamese, Spanish, Portuguese and Haitian Creole translations will be available. Light refreshments will be provided.
More on panelists here & in materials:
http://www.greendorchester.org/change-in-the-air-mar-28/. (Flyer and
release can also be found there).
Please direct any questions to Ann Backus, abackus@hsph.harvard.edu, 603-361-2141 or Kathryn Terrell, KTERRELL@hsph.harvard.edu.
(formerly The Dorchester Environmental Health Coalition (DEHC))
www.greendorchester.org
Facebook.com/DotEnviro
Twitter: @DotEnviro
----------------------------
The Green Streets Initiative, Cambridge Energy Alliance & Cambridge Local First cordially invite you to our
March Green Drinks Celebration
Join us on the Wednesday night before Walk/Ride Day for some beverages, complimentary appetizers and green trivia at Area IV. We'll be giving away fun prizes and picking your brain for all of your environmental and local smarts.
While you're there, be sure to ask about and sign up for the Green Streets Initiative Walk/Ride Day Corporate Challenge!
When: Wednesday, March 28, 6:30-8:30 PM
Where: Area IV, 500 Technology Square Cambridge, MA 02139
Who: The Green Streets Initiative, Cambridge Local First and more
RSVP at http://marchgreendrinks-esearch.eventbrite.com/?srnk=35
-----------------------------
"New Economy" Film Series: Economics of Happiness
March 29
7 - 9 PM
Nate Smith House, 155 Lamartine St, JP
The Economics of Happiness describes a world moving simultaneously in two opposing directions. On the one hand, an unholy alliance of governments and big business continues to promote globalization and the consolidation of corporate power. At the same time, people all over the world are resisting those policies, demanding a re-regulation of trade and finance—and, far from the old institutions of power, they’re starting to forge a very different future. Communities are coming together to re-build more human scale, ecological economies based on a new paradigm – an economics of localization.
-----------------------------
Babson's 6th Annual Energy, Environment and Entrepreneurship Conference
March 30th, 2012
This year’s theme is “Energy, Environment & Entrepreneurship: Challenging Assumptions, Changing Perceptions.” We believe there are some tough questions to be addressed and our panels are designed around real challenges and exciting opportunities in energy, alternative transportation, sustainable development, and several other topics within the energy and environmental space.
We have two exciting key note speakers:
Mark Rodgers - Director of Communications, Cape Wind
T.I. (Tahmid) Mizan, Senior Technology Planning Advisor, ExxonMobil Corporation
More information on our strong list of speakers and event details can be found at http://babsonenergy.com/
Early bird ticket pricing ends on March 5
---------------------------------
Wild and Scenic Film Festival EcoFest
March 31st, 11 AM-4 PM
290 Congress Street, Boston
The national Wild and Scenic Film Festival tour is coming to Boston, beginning with EcoFest, an afternoon of films and environmental activities at Atlantic Wharf in Fort Point. The Wild and Scenic Film Festival combines stellar filmmaking, beautiful cinematography and first-rate storytelling. The event will include international short films, puppet-making, a kids’ matinee at 11 AM, environmental activities, an eco-marketplace, and a cinematic tribute to Kenyan Nobel Laureate Wangari Maathai. Be prepared to be inspired!
Admission to EcoFest is free. Admission to the films is $5, payable online or at the door. More information about the program, including tickets and the complete film lineup, is posted on the “e” inc.
website, http://www.e-action.us/, and on the Facebook page for the event - https://www.facebook.com/events/244742755593954/.
This festival is a fundraiser for “e” inc., an environment science learning and action center whose pairing of science education with community action leads to environmental change in urban communities.
******************************************
The Finale: Locavore Tasting and Environmental Film Night
March 31st, 6-10 PM
290 Congress Street, Boston
A fundraising locavore tasting supper for “e” inc. will offer delicious local food samples from Boston vendors such as Cabot Creamery, Green Gal Catering, and Channel Café.
This will be followed by two films – With My Own Two Wheels and The Work of 1000. “e” inc. will present The Children’s Planet Protector Award to the two featured activists, Marion Stoddart, who led the struggle to regain clean rivers, and David Branigan, who used the life-changing value of bicycles to create opportunities in Ghana. After the films, the activists and filmmakers will answer audience questions. A silent auction and dessert will round out the evening.
Early bird admission discounts are available. Boston Globe subscribers can receive a Globe-sponsored discounted admission. To reserve your seats, please visithttp://www.e-action.us/. More information about the program is posted at http://www.e-action.us/ and on the Facebook event page -https://www.facebook.com/events/244742755593954/.
“e” inc. is an environment science learning and action center whose pairing of science education with community action leads to environmental change in urban communities.
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It is with a sense of gratitude and deep joy that we announce the Art and Soul program at Wellesley College will be hosting three of the 13 Indigenous Grandmothers this spring. The Grandmothers will give a talk at Houghton Chapel on Thursday, April nineteenth at seven p.m. The theme of their talk will be Planting Seeds for Seven Generations: Making Change. The Grandmothers will share their cultural treasures and life experience, in support of our community’s exploration of an ethics of wholeness, which can bring about a sustainable future for the generations to come.
Originating from all four corners of the world, these 13 wise women elders and medicine women first came together in 2004 at a peace gathering. They represent a global alliance of prayer, education and healing for our Earth, all her inhabitants and the next seven generations. We are honored to host, as representatives of this Grandmothers’ Council, Grandmothers Rita and Beatrice Long- Visitor Holy Dance of the Lakota tribe and Grandmother Mona Polacca of the Hopi/ Havasupai/Tewa tribe. This event is open to all, as an offering to our circles of community. For more information about this event, contact Ji Hyang at 781.283.2793
---------------------------------
Saturday, April 21st
9-12noon
for our first 2012 cleanup of Magazine Beach, Cambridge. This will be part of the much larger 13th Annual Earth Day Charles River Cleanup, organized by the Charles River Watershed Association, Charles River Conservancy, etc., etc.
If you would like an official Earth Day Cleanup t-shirt to wear that day, please e-mail me your name, phone number and t-shirt size by this Sunday, March 11th. Large youth shirts are available and adult shirts in small, medium, large and extra large.
Looking forward to hearing from you. Shirts will be available, with drinks and refreshments, at our table in front of the Riverside Boat Club 4/21.
Cathie (Zusy)
Questions? Call 617-868-0489
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Weatherization barnraising at
The Friends Meeting House
Sunday, April 22nd from 1 to 5 pm
5 Longfellow Park, Cambridge
What a great way to celebrate Earth Day. You will be taught how to do the work by experienced team leaders, while you learn how to lower your own bills at home.
Sign up at https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dDRNLV9xOC00SVllOGdLd1dYdzMxU0E6MQ#gid=0
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Opportunity
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CEA Solar Hot Water Grants
Cambridge, through the Cambridge Energy Alliance initiative, is offering a limited number of grants to residents and businesses for solar hot water systems. The grants will cover 50% of the remaining out of pocket costs of the system after other incentives, up to $2,000.
Applications will be accepted up to November 19, 2012 and are available on a first come, first serve basis until funding runs out. The Cambridge grant will complement other incentives including the Massachusetts Clean Energy Center solar thermal grants. For more information, see http://cambridgeenergyalliance.org/resources/additional-resources/solar-hot-water-grant-program
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Cambridge Residents: Free Home Thermal Images
Have you ever wanted to learn where your home is leaking heat by having an energy auditor come to your home with a thermal camera? With that info you then know where to fix your home so it's more comfortable and less expensive to heat. However, at $200 or so, the cost of such a thermal scan is a big chunk of change.
HEET Cambridge has now partnered with Sagewell, Inc. to offer Cambridge residents free thermal scans.
Sagewell collects the thermal images by driving through Cambridge in a hybrid vehicle equipped with thermal cameras. They will scan every building in Cambridge (as long as it's not blocked by trees or buildings or on a private way). Building owners can view thermal images of their property and an analysis online. The information is password protected so that only the building owner can see the results.
Homeowners, condo-owners and landlords can access the thermal images and an accompanying analysis free of charge. Commercial building owners and owners of more than one building will be able to view their images and analysis for a small fee.
The scans will be analyzed in the order they are requested.
Go to Sagewell.com. Type in your address at the bottom where it says "Find your home or building" and press return. Then click on "Here" to request the report.
That's it. When the scans are done in a few weeks, your building will be one of the first to be analyzed. The accompanying report will help you understand why your living room has always been cold and what to do about it.
With knowledge, comes power (or in this case saved power and money, not to mention comfort).
---------------------
Free solar electricity analysis for MA residents
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/viewform?formkey=dHhwM202dDYxdUZJVGFscnY1VGZ3aXc6MQ
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HEET has partnered with NSTAR and Mass Save participating contractor Next Step Living to deliver no-cost Home Energy Assessments to Cambridge residents.
During the assessment, the energy specialist will:
Install efficient light bulbs (saving up to 7% of your electricity bill)
Install programmable thermostats (saving up to 10% of your heating bill)
Install water efficiency devices (saving up to 10% of your water bill)
Check the combustion safety of your heating and hot water equipment
Evaluate your home’s energy use to create an energy-efficiency roadmap
If you get electricity from NSTAR, National Grid or Western Mass Electric, you already pay for these assessments through a surcharge on your energy bills. You might as well use the service.
Please sign up at http://nextsteplivinginc.com/heet/?outreach=HEET or call Next Step Living at 866-867-8729. A Next Step Living Representative will call to schedule your assessment.
HEET will help answer any questions and ensure you get all the services and rebates possible.
(The information collected will only be used to help you get a Home Energy Assessment. We won’t keep the data or sell it.)
(If you have any questions or problems, please feel free to call HEET’s Jason Taylor at 617 441 0614.)
*********
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Resource
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Sustainable Business Network Local Green Guide
SBN is excited to announce the soft launch of its new Local Green Guide, Massachusetts' premier Green Business Directory!
To view the directory please visit: http://www.localgreenguide.org
To find out how how your business can be listed on the website or for sponsorship opportunities please contact Adritha at adritha@sbnboston.org
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Massachusetts Attitudes About Climate Change – An opinion survey of Massachusetts residents conducted by MassINC and sponsored by the Barr Foundation found that 77% of respondents believe that global warming has “probably been happening” and 59% of all respondents see see it as being at least partially caused by human pollution. Only 42% of the state’s residents say global warming will have very serious consequences for Massachusetts if left unaddressed. The 18 to 29 age group is more likely to believe global warming is appearing and caused by humans compared to the 60+ age group. African-American (56%) and Latino residents (69%) are more likely than white residents (40%) to believe global warming will be a very serious problem if left unaddressed. The MassINC report, titled The 80 Percent Challenge: What Massachusetts must do to meet targets and make headway on climate change (http://www.massinc.org/Research/The-80-percent-challenge.aspx), contains many other findings.
----------------------------------------------------
The presentations from the recent Affordable Comfort National Home Performance Conference are available online at
http://2011.acinational.org/downloadable_resources
Lots of good information from what some call the best energy conference in the USA on Deep Energy Retrofits to Community Energy Challenges with details on insulation, heat flow, energy metering, ducting, hot water, and many, many other topics. If you are a practical energy wonk, this should make your eyes light up.
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Free Monthly Energy Analysis
CarbonSalon is a free service that every month can automatically track your energy use and compare it to your past energy use (while controlling for how cold the weather is). You get a short friendly email that lets you know how you’re doing in your work to save energy.
https://www.carbonsalon.com/
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Boston Food System
"The Boston Food System [listserv] provides a forum to post announcements of events, employment opportunities, internships, programs, lectures, and other activities as well as related articles or other publications of a non-commercial nature covering the area's food system - food, nutrition, farming, education, etc. - that take place or focus on or around Greater Boston (broadly delineated)."
The Boston area is one of the most active nationwide in terms of food system activities - projects, services, and events connected to food, farming, nutrition - and often connected to education, public health, environment, arts, social services and other arenas. Hundreds of organizations and enterprises cover our area, but what is going on week-to-week is not always well publicized.
Hence, the new Boston Food System listserv, as the place to let everyone know about these activities. Specifically:
Use of the BFS list will begin soon, once we get a decent base of subscribers. Clarification of what is appropriate to announce and other posting guidelines will be provided as well.
It's easy to subscribe right now at https://elist.tufts.edu/wws/subscribe/bfs
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Artisan Asylum http://artisansasylum.com/
Sprout & Co: Community Driven Investigations
Greater Boston Solidarity Economy Mapping Project http://www.transformationcentral.org/solidarity/mapping/mapping.html
a project by Wellesley College students that invites participation, contact jmatthaei@wellesley.edu
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Bostonsmart.com's Guide to Boston http://www.bostonsmarts.com/BostonGuide/
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Links to events at 60 colleges and universities at Hubevents http://hubevents.blogspot.com
Thanks to
Fred Hapgood's Selected Lectures on Science and Engineering in the Boston Area http://www.BostonScienceLectures.com
Boston Area Computer User Groups http://www.bugc.org/
Arts and Cultural Events List http://aacel.blogspot.com/
http://www.mitenergyclub.org/calendar/mit_events_template
http://sustainability.mit.edu/
http://www.environment.harvard.edu/events/calendar/
http://green.harvard.edu/events
http://microsoftcambridge.com/Events/tabid/57/Default.aspx
http://pechakuchaboston.org/blog/
http://boston.nerdnite.com/
http://www.meetup.com/
http://www.eventbrite.com/
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