Energy (and Other) Events is a weekly mailing list published most Sundays covering events around the Cambridge, MA and greater
Boston area that catch the editor's eye.
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
What I Do and Why I Do It: The Story of Energy (and Other) EventsGeo
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Details of these events are available when you scroll past the index
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Index
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Monday, August 21
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1:30pm Observing the Solar Eclipse
7pm GET OUT: film night, discussion and dinner fundraiser
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Tuesday, August 22
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6pm Sun for All Somerville Solar Workshop
6pm Patient Innovators - Diabetes
6pm Free Farmers’ Market
7pm INHABIT: A Permaculture Perspective
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Wednesday, August 23
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6pm On the 90th Anniversary of their Execution: We Remember Sacco and Vanzetti in Boston!
6pm Envision Cambridge
6:30pm Alex Trochut: Non-verbal Communication and the Written Medium
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Thursday, August 24
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12pm MIT Events Calendar: demonstration session
2pm Microgrids-as-a-Service: A New Approach to Solve Resiliency, Efficiency, Sustainability Challenges
6pm Boston Climate Action Network Meeting
6pm Sunny Cambridge Workshops
6pm Healthcare Brainstorm & Networking
6:30pm Discovery of Insulin
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Friday, August 25
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11:30am HGSE Freecycle
4pm Lead Halide Perovskites of Different Dimensionilities: Growth, Properties, and Applications in Optoelectronics
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Saturday, August 26
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10am Boston Area Beekeepers Association Open Hives
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Sunday, August 27
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1pm 100% Renewable Energy Ballot Initiative Training
1:30pm Colin Stokes: What Movies Teach Us: Finding Meaning in Films
3pm Be the Change Community Action: Feminist Resistance & Voter Registration
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Monday, August 28
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2:30pm Artificial Intelligence & Consciousness Studies
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Tuesday, August 29
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5pm The Innovator's Playground
6pm Free Farmers’ Market
6pm Boston Green Drinks - August Happy Hour
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My rough notes on some of the events I go to and notes on books I’ve read are at:
March
City Agriculture - August 16, 2017
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Monday, August 21
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Observing the Solar Eclipse
Monday, August 21
1:30pm to 3:30pm
MIT, Kresge Oval, across from 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
View with us at MIT!
The viewing session at MIT is open to the MIT community and to the public. Sponsored by the Department of Earth, Atmospheric, and Planetary Sciences at MIT, it will be held on the Kresge Oval, outside the MIT Student Center at 77 Mass. Ave. - http://whereis.mit.edu/?go=G8
Note: the eclipse will be partial as seen from the Boston area, and will be ongoing during this entire time. There is no one time when the eclipse will be “best”, so feel free to drop by anytime during 1:30 to 3:30pm. The eclipse will progress somewhat slowly. We will have eclipse glasses to use at the event, plus specially filtered telescopes to give you close-up views of the sun.
It has been nearly a century since a total solar eclipse traversed coast-to-coast across the USA. Everyone in North America will have a view of the Moon blocking at least part of the Sun (Partial Eclipse). But the spectacle of a lifetime is seeing the sun totally eclipsed by the moon. The narrow “path of totality” will stretch from Salem (Oregon) to Lincoln (Nebraska) to St. Louis (Missouri) to Charleston (South Carolina) on the east coast, the moon takes its first bite out of the sun at 1:28 p.m. eastern daylight time (EDT).
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GET OUT: film night, discussion and dinner fundraiser
Monday, August 21
7-9pm
Parts and Crafts, 577 Somerville Avenue, Somerville
Cost: $15 includes dinner (free for colonized/ non-white folks)
Join the Uhuru Solidarity Movement Boston for a screening of the incredible film GET OUT. We will serve vegan dinner and have a discussion afterwards about the film with an African Internationalist analysis.
This event is a fundraiser for the "Days in Solidarity with African People" national speaking tour. Traveling to 8 cities, we are hosting the Boston event on Oct 17th, at the First Baptist Church in JP. Our featured speaker will be Chairman Omali Yeshitela, an internationally respected black power freedom fighter, leader and founder of the Uhuru Movement and African People's Socialist Party (APSP). He will be presenting on how white people can stand in solidarity with the black liberation movement by joining the anti-colonial struggle being lead by working-class African(black) people around the world for self-determination. USM works under the leadership of the APSP for reparations to African people, fundraising to build the economic development institutions that benefit black people everywhere.
The tour is joining with the Unity Through Reparations campaign being lead in St Petersburg, FL right now, and will include 3 other amazing speakers: Penny Hess, Chairwoman of the African People's Solidarity Committee; Eritha Akile Cainion, candidate for District 6 City Council in St Pete and Chair of the Justice for the Three Drowned Black Girls - 3DBG Campaign; and Jesse Nevel for Mayor of St. Petersburg, Florida, candidate for Mayor in St Pete and national Chair of the Uhuru Solidarity Movement.
To bring these 4 amazing community organizers to Boston, we need to fundraise over $3000 to pay for things like flights, hotels, venue costs and honorariums for their time & effort. Please come out to our fundraiser Aug 21st! If you can't attend but would like to donate, you can donate online here:
Hosted by the Uhuru Solidarity Movement, an organization of white people working under the leadership of and accountable to the African People’s Socialist Party. We organize in the white community for reparations to
African people. www.uhurusolidarity.org
Facebook event page to share:
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Tuesday, August 22
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Sun for All Somerville Solar Workshop
Tuesday, August 22
6:00 PM – 7:30 PM EDT
Mudflat Pottery School, 81 Broadway, Somerville
Be a part of the Sun for All Somerville campaign and bring affordable clean energy to our community.
Now is the time to go solar and secure time-limited incentives.
Residents, small businesses, non-profits, landlords who are interested in seeing electricity savings are invited to join this workshop.
Co-hosted by Mudflat Pottery Studio, we will have an informational session, hear from your neighbors who are going solar and of course, enjoy some appetizers and meet other solar enthusiasts.
Editorial Comment:
Solar Consumer Education Videos from the Clean Energy States Alliance
Rooftop Solar Financing 101
Choosing a Solar Installer
Will Solar Panels Save You Money?
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Patient Innovators - Diabetes
Tuesday, August 22
6pm
Cambridge Innovation Center (11th Floor), 1 Broadway, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.healthinno.org
Help us build a community sharing diabetes condition management. Patient innovators is our effort to crowdsource innovation from patients themselves. We also look forward to having those who are passionate about patient-centered care.
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Free Farmers’ Market
Tuesday, August 22
6 - 7:30pm
Riverside Press Park, 393 River Street at Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Whole Foods, Food for Free, and the Boston Area Gleaners are bringing fresh produce and other foods to a FREE farmers’ market.
Contact Joe Deignan at 617-868-4858, extension 210 or jdeignan@homeownersrehab.org
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INHABIT: A Permaculture Perspective
Tuesday, August 22
7:00pm – 9:30pm
The Somerville Community Growing Center, 22 Vinal Avenue, Somerville (near Union Square)
BYOPicnic at 7:00 pm and Screening at 8:00 pm
Free admission - donations greatly appreciated!
Strengthening our local communities is a primary step in addressing climate change. We have the resources in our neighborhoods to be resilient in the face of food insecurity, soil loss, social injustice, energy costs, waste, and pollution. Permaculture is a positive message for change and provides a framework to help us address complex issues with simple human-centered solutions that build on each other.
Lisa DePiano, featured in the film, will speak beforehand. She is a certified Permaculture designer and co-founder of the Montview Neighborhood Farm, a human-powered farm and edible forest garden in Northampton.
Hosted by the Somerville Community Growing Center, and in collaboration with Green Cambridge, Somerville Climate Action, Soil4Climate, Somerville Media Center, Green & Open Somerville, Green City Growers, and Groundwork Somerville.
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Wednesday, August 23
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On the 90th Anniversary of their Execution: We Remember Sacco and Vanzetti in Boston!
Wednesday, August 23
6PM-8PM
encuentro 5, 9A Hamilton Place, Boston
Featuring:
Author *David Rothauser* - speaking on the completion of his historical novel "The Diary of Sacco and Vanzetti".
# Musician and historian, *Stephen Sanfilippo* - musical performance of Woody Guthrie's "Ballads of Sacco and Vanzetti".
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Envision Cambridge
Wednesday, 23
6:00-8:00 pm
Russell Youth Center, 680 Huron Avenue, Cambridge
Meeting of the Envision Cambridge Advisory Committee.
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Alex Trochut: Non-verbal Communication and the Written Medium
Wednesday, August 23
6:30 PM – 9:00 PM EDT
MassArt, 621 Huntington Avenue, Boston
Cost: $10
Alex Trochut
Non-verbal Communication and the Written Medium
Letter design is the non-verbal communication of the written medium. It is not what you say. It is how you say it. Style becomes the message. Letters are a flexible matter, a human creation in constant change. Similar to fashion or music, letters have a connection with identity and every typographic style will have its place and time in history.
Alex Trochut will explain his creative process — a mix of conveying the demands of the client’s brief and his personal take on typographic rules.
Presented by the Type Directors Club
Doors Open: 6:00 pm | Talk Starts: 6:30pm
Reception to follow.
This event is free for registered TypeCon2017 attendees.
Please bring your conference badge or ID to enter the event.
A $10.00 registration fee applies to the public.
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Thursday, August 24
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MIT Events Calendar: demonstration session
Thursday, August 24
12:00pm to 1:00pm
MIT, Building E17, Atlas Service Center, 40 Ames Street, Cambridge
Learn more about the new MIT Events Calendar. This demo session, presented by the IS&T Knowledge Management team, will give an overview of the new Events Calendar functionality with a focus on features designed for event creators. We will review how to set up a user profile, notifications, and privacy settings, and creating and managing events.
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Microgrids-as-a-Service: A New Approach to Solve Resiliency, Efficiency, Sustainability Challenges
Thursday, August 24
2:00 PM Eastern Daylight Time
This session will discuss how municipal, district, institutional, commercial campus or large buildings can benefit from a “Microgrid-as-a-Service” business model approach to stabilize their long-term energy costs and upgrade critical energy infrastructure without up-front capital.
Issues faced by Montgomery County, Maryland (and many other large facilities).
Critical public safety facilities need 24/7 resilient power to ensure operational integrity
The cost of Infrastructure Modernization is a concern for any organization
The cost of electrical energy and heat needs to be stable over the long term for fiscal budget
Some organizations are credit-worthy, but Charter requirements limit the amount of debt
Non-profit organizations may require third-party ownership to realize Tax Incentives
Schneider Electric along with Duke Energy Renewables developed a unique “Microgrid-as-a-Service” approach for Montgomery County, Maryland to finance multiple Distributed Energy Resources (DERs), build two advanced microgrids, and support critical infrastructure upgrades, with no up-front capital. This industry-leading approach allows the partnership to focus on solving the issues faced by many large facilities: energy resiliency, infrastructure modernization, long-term stable energy cost, and third-party ownership, operation, maintenance and financing.
Speakers
Mark Feasel, Vice President, Electric Utility Segment & Smart Grid, Schneider Electric
Colleen Metelitsa, Grid Edge Analyst, GTM Research
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Boston Climate Action Network Meeting
Thursday, August 24
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EDT
First Baptist Church, 633 Centre Street, Jamaica Plain
We're working towards fighting climate change through improved energy policy and education at the local level in Boston. The BCAN Action Team meeting is a great way to get directly involved in the effort to combat climate change in the era of Trump. We gather twice per month on the 2nd and 4th Thursday from 6-8pm at First Baptist Church in Jamaica Plain.
Come meet the Communications Team, the Arts Team, and other dedicated climate campaigners to learn how you can help us plan outreach for the Community Choice Energy campaign.
Curious to learn more about Community Choice Energy? Check out our video: https://youtu.be/6HkNZiN-FX4
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Sunny Cambridge Workshops
Thursday, August 24
6:00-8:00 pm
Lesley University, Room 3-098, 1815 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Sunny Cambridge information sessions on how to go solar in Cambridge, including how to access solar financial incentives. For more information, contact Meghan Shaw, Cambridge Energy Alliance, mshaw@cambridgema.gov or 617-349-5323.
More information at https://www.energysage.com/sunnycambridge/
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Healthcare Brainstorm & Networking
Thursday, August 24
6pm - 9pm
Cambridge Innovation Center, 1 Broadway, 11th floor, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.healthinno.org
The Healthcare Innovators Brainstorm is a group of helathcare professionals, business professionals, startups and like-minded talents to meet up and talk through their ideas.
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Discovery of Insulin
Thursday, August 24
6:30 pm
Boslab, 339R Summer Street, Somerville
Boslab Bookclub
Please join us for our next book club discussion. There will be a short presentation on the book followed by discussion. The presentation will give enough detail so that everyone will be able to participate in the discussion.
About the book: The Discovery of Insulin tells the story of how a small research team found the crucial substance that almost instantly transformed diabetes from a horrific disease and virtual death sentence into a manageable condition. The book lets us enter into the world of medicine and medical research as it existed at the beginning of the last century. Even though the 1920s are not all that long ago, many things about that world are already quite foreign to us today. It was a world in which biomolecules were still totally mysterious black boxes residing firmly in terra incognita. It was also a world before drug regulation or big pharma. Physicians were accustomed acting on their own personal discretion in trying out unproven drugs in ways that seem almost reckless to us now. Many also moved seamlessly between clinical and research roles throughout their careers – it was still an era where physicians were as much scientists as clinicians.
With this as its setting, the book proceeds with the story of a young maverick, one Frederick Banting, a newly-minted surgeon, heavily in debt, who decides to abandon a nascent medical practice and instead tries his hand at unraveling the riddle of diabetes. He is able to wheedle some lab space at the University of Toronto, an assistant and later help from an organic chemist. But he gets no appointment or salary and is never secure about his welcome.
But worse than the physical conditions, is how little information he has to go on. True, it is known that the pancreas is somehow involved. But it’s also clear that of all the accessible juices the pancreas secretes, none are the magic sauce. It’s some other mysterious ’factor’. No one knows anything about the chemistry of this substance -- certainly there is no clue that it is a protein. Other researchers have tried finding it, have come up empty and moved on. The only available assay for it is injection into an animal. And whatever it is, it is fragile. It doesn’t survive the ordinary organic chemistry techniques of the day. It can’t be given orally. In fact Banting’s initial hunch is that it’s so elusive because perhaps it is denatured by one of the pancreas’s other products. Working around that possibility complicates his work immeasurably. It’s a mad quest to be sure. The team is small and even so there is acrimony. Banting’s resources are dwindling. Even his fiance doesn’t understand. She bails and returns his ring.
So there is drama. But also a good deal of science. The description of the research is written from the actual lab notebooks. Thus there is a satisfying amount of detail on Banting and company’s thinking, their lab techniques, what confused them along the way and how they finally sorted it all out and prevailed.
And prevail they did. In the end, there was professional help a plenty to scale production to the very large demand. And there was even a Nobel prize. But best of all the discovery came as a totally miraculous change of fortunes for so many who were facing the bleakest of prospects. Many were living skeletal existences keeping their food intake within whatever tiny residual capacity they had to metabolize it. Others, perhaps most, found no middle ground and died. And now, suddenly, this discovery changed it all. Near normal lives became possible for those with diabetes!
More information at https://www.boslab.org/single-post/2017/07/21/Discovery-of-Insulin
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Friday, August 25
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HGSE Freecycle
Friday, August 25
11:30 am–2:30 pm
Harvard Graduate School of Education, Gutman Commons Café, 6 Appian Way, Cambridge
Come by Gutman Café for the Graduate School of Education's bi-annual event to pick up something new-to-you or drop off items you no longer need, giving our community a chance to reuse rather than buy new.
Items you’ll commonly find include office, school and kitchen supplies, toys and clothing. We donate remainders to Harvard Recycling for future Freecycle events at the University or to be shared with other charitable organizations.
Films at the Gate Opening Night Reception
Friday, August 25
5:30 PM – 7:30 PM EDT
One Greenway, 66 Hudson Street, Boston
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/films-at-the-gate-opening-night-reception-tickets-36685484271-p
Please join ACDC for a celebratory reception to kick off the 14th annual Films at the Gate Festival. We will be joined by special guest, Kenneth Eng. Kenneth is a local filmmaker who has made waves nationally and overseas with his powerful documentary, My Life in China, which will be screened at the Chinatown Gate following the reception.
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Lead Halide Perovskites of Different Dimensionilities: Growth, Properties, and Applications in Optoelectronics
Friday, August 25
4:00pm to 5:00pm
MIT, Building 6-104, Chipman Room, 182 Memorial Drive (rear), Cambridge
Osman M. Bakr, Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering, King Abdullah University of Science and Technology (KAUST).
Osman M. Bakr is an Associate Professor of Materials Science and Engineering at KAUST, Saudi Arabia. He holds a B.Sc. in Materials Science and Engineering from MIT (2003) as well as a M.S. and a Ph.D. in Applied Physics from Harvard (2009). The research group he founded at KAUST studies the design and self-assembly of hybrid organic-inorganic materials for breakthrough applications in solar energy harvesting and optoelectronic devices. Bakr was selected as a Young Scientist by the World Economic Forum (2016) and as an Emerging Investigator by the Journal of Materials Chemistry A (2016). He was awarded the SABIC Endowed Presidential Career Development Chair (2013), the Zasshi-kai Lectureship Award by the University of Tokyo (2016), and the Innovator Under 35 Award in the Arab World by the MIT Technology Review- Arab Edition (2016).
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Saturday, August 26
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Boston Area Beekeepers Association Open Hives
Sponsored by Boston Nature Center and Boston Area Beekeepers Association
Saturday, August 26
10:00 am - 12:00 pm
Boston Nature Center, 500 Walk Hill Street, Mattapan
Drop in at the Boston Nature Center Saturday mornings from June to August and learn all about honey bees from the Boston Area Beekeepers! We host an apiary on the sanctuary, and the beekeepers will “bee” more than happy to help you explore all aspects of bee life. Learn how they make honey, how they survive the winter, and much more! Free.
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Sunday, August 27
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100% Renewable Energy Ballot Initiative Training
Sunday, August 27
1:00 PM – 4:00 PM EDT
MIT, Building 9-255, 105 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/100-renewable-energy-ballot-initiative-training-tickets-37138366855
This will be the first volunteer training for the Sunrise Initiative's 100% renewable energy ballot question. We will train volunteers on signature collection and how to make 100% renewable energy a reality in MA!
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Colin Stokes: What Movies Teach Us: Finding Meaning in Films
Sunday, August 27
1:30 PM
Humanist Hub, 30 JFK Street, 4th Floor, Harvard Square, Cambridge
The best stories, we are told, have morals: lessons to teach us about how the world works. From comic book superheroes to Disney princesses, our modern mythology sets the boundaries of heroism, justice, and victory in ways that reflect our values–and shape them. Acclaimed TED speaker Colin Stokes (Harvard ’96) weaves unique interpretations of popular movies together with humorous personal experience to unlock ways we can master the stories we live by.
Colin Stokes is a writer, public speaker, facilitator, and communications consultant whose three talks at TEDxBeaconStreet have been viewed more than 7 million times. Passionate about social justice and storytelling, he has worked at the education non-profits Citizen Schools and The Achievement Network, supporting their missions with marketing, design, employee engagement, and organizational learning about racism and inclusion. He has spoken at schools, non-profits, and corporations about parenting, privilege, and movies, which he knows about because he is a parent with privilege who watched a lot of movies. Before all that he was a high school public speaking champion from Texas, a VES concentrator (normally called an “art major”) at Harvard, and a professional actor in Boston and New York.
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Be the Change Community Action: Feminist Resistance & Voter Registration
Sunday, August 27
3:00pm
Porter Square Books, 25 White Street, Cambridge
We'll be coming together this afternoon to make connections between local women's resistance and the activism of women's advocates in other countries, through a presentation and discussion lead by Cynthia Enloe. Women in Syria, Turkey, Ireland, Bosnia, Japan all have a stake in our resistance.
Because voting is a vital part of influencing, we will also provide voter registration forms as well as instructions on how to register to vote online and resources to make sure others in your community are registered.
Robbie Adams, Project Coordinator for The Boston Center for Refugee Health & Human Rights will also be on hand talking about other actions people can take and ways to get involved.
20% of sales from 3-5PM will be donated to The Boston Center for Refugee Health & Human Rights.
Cynthia Enloe is Professor of Political Science at Clark University and is the author of many books, including Bananas, Beaches, and Bases: Making Feminist Sense of International Politics, Maneuvers: The International Politics of Militarizing Women's Lives and The Curious Feminist Searching for Women in a New Age of Empire. Enloe won the Howard Zinn Lifetime Achievement in Peace Studies Award from the Peace and Justice Studies Association (PJSA).
Learn more about Be the Change.
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Monday, August 28
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Artificial Intelligence & Consciousness Studies
Monday, August 28
2:30 PM – 4:30 PM EDT
MIT, Building 4-237, (Maclaurin Buildings), 2nd floor, 182 Memorial Drive (rear), Cambridge
An academic seminar held by MIT Deshpanda Center for Technological Innovation. Mr. Leon Sandler, the executive director of Deshpanda Center, and Mr. Liangang Sun, the art advisor at Columbia University and also an Artificial Intelligence researcher will be the speakers of the seminar.
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Tuesday, August 29
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The Innovator's Playground
Tuesday, August 29
5:00 PM – 8:00 PM EDT
La Fabrica, 450 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Cost: $0 – $15
Come join us for an evening of collaborative play! Together we will celebrate as a community with design activities, interactive games, and delicious food!
The Innovator's Playground is an event presented by the Cambridge Educators Design Lab to promote design-based innovation with a focus on education.
It will bring together educators, students, designers and the surrounding community to foster local innovation, spark new ideas, and raise funds for future design solutions.
Families are welcome and children are free.
This fundraiser is hosted by the Center for Artistry and Scholarship.
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Free Farmers’ Market
Tuesday, August 29
6 - 7:30pm
Riverside Press Park, 393 River Street at Memorial Drive, Cambridge
Whole Foods, Food for Free, and the Boston Area Gleaners are bringing fresh produce and other foods to a FREE farmers’ market.
Contact Joe Deignan at 617-868-4858, extension 210 or jdeignan@homeownersrehab.org
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Boston Green Drinks - August Happy Hour
Tuesday, August 29
6:00 PM – 8:00 PM EDT
Scholars, 25 School Street, Boston
Join the conversation with sustainability professionals and hobbyists. Enjoy a drink and build your connection with our green community!
Boston Green Drinks builds a community of sustainably-minded Bostonians, provides a forum for exchange of sustainability career resources, and serves as a central point of information about emerging green issues. We support the exchange of ideas and resources about sustainable energy, environment, food, health, education.
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Upcoming Events
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Thursday, August 31
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Patterning and morphing control by fluid flows
Thursday, August 31
11:30am to 12:30pm
Harvard, Maxwell Dworkin G125, 33 Oxford Street, Cambridge
Karen Alim- MPI for Dynamics and Self-Organization
During the development of an organism, coordination of growth on large scales in short time is essential. Fluid flows are a powerful mean to induce, transmit but also respond to biological signals and thus orchestrate patterning and morphing of an organism. We investigate the role of fluid flows during the growth and adaptation of transport networks focusing on the network-forming slime mold Physarum polycephalum and the vascular networks of plants and animals.
Widely Applied Mathematics Seminar
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Tuesday, September 5
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Power to the People: The New Energy Democracy
Tuesday, September 5
6:00 PM – 8:30 PM EDT
CIC Cambridge - Venture Cafe, 1 Broadway, 5th Floor, Cambridge
RSVP at https://www.eventbrite.com/e/power-to-the-people-the-new-energy-democracy-tickets-36511948220
Cost: $8 – $12
Energy democracy is an emergent social movement that connects energy policy and social policy. The concept has been developed in response to growing concerns about socio-economic and racial inequities, the powerful influence of conventional fossil fuel energy companies on politics and policy, and the negative impacts of climate change.
Gender imbalance in the energy sector, fair access to the benefits of energy efficiency, and community-controlled sustainable and just local economic development will be discussed in light of the societal value of more diverse and inclusive participation in the renewable energy transition.
Our expert speakers will highlight opportunities for re-envisioning the renewable energy transition as a larger social transformation that redistributes power - literally and figuratively - and also strengthens societal resilience at multiple levels.
Speakers
Jennie C. Stephens, Professor of Sustainability Science & Policy & Associate Director of the Global Resilience Institute, Northeastern University
Jennie C. Stephens is Dean’s Professor of Sustainability Science & Policy and Associate Director of the Global Resilience Institute at Northeastern University. Her research, teaching, and community engagement focuses on social dimensions of the renewable energy transition, reducing fossil fuel reliance, and strengthening resilience by integrating social justice with climate-energy policy. Professor Stephens received a 2017 Arab-American Frontiers Fellowship from the National Academy of Sciences, she is a 2015-2016 Leopold Leadership fellow, and her book “Smart Grid (R)Evolution: Electric Power Struggles” (Cambridge University Press, 2015) explores social and cultural debates about energy system change (co-authored with Wilson & Peterson). Before joining Northeastern, Professor Stephens was on the faculty at the University of Vermont and Clark University. She earned her PhD (2002) and MS (1998) at California Institute of Technology in Environmental Science & Engineering and her BA (1997) at Harvard in Environmental Science & Public Policy.
Alex Papali, Green Justice Organizer, Clean Water Action
Alex has lived in the Boston area 30 years, organizing locally since high school. His areas of focus have ranged from prison issues to immigrant rights to tenant organizing–with the common goal of addressing structural causes of injustice and obstacles to sustainability. At Clean Water Action, Alex works towards 'energy democracy' with the Green Justice Campaign: fair access to the benefits of energy efficiency, clean local energy through "community microgrids," and a robust green economy for all through the collective efforts of more than 40 community, labor and environmental groups statewide. He is assisting the development of a grassroots energy group in the Worcester area, with a focus on building clean distributed energy resources that serve linguistically diverse low-income communities. He also helps coordinate the Boston Recycling Coalition, aiming to grow a world-class Zero Waste system in Boston that captures untapped economic potential and eliminates toxics and climate pollution by reimagining how we produce, consume and dispose of everything we use.
Penn Loh, Director of the Master of Public Policy Program and Community Practice for the Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning, Tufts University
Penn Loh is Lecturer and Director of the Master of Public Policy Program and Community Practice at Tufts University’s Department of Urban and Environmental Policy and Planning. He partners with various community base building organizations in the Right to the City Alliance and Center for Economic Democracy. From 1996 to 2009, he served in various roles, including Executive Director, at Alternatives for Community & Environment (ACE), a Roxbury-based environmental justice group. He holds an M.S. in environmental science and policy from Energy and Resources Group of the University of California at Berkeley and a B.S. in electrical engineering from MIT. Before joining ACE, he was Research Associate at the Pacific Institute for Studies in Development, Environment, and Security in Oakland, California and a Research Analyst at the Tellus Institute for Resource and Environmental Strategies in Boston. He has published broadly on environmental and social justice issues. He has served on the National Environmental Justice Advisory Council’s Health and Research Subcommittee, the Massachusetts Environmental Justice Advisory Committee, the Massachusetts Energy Efficiency Advisory Council, the Massachusetts Energy Facilities Siting Board, and on the boards of the Environmental Support Center, the Environmental Leadership Program, New World Foundation, and Community Labor United. He is currently a trustee of the Hyams Foundation.
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The Cold War: A World History
Tuesday, September 5
7:00 PM
Harvard Book Store, 1256 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge
Harvard Book Store welcomes Harvard Kennedy School's ODD ARNE WESTAD for a discussion of his latest book, The Cold War: A World History.
About The Cold War
We tend to think of the Cold War as a bounded conflict: a clash of two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union, born out of the ashes of World War II and coming to a dramatic end with the collapse of the Soviet Union. But in this major new work, Bancroft Prize-winning scholar Odd Arne Westad argues that the Cold War must be understood as a global ideological confrontation, with early roots in the Industrial Revolution and ongoing repercussions around the world.
In The Cold War, Westad offers a new perspective on a century when great power rivalry and ideological battle transformed every corner of our globe. From Soweto to Hollywood, Hanoi, and Hamburg, young men and women felt they were fighting for the future of the world. The Cold War may have begun on the perimeters of Europe, but it had its deepest reverberations in Asia, Africa, and the Middle East, where nearly every community had to choose sides. And these choices continue to define economies and regimes across the world.
Today, many regions are plagued with environmental threats, social divides, and ethnic conflicts that stem from this era. Its ideologies influence China, Russia, and the United States; Iraq and Afghanistan have been destroyed by the faith in purely military solutions that emerged from the Cold War.
Stunning in its breadth and revelatory in its perspective, this book expands our understanding of the Cold War both geographically and chronologically, and offers an engaging new history of how today's world was created.
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Healthier: Fifty Thoughts on the Foundations of Population
Tuesday, September 5
7:00 PM – 8:30 PM EDT
Harvard Coop, 1400 Mass Avenue, Cambridge
Dr. Sandro Galea -
Public health can rightly claim its share of victories: healthier cities, widespread sanitation, broader availability of nutrient-rich food, and reductions in violence and injury. But for all these gains, today we face a new set of challenges, ones complicated by political and professional shifts that threaten to fundamentally change the health of populations. Healthier is both an affirmation and an essential summary of the current challenges and opportunities for those working in and around the improvement of population health. The 50 essays combine unity and clarity of purpose with granular coverage of diverse subject matter. They champion an approach to health that is consequentialist and rooted in social justice — an expansion of traditional, quantitatively motivated public health that will both inform and inspire any reader from student to seasoned practitioner. Galea's cogent, incisive arguments for the urgency of population-level interventions in health guarantee that his perspective, currently at the forefront of public health, will soon become conventional wisdom. A key text of interest to health policy makers, civil servants, workers at state and local departments of health, and students in public health and health sciences.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR Sandro Galea, MD, DrPH, is the Robert A. Knox Professor and Dean at the School of Public Health at Boston University. A physician and epidemiologist interested in the social production of health of urban populations, his work explores innovative cells-to-society approaches to population health questions with an overall aim of advancing a consequentialist approach to population health scholarship. He is a past president of the Society for Epidemiologic Research and an elected member of the National Academy of Medicine.
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Opportunity
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Greenfest Looking for Volunteers
10th Annual Boston GreenFest will be at Boston City Hall Plaza, August 11-13, 2017. It is the largest multicultural environmental music festival in the region featuring lots of local and international exhibits, performances, films, food, fashion and forums. Our goal is to educate and empower people to create a more sustainable, healthier world. We are actively building an interconnected, ever expanding network throughout our neighborhoods, city and region. From business to nonprofit, neighborhood association to academic institution, Boston GreenFest spans age, culture and industry. Celebrating our 10th anniversary, Boston GreenFest is excited to bring this wonderful free three-day festival to Boston City Hall Plaza as it is transformed into a fun interactive community classroom.
We are looking for volunteers to help throughout the weekend.
Please visit: http://www.bostongreenfest.org/
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New Climate CoLab Contests:
Adaptation
Buildings
Carbon Pricing
Energy Supply
Land Use Change
Shifting Attitudes & Behaviors
Transportation
More information at https://www.climatecolab.org/
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Discounted Solar for Somerville
As part of the State’s Solarize Mass program, local volunteers and the City of Somerville recently launched the Solarize Somerville campaign to make it easier and cheaper for residents and small businesses to install solar panels.
The program, which is offering information and guidance, free site consultations, and solar panel discounts through November, has set an ambitious goal to inspire at least 200 property owners to sign up for solar —and each of those private solar installations will also benefit the community directly. For every 400 kW in signed private contracts through the program, the program’s solar vendor SolarFlair will donate a system of up to 5 kW for a public or community purpose. All are invited to the program kickoff at a Meet the Installer event on Tuesday, July 26 at 6-7:30 p.m., 167 Holland St. Additional events on topics such as solar basics, financing, and solar for multifamily homes will be announced.
Unique to the program is its neighbor-to-neighbor approach: trained resident volunteers and a designated volunteer Solar Coach are available essentially as mentors. They can, for example, walk anyone through the process, provide general loan program and tax incentive information, and share their own solar experiences. The campaign’s webpage and blog offers useful information, tips, and a link to websites where you can estimate the solar potential of your home and roughly calculate how much solar could save you on your energy bills at www.somervillema.gov/sustainaville/solarize.
Somerville is one of the most urban communities ever to participate in Solarize Mass, which makes the neighbor-to-neighbor approach especially helpful due to some of the unique challenges here such as multi-family houses with more than one owner. Winter Hill resident Mary Mangan, the program’s volunteer Solar Coach, went through that process and is ready to share helpful tips.
"I'm excited to work with our eager volunteers to help our neighbors understand the benefits of solar power. As a co-owner of a two-family home with solar, I can also offer some insights about how that process went for us," said Mangan.
Also key to the program is the selection of a designated vendor, which allows the program to offer reduced cost installation through bulk purchasing. Through a competitive process, SolarFlair, based in Ashland, MA, was selected. They were also the selected installer for the communities of Arlington, Hopkinton, Mendon, Brookline, Carlisle-Chelmsford, Newton, and Quincy.
"We're excited to be the selected installer for Solarize Somerville, and look forward to speaking with any home or business owners that are interested in reducing their electric bills while also making a great investment," said Matt Arner, the owner and President of SolarFlair.
Quick facts:
Solar systems can be purchased outright (with a payback of about 4-5 years). The Mass Solar Loan program offers rates of 3.25% or less.
Or, for no money down owners can choose a power purchase agreement (PPA), where the system is owned and maintained by a third party, and residents buy back the electricity at a discounted price.
More on-site renewable energy is critical to reducing carbon emissions. It also saves money for residents.
Tax incentives for solar installations include:
Federal Tax Credit: A 30 percent federal Investment Tax Credit (ITC) is available for qualified residential and commercial projects
Massachusetts Personal Income Tax Credit: The lesser of 15% of the total cost of the solar electric system or $1,000, for qualified clean energy projects
Five-year Modified Accelerated Cost Recovery System (MACRS): Business owners can depreciate solar electric systems over a five-year schedule
For more information or to sign up for a free site consultation:
Visit the Solarize Somerville webpage at www.somervillema.gov/sustainaville/solarize for
Helpful information and FAQs
To contact a volunteer or Solar Coach Mary Mangan to discuss solar options and incentives
To set up an appointment for a free site consultation directly with SolarFlair
To find out about events
To volunteer for Solarize Somerville
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Where is the best yogurt on the planet made? Somerville, of course!
Join the Somerville Yogurt Making Cooperative and get a weekly quart of the most thick, creamy, rich and tart yogurt in the world. Members share the responsibility for making yogurt in our kitchen located just outside of Davis Sq. in FirstChurch. No previous yogurt making experience is necessary.
For more information checkout.
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Free solar electricity analysis for MA residents
Solar map of Cambridge, MA
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Sunny Cambridge has just launched! Sunny Cambridge is the city-wide initiative that makes it easy for all types of residents to get solar power for their homes. Cambridge has lined up local solar installers through the EnergySage Solar Marketplace, which helps you request, receive, and compare solar quotes 100% online with support available every step of the way.
The City of Cambridge is working on many levels to reduce energy use and GHG emissions to make the city more sustainable. As a semifinalist in the nationwide competition for the $5 million Georgetown University Energy Prize, Cambridge Energy Alliance is encouraging residents to take actions to save energy, save money, and protect the environment. Get involved by signing up for a no-cost home energy assessment at the Cambridge Energy Alliance home page (www.cambridgeenergyalliance.org/winit)
and going solar at http://www.sunnycambridge.org
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"Greening Our Grid" Report Released April 24, 2017
MAPC is excited to announce the release of “Greening Our Grid,” a fact sheet and a case study detailing MAPC’s strategy to use municipal aggregation to help build new renewable energy in New England.
“Greening Our Grid” highlights MAPC's work with the City of Melrose as a case study for MAPC's innovative green municipal aggregation strategy. Melrose recently completed its first year of implementation. The city’s results demonstrate that economic and environmental goals can be met simultaneously, and provide a compelling example for others to follow.
The case study and fact sheet further describe the renewable energy strategy overall, why it can have a real impact on our electricity grid, and MAPC’s program to help other municipalities follow Melrose's lead. Arlington, Brookline, Gloucester, Hamilton, Millis, Somerville, Sudbury, and Winchester are poised to roll out their green aggregations within the year.
MAPC believes that municipal aggregation offers an opportunity for communities to leverage the collective buying power of their residents and businesses to transform our electric grid to cleaner sources of energy, while also providing cost savings and price stability for electricity. The fact sheet and case study will be useful tools for cities and towns that are exploring green municipal aggregation, as well as for those that already have active aggregation programs.
Check out “Greening Our Grid” today at http://www.mapc.org/greening-our-grid, and contact Patrick Roche, MAPC Clean Energy Coordinator, at proche@mapc.org for more information about MAPC's program.
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Cambridge Climate Change Game
Extending our work on face-to-face games, the MIT Science Impact Collaborative has developed a digital game on the health impacts of climate change that you can play alone on your computer or on your mobile phone. The game should take about 10-20 minutes. We would appreciate it if you could play the game at your convenience.
Play the game at http://www.doublecoconut.com/climate/
Any and all feedback on the game should be directed to Ella Kim at ella@mit.edu.
Thank you for your time and consideration!
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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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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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The Boston Network for International Development (BNID) maintains a website (BNID.org) that serves as a clearing-house for information on organizations, events, and jobs related to international development in the Boston area. BNID has played an important auxiliary role in fostering international development activities in the Boston area, as witnessed by the expanding content of the site and a significant growth in the number of users.
The website contains:
A calendar of Boston area events and volunteer opportunities related to International Development - http://www.bnid.org/events
A jobs board that includes both internships and full time positions related to International Development that is updated daily - http://www.bnid.org/jobs
A directory and descriptions of more than 250 Boston-area organizations - http://www.bnid.org/organizations
Also, please sign up for our weekly newsletter (we promise only one email per week) to get the most up-to-date information on new job and internship opportunities -www.bnid.org/sign-up
The website is completely free for students and our goal is to help connect students who are interested in international development with many of the worthwhile organizations in the area.
Please feel free to email our organization at info@bnid.org if you have any questions!
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Boston Maker Spaces - 41 (up from 27 in 2016) and counting: https://www.google.com/maps/d/viewer?mid=zGHnt9r2pQx8.kfw9evrHsKjA&hl=en
Solidarity Network Economy: https://ussolidarityeconomy.wordpress.com
Bostonsmart.com's Guide to Boston: http://www.bostonsmarts.com/BostonGuide/
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Links to events at over 50 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
MIT Events: http://calendar.mit.edu
MIT Energy Club: http://mitenergyclub.org/
Harvard Events: http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/harvard-events/events-calendar/
Harvard Environment: http://environment.harvard.edu/events/calendar/
Sustainability at Harvard: http://green.harvard.edu/events
Meetup: http://www.meetup.com/
Eventbrite: http://www.eventbrite.com/
Microsoft NERD Center: http://microsoftcambridge.com/Events/
Startup and Entrepreneurial Events: http://www.greenhornconnect.com/events/
Cambridge Civic Journal: http://www.rwinters.com
Cambridge Happenings: http://cambridgehappenings.org
Cambridge Community Calendar: https://www.cctvcambridge.org/calendar
Take Action MA: http://takeactionma.com
If you have an event you would like to see here, the submission deadline is 11 AM on Sundays, as Energy (and Other) Events is sent out Sunday afternoons.
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