Zero waste in action at a huge festival in Michigan. Achieved 90% landfill diversion in only three years of zero waste implementation. Speaker will not be at ISTC in person but you are welcome to come to the Illinois Sustainable Technology Center to view the webinar.

In 2018, long-standing sponsor Toyota approached the Ann Arbor Summer Festival (A2SF) with a challenge to create social impact in southeast Michigan by changing community behaviors around sustainability and the environment. Over the past two seasons, A2SF has implemented a dramatic waste management transformation, created educational opportunities, and presented community-collaborative art programming. The operational goal? To become a zero waste event with 90% landfill diversion over three years.

Come Join us for our Speaker, James Carter who is the Programming & Operations Manager, Ann Arbor Summer Festival. James divides his time between programming A2SF and managing staff in-season. He’s led the Festival Footprint Initiative to transform A2SF into a zero waste event, and his focus is social impact through artistic programming and community engagement. James has curated and produced performing and visual art for 19 years. He co-founded the Manhattan-based theater company terraNOVA Collective and presented world-class performers in its soloNOVA Arts Festival, such as Taylor Mac, W. Kamau Bell, Nilaja Sun, The Bengsons, Erin Markey, and Emily DeCola. James also served as Season Producer for the Ensemble Studio Theatre. As the editor for the Civilians’ Extended Play, he worked on Lynn Nottage’s immersive and interactive community created installation “This is Reading,” which was born of research for her Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Sweat.”

Join Facilities & Services and the Champaign County Sustainability Network (CCNet) for this virtual celebration of the U of I’s Tree Campus USA designation.

Join us on Zoom! >>> (Meeting ID: 298 808 344; Password: 556074)

Join us on ZOOM >>>

Meeting ID: 722 887 599

Password: Keeling

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Join iSEE, the School of Earth, Society, and Environment, the School of Chemical Sciences, and the Departments of Atmospheric Sciences as former U of I graduate student Katharine Hayhoe delivers this year’s “zero-carbon” lecture. Hayhoe is   climate scientist, a Political Science Professor, Director of the Climate Center, and an associate in the Public Health program of the Graduate School of Biomedical Sciences at Texas Tech University. She is also a principal investigator for the Department of Interior’s South-Central Climate Adaptation Science Center. Her research currently focuses on establishing a scientific basis for assessing the regional to local-scale impacts of climate change on human systems and the natural environment.

Abstract: “Gravity doesn’t care what we believe; if we step off a cliff, we’re going down. And a thermometer doesn’t give us a different answer, depending on how we vote. Yet today, the best predictor of whether we agree that climate is changing and humans are responsible isn’t our level of education or our degree of scientific literacy: It’s simply where we fall on the political spectrum.How can good science inform sound decision-making in a world permeated by the false notion, as Isaac Asimov said, that ‘democracy means that my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge’? The answer lies not in the physical sciences, but in the social science of how we as humans interact with information. By understanding the true roots of denial, it can be possible to constructively engage with deliberate attempts to politicize the science and even identify unexpected areas of common ground on which to build bridges rather than deepen existing trenches.”

View this Live on our Facebook event page! >>>

Join iSEE in the celebration and discussion of the Illinois Climate Action Plan (iCAP). During this event, we will showcase and celebrate a draft of the iCAP 2020 and the hard work of the many people who contributed their time and effort this past year. All are invited!

Join the Solar Decathlon for a virtual guest lecture featuring Tao Xu, Professor of Physical Chemistry and Nanotechnology at Northern Illinois University, as he dives into his research on the future of perovskite solar cells! Professor Xu’s current research focuses on the design, synthesis, characterization and applications of novel materials, nano scale structures and assembles for energy and environmental science and technologies including solar energy conversion, electrical energy storage, chemical catalysis,  and gas sensors.

Click here for the zoom lecture >>>