Sustainable Tucson will show 5 top-rated sustainability films
covering critical sustainability topics:

* The U.S. financial crisis erupted in 2008 and still looms on the horizon.
* Resource depletion including non-renewable fossil fuels and clean water threatens further economic growth.
* Global warming and climate change threaten most life-forms including people and future food.
* Social disruption following economic dislocation and government contraction can threaten our capacity to solve-problems and build a more sustainable culture.
* Many solutions are being identified but most require abandoning “business as usual.”

Sunday, August 12th.

1) 11th Hour    1:00 – 2:30pm, is a comprehensive presentation of the sustainability crisis and a pathway out of our predicament. Many sustainability leaders are interviewed including  Wes Jackson, Paul Hawken, David Suzuki, Kenny Ausubel, David Orr, Janine Benyus,, Stuart Pimm, Richard Heinberg, Paolo Soleri, Thom Hartmann, Lester Brown, James Hillman, Joseph Tainter, James Woolsey, Stephen Schneider, Stephen Hawking, Sandra Postel,  Bill McKibbon, James Hansen, Dr. Andy Weil, Ray Anderson, Andy Lipkis, Tom Linzey, Herman Daly, Peter Warshall, Jerry Mander, Mikhail Gorbachev, Bruce Mau, William McDonough, John Todd, and Gloria Flora among others.

2) Inside Job     2:30 – 4:15pm, is an award-winning documentary describing the financial crisis which erupted in 2008 and continues to play out today as the global economy is beginning to contract. Financial experts help tell the story of how the largest financial bubble in history grew and finally burst. These include Simon Johnson, George Soros, Satyajit Das, Paul Volker, Nouriel Roubini, U. S. Rep. Barney Frank, Kenneth Rogoff, Raghuram Rajan, Martin Wolf, Christine Lagarde, and among others.

3) Power of Community    4:15 – 5:00pm, is a special film describing how the island nation of Cuba became more self- sufficient and resilient after the food and energy subsidies ended from the Soviet Union which collapsed in 1991.

Monday, August 13th,

1)  Taken For A Ride 5:00 – 6:00pm, is a documentary about how the many electric street car systems in U.S towns and cities were intentionally scrapped by a group of automobile-related corporations. The result is that the U.S. is the only industrial country in the world without electric rail systems within and between most cities.

2) Blind Spot   6:15 – 7:45pm, is a comprehensive presentation of the sustainability crisis and the need to find a pathway out of our predicament. Many sustainability leaders are interviewed including Richard Heinberg, Lester Brown, U. S. Rep. Roscoe Bartlett, Albert Bartlett, Joseph Tainter, David Pimental, Terry Tamminen, Bill McKibben, James Hansen, David Korten, Derrick Jensen, and William R. Catton, Jr. among others.

Sustainable Tucson August Film Festival  – August 12th and 13th

Joel D. Valdez Main Downtown Library, Large Lower Level Meeting Room,
101 N. Stone, Tucson, AZ

Free lower level parking off Alameda St.

Doors open at 1:00 pm on Sunday, August 12th.
Doors open at 4:45 pm on Monday, August 13th.

The Sustainable City Project will address many areas, including renewable energy, climate change, economic development, affordable housing, transportation, water management, public health and ecosystem conservation.

From the UA News:

Through the UA partnership, the project is designed to build and support teams composed of University faculty members and students representing a diverse array of academic disciplines – architecture, landscape architecture, city and regional planning, environmental science, geography and development and public administration – and representatives from local and state agencies, community groups, developers, business and industry.

“This initiative is a great opportunity to make UA research on sustainability – especially in climate, solar energy, water and ecology – more relevant and accessible to our local community and for the University to better understand the needs and future of our city,” said Diana Liverman, co-director of the Institute of the Environment.

The Sustainable City Project is based at UA Downtown in the historic Roy Place Building at Stone Avenue and Pennington Street in Tucson. There, UA faculty members and students can connect with city officials and staff, community leaders and project developers for dialogue, vision, analysis and development of sustainable scenarios for the future.

UA Downtown also serves as a forum where academic, civic, cultural and business leaders can meet to discuss sustainability scenarios for the future of Tucson and Southern Arizona.

For the rest of the article, click here.

From the UA News:

From the news release:

$1 BILLION ‘GREEN CHALLENGE’ LAUNCHES

PITTSBURGH, PA (Oct. 11, 2011)– To “Save Energy, Grow Money,” the Billion Dollar Green Challenge invites colleges, universities and other nonprofits to invest a total of one billion dollars in self-managed green revolving funds that finance energy efficiency upgrades.

The Challenge is inspired by the exceptional performance of existing green revolving funds, which have a median annual return on investment of 32%, as documented by Greening The Bottom Line <http://www.GreeningTheBottomLine.org> , a report published by the Sustainable Endowments Institute.

A bright spot in a rocky economy, these profitable investments are helping create green jobs in campus communities, while lowering operating costs on college and university campuses.

“We’re transforming energy efficiency upgrades from perceived expenses to high-return investment opportunities,” said Mark Orlowski, executive director of the Sustainable Endowments Institute, which is coordinating The Challenge along with 13 partner organizations.

The Billion Dollar Green Challenge launches publicly on October 11 at the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education conference in Pittsburgh. With more than 2,500 participants, the conference is the largest gathering to date on higher education sustainability.

In advance of the launch, 33 institutions have already joined The Challenge’s Founding Circle by committing to invest a cumulative total of more than $65 million in green revolving funds. In addition to Harvard, Stanford and ASU, other Founding Circle institutions include Caltech, Dartmouth, George Washington, Middlebury, the University of British Columbia, and Weber State University. (See complete list in the appendix.)

Several Founding Circle schools have already established funds and are enthusiastic about the benefits. Harvard’s Office for Sustainability Director Heather Henriksen said, “The Green Loan Fund has generated high returns on investment, while improving Harvard’s environmental impact and our bottom line.” Endowment investments, operating funds and alumni donations have all been used to establish green revolving funds at institutions across the country.

Guided by a 34-member expert advisory council, The Billion Dollar Green Challenge offers technical assistance, best practices sharing, access to an advanced web-based tool for managing green revolving funds, peer institutions’ project-specific data and invitations to specialized webinars and conferences.

At Stanford, Office of Sustainability Associate Director Fahmida Ahmed said, “Our fund has already financed over 200 small and large efficiency projects on campus, with an average simple payback period of just four years.”

The Billion Dollar Green Challenge has received financial support from the David Rockefeller Fund, HOK, John Merck Fund, Kresge Foundation, Merck Family Fund, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Roy A. Hunt Foundation, U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Green Power Partnership, and the Wallace Global Fund.

Starting October 11, please visit www.GreenBillion.org <http://www.GreenBillion.org>  for more information.

###

About the Sustainable Endowments Institute
The Sustainable Endowments Institute was founded in 2005 as a special project of Rockefeller Philanthropy Advisors. The Cambridge-based nonprofit organization has pioneered research and education to advance sustainability in campus operations and endowment practices.

APPENDIX: Billion Dollar Green Challenge – Founding Circle institutions

Agnes Scott College
Arizona State University
Bellevue College
Berkshire School
Bethany College
Boston University
Buffalo Niagara Medical Campus
Burlington College
California Institute of Technology
Daemen College
Dartmouth College
Denison University
Edgewood College
George Washington University
Georgia Institute of Technology
Green Mountain College
Hampshire College
Harvard University
Mars Hill College
Middlebury College
Northland College
Oregon State University
St. Lawrence University
Stanford University
Thompson Rivers University
Unity College
University of Arizona
University of British Columbia
University of Minnesota
University of New Hampshire
University of Oregon
Weber State University
Western Michigan University

Link to the online Green Course Guide is here.

Photo by Kate Kaemerle

And you thought math was just for calculating your bills.

University of Arizona mathematicians examined the beautiful patterns in cacti and explored the structures, which they found were based on Fabonacci numbers that often occur in plants from daisies to cacti. Patrick Shipman and Alan Newell at UA found that the patterns in the ribs of the saguaro cactus are designed by nature for a good reason – to be elastic.

For centuries people have observed numeric patterns in the plant world. Mathematicians put a name to it in 1202. The Fibonacci number pattern (0, 1, 1, 2, 3, 5, 8, 13, 21, 34, 55, 89, 144, 233 and so on) is natures way of designing efficiency, whether it’s in the leaf, flower, seed or stem pattern of plants or the ribs of a saguaro cactus. A combination of forces contribute to the curious numerology of the plant world. It involves geometry, biochemistry, elastic buckling and mechanical forces.

Call it nature’s numerology. Next time you look at the ribs of a saguaro or the seed pattern of a sunflower, marvel at the patterns and spirals that follow this mathematical pattern.

Psychology Today has a story about the University of Arizona mathematicians and their findings. Geeky but readable and fascinating. Read the whole article here.

Photo by Kate Kaemerle

A carbon footprint is amount of greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions caused a person, family or organization. Greenhouse gases are emitted by driving, clearing land, building, manufacturing products and consuming food, fuel, products and services. For the sake of simplicity, reporting is often in terms of the amount of carbon dioxide emitted.

Measuring your carbon footprint couldn’t be easier with the many online tools to calculate your use of resources from transportation and food to energy and recycling. Calculators are available for kids, adults, families, organizations and businesses.

I used the Nature Conservancy Carbon Footprint Calculator which is short and sweet and easily completed in a few minutes. The results from my eco-groovy lifestyle showed we use about half of the resources of a typical American two person family (yay!) but also shows in contrast to the world average I suck nearly three times as many resources, which gets a big boo. It also shows my household’s weak spot – transportation. That is our family’s biggest area for improvement, which would include driving less, getting more energy efficient vehicles, walking or biking more for short trips and using public transportation.

Here is a roundup of 15 carbon footprint calculators. Pick one in the category that applies to you, your family or business. At the tail end of the list there is a category just for kids. I knew you needed something for them to do today – I’ve got your back.

What surprises you? What would you do differently after seeing your results? Please comment with your thoughts.

"Fish Market" by Kate Kaemerle

How much plastic do fish eat? The short answer is a lot.

With more than 250 million tons of plastic being produced a year, over seven million tons ends up in the world’s oceans. The University of California, San Diego’s researchers at the Scripps Institution of Oceanography estimated over 9 percent of fish caught during their expedition in the North Pacific ocean gyre had small bits of plastic in their stomachs. This translated to up to 24,000 tons in this part of North Pacific alone.

The researchers caution that this figure is most likely an underestimate. The 9 percent figure doesn’t reflect the circumstances in which fish die, regurgitate or pass plastic fragments.

Once a fish has plastic in it’s stomach, the fish itself can absorb toxins into its body from the plastic. Then anything in the food chain that eats that fish, from other sea creatures to humans, is ingesting those toxins.

Did you just eat a plastic bag with that fish stick?

Scripps Intitute of Oceanography news release

NYTimes article

This is part of UA’s sustainability mission to green the UA campus including a range of strategies from energy and water conservation to harvesting food on campus.

Click here for a photo slide show and more information.

Addressing energy storage is one of the challenges with renewable sources as the sun and wind are variable. The first phase of the project will begin in August 2011 with the Compressed Air Energy Storage (CAES) technology designed by UA faculty and students.

Read the news release here.