April 17-22 is Earth Week at Yale. Groups around campus are hosting events to celebrate our planet and the efforts of those who steward it. If you’re planning a sustainability-related event during the week that you would like to have featured, contact the Yale Office of Sustainability, and it will be added here.
Thursday, April 13
Native Plant Garden at La Casa
La Casa Cultural, 301 Crown Street, 1:00 PM – 5:00 PM
Please join us for digging, planting, rock painting, food, and fun! This garden will provide habitat for butterflies and other pollinators, and will beautify La Casa for many years to come. For more information, email maclovia.quintana@yale.edu.
Tuesday, April 18
Earth Week Bulldog Butt Hunt
The Anlyan Center at the Corner of Cedar and Congress, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
In celebration of Earth Week, Tobacco-Free Yale has teamed up with the Office of Sustainability and Being Well at Yale to sponsor the Bulldog Butt Hunt. We are calling all citizen scientists to help us collect cigarette butts throughout the designated smoking areas and other hot spots on the Medical School campus. Data collected will help assess and improve the environmental impacts of tobacco-related litter as we move toward a Tobacco-Free campus. All participants will be provided with gloves and collection bags plus some fun Tobacco-Free Yale swag. A special appearance from Boola the Bulldog will help kick off the event. No need to stay the full hour, but please register to help us plan. Meet in front of the The Anyan Center (TAC Building) on the corner of Cedar and Congress. The raindate is April 19. Contact beingwell@yale.edu for questions.
Wednesday, April 19
Paper or…Canvas? Plastic Pollution & the Law & Politics of Change
Yale Law School, Room 127, 5:30 PM – 7:30 PM
When California voters approved a landmark law banning sale or distribution of throwaway plastic bags, the door to reform seemed to open throughout the country. But did it? Six states have moved in recent years to pre-empt any local effort to restrict plastic bags at groceries, including in Indiana, with a measure signed by Mike Pence. And in February, Governor Andrew Cuomo bowed to pressure from plastic manufacturers and some state lawmakers to block a move by New York City to discourage polluting bags. Does pre-emption have staying power? Or can evidence of taxpayers’ burden from cleaning up costly blight and consumers’ shift to reusable products alter the politics of plastic waste, including now in Connecticut? Let’s hear from frontline leaders.
Thursday, April 20
World Needs More Energy and Less CO2: Tough Questions, Hard Choices and Possible Solutions
Burke Auditorium, Kroon Hall, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
The world needs more energy. Well over a billion people live without access to electricity. More than a million people join the worldʼs population each week. And the parts of the world where the population is growing most rapidly are places with the least energy and the greatest poverty. Under almost any energy scenario, world energy demand will continue to grow. We have the resources to meet these growing demands. The challenge is that those fuels that supply more than 80 percent of the globe’s primary energy needs also produce the most CO2. And with that increase in CO2 comes climate change. This talk will address the difficult choices we face in making decisions regarding our energy future, focusing around the central issue of how to meet the challenge of providing more energy while reducing CO2 emissions. Who and what will determine the energy haves and have nots? What are the solutions with the greatest probability of success towards lowering CO2 in the coming decades? What role should government policy, the private sector and individuals play?
Friday, April 21
Graduate Conference in Religion & Ecology: Ethos, Echoes and the Environment
Sterling Divinity Quadrangle, 8:00 AM – 6:00 PM
The conference’s theme, Ethos, Ethics, and the Environment, reflects a desire to provide a space for students to engage in dynamic, interdisciplinary conversations across curricular boundaries, and strives to connect ethos with ethics, and ethics to applicable practicality. How do beliefs about the environment affect the use of and engagement with the natural world?
As an international interdisciplinary conference, we have students presenting on Environmental Studies, Environmental Humanities, Forestry, Conservation, History, Historiography, Social Sciences, Food Studies, Philosophy, Ethics & Morals, Theology, Religious Studies, Animal Ethics, Law & Policy, and Business & Management, among others. We have strongly encouraged interdisciplinary work across these topics to reflect the interdisciplinary nature of this conference. Our presenters range from undergraduate students to PhD candidates, and even include farm & faith professionals who are implementing our academic work in the workplace.
Interested attendees are welcome to come and watch students present. We recommend an RSVP by April 15th to ferns@yale.edu to accommodate seating and room preparation. Admission is free to the public. Lunch is provided for conference presenters, and the Yale Divinity School Refectory will be open for attendees to purchase food and beverages.
Peabody Museum Connect to the Earth!
Yale Peabody Museum, 11:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Join us for Earth Day and rediscover the wonders of nature. Explore specimens from our collections that are rarely on display, and learn about the beetles, birds, and botanical bounty that share our planet home. We’ll have fun and engaging activities for the whole family, and representatives from many New Haven area organizations working to protect our environment and create a sustainable future will be here sharing their expertise and opportunities.
Strawberry Planting
Yale Community Forest Garden, Northside of 195 Prospect Street, 12:00 PM – 1:00 PM
Join the FE&S Environmental Stewardship Committee to plant these tasty additions to our community’s Forest Garden in honor of Earth Day. Meet between Kroon and Sage. Gloves, spades, and good vibes provided.
33rd F&ES Research Conference
Kroon Hall, 3rd floor, 195 Prospect Street, 4:00 PM – 5:00 PM
The 33rd Annual F&ES Environmental Research Conference is a full day of research presentations that highlights the diverse environmental research being conducted by the student community at F&ES. The Conference will culminate with a keynote address on leadership for sustainability by Pamela Matson, the Dean of the School of Earth Energy & Environmental Sciences at Stanford University.
Saturday, April 22
Rock to Rock Earth Day Ride
Common Ground to East Rock Park, 8:00 AM – 3:00 PM
The Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies (F&ES) Urban Resources Initiative is co-organizing the 9th Annual Rock to Rock Earth Day Ride Saturday, April 22. It is not too late to register for our town’s largest Earth Day celebration, which travels from West Rock to East Rock and will lead into the March for Science New Haven. The March for Science will meet at East Rock Park – College Woods at 2:00 PM. New Haven Mayor Toni Harp and F&ES Dean Indy Burke will both join the Earth Day Ride. Dean Burke will speak at the March for Science. There will also be a People’s Climate March in Washington, D.C. on Saturday, April 29 to stand up for our communities and climate.
Cross Campus Flea Market
Cross Campus, 12:00 PM – 3:00 PM
The Sustainability Service Corps, a student group operating within the Office of Sustainability, is organizing a flea market on Cross Campus from 12 PM - 3 PM this Saturday. The motto is “take an item, leave an item,” so swing by with any old books, clothing, accessories, and small furniture to give your old things a new home! Or, feel free to swing by and peruse the assortment of items to see if anything catches your eye (it’s OK if you didn’t bring anything!) There will also be a booth to learn (through a fun game) about the different networks that exist at Yale for buying/selling/and recycling items on campus. Note that we will not be accepting large furniture.
Dig Day
West Campus, 800 West Campus Drive, all day
Celebrate Earth Day and get your hands dirty! Come help prepare plots on West Campus to plant hard red spring wheat and wheatgrass called Kernza. There will be lots of food and music and all tools provided. Come for an hour or stay all day. When finished, we’ll celebrate with a bonfire and s’mores at the Landscape Lab firepit. All our welcome.
Contact: Rachel.McMonagle@yale.edu; 412-508-8281
Sunday, April 23
Sourdough-making Workshop
Pierson College, 1:00 PM – 4:00 PM
Multi-day Activities
Editing Nature Summit
April 20 – 22
Rooted in a deep respect for science, our planet and each other, the Editing Nature Summit seeks to integrate science and wisdom to honor the complexity of gene editing and the networks it could affect. Pioneering a new model based on inclusivity and transparency, Editing Nature will foster dialogue that spans disciplines and viewpoints to explore this important issue. A series of public talks given by thought leaders from ecology, genetics, public policy, ethics, journalism, engineering and architecture will broaden our perspectives and spur conversation, while intimate round table discussions will delve into the potential of gene editing and seek to steer its responsible use. The mission of the Editing Nature Summit is to cultivate creativity from diversity and innovate thoughtful solutions for our planet.
Public events include a keynote session on Thursday, April 20 at 4:30 P.M. at the Yale Peabody Museum, and short talks on Friday, April 21 at 9:30 A.M. in Rosendfeld Hall. Register here.
Genealogies of the Excessive Screen
April 19 - 21, 3:00 PM, Yale Center for British Art
Genealogies of the Excessive Screen is a project that looks to examine the proliferation and transformation of screens in contemporary culture in a new historical light. The aim is to construct an interdisciplinary genealogical investigation that would recover and rethink an environmental history of screens.
Co-organized by Yale professors Francesco Casetti, Rüdiger Campe, and Craig Buckley, the initiative challenges the idea that the present proliferation of media screens represents an expansion of models derived from the movie and television screen. The project invites scholars to reconsider the obscured, eccentric, and diverse environmental manifestations of the screen, and asks how recovering this lost environmental history might enable us to rethink the problem of the screen today. These programs will be live-streamed online.
Wednesday, April 19 The Enlightened Screen: Atmospheric Media
Thursday, April 20 Strange Shadows: The Magical Sublime
Friday, April 21 The Panorama as Global Landscape
Espejismo: A Festival of Borrowed Reflections
Bekenstein Atrium, Yale School of Management
On Monday, April 3rd, SOM launched ESPEJISMO: A Festival of Borrowed Reflections, an artistic collaboration with Colombian-American artist Yazmany Arboleda and the creative agency limeSHIFT.
From April 24th through 30th, Espejismo will fill the Bekenstein Atrium of the Yale School of Management with mirrors borrowed from Yale students and the New Haven community. Laid across the floor of the atrium, the mirrors will transform the space into a garden of reflections that builds community by inviting reflection on the perspective of others. The project, initiated by a team of SOM students and brought to life by Arboleda, is inclusive and accessible in response to the current divisive and polarizing cultural climate.
CTrides Earth Week
April 17-21
CTrides, a program of the Connecticut Department of Transportation, helps commuters find the best way to get to work or school and offers information and resources for travel options throughout the state. CTrides offers carpool, vanpool, bus, train, biking, walking, and teleworking solutions. During CTrides Earth Week, find greener options for your commute with free, individualized commuter counseling at ctrides.com.