Archive for April, 2011
Join us at GAIA’s reception 5/5/11
GAIA (Global Alliance for Incinerator Alternatives), one of the Ecology Center’s fiscally sponsored projects, invites you to a reception in the courtyard of their Berkeley office. Come learn about GAIA, and get brief updates on their global work while you snack on refreshments. The majority of the GAIA Coordination Team will be in town–including the [...]
Perennial Vegetable Workshop & Plant Sale 4/30/11
Join us this Saturday at the EcoHouse for a lecture and Q & A with Christopher Shein of Wildheart Gardens and Instructor at the Merritt College Landscape Horticulture Program. Learn to select and grow low-maintenance edible plants and how to naturalize annual crops such as lettuce, arugula, chard, and collards by seedsaving. Bring questions about [...]
Plastic: A Toxic Love Story. Author event tonight at Books, Inc. in Berkeley
Tonight, in Berkeley, journalist Susan Freinkel will be reading from her new book, Plastic: A Toxic Love Story at Books, Inc. Each year we use and consume more plastic; we’ve produced as much plastic in the past decade as we did in the entire twentieth century. Plastics draw on dwindling fossil fuels, leach harmful chemicals, [...]
A new place to take your e-waste in downtown Berkeley
In honor of Earth Day, GreenCitizen, a new business accepting electronics for recycling, celebrated its grand opening in downtown Berkeley, at 1971 Shattuck Avenue. The e-waste center accepts computers, printers, televisions, cell phone, batteries, and styrofoam for free or with a small charge depending on the item. Once customers drop off their e-waste, GreenCitizen monitors [...]
City of Berkeley partners with Catalog Choice to reduce unwanted mailings
Catalog Choice, a former fiscally sponsored project of the Ecology Center, has partnered with the City of Berkeley to help community members and businesses eliminate unwanted catalogues and mailings from swamping your inbox. Sign up for this free service and choose which catalogues you wish to opt out of. Click here to get started.
Come visit the Ecology Center’s “How-to” Tent at Berkeley Earth Day
This Saturday, April 23, the Ecology Center will be hosting free back-to-back mini-workshops on a wide variety of topics, from Top 10 Strategies for Biking in Traffic, to How to Sprout and Disaster Prepare, to Planting a Living Roof. Stop by the tent, located at Martin Luther King, Jr. Civic Center Park, to attend any [...]
East Bay residents contend for right to sell home-grown edibles
Recent efforts by East Bay homesteaders to sell home-grown produce have met stringent resistance from local government. In an issue of Terrain Magazine, we covered the difficulty North Berkeley resident Sophie Hahn met in obtaining a permit that would allow her to sell produce grown from her yard in a local CSA-type program. “That’s because [...]
Calling Alameda County Residents: Recycle to Win Cash & Prizes!
In 2003 the Ecology Center hosted a contest in Berkeley called Cash for Trash, a fun and educational event in which volunteers audited the trash cans of participating residents, and the residents with trash cans most devoid of recyclable material won cash money prizes. The event, funded by StopWaste, awarded a total of $7500 in [...]
Join the 350 Victory Garden Challenge, May 14-15, 2011
On the weekend of May 14-15, the Victory Garden Foundation, Inc. is hosting a challenge to transform 350 landscapes, vacant lots, and other spaces into productive food gardens. Planting your victory garden can be as simple as planting a fruit tree or a tomato plant, or as grand as planting a 2,000 square-foot water-wise and [...]
Urban Homesteading Book Release Party
Join Rachel Kaplan and K. Ruby Blume (Institute of Urban Homesteading) for a slide show and reading from their new book Urban Homesteading: Heirloom Skills for Sustainable Living. This colorful guide is full of practical information and inspiring stories from people already living the urban homesteading life. Richly illustrated with drawings and photographs, and featuring [...]
Warning: Artificial Food Dyes May Be Linked to Hyperactivity
A new study by the US government suggests that artificial food dyes, while not a cause of Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder, may worsen the condition in some children. While the food industry insists that “the safety of artificial colors has been affirmed through extensive review,” an FDA panel will vote next week on whether foods [...]
Climate in Crisis: Ecology and Socialism Book Event
Join us for an evening with Chris Williams and a discussion of his new book, Ecology and Socialism, and Anuradha Mittal, Executive Director of The Oakland Institute. Around the world, consciousness of the threat to our environment is growing. The majority of solutions on offer, from using efficient light bulbs to biking to work, focus [...]
Regenerating Solutions Salon: Swapping and Sharing
Stuff: the blessing and curse of modern life. If you’re like many Americans, you probably fluctuate between having too much of it and often needing or wanting just a little more. How can you satisfy your needs and desires without over accumulating? Join us on Thursday, April 7 at the Ecology Center to swap ideas with [...]
Bicycle Art Salon Climate Workshop
The Bicycle Art Salon invites residents to learn new ways to respond to climate change through personal, political, and community action. Minimize your greenhouse gas emissions, maximize your sense of community. Join us for a Climate Action Workshop at the Bridge Art Space. Dinner will be served from 5pm to 7pm (donation requested) and space [...]
Update of Ecology Center Recycling Program
Dear Ecology Center Supporters, At the City Council Meeting on Tuesday, March 29th, City Manager Phil Kamlarz presented his recommendations for closing the solid waste budget gap. His recommendations did not include termination of the Ecology Center recycling contract. His recommendations did include cost-cutting measures such as switching to one-driver routes, deleting unfilled positions, and [...]
City of Oakland Shuts Down Novella Carpenter’s Urban Farmstand
Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City: The Education of an Urban Farmer, has shut down her Oakland-based farmstand in response to a warning the City is imposing for lacking a conditional use permit to sell chard at her farmstand. “I’m getting in trouble for selling the chard. It is legal to grow vegetables and have [...]
