Think Green Fair Invites Exhibitors

The 2010 Think Green Fair will take place from 10am-9pm on June 26th, 2010 at the Olmsted County Fairgrounds, Graham Park. Join us for this full full day celebration of green living and sustainability in southern Minnesota!

What is Thinking Green? Thinking green means learning to live in a way that will reduce your impact on the environment, improve your quality of life, and save you money. Thinking Green is about coming together with neighborhoods, communities, organizations, and businesses to ensure that the choices we make today will not compromise the quality of life for future generations.

The fair will include a green expo, workshops, speakers, musical entertainment, local food, artisans and children’s activities providing you the opportunity to think green in all aspects of your life. The goal of the fair is to educate attendees in the areas of:

Efficiency/Renewable energy
Conservation/Protection of water and/or air
Earth friendly home and garden products
Waste reduction
Durable/Reusable products
Natural or locally produced foods (free-range, pesticide-free)
Green certification (USDA Organic, Energy Star, Fair Trade, LEED, other)
Health and Wellness
Promotion of environmental values

If your environmental business or organization would like to be a vendor or sponsor, find details at http://www.rneighbors.org/?page_id=30

Living Off the Grid, Off the Well, & Off the Furnace

Christian Milaster has built a house that operates on just $100 a year and is off-the-grid, , off-the-well, and off-the-furnace, yet has all the comfortable amenenities most people wouldn't want to give up. Milaster calls the buildingand design of his clean energy home "Project Licht 'n Stein" (German for "light and stone")" He shared the details of Project Licht'n Stein at a Southeast CERTs meeting last spring.

Watch videotaped excerpts of Christian Milaster's presentation to SE CERTs:
Project Licht 'n Stein - Introduction

Project Licht 'n Stein - Off-the-Grid

Project Licht 'n Stein - Off-the-Well

Project Licht 'n Stein - Off-the-Furnace


Links:
Project Licht'n Stein
BeCause Group Consulting

Eagle Bluff Sustainbility Campaign Slows

By Dawn Schuett
Rochester Post Bulletin 2/17/09

Eagle Bluff Environmental Learning Center, located in Lanesboro, MN, launched a sustainability initiative two years ago, with the goal of raising $2 million by 2010. The funds will be used for solar panels , a geothermal system and to make the Center a model of sustainabilty, demonstrating and educating visitors about renewable energy. To date, $800,000 has been raised, but the campaign has slowed due to the economy. Read the story here.

Family Workshop on Caring for Creation -Feb 15th

A Family Workshop on Caring for Creation
Presented by St. Olaf Lutheran Church & LCPPM
When: Sunday, February 15, 2009
Who: All churches in a 50 mile radius
What: Fun Family Sunday afternoon Event

An Intergenerational workshop on “Caring for Creation”
A Resource Fair showing how individuals can get involved to take care of God’s Creation – the world.

Where: St Olaf Lutheran Church (ELCA)*,301 1st Street, NW, Austin
Shedule:

Resource Fair 1:30 – 2:00 and 4:30 – 5:00
Workshop 2:00 PM to 4:30 PM

Why: Share biblical basis on “Creation Care” and how churches and their communities can effectively do so.
Cost: $5.00 per participant

Free child care for infants & preschoolers

Contact: St. Olaf Church (507) 433-8857

The Pending Resource Crisis: Understanding Our Biophysical and Biological Constraints to Sustainability

Nate Hagens, Gund Institute for Ecological Economics, will be speaking on human nuerobiology and sustainability oriented behavior, within the context of resource depletion.

What: Nate Hagens "The Pending Resource Crisis: Understanding Our Biophysical and Biological Constraints to Sustainability"
When: December 3rd, 1:30 to 3:00
Where: 335 Borlaug Hall, U of M St. Paul campus

Hagens posits that by acknowledging and understanding both our biophysical (resource depletion) and biological (cognitive barriers, habituation, and belief systems) constraints we will be better able to choose cultural opportunities for sustainability. He draws upon and synthesizes recent research in cognitive neuroscience, neuroeconomics, and evolutionary biology and their applications to sustainability oriented behaviors in addressing energy and environmental limits. Ultimately Hagens looks for those solutions that aligned us with not only what we have, but who we are. Discussion will follow.

Prior to coming to the Gund Institute, Nate developed trading algorithms for commodity systems and was President of Sanctuary Asset Management, Managing Director of Pension Research Institute, and Vice President at the investment firms Salomon Brothers and Lehman Brothers. Nate is an editor of The Oil Drum, an online global think tank devoted to energy and sustainability.