Climate Change

"We spend almost all of our time indoors and this can impact public health in a negative way," the University of California's William Nazaroff told environmentalresearchweb. "If we don't pay attention to this issue, the forces of climate change will make things worse."

For those of you adaptation fans out there who couldn’t make it to Denver the first week of April, you missed out on an event that is getting rave reviews.

1999 Switzer Fellow Erika Zavaleta strives to bridge ecological theory and research to sound conservation and management practice in her work and personal life. Between 2008 and 2010, she and husband Bernie Tershy worked with Anni Tilt of Berkeley-based Arkin Tilt Architects and Santa Cruz builder Marc Susskind to design and build a home that did just that.

Diesel-powered vehicles are a significant source of pollution, impacting health and contributing to climate change. The Ditching Dirty Diesel Collaborative, a coalition of community, environmental advocacy and public health departments, is working together with the Pacific Institute to reduce the impact of this pollution on low-income communities in the San Francisco Bay Area.

Solar power is often hailed as one of the cleanest available sources of energy, but that claim may not be entirely true. Numbers provided by the California Department of Toxic Substances Control show that solar panel manufacturers in the state produced more than 46-million pounds of hazardous waste between 2007 and 2011. Listen to the story

Are you a homeowner, interested in finding ways to make your home or investment property more sustainable? Then listen to Beverly Craig (1994) discuss lessons learned from six years working on improving the water and energy performance of multifamily affordable housing with Homeowner's Rehab, a nonprofit that owns over 1,000 units of affordable housing in Cambridge, Massachusetts.

Kristen Pratt is the Program Coordinator for the Chicago Conservation Corps (C3) at the Peggy Notebaert Nature Museum. One of the group's most successful projects has been the Community Weatherization Action Teams (CWAT) program, which helps volunteers plan weatherization events and campaigns all over the city. Over 25,000 homes have been weatherized through the city program and with their assistance.

Thanks to a Switzer Foundation Professional Development Grant, I had the opportunity in January to attend the 13th National Conference on Science, Policy and the Environment, titled “Disasters and Environment: Science, Preparedness and Resilience.” The conference brought together experts from many disciplines and sectors to delve into the complex challenges associated with preparing for, responding to, and recovering from natural disasters.

2008 Switzer Fellow Beckie Menten is the Energy Efficiency Coordinator for the Marin Energy Authority, the first Community Choice Aggregation (CCA) system in California. Community Choice Aggregation allows cities and counties to aggregate the buying power of individual customers to secure alternative energy supply contracts.