Sustainability News by Date
listings 1-20 of 32 
December 2019
12-01-2019
“The Town of Red Hook has areas that have been recognized locally, statewide, and nationally both as a scenic region, and for having significant historic architecture, landscapes, and viewsheds,” says Emily Majer, Town of Red Hook historian. “These attributes, along with the firm commitment to agriculture and open space, are character defining features of the town which contribute to the quality of life, and economic vitality. Consequently, it is important to be sensitive in the placement of ground and roof-mounted solar panels in designated historic districts and on historic structures, and to protect the viability of important agricultural land and built structures within the town.” Local Law 143-37 “Solar Energy Systems” spells out what kind, size, and placement of array is allowable in each zoning district in order to maximize the utilization of this renewable energy source, while preserving the historic and bucolic nature of the town.
“Small-scale hydropower was historically an important energy source in this area that may see a resurgence as we work to reduce our dependence on fossil fuel-based energy sources that are driving the climate crisis,” says Robyn Smyth, assistant professor of environmental and urban studies, Bard College.
The Town of Red Hook is home to the Hudson River National Historic Landmark District, the most prestigious designation of historic resources in the nation.
Panel Speakers
Session 1: Solar Energy
November 12, 3–5 p.m.
Emily Majer ’95, Town of Red Hook historian and deputy mayor, Village of Tivoli
Audrey Friedrichsen, land use and environmental advocacy attorney, Scenic Hudson
Jeff Irish, vice president, SunCommon
Moderated by Ben Hoen CEP ’06, research scientist, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory
Session 2: Hydro Energy
December 3, 3–5 p.m.
Emily Majer ’95, Town of Red Hook historian and deputy mayor, Village of Tivoli
Jan Borchert, head of hydro facility design and permitting, Current Hydro
Tracy Brown, restoration manager, Connecticut and New York Northeast Coldwater Habitat Program, Trout Unlimited
Weston Davey, historic site restoration coordinator, New York State Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation
Moderated by Robyn Smyth, assistant professor of environmental and urban studies, Bard College
For more information and to register send an email to [email protected] or call 845-758-7505.
Photo: Courtesy of Bard College
Meta: Subject(s): Environmental and Urban Studies Program,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Montgomery Place Campus |
Meta: Subject(s): Environmental and Urban Studies Program,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Montgomery Place Campus |
November 2019
11-26-2019
Photo: Natalia Drozdiak. Photo © Jan Van de Vel / Picture Alliance for DLD
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
11-06-2019
Photo: Nour Shaikh MBA ’16 and BCEP Director Eban Goodstein. Photo by Justin J. Wee for Bloomberg Businessweek
Meta: Subject(s): Bard Graduate Programs,Community Engagement,Economics,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard MBA in Sustainability,Center for Civic Engagement |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard Graduate Programs,Community Engagement,Economics,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard MBA in Sustainability,Center for Civic Engagement |
October 2019
10-08-2019
Through his research Chef Sean has uncovered and mapped out the foundations of the indigenous food systems through an indigenous perspective. His book, The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen, earned a 2018 James Beard Award and was a top 10 cookbook of 2017. He has become renowned nationally and internationally in the culinary movement of indigenous foods and is leading a movement to completely redefine North American cuisine.
Copies of The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen will be available for purchase in the lobby of LUMA Theater courtesy of Oblong Books. In addition, Ken Greene from Seedshed will be showcasing Haudenosaunee crops grown in the Native American Seed Sanctuary, a collaborative initiative with the St. Regis Mohawk tribe Seedshed and The Hudson Valley Farm Hub.
This event is sponsored by Bard College’s Center for the Study of Land, Air and Water, American Studies, Environmental and Urban Studies, Bard Farm, Bard Office of Sustainability, Experimental Humanities, The Bard Center for Civic Engagement, Trustee Leader Scholar Program, and Oblong Books. The Fisher Center’s presentation of the event is in tandem with the upcoming Live Arts Bard Biennial, Where No Wall Remains: An International Festival About Borders, November 21–24, 2019.
Chef Sean Sherman, Oglala Lakota, born in Pine Ridge, SD, has been cooking across the US and Mexico over the past 30 years, and has become renowned nationally and internationally in the culinary movement of indigenous foods. Chef Sean has studied extensively to determine the foundations of Native American indigenous foods systems to bring back a sense of Native American cuisine to today’s world. In 2014, he opened the business titled The Sioux Chef as a caterer and food educator in the Minneapolis/Saint Paul area. He and his business partner Dana Thompson also designed and opened the Tatanka Truck, which featured pre-contact foods of the Dakota and Minnesota territories.
In October 2017, Sean was able to perform the first decolonized dinner at the James Beard House in Manhattan along with his team. His first book, The Sioux Chef’s Indigenous Kitchen was awarded the James Beard medal for Best American Cookbook for 2018 and was chosen as one of the top ten cookbooks of 2017 by the LA Times, San Francisco Chronicle, as well as the Smithsonian Magazine. This year, Chef Sean was selected as a Bush Fellow, as well as receiving the 2019 Leadership Award by the James Beard Foundation. The Sioux Chef team of twelve people continues with their mission to help educate and make indigenous foods more accessible to as many communities as possible through the recently founded nonprofit North American Traditional Indigenous Food Systems (NATIFS). Learn more: natifs.org.
The Fisher Center develops, produces, and presents performing arts across disciplines through new productions and context-rich programs that challenge and inspire. At once a premier professional performing arts center and a hub for research and education, the Fisher Center supports artists, students, and audiences in the development and examination of artistic ideas and perspectives from the past, present, and future. The organization’s home is the Fisher Center for the Performing Arts, designed by Frank Gehry and located on the campus of Bard College in New York’s Hudson Valley. The Fisher Center offers outstanding programs to many communities, including the students and faculty of Bard, and audiences in the Hudson Valley, New York City, across the country and around the world. The Fisher Center illustrates Bard’s commitment to the performing arts as a cultural and educational necessity. Building on a 150-year history as a competitive and innovative undergraduate institution, Bard is committed to enriching culture, public life, and democratic discourse by training tomorrow’s thought leaders.
Photo: Photo by Heidi Ehalt
Meta: Subject(s): Bard Farm,Division of Social Studies,Environmental and Urban Studies Program,Environmental/Sustainability,Fisher Center,Inclusive Excellence | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs,Center for Civic Engagement,Center for Environmental Sciences and Humanities,Fisher Center |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard Farm,Division of Social Studies,Environmental and Urban Studies Program,Environmental/Sustainability,Fisher Center,Inclusive Excellence | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs,Center for Civic Engagement,Center for Environmental Sciences and Humanities,Fisher Center |
10-01-2019
Photo: John Lipscomb, of the Riverkeeper conservation group, aboard the Ian Fletcher. Photo courtesy Riverkeeper
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
10-01-2019
Photo: Patagonia Worn Wear Tour at Bard College. Photo by Eliza Watson '21
Meta: Type(s): Staff | Subject(s): Bard Graduate Programs,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Center for Environmental Policy |
Meta: Type(s): Staff | Subject(s): Bard Graduate Programs,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Center for Environmental Policy |
September 2019
09-30-2019
The website is organized to streamline and standardize the process for evaluating and implementing a potential micro hydropower site responsibly. The site breaks down the requirements for assessing, implementing, and maintaining a micro hydropower system. Using the Saw Kill Project as an example, lessons learned are provided as a resource for landowners, local governments, and researchers alike.
The MicrohydroNY website will be updated on a regular basis with news about the Saw Kill Project and changes that affect micro hydropower in New York State. Visitors are encouraged to explore the website and sign up for direct emails from MicrohydroNY at microhydrony.org.
Photo: Photo by Jaime Martorano
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Community Engagement,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Center for Environmental Sciences and Humanities,Montgomery Place Campus |
Meta: Type(s): General | Subject(s): Community Engagement,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Center for Environmental Sciences and Humanities,Montgomery Place Campus |
09-20-2019
The event is sponsored by the Bard Center for Civic Engagement, Office of Sustainability, Environmental and Urban Studies Program, and Lifetime Learning Institute.
About the Author
Isabella Tree writes for publications such as National Geographic, Granta, and the Guardian, and is the author of five nonfiction books. Her articles have been selected for the Best American Travel Writing and Reader’s Digest Today’s Best Non-Fiction, and she was Overall Winner of the Travelex Travel Writer Awards. Her latest book Wilding: returning nature to our farm charts the story of the pioneering rewilding project in West Sussex where she lives with her husband Charlie Burrell. Forced to accept that intensive farming on the heavy Sussex clay was economically ruinous, they decided to step back and let nature take over. By introducing free-roaming herbivores—proxies of the large animals that once roamed Britain—the Burrells’ degraded agricultural land has become a functioning ecosystem again. In less than 20 years, wildlife has rocketed and numerous endangered species have made Knepp their home. The Knepp experience challenges conventional ideas about our past and present landscapes, and points the way to a wilder, richer future—one that benefits farming, nature, and us.
For more information about the book, visit nyrb.com.
For more information about the author and Knepp Castle Estate, visit isabellatree.com and knepp.co.uk.
Meta: Subject(s): Community Engagement,Environmental and Urban Studies Program,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Center for Civic Engagement |
09-12-2019
Meta: Type(s): Staff | Subject(s): Community Engagement,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Center for Civic Engagement |
August 2019
08-27-2019
Photo: Photo by Tom Wool
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
08-27-2019
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Bard Graduate Programs,Environmental and Urban Studies Program,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Center for Environmental Policy,Center for Environmental Sciences and Humanities |
08-27-2019
Photo: Bard Professor Gidon Eshel
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard Farm,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Environmental and Urban Studies Program,Environmental/Sustainability |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard Farm,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Environmental and Urban Studies Program,Environmental/Sustainability |
08-10-2019
Photo: Bard Professor Gidon Eshel
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Environmental and Urban Studies Program,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Environmental and Urban Studies Program,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
08-08-2019
“While widely replacing meat with plants is logistically and culturally challenging, few competing options offer comparable multidimensional resource use reduction,” write Eshel and coauthors Paul Stainier, Alon Shepon, Akshay Swaminathan, all of Harvard University.
In their study, “Environmentally Optimal, Nutritionally Sound, Protein and Energy Conserving Plant Based Alternatives to U.S. Meat,” Eshel and his coauthors used a computer model to devise hundreds of plant-based diets to replace either beef alone or all three dominant U.S. meat types: beef, poultry and pork. Plant-based diets consisted predominantly of soy, green pepper, squash, buckwheat and asparagus. The authors’ goal was to model a range of plant replacement diets that were at least as nutritious, if not more beneficial, than the meats they replaced, while also assessing their environmental impact. Diets were modeled to exactly match the protein content of the meat they replace—13 grams of protein per day from beef or 30 grams of protein per day from all three meat types—while also satisfying 43 other nutrient requirements, such as vitamins and fatty acids.
Buckwheat and tofu jointly delivered a full third of the total protein of diets that replaced all meats, yet accounted for only 12 percent of the nitrogen fertilizer and water and less than 22 percent of the cropland needed to produce the meats they replaced. Soy contributed the most protein to beef-replacing diets, but accounted for only six percent of the overall nitrogen fertilizer needed to produce beef. Replacing meat with plant alternatives was estimated to save approximately 29 million hectares of cropland, three billion kilograms of nitrogen fertilizer, and 280 billion kilograms of carbon dioxide per year. Food-related water use was projected to rise by 15 percent.
Gidon Eshel is a research professor of environmental physics at Bard College. He earned a BA from Haifa University and MA, MPhil, and PhD degrees from Lamont-Doherty Earth Observatory of Columbia University.
Photo: Bard College Research Professor Gidon Eshel. Photo by Tony Rinaldo
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard Farm,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Environmental/Sustainability |
Meta: Type(s): Faculty | Subject(s): Bard Farm,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Environmental/Sustainability |
June 2019
06-18-2019
Bard alumna Joanna Letz focused on agriculture in California’s Central Valley for her Senior Project. Today, she’s putting unused urban space to use by growing organic flowers on rooftop plots in downtown Berkeley.
Photo: Bard College Research Professor Gidon Eshel. Photo by Tony Rinaldo
Meta: Subject(s): Bard Farm,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Subject(s): Bard Farm,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
06-04-2019
There are more than 7,500 miles and a seemingly unbridgeable cultural divide between Freeport, Maine, and Kolkata, India, but to recent Bard graduate Evan Tims, the differences pale in the light of a shared global crisis.
Photo: Bard College Research Professor Gidon Eshel. Photo by Tony Rinaldo
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Alumni | Subject(s): Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
06-04-2019
Alexandra Criscuolo developed the Kickstarter Environmental Resources Center, an information hub to help product creators on Kickstarter design for sustainability.
Photo: Bard College Research Professor Gidon Eshel. Photo by Tony Rinaldo
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard MBA in Sustainability |
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard MBA in Sustainability |
May 2019
05-17-2019
Photo: Assistant Professor of Biology Gabriel Perron
Meta: Subject(s): Biology Program,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Subject(s): Biology Program,Division of Science, Math, and Computing,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
05-14-2019
Tims will study Bangla at the American Institute of Indian Studies (AIIS) in Kolkata, India. Spoken from the densely populated nation of Bangladesh to the Kolkata metropolis in the Indian state of West Bengal, Bangla is the seventh most spoken language in the entire world. With a population of 4.5 million, Kolkata is the largest city in East India and the third largest in India after New Delhi and Mumbai. In Kolkata, Tims will spend 20 morning hours per week in the classroom focusing on grammar, conversation, pronunciation, journal writing, and dictation language classes. In the afternoons, Tims will take a cultural activity class, such as singing, dancing, storytelling, cooking, or painting, and meet with his native language partner for Bangla conversation practice. Tims will engage in weekly local group excursions in order to explore the area, gain in-depth knowledge of culture and history, and meet locals from different backgrounds. Tims will also travel on one overnight excursion to Bishnupur. The summer study culminates in an independent project of his choosing, presented to his fellow classmates entirely in Bangla. During his stay, Tims will live with a host family to maximize language learning and the cultural immersion experience.
“I study Bangla because someday I hope to work in the field of climate change induced migration,” says Tims. “Bangladesh is facing numerous challenges due to its low elevation and large coastline. Additionally, I have a strong interest in Bengali literature and culture. I intend to pursue graduate research on the narratives and forms of expression in relation to a changing environment.”
CLS is part of a wider government initiative to expand the number of Americans studying and mastering foreign languages that are critical to national security and economic prosperity. CLS plays an important role in preparing students for the twenty-first century’s globalized workforce and increasing national competitiveness. CLS is a program of the United States Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. It is supported in its implementation by American Councils for International Education.
Photo: Evan Tims '19
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Awards,Division of Languages and Literature,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Type(s): Student | Subject(s): Awards,Division of Languages and Literature,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
April 2019
04-16-2019
Photo: Students in Katrina Light's Reimagined Farms class work in the greenhouse on Bard's Montgomery Place Campus. Photo by China Jorrin '86.
Meta: Subject(s): Environmental and Urban Studies Program,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
Meta: Subject(s): Environmental and Urban Studies Program,Environmental/Sustainability | Institutes(s): Bard Undergraduate Programs |
listings 1-20 of 32