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https://shorturl.at/QZyEm

SHOW UP THIS SPRING.

Earth Day is here!

For those of you in NYC, we’re looking forward to seeing you at our Earth Day 2025 Festival this Thursday, April 17 in Union Square! We’ll be there from 12 to 6 pm. RSVP on our website here.

For those of you around the world, you can continue to look out for our Earth Day 2025 Virtual Stage programming being released throughout the month!

– The Earth Day Initiative team

https://shorturl.at/3bxQN

EARTH DAY 2025 FESTIVAL
Thursday, April 17
12-6 pm
NYC’s Union Square (at Broadway and E. 17th Street)
More details here.

We have dozens of environmental organizations, climate campaigns, green living experts, and performers joining us for our festival this Thursday! Check out some of the great groups here:

• World Wildlife Fund is one of the leading conservation organizations in the world. Come find out more about their work protecting endangered species and our communities.

• Can soft plastics be recycled? Yes, with Clear Drop® SPC, which turns waste into recyclable blocks. Enter the raffle to win yours here.

• Have you considered how your investments impact the planet? Come talk with Domini about how your investment dollars can contribute to a greener, more sustainable future.

• Plastech Products are steps above biodegradable with plant-based home compostable products. They’re 100% Certified Compostable ZERO-plastic products for a cleaner, sustainable planet today and for generations ahead.

• Youth climate activists from Fridays for Future NYC are activating people to turn out to the Our City, Our Fight march on 4/19.

• JUST ICE Tea always chooses organic because it’s better for our tea drinkers, our farm workers, and the planet. “That’s our Message in a Bottle.”

EARTH DAY 2025 VIRTUAL STAGE

Check out our virtual stage programming, being released all month long!

• Flip the Script: Single-Use Plastics on Screen in Television and Film – WATCH NOW
  Sarah Yarkin (she/her), Actor + Alysia Reiner (she/her), Actress, Activist & Earth Day Initiative Board Member + Amelia Hanson (she/they), Plastic Pollution Coalition Project Manager

• Clean Energy and Resilience – WATCH NOW Megyn Price, Actor, Writer, and Director + Nelson Yip, Con Ed Director Strategic Planning – Resilience

• NYC Students Host a Mayoral Forum on Climate – WATCH NOW
  Shiv Soin, Co-Executive Director, TreeAge + Alyssa Shearer, Programming Director, March for Science NYC

• Electronics Waste: How to Go Green with Reused – STAY TUNED
  Lauren Benton, Back Market General Manager US + John Oppermann, Earth Day Initiative Executive Director

• Where Have Our Winters Gone? – STAY TUNED
  Bea Kim, Professional Snowboarder + Protect Our Winters Athlete Alliance Member + Erin Sprague, CEO Protect Our Winters

• A Conversation with Mary Robinson on Women’s Climate Leadership – STAY TUNED

  Mary Robinson, Former President of Ireland, Co-Founder of Project Dandelion, Member of The Elders + John Oppermann, Executive Director of Earth Day Initiative

Featured Virtual Stage Partner: Back Market is here to help make tech reliable, affordable, and better for the planet, too. Get the tech you need with up to 92% less carbon emissions than new. They work hand-in-hand with professional refurbishers to guarantee that every device has been tested and restored to perfect working condition according to industry standards. All for up to 70% less than brand new.

The post Thursday in NYC + now online around the world appeared first on Good News!.

#drhenrytanner #centralpark #tannerspring #henrytanner

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For the kind of person who has spent the past few years increasingly alarmed about climate, it might be strange to think of anything as looming larger than warming, which in recent decades has seemed to subsume not only all other ecological crises in the collective cultural imagination but also the existential fate of the species and the planet. The United Nations’ 15th international biodiversity conference just concluded in Montreal, and it received only a fraction of the press coverage lavished on the COP27 climate conference recently held in Sharm el Sheikh, Egypt. That imbalance may seem intuitive, given one of the core principles of climate action in the post-Paris-agreement era: that decarbonization should be the environmental goal above all others, and might even offer a silver bullet to solve (or at least alleviate) all sorts of other problems, from mass extinction and insect collapse to air pollution and global inequality.

For the cause of climate, this notion has been an undeniable boon, growing the movement by somewhat sidelining legacy concerns about conservation and forging alliances instead with forces that embrace technology, development and even “eco-modernism.” These years have also seen the rise of “degrowth,” and in recent intramural fights over permitting reform, climate centrists have argued that one major roadblock is sentimental old-guard activism, which amounts to a kind of climate NIMBYism. But in the long sweep of environmentalist history, the opposite story is more striking: “green” groups growing less attached to the natural world for its own sake and more invested in efforts to limit temperature rise for the sake of human flourishing.

One result has been genuine climate progress, and a rising hope that decarbonization, while still too slow, might unfold fast enough to at least avoid worst-case climate outcomes. But another is that the principles that gave rise to modern environmentalism 50 years ago are much less central to what goes by the name today: “Climate” has displaced “nature” as the primary locus of activist concern, pushing biodiversity somewhat farther from the policy center as well and affirming that the two causes are related but distinct. Among other things, this suggests the possibility that, however vital the work of cutting emissions, “addressing climate change will not ‘save the planet’” — as a headline of a recent piece in The Intercept, by Christopher Ketcham, put it.

That’s not because decarbonization requires catastrophic environmental harm. Though radically new infrastructure is necessary — new power lines, new building codes, new transportation systems — much of it would supplement or replace what exists today. While there are big questions about how to carry out the mining that will be necessary to produce a global green-energy boom, it would contribute only a modest increase to today’s mining sector and could even decrease overall mining.

The problem is that warming is just one of the many ways that human civilization is stripping the planet of its biological complexity. In fact, last December, in a commentary published in Conservation Letters, a group of biologists called climate change a “myopic lens” through which to view the biological decline of the planet and called warming far from “the most important horseman of the biodiversity apocalypse” — indeed more of a “mule,” powerful but slow. “The current perception that climate change is the principal threat to biodiversity is at best premature,” the authors wrote. “Although highly relevant, it detracts focus and effort from the primary threats: habitat destruction and overexploitation.”

Because we all live in the world as it is today, regarding both its dimly remembered past and its uncertain future from the relatively stable-seeming vantage of the present, it can be hard to understand the scope of even recent loss. But according to the World Wildlife Fund’s Living Planet Report, which looks at studies of some 32,000 species worldwide, vertebrate populations have declined on average by 69 percent since just 1970; since I was born in 1982, the decline has been more than 50 percent. In some ecosystems, the collapse of vertebrates has been even more drastic: In Latin America and the Caribbean, for instance, the studied populations have fallen on average by 94 percent since 1970, while among freshwater species that live in the world’s rivers and lakes, the estimated decline has been 83 percent.

As many as a million animal and plant species currently face the threat of extinction, according to the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (I.P.B.E.S.), a figure that translates to about 13 percent of bird species, 25 percent of mammals and 31 percent of sharks and rays. Insects are dying off, too — possibly more than 50 percent of them since 1970.

And while there are some success stories and local marks of ecological progress, today even the low estimates of global extinction rates suggest that overall, those rates are 100 times higher than would be expected without human activity; the less conservative estimates suggest extinction is happening thousands of times faster. Already 62 percent of global mammal biomass is livestock — animals raised by humans for our consumption. Four percent is wild. Taken together, humans and their food represent 96 percent of all mammal life on Earth.

One recent paper, published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change, suggests that only 3 percent of global ecosystems remain intact. Other global tabulations are less bleak, but not by much. According to the I.P.B.E.S. — think of it as the biodiversity equivalent of the climate-change I.P.C.C. body — three-quarters of all land environments have been degraded by human activity and about two-thirds of all marine environments have. And while climate skeptics have spent a lot of energy arguing that warming is actually “greening” the world because CO₂ is plant food, a wide-ranging new study found the opposite: The planet as a whole, which was most likely greening just a few decades ago, is now probably browning instead.

Almost certainly, all this will get somewhat worse before it gets even somewhat better. The needs of the energy transition are significant, if not world-breaking, as are the growth demands of the world’s billion poorest. There are signs of progress on “decoupling” growth from both carbon and resource intensity, but the gains to this point have been only relative. And while there are signs of policy progress on conservation as well, including a growing awareness among the world’s leading policymakers of the importance of protecting the world’s ecological patrimony, the predominant mood in Montreal was lament: that a dozen years after some less-ambitious biodiversity targets were set for 2020, none of them have been met.

We’ve been here before, with climate, before the Paris agreement — an imperfect protocol, which has rallied the world’s governments to the task of decarbonization. Those accords didn’t just point toward a new policy consensus; they helped usher in a cultural transformation as well, because among the things that the new generation’s climate alarm has produced is a far more widespread understanding that warming risks devastation to humans and human society, not just animals and ecosystems.

There does not seem to be a similar shift coming for biodiversity, whose story remains largely the one we know already from “Silent Spring” to “The Lorax,” from “The Sixth Extinction” to “The End of Nature.” Even the most ambitious proposals — preserving 30 percent of the planet’s surface, protecting the Amazon from further deforestation — seem to point to a future defined as much by normalization as by conservation. We may well look around at that denuded world a generation from now and blithely conclude that “everything is fine.” But we’ll still probably marvel in wondrous disbelief that the planet was ever as full of life as it was in 2023.

The post Has Climate Change Blinded Us to the Biodiversity Crisis? appeared first on Good News!.

#water #hour #un #peace #bell #pete #seeger #equinox #earth #day #john #mcconnell #secretary #spring #hemisphere

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Academic Year 2022-2023
All applications for Academic Year 2022-2023 are now open. Applicants may apply to one program: Summer 2022, Fall 2022, Academic Year 2022-23, Spring 2023, or Calendar Year 2023

The deadline for applicants to submit their applications will be: March 29, 2022.
Applications and Study Abroad Adviser certifications must be submitted by 5:00p.m. Eastern Time on the day of the deadline.

https://apply.iie.org/freemanasia

For more information and assistance with applications, contact Michael Mills, Director of National Fellowships and Scholarships at millsm@geneseo.edu

#freeman #asia #awards #study #scholarships #undergraduate #students #financial #need #academic #summer #fall #spring #march #adviser #deadline #certification #submit #michael #mills #2022 #2023 #director #national #fellowships

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BANNERMAN CASTLE TRUST COMPLETES 2019
PARKS AND TRAILS GRANT
The BCT would like to thank Parks and Trails New York for providing us with a grant for $63,000 to replace the cement sidewalks around the Bannerman Residence and the North Trail. The BCT matched the grant with $7,000. The masonry work was done by Aric Morgan of Masonry Plus. The walkways were replaced in two phases, with the first in September 2020 and the second phase being completed in April 2021.

Thank you again to Parks and Trails New York for supporting us with this grant and all the work they do for New York State Parks.

BANNERMAN ISLAND OPENS ON MAY 1, 2021
Discover the Mystery, Explore the History of
Bannerman Castle on Pollepel Island!

BOOK YOUR TOUR ONLINE AT
BannermanCastle.org

BCT SEEKS $75,000 FUNDING FROM PARKS AND TRAILS NY FOR A NEW STUDY TO FURTHER THE STABILIZATION OF THE CASTLE STRUCTURES AND TO INSTALL AMPHITHEATER

The Bannerman Castle Trust, Inc. (BCT) is a not-for-profit “Friends” organization of volunteers working with the New York State Office of Parks, Recreation and Historic Preservation to preserve the historic Bannerman Castle warehouse and former residence structures on Pollepel Island (Bannerman’s Island) in the Hudson Highlands State Park. In addition to our preservation mission, we provide public access to the island from May to October of each year for interpretive tours, theater events, concerts, school outings, and special events using our tour vessel, the Estuary Steward. We raise funds through our tour and events admission fees, as well as through grants and donations, to maintain our passenger vessel, docks and access stairs, island walking trails, and restroom facilities and also to fund stabilization of the historic structures and buildings.

Since 2011, BCT has made significant progress with structural rehabilitation of the former Bannerman family summer residence, the smaller castle structure on the western side of the island. The residence is now open to the public and contains interpretive displays on the history of Pollepel Island. In addition, the terrace and lawns adjacent to the residence have been stabilized and used for concert and theatrical performances, in addition to summer and fall outdoor movie screenings. Notably, the BCT’s crew of volunteer gardeners have also rehabilitated and replanted historic garden beds on the island, significantly enhancing the tour experience.

Our objective with the current grant application is to obtain funding to retain architects and engineers to develop a feasibility report for the construction of an outdoor amphitheater adjacent to the historic castle structures to allow for an expansion of performing arts events on Pollepel Island, with associated stabilization of the castle structures themselves for potential additional performance/backstage/support areas.

The BCT is dedicated to bringing together resources and funding to continue to stabilize the historic structures and buildings on Pollepel Island (Bannerman’s Island). The BCT raises awareness and educates the public and government organizations on the value and history of the island. The Trust has worked with NY State Parks to make the island safe for volunteers and for the public so that it can be enjoyed as an educational, cultural, historical, and recreational facility, promoting heritage tourism in the Hudson Valley.

BCT has applied for a 2021 Parks and Trails Grant for up to $75,000 to create the study. We need to raise a 10% match of $7,500. However, there is no guarantee as to the amount we will receive, so we need to continue to raise funds. Your support would be greatly appreciated.

We would like to thank you for your continued support.

-Leonard Warner, BCT President

PLEASE DONATE

THE BANNERMAN CASTLE TRUST IS GROWING!

The Board of Directors would like to welcome three outstanding community leaders to our Advisory Council: Chereese Jarvis-Hill of Events to Remember, Susan Pagones of Antalek and Moore Insurance, and Robert Slater, owner of Robert Slater, CPA.
Learn more about our new Advisory Council members

KAYAK TO BANNERMAN ISLAND WITH
BCT PARTNERS
STORM KING ADVENTURE TOURS

Book a Kayak Tour to Bannerman Island

Hudson Views provides mid-week guided boat tours of Bannerman’s Island for up to 6 adventurous people. Licensed Captain Rob Doyle exposes your senses to the beauty and history of the island while providing a memorable experience cruising on the Hudson River on his New 2021 Monterey M4 24’ boat. (Now Booking 3 hour tours for July onward. Pick up Beacon or Newburgh)”

845-224-3151

COMING THIS YEAR!
Check Our New Bannerman
Artifact Exhibit
by BCT Collector Mike Vashen

The Bannerman Residence will feature an exciting new exhibit this tour season. Volunteer members of Local Union 373 Plumbers & Steamfitters will be offering their services yet again with the design, construction, and arrangement of display cases to house military surplus items sold in the Bannerman catalogs. These antiques—on loan from Mike Vashen’s relic collection—have been selected to represent the various types of goods that were stored in the island’s Arsenal and sold at 501 Broadway, as well as through the mail. It will be a unique addition for visitors of all ages to enjoy.
——————————————————————————————————————————————————————————————–

BANNERMAN ISLAND GALLERY
150 Main Street
Beacon, NY 12508

2021 Proposed Schedule

Bannerman Island Paint-Out
Saturday, June 5th
Fine Art Paintings of the Hudson River and Bannerman’s Island
Opening in the Gallery, Second Saturday, Saturday, June 12th
through Sunday, September 5th

Garden and Harvest Exhibition
Featuring Fine Artworks of Gardens, Flowers and Vegetables
Opening Second Saturday, September 11th
through Saturday, November 7th

Bannerman Island Gallery Holiday Exhibitions
Open theme show for the holidays
Opening Second Saturday, November 13th through Winter 2022

The Bannerman Island Gallery
Open on Saturdays and Sundays from
12:00 pm to 5:00 pm

By appointment or chance
during the week.

For information contact:
Laurie Clark

845.831.6346

Bannerman Island Chefs Dinner
September 4th, 2021
Join Chef Noah Sheetz and the Bannerman Castle Trust for our 11th Annual Farm Fresh Chef’s Dinner on Bannerman Island.

Enjoy a five-course meal, a chance to purchase a fantastic piece of art, while helping the BCT raise funds for the preservation of Bannerman Island.

Musicians Judith Tulloch and Tony DePaolo will perform.

Third Sunday Music Tours 2021
Sponsored by
Mark and Sue Adams

Don’t miss our Third Sunday Music Concerts
and Self Guided Tours

The BCT is pleased that we can present these concerts safely this summer. This year we welcome new musicians Daryl Brown and SWP, and special guests from The Daisy Jopling Music Mentorship Foundation: Klettner Bros., and Josie and Nico. Both performed last September as opening acts for the Daisy Jopling Band in Illuminance on Bannerman Island.

May 16
Storm King Duo
Judith Tulloch & Steve Franchino

June 20
SWP Classic Rock
Daryl Brown

July 18
Klettner Brothers
Joseph and Anton Klettner
violin, accordion, & guitar

August 15
Toland Brothers
with special guest Alison Jolicoeur

September 19
Thistle
harpist & singer

October 17
Josie & Nico
Guitar & Sax

Purchase Tickets Here

We Bannerman Castle Trust Would like to Welcome Molly Foley as our New Tour Guide and Volunteer Coordinator

Molly has worked with the Bannerman Castle Trust as a tour guide for the last five years. Molly is one of the best guides and will continue to be a guide while she coordinates the guides and volunteers..

Congratulations to Molly and thank you for doing a great job on Bannerman Island

Now Hiring Tour Guides and a Concession Stand Manager.

Looking for a rewarding seasonal position? The Bannerman Castle Trust is looking for additional people to work as Tour Guides. We are also looking for a person to manage our gift shop concession stand.

This is a part-time position to work on weekends and on Wednesday, Thursday, or Friday evenings.

Great job for teachers, actors, and seniors.

For information call 845-831-6346.

Purchase Tickets Here

2021 Bannerman Island Movie Night
Sponsored by Showtime Cinema of Newburgh
Tickets go on sale June 1st

AUGUST 20th

Movies are presented under a licensing agreement with
SWANK
MOTION PICTURES
SPONSORS
2021
We are planning two more movies and would like to ask you which out of the following movies you would like to see?
Pick any two.

ET
Gremlins
Disney’s Snow White
Hitchcock’s Vertigo
Hitchcock’s Rear Window
King Kong 1933

AUGUST 27th
and SEPTEMBER 10th

Send your picks by May 1st to: BannermanGallery150@aol.com

The post Bannerman Spring Newsletter is Here! appeared first on Good News!.

The Winter scenery was taken by me, you can see that the branches are empty. The spring scenery was taken by my teachers in the campus this week, they are beautiful. I hope you like them.

Mingming

The post Peking University, China Scenery Submitted by Mingming Zhu, Good News Producer China appeared first on Good News!.

We are one human family, whether in the United States or in China or the rest of the world. As a member of this family, we have the responsibility and obligation to make our due contribution to our common home. Only when people all over the world get along with each other and unite together can we realize the good wish of world peace. Although there are many countries and different nationalities in the world, but we have only one Earth! Therefore, we must establish a community of shared future for mankind to truly treat all life is to treat yourself!

惟愿
The Prayer

男：街道空旷 夜色无常，
Male: The streets are desolate and the night obscures all,
一道道光逆风飞扬，
rays of light pierce through the wind,
天使与魔鬼相望，
Angels and Demons face one another,
前进的路上星光微茫。
Under the dime light the path forward is blurred

女： 生命蒙难 世界同殇，
Female: Life is cut short, and the world mourns,
一张张脸神 情绪高昂，
but their faces show relentless determination
希望和春天明朗，
Hope and spring are bright,
希望和春天明朗。
Hope and spring are bright.

男：天地玄黄 宇宙洪荒，
Male: Grand is the heaven and the earth, vast is the universe
众人报春 指手化霜，
People herald the spring as their fingertips warm away the frost.
唯愿家国无染 岁月绵长。
Praying for long lasting safety for both family and country.

女：天地玄黄 宇宙洪荒，
Female: Grand is the heaven and the earth, vast is the universe
众人报春 指手化霜，
People herald the spring as their fingertips warm away the frost.
唯愿灿烂笑容 如往昔 繁华缇裳。
Praying for brilliant smiles as before like beautiful embroidery

女：春怀暖阳 走出创伤，
Female: Wounds give way to the promised warmth of the spring sun.
黑色眼神 力量铿锵，
Black eyes show power and strength
雨过彩虹 涅槃凤凰，
like a rainbow after the rain,
like a Phoenix rising from the ashes.
唯愿紫气神州 日出东方。
Praying for the sun to continue rising in the East

男：山川异域 风月同天，
Male: The mountains and rivers maybe strangers, but the wind and the moon are the same,
一双双手 救死扶伤，
Many hands save the dying and heal the wounded
落英缤纷流水长，
fallen petals lie in profusion, as water flows,
古往今来多难兴邦。
Since olden times,
challenges make a nation strong.

女：山川异域 风月同天，
Female: The mountains and rivers maybe strangers, but the wind and the moon are the same,
天佑华夏 浩浩泱泱，
God bless this magnificent land,
唯愿紫气神州 日出东方。
Praying the sun continues to rise in the East
山川异域 风月同天，
The mountains and rivers maybe strangers, but the wind and the moon are the same,
一双双手 救死扶伤，
Many hands save the dying and heal the wounded.

男：落英缤纷流水长，
Male: fallen petals lie in profusion, water flows long
古往今来多难兴邦。
Since olden times,
challenges make a nation strong.

合：山川异域 风月同天，
Together: The mountains and rivers maybe strangers, but the wind and the moon are the same,
天佑华夏 浩浩泱泱，
God bless this magnificent land,
唯愿紫气神州 日出东方。
Praying the sun continues to rise in the East
唯愿世界大同， 前路无恙
Praying for the world to unite,
Praying the path forward is safe and sound.

The post The Sun Rises After Coronavirus… appeared first on Good News!.