Author: Tres English

October 10, 2023 • 6:00pm

Tucson is increasingly becoming known as a major “food city.” What many may not realize is the long history of local agriculture and distinctive food traditions in our region. Join us on October 10 for our next monthly meeting for an exploration of that history and some of the ways in which regional traditions and uniquely desert-adapted foods are still important and will play a significant role in shaping a sustainable food future.
 
We are pleased to present two speakers who will share their deep familiarity with the deep roots and current practices of local desert agriculture and the distinctive food culture it produces. Sterling Johnson is Co-Executive Director and DeAnndra Porter is Outreach Coordinator of Ajo Center for Sustainable Agriculture (Ajo CSA), a Native American-governed non-profit organization in Ajo, Arizona. Ajo CSA provides agricultural education, reduces barriers to healthy and culturally appropriate foods, preserves and revitalizes agricultural traditions, fosters local, food-based economic development, and establishes valuable partnerships. Their mission is to support the development of a sustainable and just local food system in Ajo, Arizona and the Tohono O’odham Nation.
 
Johnson and Porter will share insights from their organization’s programming, which includes educating youths and adults on traditional foods, the Adopt-A-Sonoran-Desert-Crop Program, and Climate Smart Agriculture or traditional agricultural practices. With the impacts of climate change, farmers, growers, and ranchers continue to adapt. Traditional Tohono O’odham agriculture is climate smart agriculture. It includes practices such as ak-chin farming, an ancient but efficient system based on rainwater harvesting.

Tuesday, September 12, at 6:00 pm,

^{Jaguar photo courtesy University of Arizona and USFWS}

As we see all too often in the news, the world’s biodiversity faces many challenges and threats, even including risks of multiple extinctions across the globe. In the US, concerns about biodiversity seem to be highlighted by this year’s 50th anniversary of the Endangered Species Act, and globally we begin to see an awakening to the need for action, for example, the recent launch of the Global Biodiversity Framework Fund.
 
Closer to home, we’re fortunate to live in one of the world’s most biodiverse regions. Yet here too, the flora and fauna in the Sky Islands and the Sonoran Desert face many threats challenging their survival.
 
Join us for our next monthly meeting, Tuesday, September 12, at 6:00 pm, for an overview of key issues impacting biodiversity in our region. Our speaker is Laiken Jordahl,Southwest Conservation Advocate with the Center for Biological Diversity, based here in Tucson. Laiken will give a brief overview of regional biodiversity and then share work being done to protect biodiversity in the borderlands in the face of myriad threats, including border walls and militarization, industrial-scale mining, and rampant and illegal cattle grazing of our vanishing wetlands – all of which are contributing significantly to biodiversity loss in the region. Following his presentation there will be ample time for Q & A.
 
Laiken works to protect wildlife, ecosystems, and public lands throughout the desert Southwest and U.S-Mexico borderlands. Before joining the Center, he worked with the National Park Service studying threats to wilderness character at five different national parks and monuments and with the Bureau of Land Management on recreation planning for the San Juan River. He has also worked as a natural resource legislative fellow in the U.S. House of Representatives. For four years Laiken worked as the Center’s Borderlands campaigner, fighting wall construction in Arizona and across the southwest, before recently transitioning into his current, more general role as a Southwest Conservation Advocate.

6:00 p.m. Tuesday, July 11
https://youtu.be/ZkTSL3XJ4Wo

As temperatures rise, broader segments of Tucsonans are helping clean up our energy emissions and enjoying financial benefits from doing so.
 
Local initiatives are making solar affordable to more households and smoothing the transition to electric transportation. Existing state and federal support to electrify and clean up household and workplace energy use are undergoing a massive restructuring that includes replacing fossil infrastructure with heat pumps to efficiently cool and heat our living and work spaces and our water.
 
Hear stories of people who two years ago would not have been able to afford greening their energy use and find out what new options may be within your reach.
 
Among those sharing will be Flor Sandoval, Program Director of the Sonoran Environmental Research Institute, who oversees the Solar Empowerment Program; Ben Nead, a member of the Tucson Climate Coalition and a volunteer advisor to the City of Tucson on electric vehicle charging for multifamily housing; and Solar Lawyer Bruce Plenk and solar installer Duane Ediger, both members of Sustainable Tucson’s Energy Transformation Working Group.

Tuesday, June 13 at 6:00pm

As public concern grows about the plastic waste crisis, the petrochemical and plastic industries are promoting a suite of environmentally troublesome technologies that they misleadingly call “chemical recycling” (also known as “advanced recycling”) as a solution to the crisis.  Chemical recycling isn’t really recycling at all.  This supposed cutting-edge technology most often involves turning plastic into fuel. Here in Tucson, the Environmental and General Services Department has solicited seven project ideas for turning plastic or mixed waste into gaseous and/or liquid fuels that will be burned, using pyrolysis and gasification systems. The Department is also studying two proposals that would turn discarded plastics into chemical feedstocks to make new plastic.

Chemical recycling represents a dangerous false solution to the plastic epidemic. These high-heat systems most often use plastic materials to generate a limited amount of fuel in a one-time process, destroying them rather than giving them another material use. These processes, which are energy-intensive, generate greenhouse gases and toxic fumes. Some also produce hazardous waste. Chemical recycling will not solve the plastic waste crisis. What is needed instead are policies that reduce plastic production and waste, particularly single-use packaging.

Join us at our June 13 monthly meeting to learn about the health and environmental hazards of chemical recycling. Our guest speaker will be Dr. Veena Singla, Senior Scientist, People & Communities Program at the Natural Resources Defense Council. Time for Q&A will follow her presentation.

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Dr. Singla currently serves on the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s Children’s Health Protection Advisory Committee, the National Toxicology Program Board of Scientific Counselors, the Board of Directors for Clean Production Action, and as associate director for the Agents of Change in Environmental Justice Program.