At the Mid-Atlantic Renewable Energy Association, our goal is to help individuals and families get good answers to big questions about what each of us can do, really do, to improve prospects of a sustainable future.
In keeping with the CDC guidance to avoid events of 50 people or more, for the foreseeable future, MAREA has moved its Monthly meetings and Book Discussions online to the comfort of your computer screen. Please see descriptions below for upcoming events. Many venues have been exploring the parallels of Climate Change with the the Covid-19 pandemic. We have added a section to our website to share our own responses, including videos looking at the crises of Covid-19 and Climate Change.
Douglas Tallamy talks live about Nature’s Best Hope and What We Can Do to Save Our Own Backyards
Tuesday, August 25, 2020 7:00 pm to 8:30 pm
Presented Online in Zoom Meeting
Free & Open to the Public (registration required)
Register here
Join us for a live presentation from Douglas Tallamy, New York Times best-selling author and Chair of the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware.
In his most recent book, Nature’s Best Hope, Douglas Tallamy takes on the suburban lawn and so much more in showing us the extent we are starving our ecosystems with our manicured landscaping. Once we are aware of our devastating impact, he shows us how we can become the solution for enriching our local ecosystems and our planet’s future. His book is filled with relatable examples, important history and the psychology that got us here.
Professor Tallamy has taught courses in insect taxonomy, behavioral ecology, humans and nature, and insect ecology. “Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities.” He has written two other popular and award winning books, Bringing Nature Home and The Living Landscape (with Rick Darke).
Please join us for an eye-widening view of the real-world matrix surrounding us and learn how you can create your own “Homegrown National Park.”
MAREA Presentation: Project Drawdown: Carbon Sequestration and the Role of Sustainable Agriculture in a Carbon-negative Future
September 29 @ 8:00 am – 7:00 pm
Presented Online in Zoom Meeting
Free & Open to the Public (registration required)
Register here
Photo by Bob Nichols, USDA Natural Resources Conservation Service
Tom L. Richard, PhD, Penn State professor of Agricultural and Biological Engineering and Director of PSU Institutes of Energy and the Environment shares the importance of biological processes in reaching a Carbon-negative future and what is needed to reverse our already excessive concentration of Carbon Dioxide in our atmosphere. Dr. Richard helps us understand the context for Carbon Sequestration in Project Drawdown and the opportunities of biomass conversion in agriculture for nutrients, energy and organic matter recovery to lay out the assets and opportunities in Pennsylvania to contribute to our future sustainability. Join us to learn about the agroecological pieces and how they all fit together. Details…..
Implementing What We Have Learned
October 27, 7 PM Meeting – Call for Participants!
Our mission at MAREA is to act!
To actively learn and apply what we learn to individually and locally become more sustainable. Doug Tallamy’s book, Nature’s Best Hope provides lots of insight into how we can recover the ecosystems in our yards and communities. In response, we hope that his book has inspired many to act, and our community would love to learn about how others have applied what they learned from Nature’s Best Hope to inspire our own efforts.
If you would like to share how you have applied what you have learned from Nature’s Best Hope or from other MAREA presentations, book discussions, or other sources that inspired you to become more sustainable, we would love to hear from you.
Even the Covid 19 virus has presented us with many challenges and some opportunities to make changes in our lives. Maybe during this time of life changes, you have taken actions or discovered ways to reduce your carbon footprint, your energy, water, or harmful chemical use, and/or your waste output? Have you found ways to become more sustainable?
MAREA invites you to share your adventures and accomplishments in our annual October Open Mic Night! Please email us at hello@theMAREA.org with what you would like to present and we will be in touch!
To learn about our most recent presentations:
Integrating Solar and Storage, the key to bringing Solar into the Mainstream
Solar electric generation has been growing by leaps and bounds, powered by reducing costs and technology advances that increase its versatility and efficiency in capturing the energy of the sun. However, it has also been handicapped by its dependency on access to the sun at night and in adverse weather conditions.
Integrated energy storage makes solar a more consistent producer, allowing it to become a mainstream source. Throughout the world, companies have been partnering and combining to address Solar and Storage.
Bill Dougherty has been on the front lines of applying these developments with Outback Power, a supplier of Residential Behind-the-meter and Off-grid projects, which is now an integrated partner with its parent, Enersys, a worldwide, diversified battery and power management supplier headquartered in Reading, PA. Details…
Recovering our Ecosystems one Municipal Park at a Time
M
unicipal problems can make great opportunities. Local natural water quality advocate, Matt MacConnell and the Sierra Club Lehigh Valley Group recovered and transformed part of the sterile suburban park across the street from his house with a water drainage problem to create an attractive wetland.
The wetland has already attracted native insects, snails, frogs and birds to a park better known for its herbicides than its biodiversity.
At our June MAREA Zoom Meeting, learn how Matt and the Sierra Club convinced the municipality, organized local community support and got funding to add important biodiversity and an educational opportunity to what some had once considered an unrecoverable recreational park…(details)
Steady-State Economics for Environmental Protection, Jobs, and National Security
2020 has been a roller coaster from the economic highs early in the year to the lows of the Covid-19 pandemic. Neoclassical economists would argue those early highs were a spectacular success and that we need to get right back on that horse as soon as possible. Brian Czech would argue differently. Dr. Czech is the Executive Director of the Center for the Advancement of the Steady State Economy (CASSE), and MAREA’s featured speaker on May 26. Details…
TEK Park Past Meeting:
Low-Impact, Small-Hydro Coming to Lock 47
Hugh Moore Park, Easton, PA
New, low-impact, fish friendly Archimedes Screw Turbine (AST) technology is creating opportunity to repurpose legacy waterway infrastructure and use it for small scale hydropower. Lock 47 of the Delaware Canal system in Hugh Park in Easton is proving to be an excellent local example of using legacy infrastructure with new AST technology for clean electricity generation. This talk will give us a chance to hear all about it first hand from the project developer New England Hydropower. Details…