Caring for Creation Workshops
#1
Habitat Gardening With Native Plants
Reginald Durant
Back to Natives Restoration
Join Reginald Durant from Back to Natives to learn all about landscaping with native plants. Landscaping with natives conserves water, an increasingly scarce natural resource, and saves money. Using natives eliminates the need for pesticides, which harm beneficial insects and other animals, and reduces our exposure to toxic substances. Natives also require less mowing, pruning, and fertilizing. A well planned native plant landscape even attracts birds and butterflies.
#2
The Present State of the
O. C. Sustainability Community
Montgomery Norton
Paradigm Solutions Development
Orange County is a unique environment to be engaged in sustainable development organizing. Not only do we have tremendous ecological richness and beauty that should be fervently preserved, we have a social and political environment that has been recalcitrant and resistant to positive change. Orange County has a significant movement of active and engaged citizenry.
This presentation will give you a sense of the breadth and depth of opportunities for creating a sustainable future in Orange County. The goal is to educate, empower, and inspire, so that further connections and collaboration can be achieved.
#3
National Security &
Endangered Species
Dr. Tom English
TESSI Endangered Species Institute
This talk examines the impact of the current trends of Extinction of Species on the National Security of the United States. The combination of Global Warming and Deforestation have led to the largest rate of extinction since the demise of the dinosaurs, 65 million years ago. If these trends are not reversed, half the Earth’s plant and animal species will be extinct within this century. These extinctions threaten the human food web, and could lead to global war.
This talk was presented to the White House in February 2010, and to the Office of the Administrator of the US Environmental Protection Agency in May 2010.
#4
Make A Difference 101
Sande Hart
Author, Make a Difference 101
Make A Difference 101 is a fun and empowering workshop where teens and adults alike will leave with actual skills and tools to be effective citizens in their community.They will learn how to create an event from beginning to end or add dynamics to an already existing project that may partake in. With fun and creative activities, we explore the role we play in our community. Everyone makes a difference, so make it good!
#5
California’s Landmark Clean Energy & Climate Solutions Law (AB 32):
Opportunities & Threats
Dan Kalb
Union of Concerned Scientists
California has been a leader in enacting important laws in the areas of renewable energy, cleaner cars, and global climate change. One in particular, the Clean Energy and Climate Solutions law (AB 32), enacted in 2006, has been the subject of international acclaim and recognition, lengthy implementation and, more recently, visible criticism.
In this workshop, we’ll review and discuss California’s most important energy and climate laws and analyze their implementation and various studies and assertions that have been made about the value and impact of these laws when it comes to air quality, global warming, the creation of green-collar jobs, and the importance of the clean technology sector in our state’s economy.
#6
Transition Town Laguna Beach:
A Founding Member’s Story of
Personal & Communal Transformation
Michele McCormick, Ph.D.
Transition Town Laguna Beach
In this workshop, Dr. McCormick shares her life-changing experience while living and working with indigenous tribes in Kenya, Canada, El Salvador, and Taos, New Mexico. In the midst of her mid-life crisis, Michele wound down a successful therapy practice in Newport Beach, CA, walked away from the complexity of her life, and traveled to Mombassa, Kenya. There she worked alongside women of the Jibana tribe as they built a women’s community center for cooperative child care and vocational training. The village matriarch led Michele through a rites of passage naming ceremony, and gave her the name “M’Penzi”-- meaning “love” or “loved-one”.
Come hear her story of returning to the U.S. in order to integrate and apply lessons learned from the wisdom of these tribal elders who live close to the earth. As a founding member of Transition Laguna Beach, Michele will share how she is living a nature-based, sustainable, even “tribal” life in Orange County through this positive approach to meeting the challenges of climate change and peak oil in an uncertain future.
Register On-Line
Download the Registration Form Here.