The Poster Restoration Company has been specializing in archival canvas mounting and paper restoration of vintage, prints, posters and lobby cards for over 20 years. Owner Sei Peterson, a musician and artist in his own right, is a master of his craft and employs a talented team of graduates from the Maryland Institute College of Art . Located just blocks from Penn Station and the Charles Theater .
Recently, we started in earnest to learn all we can about the blogging world, including how to increase our site traffic so we can continue to offer GOforChange to our community and the wider world. Naturally, we enrolled in Upstart Blogger’s 30-Day Blogging Course . We are known mostly within our own networks, where we reliably preach to the converted. But what about people who are just waking up to environmental and economic challenges? With our expertise, wealth of information, online forums, calendar, and marketplace, we are determined to reach a wider audience.
We started GOforChange in early 2008 to help spread the word about the growing sustainability , local food , social justice, and greening movement in the Baltimore area. A blog was the right format to share information about upcoming events, volunteers opportunities, advice, and all the organizations and businesses in our area that are working for a better world. We are always learning about new things — community gardens, energy auditors, local artisans, schools — and the list of topics keeps growing. We continue to believe that reliable information about local resources is valuable to people who want to know how they can make a difference in their daily lives and communities.
As of Day 5 of the course, we have already learned much about social networks, Technorati rankings , Google Analytics, and reaching out to like-minded blogs. We are shifting our posts to offer more advice, musings, and stories from Julie’s work as a green architect and sustainability consultant, and Alyssa’s hands-on artistry in urban gardening, composting, and other DIY projects. Interspersed with posts about Baltimore-area topics, these will have a broad appeal beyond our geographic region. The Upstart Blogger course is something we probably should have taken six months ago, but back then we just didn’t realize how much we don’t know! Stay tuned for updates on our progress.
Dear Friends,
There are moments in a nation’s—and a planet’s—history when it may be necessary for some to break the law in order to bear witness to an evil, bring it to wider attention, and push for its correction. We think such a time has arrived, and we are writing to say that we hope some of you will join us in Washington D.C. on Monday March 2 in order to take part in a civil act of civil disobedience outside a coal-fired power plant near Capitol Hill.
We will be there to make several points:
#Coal-fired power is driving climate change. Our foremost climatologist, NASA’s James Hansen, has demonstrated that our only hope of getting our atmosphere back to a safe level—below 350 parts per million co2—lies in stopping the use of coal to generate electricity.
# Even if climate change were not the urgent crisis that it is, we would still be burning our fossil fuels too fast, wasting too much energy and releasing too much poison into the air and water. We would still need to slow down, and to restore thrift to its old place as an economic virtue.
#Coal is filthy at its source. Much of the coal used in this country comes from West Virginia and Kentucky, where companies engage in "mountaintop removal" to get at the stuff; they leave behind a leveled wasteland, and impoverished human communities. No technology better exemplifies the out-of-control relationship between humans and the rest of creation.
#Coal smoke makes children sick. Asthma rates in urban areas near coal-fired power plants are high. Air pollution from burning coal is harmful to the health of grown-ups too, and to the health of everything that breathes, including forests.
Baltimore ReStore is part of Chesapeake Habitat for Humanity developed to generate funds for more projects. "Providing quality products at discount prices to preserve our environment and keeping valuable items out of our landfills." You can find building materials, plumbing, flooring, cabinets, doors, windows, tools, furniture, lighting and more. Located in East Baltimore behind Johns Hopkins Bay View at Eastern Ave and Kane Streets . Find a list of other salvage centers in the surrounding area here .
Wake Up, Freak Out – then Get a Grip from Leo Murray on Vimeo .
Two friends told me about this last Friday, so I had to check it out. It’s an excellent tour of the "tipping point" effects of climate destabilization — something even the IPCC predictions don’t account for. Leo Murray’s animation and narration makes the very complex science of climate feedback easy to understand and visualize in stark terms. While it does give a glimpse into probable scenarios of species extinction, climate refugees, and other human misery, Murray also tells us it’s not inevitable. This is not the time to panic, he says — this is the time to ACT!
On a related note, David Orr came to Baltimore on October 1 to give a talk about climate change policy. He and a group of experts have been briefing the two presidential campaigns as part of the Presidential Climate Action Project . On their website, you can view and download policy papers on what the next Transition Team has to do in order to hit the ground running in the first 100 days in office. Look through their "Climate Action Briefs" on topics such as the role of small business in addressing climate change, national security in a changing environment, the moral case for energy efficiency, and the great potentials of a new "green" economy.
While it’s very good news that the best minds in the U.S. are coming together on this, Leo Murray’s video is a timely reminder that we have spent the last 20 years waiting for government and industry to fix this problem. The message is loud and clear: it is up to US to act, and we must act NOW.
A few weeks ago, GOforChange visited the Furbish Company headquarters to tour their newly-renovated Lucky’s building, a green office space south of downtown. This Brooklyn warehouse was originally used as a wood mill, then became a convenience store warehouse in the late 1970’s. It is now home to several sophisticated systems and practices of ecological design and efficiency. As the developer and owner of Furbish Co., Michael Furbish approached the project by honoring the building’s existing integrity. He added only what was needed to update and enhance the structure’s inherent environmental sustainability.
Working with a hydraulic engineer revealed that the building was sitting on 8-feet of water, which quite often would spring up through the floor in the basement. Most people would see this as a problem, but with careful calculation and several hundred feet of tubing, a geothermal system was installed to assist with more than 70% of the building’s cooling needs.
Heat for the building is provided by a solar hot water system that transfers heat gain from the sun to a storage cistern that sits on the roof. Continued
Now on view in the courtyard of PS1 Contemporary Art Museum in Queens, NY is Public Farm 1. The winners of the ninth annual MoMA/P.S.1 Young Architects Program were Amale Andraos and Dan Wood of WORK Architecture Company. The design is something PS1 has named "a flying carpet farmer’s market."
Viewing this piece myself I was reminded of James Wines’ SITE projects for the BEST stores done during the early 80’s, which questioned the role of architecture and ecology in a suburban setting. Although I would have loved to see Public Farm 1 in front of a Walmart this project focused more on the role of ecology and self-sufficency in an urban setting. To highlight this idea I was fortunate enough to see the garden with one of the biggest bank buildings in the U.S. as its backdrop. The courtyard also housed a number of live chickens, the roof of which collected rainwater and a solar PV system which powers fans, lights, your cell phone and that’s not all.
View the dynamic, moving GOforChange: Greening Baltimore video