Using locally grown flora, this arrangement by Baltimore’s Local Color Flowers is stunning. Credit: Stacy Bauer Photography
Gearing up to start planning for holiday entertaining? Consider a few of the sustainably minded party-hosting tips below. From your invitations to party cleanup, small changes can yield greener results while helping you host a fabulous party, all with a nod to our planet.
What makes a hospital green? According to Becker’s Hospital Review, it takes sustainable design, waste reduction, energy efficiency, and water conservation, among other things.
The United States harvests billions of pounds of seafood every year, and some of it is very delicious. But a shameful amount of it gets thrown away, too.
Hopkins senior Raychel Santo helped convince the school to commit to healthy, sustainably-sourced food. Photo via Cookies & Kimchi
In the Johns Hopkins dining halls, the milk comes from a Pennsylvania dairy, the pickles and hot sauce come from Spike Gjerde, and all the bread is made by Stone Mill Bakery. And it doesn’t stop there: the university just announced that at least 35 percent of its food purchases will be local, sustainable, humane, and fair trade by the end of the decade.
In this film, Mandy and Ryan quit their corporate jobs, sell their houses to bike across the USA, meet 20,000 people, and learn living sustainably is underway. Directed by Ryan Ao, USA, 2013, 98 mins.
One argument against sustainable practices is that they’re just too expensive. It costs money to go green, or so the naysayers claim — those CFL bulbs and solar panels don’t come cheap. But those naysayers may be surprised to get a look at Baltimore’s first climate-resilient block. It’s not in Mt. Washington or Federal Hill or even Charles Village. It’s in an East Baltimore neighborhood that, in the past, made headlines for its crime rate.
Cobia, aka black salmon, is a fish that likes to eat other fish — and crabs, squid, and pretty much whatever else it can get its jaws on. Or that’s how things used to be. After four years of experiments by Baltimore scientists, the cobia has now converted to vegetarianism.
Clean Currents helping Baltimoreans switch to wind power on Earth DayLast fall’s ice cream social, hosted with Taharka Brothers
By now, most people have had the experience of driving down the highway and seeing, off in the distance, the tall white wind turbines that are beginning to dot the American landscape. In recent years, they’ve become the icon of renewable, sustainable energy—the promise of less pollution, fighting climate change, and pursuing energy sources that are safe for humans and the environment. Now Baltimoreans can enthusiastically jump on the green energy bandwagon with Clean Currents, a company making it possible for Baltimore residents to choose to power their homes exclusively through wind power. Now, this doesn’t mean that they come to your backyard (or porch, or stoop) and install a windmill that sends electricity into your house. Rather, it means that they buy energy from wind farms as close as Pennsylvania and send that through BGE’s power lines to your home. There’s no change in reliability of electricity, and you may be surprised to learn that BGE still maintains power lines and the flow of power to homes and businesses powered by Clean Currents. When you make the switch, your power remains uninterrupted, perfectly normal, but your household is just that much greener.