Take a look at the conferences and symposiums below. They range from a solar conference in San Francisco to one focusing on organic farming in La Crosse, Wisconsin.

Let us know of any conferences, events, or festivals in your area. We will gladly add them to our green events calendar. Please send us an email with the event’s name, date, location, description, and website.

Here are a few of the events happening around the world:
CONFERENCE: PHOTON’s Solar Terawatt-hours Conference Series 2012 USA
When: Feb 1 – 2, 2012
Where: San Francisco, California
Description: The conference series, which will take place in San Francisco, attracts international decision makers from the PV sector as well as start-up companies. The event focuses on current developments, trends and prognoses. Presentations and podium discussions go far beyond the basics.
Further details: http://www.photon.info/photon_conf_USA2012_info_en.photon

CONFERENCE: True Wealth in a Green World
When: Friday, Feb 10, 2012
Where: Orlando, Florida
Description: Speakers will explore economic, legal and personal models for honoring “a sense of place” with sustainable businesses, micro-lending, “green” economy/energy jobs, and other initiatives that help create true wealth in today’s world.
Further details: http://earthjuris.org/

CONFERENCE: EnerCan West: Energy and the Environment
When: Feb 13 – 14, 2012
Where: Regina, Saskatchewan, Canada
Description: This year’s conference is all about energy and the environment, and will feature plenary sessions discussing cutting-edge innovations, best practices, and approaches to the urgent problems and issues that the environmental and energy industries face in our carbon-challenged world. Current research and examples of technology in action will also be offered in breakout sessions organized into two tracks, Oil & Gas & Energy and Other Energies & Fuels, as well as in poster presentations and trade show exhibits.
Further details: http://enercanwest.com/

23rd annual MOSES Organic Farming Conference
When: Feb 23 – 25, 2012
Where: La Crosse, Wisconsin
Description: The MOSES Organic Farming Conference is the largest organic farming conference in the U.S. Organized by the Midwest Organic and Sustainable Education Service (MOSES), and held annually in La Crosse, WI, the OFC is an extraordinary, farmer-centered event. With over 65 informative workshops, 160 exhibitors, locally-sourced organic food, live entertainment and inspirational keynote speakers, the OFC is celebrated as the foremost educational and networking event in the organic farming community.
Further details: http://www.mosesorganic.org/conference.html

Colorado Environmental Film Festival
When: Feb 23 – 25, 2012
Where: 710 10th Street – Golden, Colorado
Description: We accepted over 130 films from around the world! Our committee has selected 53 films that explore interconnected ecological, social and economic themes of our day and reflect our focus in this year of change. Click here for a dynamic and sortable list of our Official 2012 Festival Selections.
Further details: http://www.ceff.net/

2nd Annual Green Schools National Conference
When: Feb 27 – 29, 2012
Where: Denver, CO
Description: Be a part of the only national gathering of K-12 leaders and educators coming together to make their schools and districts green & healthy centers of academic excellence.

• IDENTIFY ways to save money by “Going Green”
• DISCOVER new and diverse sources of funding for your green schools projects
• EXPLORE the Green Marketplace to find green and healthy products & services at special discounted rates
• NETWORK with and meet like-minded peers from across the country
• FIND other schools and organizations to partner with on projects and grants
• EXPERIENCE exciting new resources for your students.

Further details: http://www.greenschoolsnationalconference.org/index.php

As an integral part of the competition, schools measure their energy usage, which in and of itself helps raise awareness of consumption levels. Last year 121 schools took part in the challenge, reducing electricity usage “by an average of 4.5% from the baseline. Collectively that was a total reduction of 1,036,816 kilowatt hours and $124,418 saved from their electric bills.”

In addition to the energy challenge portion of the competition, students can take part in the annual Green Cup Challenge video contest. Some of the creative and inventive ways that students are going about saving energy are highlighted in these short productions.

The Green Schools Alliance, which organizes the challenge, was founded roughly 5 years ago. It “is a national non-profit organization uniting schools around the world to address 21st century environmental and climate challenges. Through its nearly 3,000 public, private and independent K-12 school members and chapters, GSA is reaching more than 2 million students in 40 U.S. states and 11 countries.” For more information on how your school can join, click here.

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Reaching adult audiences with environmental education is one of my favorite challenges as a Naturalist at Wood Lake Nature Center. Adults are often a fickle audience who are pulled in many directions, so wrangling them in for an environmental education program can be tough but not impossible. Seven years ago I created an environmental book club and after reading over 60 books it is still going strong! Each month a group of adults get together for an engaging discussion that focuses on environmental issues, nature, and outdoor adventures.

The book club model has worked because it provides an opportunity for adults to use critical thinking skills in discussing what are often complex and timely environmental issues. Frequently, presentations, guest speakers, videos, and photos enhance our discussions. Participants also have the opportunity to share their opinions, stories, and questions. The book club model has also allowed for a wide variety of issues to be explored.

Communication with participants is done through a monthly email. All books are available through the library and are regularly suggested by the group. We have read many of the classics as well as recently published books to better understand where we have been and where we are going in understanding the natural world around us.

The following are our most recent reads:

• Animal, Vegetable, Miracle By Barbara Kingsolver
• Under a Flaming Sky By Daniel James Brown
• Four Fish By Paul Greenberg
• The Wild Muir By Lee Stetson

We are starting the New Year with an older classic, Cadillac Desert by Marc Reisner. For a complete list of books that have been read or questions please email Amy Markle.

Amy Markle is a Naturalist at Wood Lake Nature Center in Richfield, MN, a suburb of Minneapolis.

In response to a question about education and its role in what Ritter is doing, he mentioned the 4 (now) 5 “E”s. Ritter said that Energy, Equity, Environment, and Economic Development were now being joined with Education in order to achieve the goal of a clean energy future. However, his role with Colorado State University does not work K-12 education (no, I did not ask this question). He pointed out that his mission focuses on the political side of the issue. In order to achieve the goal of clean energy integration, Ritter is part of a group that recently founded the Advanced Energy Economy, a network “of regional business councils and partner organizations promoting a better business climate for the advanced energy sector and helping American companies and workers succeed as the world transition’s to Advanced Energy.”

Ritter did refer to the IPAT equation, although not by name. This equation stands for Impact equals Population multiplied by Affluence multiplied by Technology. A society’s impact on the environment is greater as the population, affluence, and/or technology increase. As all three grow, the impact increases at a greater rate. In a nod to bipartisan approaches to energy, Ritter touched on nuclear as a carbon-free option. As emissions increase from greater consumption, Ritter discussed the need to bring both sides of the aisle together, which includes nuclear energy, a major source of electricity in some countries, but only about 20% in the US.

One audience member asked about Hawaii’s clean energy standard. For more information, check out HawaiiCleanEnergyInitiative.org. Ritter mentioned a study suggesting that clean coal is the only option to reach clean energy standards. He touched on scrubbing/stripping or carbon dioxide and sequestering as two technologies that could lead to “clean coal.”

Although not a scientist, he did an serviceable job explaining the science behind climate change. The only exception was when someone in the audience conflated methane leakage with ozone depletion. According to the EPA, methane (and other hydrocarbons) “may offer advantages as substitutes to ozone depleting substances because they have zero ozone depletion potential, low toxicity.” However, it points out that methane contributes to warming in the atmosphere. The discussion then went into the notion of “fugitive methane” such as that from landfills or the livestock. Ritter pointed out that methane degrades in the atmosphere over a much quicker time frame as compared to carbon dioxide.

Similarly to the IPAT Equation, Ritter referred to Shai Agassi’s Better Place, though not by name, when talking about transportation. Part of this mention came about in his discussion of storage. Ritter referenced the concept of car batteries being used to store excess solar energy production and feeding it back to the grid at a later time. He went on to mention GE’s investment in the largest US solar plant and the claim that some makers of solar energy equipment will achieve grid parity by 2015, meaning that they will produce energy at the same cost per kilowatt hour as coal.

When asked about what can be done on an individual level, Ritter brought up energy audits for the home. He also referenced a survey by Colorado College that found people in the Rocky Mountain states (Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, New Mexico, and Utah) all favored solar and wind as the top two sources of electricity generation, despite the vast reserves of coal, oil, and natural gas in this region. In particular, he touched on the cost of electricity from coal (in the range of 6.5-7 cents per kilowatt hour) and said that Xcel Energy, the state’s largest utility, recently purchased 200 megawatts of electricity from a wind farm at less than half the cost of coal. Ritter did say that there were incentives, but that even without these, he claimed the wind power would still have been less expensive.

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