Moving on and stepping into summer mode....

Sustainable Tucson (ST) continues to grow in affiliates by leaps and bounds. The tipping point in citizen's interest and action was passed in a flurry sometime early this year. Last night at Ward VI offices about 50 people attended, each involved or keenly interested in achieving on the ground projects from making their own home greener to presenting at conferences.

ST is changing over to summer mode with film, potluck chat groups, neighborhood gatherings, and four specific projects for the hotter months when working inside is tolerable:

• PowerPoint and Speaker's Bureau team training on Steps into Sustainability;


• Green Audit Training by The Nature Conservancy volunteers for an ST Green Audit Team to help families and businesses assess how to get started reducing their ecological footprint;


• Planning for the August Water Forum co-hosted by ST with UA Water Research Resources Center and the Southern Arizona Leadership Council, bringing Peter Gleick from the Pacific Institute to a public forum on water and climate change;


• Planning for Education for Sustainability Conference in October sponsored by the Arizona Association for Environmental Education, UA Campus Sustainability Office and ST.

Check the website for more activities taking place within affinity groups that are forming around specific issues: www.sustainabletucson.org.

Sustainably,

Susan

Affinity Groups Form in Sustainable Tucson

Sustainable Tucson's evolution continues to unfold through the actions of Affinity Groups that share common goals.

The Youth Involvement group is exploring ways that youth can train and be hired to accomplish key sustainability goals: 1.) learn about watershed management and the role of waterharvesting and be hired as a water harvester for neighborhood water conservation; 2.) train and be hired in construction skills to retrofit older homes in Tucson that could become more energy efficient with modest renovations. We are meeting with the City of Tucson to explore funding to develop these and other projects that link groups that share mutural outcomes.

The Water affinity Group is exploring a partnership with the University of Arizona and other municpal groups to host Peter Gleick from California for several meetings to help our community and region reconsider its water management rules and regs in light of the emerging global warming/climate change scenarios for our region.

Membership Group

Sustainable Tucson is actively recruiting an Office Coordinator to help us manage the emerging level of activity and need to link people and groups by phone, email and meetings: http://www.volunteersolutions.org/vctucson/org/opp/10234237204.html

Public Education Affinity Group

We hosted a table at the Peace Fair in Tucson and attracted a diverse group of organizations and individuals to our next general meeting. We will participate in the Global Warming Rally at U of A on April 14, Earth Day on April 21, and the Tucson Solar Cook Off on the 28th of April. Each of these events will give us opportunities to alert the public to the coalition and invite them to our next meeting or to explore the wesite: www.sustainabletucson.org

The Arts and Lecture Series will feature Tom Greco, author and economist, on March 13, Tuesday from 6 pm - 8 pm at the El Ojito Springs Center for Creativity. Tom will describe new ways of working with the concept of money that create sustainble local economies. Music and food and drink from 6-7 pm, address from 7-8 pm followed by Q&A. The Center is located two blocks south of Cushing St. on Stone Avenue. http://www.elojitosprings.com/ Come visit Sustaianble Tucson's adopted "clubhouse".

Our next General Meeting is:

Sustainable Tucson

March 20, Tuesday

4 pm-6 pm

Councilwoman Karen Uhlich's Offices

Ward III

1510 E. Grant Rd.

Tucson, AZ

Program:

Dennis Dickerson

Pima Association of Govenments

Indicator Reports & Q&A

Networking

Sustainable Tucson continues to grow as people in our community become aware of the challenges we face together to make sure we act now for the youngsters in our midst, and those to come, to assure they can enjoy the beauty and abundance of the Old Pueblo as so many generations have been privileged to experience over the centuries.

Respectfully,

Susan

Sustainable Tucson Focus on Water Conservation

February 15 General Meeting Notes

Sustainable Tucson's General Meetings are a time to learn and to discuss issues as well as network and get to know members of this large and growing coaltion of groups and citizens.

About 50 people gathered at Councilwoman Nina Trasoff's Ward VI offices. Members of the coalition delivered short descriptions of groups forming to accomplish common objectives of sustainability (water conservation, alternative transportation, food security, youth education, public education, business opportunities, greening the built environment, etc.)

Focus on Water Conservation
Fernando Molina, Director of Conservation at Tucson Water, delivered a summary of Tucson's water future. He described the City's current strategies to secure water for the future.

His presentation followed Melanie Lenart's discussion of the IPCC's February 2 Report to Policy Makers on Climate Change. Melanie represented the Institute for the Study of Planet Earth at UA. Tucson faces increasing average temperatures as a long-term drought continues and will intensify.

Brad Lancaster, Rainwater Harvesting in Drylands, summarized the most important actions citizens can make and that the coalition can support. During the Q&A that followed, it became apparent that we must be proactive to conserve as much groundwater as possible and be prepared for the liklihood that the CAP supply will be not be the steady source now projected, but subject to decline with years of drought and related decreased precipitation/snow melt.

Coalition members brought up the need to curb growth as a key part of the solution. Guy McPherson described the problems we face as a community (growth, food security, water supply) as the "elephant in the room."

An important connection between engaging youth to be a part of the solution and water conservation was offered by Patty Weiss, who suggested we seize the moment and engage the high schools whose mission includes community service experience. Patty offered that youth can be trained and then hired to help us implement the simple actions suggested by Lancaster that will decrease residents use of potable water for irrigation (which Molina noted is 60% of residential use of water). This offers youth opportunities to learn about water management, science and appropriate technologies AND earn some income.

Using rainwater exclusively for irrigations of trees, plants and gardens through landscaping and rainwater harvesting principles makes sense. The control of flood waters that now gush down paved streets can be redirected to irrigate fruit-bearing, trees that also cool the built environment for an integrated approach to managing the effects of drought. These kinds of projects can be done by neighborhoods creating community along the way.

Following the discussion, Sustainble Tucson sponsored a networking hour with opportunities to join many Affinity Groups that are engaged in projects ranging from food security to permaculture to building codes. ST'smembership team produced an Interest Card to begin to build a data base that will help us facilitate the work of our members.

This is the fourth general meeting called by Sustainable Tucson (October 17, December 12 2006 & January 17 and February 15, 2007). In January we heard from the City of Tucson's Office of Sustainablity and Conservation and Pima County's Department of Environmental Quality.


See www.sustainabletucson.org for more information and to joint the coalition.

Our next meeting is March 6, Tuesday from 4-6 pm. Location and program to be announced.

On the trail together,
Susan

Sustainable Tucson Forms Core Team

Sustainable Tucson

Next General Meeting

February 15, Thursday

4-6 pm

Ward Six Office

3202 East 1st Street
Phone: (520) 791-4601

Tucson Trail Notes
During January Sustainable Tucson moved forward using a natural systems model, ACORN, to form a Core Team of volunteers who agreed to work together weekly and to assume responsbility for guiding the forming coalition to transform our bioregion into one that thrives economically and equitably withing the natural resources of the upland desert and the subregions of the Sonoran Desert.

On January 9, Leslie Liberti (Director of the City of Tucson Office of Conservation and Sustainable Development) and Beth Gorman (Program Coordinator at the Department of Environmental Quality for Pima County) gave short presentations updating the coalition of current and future projects that will impact how sustainble Tucson and the surrounding communities become. Both women suggested ways that the coalition can help them gain the cooperation of their respective governing council and board to achieve their objectives. Members of the coalition raised concerns about cooperation between government and the private citizen and what the city and county have planned for meeting the Peak Oil crisis.

Following the general meeting, the Core Team met at Stone Curves on January 16th. Fifteen leaders in green building, permaculture, faith-based environmental coalitions, water conservation, sustainable economies, education, neighborhood development and other disciplines met for two hours. It was agreed that the team will meet on Wednesday evenings to map out the direction of the coalition's work based on feedback and participation of the whole coalition. The next meeting is Wednesday, January 24 from 7-9 pm. If you are interested in being part of the Core Team, please contact Susan Williams through this blog using the comment feature at the end of this article, or by contacting Sustainable Tucson at the link below.

Sustainable Tucson is a melding of an exisiting coalition by the same name which began in early 2006 under the umbrella of Nest, Inc. - a community development non-profit in Tucson that sponsors citizen initiatives for improving community life. Bob Cook, President of Nest, and Linianne Sarno of Sustainable Tucson began the work of establising relationships with numerous individuals and groups working for water conservation, new building codes and other issues related to sustainability. For the past eight months Sustainable Tucson has worked to establish a web site and formalize operations. www.sustainabletucson.org.

In October of 2006, the Arizona Association for Environmental Education held a meeting in Tucson calling for a diverse coalition to galvanize all the separate efforts toward sustainability (University of Arizona, City of Tucson, Pima County, environmental and education institutions, faith-communities, neighborhoods and business communities). The meeting was one of three sponsored by AAEE in Arizona as follow-up to the April 2006 Arizona Crossroads Summit on sustainability held at the Heard Museum and supported with a grant from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust.

The AAEE-led coalition has now melded with Sustainable Tucson to create a coalition that currently represents over two hundred organizations and individuals. We are officially called Sustainable Tucson.

Other Accomplishments:

• In December AAEE and Sustainble Tucson wrote a letter of support to the Arizona Water Institute for an application by UA Campus Sustainbility Office to fund an intern position that would link UA sustainability efforts with those of Sustainble Tucson. We learned last week that the position was funded. Over the next week students at UA will be interviewed. Hopefully the intern will begin working with us in early February.
  


• The Web Team headed up by Bob Cook and Communications Team led by Tom Greco have both met twice over the last two weeks. The web site is currently being populated with articles, events and more information for the public and for anyone interested in joining our efforts.
  


• Suzanne Dhruv, Director of the Ironwood Tree Experience, offered to lead a Youth and Education Team that will bring resources to involve teens in all aspects of the coalition's work. This group will meet February 6, 4:30pm at Prescott College in Tucson, at 2233 East Speedway (northside Speedway between Tucson Blvd. and Campbell Avenue).
  


• A Letter of Inquiry to the Community Foundation of Southern Arizona from Nest, Inc. was sumitted for the Spring Grant round to help fund operations for Sustainble Tucson.

• AAEE has planned a conference on Education for Sustainablity for the weekend of September 28, 2007. More on location and workshops is upcoming here on this blog and on the AAEE web site: www.arizonaee.org

**Check this blog for other sustainability projects in Arizona.

Susan

Previsioning Team Meets

December 30 a small group of organizers met with Allison and Dave Ewolt, facilitators, to prepare for a visioning team meeting on Saturday, Jan. 6. We are preparing a draft vision statement to discuss as well as other key organizing elements that need to be in place before we launch our initiative.

Allison and Dave, verterans of sustainability organizing in Bellingham, Washington and other cities, helped shape a working organizational structure called ACORN. It is particularly effective for managing complex change.

Other developments include: discussions with a social marketing expert in Phoenix about developing communication strategies; opportunity to present the initiative to the editorial board of Tucson Citizen for the possibility that the newspaper will help us announce the initiative to the public.

The Vision Team meeting will take place at El Ojito Springs Coffee House on January 6, Saturday, from Noon to 3 pm: 452 S. Stone Ave., Tucson, Arizona Phone: 624-4800. Anyone who wishes to join this team, which will guide the sustainability initiatives in the Tucson Metropolitan Area, is welcome to attend to learn about the functions and commitments required of the team members.

Next General Meeting: January 9, Tuesday, 4:15 pm to 6:15 pm, Ward Six Offices: 3202 East 1st StreetTucson, Arizona 85716. Phone: (520) 791-4601

Go to http://www.sustainabletucson.org/ to keep up with developing work.

Susan

Tucson Crossroads Joins Sustainable Tucson

Tucson Crossroads and Sustainable Tucson joined forces to coalesce our common resources.

December 12th's meeting was very productive. Thirty-five representatives from across the Tucson community's diverse sectors met at Ward Six offices (Nina Trasoff, Council Member and Member of the City of Tucson Subcommittee on the Environment).

Kerry Schwartz from Arizona Project WET (http://ag.arizona.edu/AZWATER/wet/), Water Resources Research Center at the University of Arizona, addressed the coalition from the AAEE Board of Directors which requested the coalition suggest how AAEE can best support the work in Tucson.

Lindianne Sarno, Co-Director of Sustainable Tucson addressed the coalition in terms of how the collaborative work can unfold along many fronts, coordinated from a center of shared objectives and sensibilities. She invited everyone present to help populate the new website with resources, articles and key links for other coaltitions members. The new website is built for interactive communication and features a listserve, blog, and word press pages for members. Please go to www.sustainabletucson.org to see how this is developing and sign up for the listserve.

Allison and David Ewolt of Natural Systems Solutions in Tucson ( http://www.attractionretreat.org/NSS/) introduced us to the Sustainable Bellingham model for a sustainability movement in Tucson. The Acorn structure for working together was introduced. Allision and Dave stressed the importance of forming a visioning team with representatives from the major coalitions within the initiative to make sure there is a think tank at the heart of the initiative providing direction for dozens of projects happening simultaneously.

We moved into break out groups for education and events, and to form the structure through which we will work together. The visioning group will meet in late December and early January before the next large group meeting.

Our coalition has attracted hundreds of individuals and organizations in its first few meetings. There is palpable energy, a shared sense of purpose and urgency, and a desire for developing a viable community through new communication tools such as the Living Directory (www.favors.org) and other ways we can get to know each other and network to leverage our impact.

Next Meeting: January 9, Tuesday, 4:15 pm to 6:15 pm, Ward Six Offices
Go to www.sustainabletucson.org to keep up with developing work.

For Sustainable Communities,

Susan

Next Tucson Crossroads Meeting and News

Tucson Crossroads will meet on December 12, Tuesday from 4-6 pm at the Ward 6 Office:

Midtown Ward Six
3202 East 1st Street
Tucson, Arizona 85716
Phone: (520) 791-4601
Fax: (520) 791-3211
E-Mail: ward6@tucsonaz.gov

Check the website of Sustainable Tucson, the likely place we will post our activities and keep in touch through a yahool list serve and other features built into the web site:
www.sustainabletucson.org.

This next meeting will focus on organizing for action. We will also be treated to more water education and hear about projects already in motion.

Tucson Crossroads Moves Ahead

Forty leaders from various sectors of the Tucson community came together at the Tucson Botanical Garden on November 14. http://www.tucsonbotanical.org/.

Representatives from the City of Tucson and Pima County were present along with environmental educators, community organizers, green economists and consultants, concerned citizens, scientists, university and high school educators, and librarians.

Julie Blake Gidley, President of AAEE traveled to Tucson to participate with us and coordinate our work with other regional coalitions forming as a result of the Arizona Crossroads Summit. AAEE will continue to support and facilitate the work of these coalitions to realize goals recommended by Summit leaders.

Brad Lancaster from Rainwater Harvesting for Drylands http://www.harvestingrainwater.com gave a thirty-minute training session for the coalition. He set the tone and approach for our shared endeavors by helping us see our work and lifestyles within a natural systems framework, one that includes building relationships with each other along the way. The ethic of walking our talk personally as well as professionally is a primary focus of the Tucson Crossroads coalition.

This month we will organize communications and place documents on the AAEE website to share with anyone who wants to track our progress and for new coalition members to catch up on the discussions, meeting dates and events.

We will hold a meeting on December 12 from 4-6 pm to consider an organizational framework based on sustainability models. The location will be announced soon.

Stay Tuned.
Susan

Tucson Crossroads Coalition Forms

Tucson held a follow-up meeting at the Arizona Water Resources Center on October12. Seventeen organizations helped to shape a direction for our combined effort to raise awareness and participation in sustainable practices and lifestyles.

The next meeting is November 14 at 4 pm at the Tucson Botanical Garden near Alvernon and Grant. We expect a very robust turn-out. At this meeting Brad Lancaster will teach us more about the potential of rainwater harvesting for water conservation in the Old Pueblo.

Members of the City of Tucson's subcommittee on Environment, Planning and Resource Management as well as key City and County department managers have been invited. Below are summary notes from the October meeting:

AZ Crossroads Summit Follow-Up: Summary Notes
Tucson Meet-Up Notes from October 12 at the UA Water Resources Research Center

We agreed that by coming together as a coalition, we can launch an effective campaign to promote environmental literacy and build a community that values and lives in sustainable ways. With a “new face” we can approach city and county officials with a “made to order” initiative from the combined resources we each bring to the campaign. We will engage government and business to help us launch a community-wide media campaign and series of sustained events and opportunities for citizens to get involved.

We will focus on water in the first year then move to another focus topic in subsequent years.

We agreed that key sectors of our community should be invited (business, education, civic and non-profit organizations, media and government).

All materials and media should be bilingual and members of the campaign coalition should represent the diversity of cultures, interests, and age groups that make up our communities. (Be sure to include artists and writers.)

Our work will be characterized by a more holistic approach that results in focused initiatives with lasting impacts and measures of our success.

We will approach the City Council and Board of Supervisors as a coalition with a combined membership representing a powerful voting block - a coalition across community sectors that will bring them “an offer they can’t refuse.”

To market our efforts and effectively communicate key ideas, we will need business and governmental funding for professional communications strategies and materials.

We will invite David Modeer now to get involved in shaping our efforts.

Susan Williams for AAEE will serve as Coordinator of our project.

The coalition will meet bi-monthly and provide professional development and networking opportunities to increase our personal knowledge about water issues and support our work.We will strive to walk our talk in individual lifestyle and at our work places.

Our Phased Approach

Form a coalition of about 50 organizations with all sectors represented. Invite media, journalists to follow and publicize.

Go to the Chamber/Mayor to present the Coalition and the Campaign Planning

Media Blitzes to support major events and opportunities to learn about water issues.
Combine with existing festivals and events: Dia de San Juan for example

Next Meeting
Tucson Botanical Garden
November 14, Tuesday, 4-6 pm



Participants at October 12 Meeting: graduate students, environmental educators from governmental and non-profit organizations, the public library’s community events coordinator, interested citizens, radio media, citizen advocates, and public conservation initiatives..

Summit Final Report now available.

Regional and statewide Summit follow-up activities are currently taking place across Arizona. The next opportunity to network with other AAEE members and discuss the Summit findings will be on October 27, 2006 in Scottsdale. Visit the AAEE Events page for more details.

A Summit Summary Sheet and Summit Final Report are now available.

This event brought together leaders from business, government and environmental education to find common ground and create the following 10 Strategies to help move Arizona toward a more Sustainable Future.

COMMUNITY STRATEGIES

• Define & Enhance a Sense of Place: Community asset mapping; use of town hall and other public formats to collective viewpoints; publishing the results broadly; disseminating the vision in document form and creation of a periodic re-evaluation process.
• Bridge Formal & Informal Education: Evolve Learning Ecology, Cultural Diversity & Arts: Creation of a Learning Center on ecology/sustainability; use of Parent/Teacher Associations; Meetings to Discuss Issues and Assisting implementer with information on where to get help.
• Implement Policies which Encourage a Balanced Community Economy: Creation of affordable housing, green transportation and encouraging self-sufficiency; implementation of tax incentives; Creation of multi-use zoning and development of government-business partnerships.
  

GOVERNMENT STRATEGIES

• Vision: Government should act as a facilitator of a broad-based coalition of interests in agriculture, education, business, community, etc.; and the creation of a roadmap for sustainability with a set of metrics
• Education: Government should identify/set standards that would cause the integration of EE in the curriculum at all levels to create active and ecologically literate citizenry
• Modeling: Government should implement, demonstrate and support the benefits of more sustainable approaches through resource management, economic development and communication

ENVIRONMENT STRATEGIES

• Integrate best practices in education (public & school-based) to address one major environmental issue annually. It is proposed that the first year focus on water; rally the environmental community around a limited number of focused issues; engage involvement by media, policy makers, business & industry, environmental community, and educators; get involved in the Governor’s Task Force; measure success by the number of people reached public opinion surveys, and the number of new collaborations
• Balance economics, environment & culture by creation of statewide sustainability standards incentives for building LEED certified buildings; incentives for smart growth; restructuring financing that rewards conservation, innovation; reward efficiency, conservation, quality of life and sense of place through consideration of full life accounting; beginning at the county level in the creation of a common database providing statistical information such as air quality. energy, land, water statewide

BUSINESS STRATEGIES

• Encourage businesses to promote sustainability-consciousness from an industry perspective through the creation of industry-specific standards and indicators to improve sustainability; generate the standards and indicators from within each industry from best practices with a document that would include list of organizations with the standards; providing businesses regionally appropriate and relevant models of economically successful alternatives in a booklet or website format; encouraging a percent increase in using the model indicated by a survey of the best practices; use language seen in marketing and corporate literature as shown by the best practices survey
• Promote marketing methods & ways that business can participate in sustainability practices; technologies that are economically beneficial to businesses and their customers by providing support on how to focus marketing campaigns on quality of life as the way to "sell" environmental responsibility; increasing percentage and sales of green products; and increasing listings in "Arizona Green Book" of businesses doing green business.

We are looking for individuals and organizations with the passion and skills to help us realize the Summit goals. Please visit the AAEE website or contact Julie Blake Gidley at julieblake23@hotmail.com or 480-481-8123 if you are interested in getting involved.

Regional Meet-Ups!

Welcome back to the Crossroads blog. We are ready to share recommendations for moving Arizona toward a more sustainable future. These ideas were generated by more than 80 decision-makers who attended the AZ Crossroads Summit in April of this year. It was blood, sweat and tears trying to summarize all the ideas put forward. But the participants felt they synthesized what needs to be accomplished in business, govenment, education and many public sectors to move our state toward sustainable practices and ways of living in the Grand Canyon State.

Regional Follow-up Meetings
Each regional meeting below promises to be a dynamic social gathering as well an opportunity to learn about the AZ Crossroads Summit Recommendations, express your responses to them and contribute your own ideas.

This will be our first step toward realizing the Summit goal: to erase the artificial boundaries between various sectors of society, and encourage innovation and creativity in dealing with Arizona’s challenges, especially in the areas of environment, business and sustainability.

Flagstaff Meet-up: August 18 Please join the AAEE members of northern AZ for a fun, happy hour event on August 18th from 4:30-6pm at the Wine Loft in Downtown Flagstaff! Meet AAEE Board members and learn more about the results of the AZ Crossroads Summit. For more information, contact Sapna Sopori at sapna772@hotmail.com. Hope to see you there!!!

Tucson Gathering: October 12
Join the Tucson AAEE contingent for a fun afternoon of refreshments and debriefing on the Arizona Crossroads EE Summit. Meet from 4 – 6 pm on Thursday evening. Learn about Rain Harvesting from the state’s expert, Brad Lancaster. Meet us at The Water Resources Research Center at 350 North Campbell Ave. in Tucson. For more information contact Kerry Schwartz at 520-792-9591.

Central Arizona Crossroads Meet-Up: October 27
Arizona Crossroads Summit Debrief! Come learn about results of the EE Summit. Catch up with some of your AAEE members, plus learn more about green building supplies for your home!

8 - 10am
AKA Green
8100 E. Indian School Road Scottsdale, AZ 85251

Space is limited so RSVP will be necessary
Contact: Charlene Saltz, Water/Natural Resources Agent - Univ. of AZ - Maricopa County Extension Office, csaltz@cals.arizona.edu or 602-470-8086

See links on this blog to learn more about the Summit and Arizona Association for Environmental Education, sponsor of the AZ Crossroads Summit.

~Susan

Meet Us at the Crossroads!

The Arizona Association for Environmental Education (AAEE) with support from the Nina Mason Pulliam Charitable Trust invites you to the AZCrossroads Blog!

The AZCrossroads Blog is a meet-up for businesses, public and private educators, environmental organizations, and the public to coordinate our resources, programs, people and dreams for a bright and sustainable future in the Grand Canyon State.

Check here for action plans and working groups that you can join as well as progress updates and emerging collaborations.

We'll provide links to people, products and programs that support green initiatives in Arizona for housing, transportation, and businesses of all kinds that help individuals and organizations Go Green.

Susan

www.arizonaee.org