Sustainable Transportation • Sustainability Symposium • Local Craft Markets |
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With the arrival of JHU’s first batch of electric buses fresh on our minds, look no further than this month’s “Ask the Green Guide” for tips on sustainable transportation and mitigating travel emissions.
In addition to December’s academic events, check out our list of local makers markets and community craft events—an excellent way to invest in small-scale purchasing from Baltimore artisans and engage in more mindful consumption this holiday season. Wondering how to reduce waste in your holiday gifting practices? This is a great time to revisit last December’s Green Guide for an in-depth look at alternative wrapping and decoration ideas.
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| Ripple Effect Film Screening: What One Small Action Can Do for Our Planet |
Join us for a screening of short films created by the class “Communicating Climate Change: Creative Approaches for Action.” JHU undergraduate students created three research-based films on the power of individual action to inspire community change at JHU in partnership with Blue Water Baltimore and the JHU Office of Climate and Sustainability, and with support from the Campus as a Living Lab program. Attendance is free and lunch is provided.
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JHU Sustainability Symposium Call for Submissions |
JHU students, faculty, and staff are invited to submit proposals for the 6th Annual Sustainability Leadership Council Symposium, which will be held on Wednesday, April 2, 2025. Submissions can include individual presentations, full sessions, research posters, or informational tables focused on sustainability research, practice, or education at JHU. All sustainability-related topics and ideas are welcome and encouraged! Submissions are due by January 24, 2025. Contact sustainability@jhu.edu with questions.
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Johns Hopkins’ First Electric Buses Will Hit the Road in 2025 |
The first wave of all-electric, fully accessible buses is anticipated to start running along the Homewood-Peabody-JHMI shuttle route in early 2025. These buses will be one of the most visible signs of JHU’s Climate Action and Sustainability Plan commitments, which calls for and transitioning to all-electric vehicles across the university’s fleet. JHU currently operates 12 diesel buses along the route, carrying more than 3,000 riders per weekday. Replacing these buses with 10 fully electric buses will eliminate 741 metric tons of carbon dioxide from the air in Baltimore each year.
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| Apply for Pilot Funding with CARTEEH at JHU |
The Center for Advancing Research on Transportation Emissions, Energy and Health (CARTEEH) seeks pilot projects to advance research that is policy-relevant and supports education, workforce development, and technology transfer activities. CARTEEH at JHU anticipates two pilot awards of about $48,000 each. Problem statements and related documentation are due by 5:00 pm on Dec. 16, 2024. Send questions and submissions to Dr. Mary Fox at mfox9@jhu.edu.
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| Call for Submissions: Students for Environmental Action Magazine |
Students for Environmental Action (SEA), a longstanding student-led environmental club, is putting together a collaborative sustainability magazine featuring essays, articles, poems, and art contributed by club and community members. SEA invites you to submit, whether it's something you already wrote for a class or something new you create for the magazine! The deadline for submission is March 28th, 2025. Feel free to reach out to with any questions at cfahmy1@jh.edu or gli50@jh.edu.
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Rethinking Deserts in Dr. Brahim El Guabli’s Saharan Imaginations |
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In Dr. Brahim El Guabli’s Saharan Imaginations course, students study deserts from a different lens– one that recognizes the ecological, cultural, and environmental significance of desert spaces and pushes against the view that deserts are empty spaces devoid of life. Deserts, he says, have been viewed by most humans throughout time as “good-for-nothing” spaces– not places. As such, humans have either transformed them into “good-for-something” spaces (farmland or development), or have continued to treat them as “good-for-nothing” spaces used to host destructive and undesirable human creations.
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“Rethinking what is lively, what life looks like, and how we approach life is the fundamental aspect of this course,” says Dr. El Guabli. “[The course helps] people think in ways that value different types of life and to question the ways in which we are taught to value certain manifestations of life over others.”
This spring semester, Dr. El Guabli will teach Indigenous Ecologies: Thinking with Indigenous Worldviews (AS.300.412).
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Leave No Trace: John Work Garrett in the American Outdoors |
Evergreen Museum | Through June 8 |
John Work Garrett II (1872-1942) is best remembered today as a diplomat and book collector, who was a product of the privileged East Coast milieu in which he was raised. Leave No Trace: John Work Garrett in the American Outdoors examines these formative experiences through archival photography, diary entries, artifacts, sculptures, and more, asking visitors to consider the idea of the American West from multiple perspectives and reflect on their own relationship to the great outdoors.
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| Christmas Village
Featuring Local Artists and Vendors
DEC 1 - DEC 24 | All Day | Inner Harbor
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Holiday Heap
Featuring 50 Local Artists
DEC 14 | All Day | 2640 Space
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I am making plans to travel over break. What are my options for sustainable transportation? |
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As of the EPA’s latest reports, transportation accounted for 28% of America’s annual greenhouse gas emissions. While this statistic includes commercial transportation and daily work commutes, holiday travel is carbon intensive, with tens of millions of people vacationing miles from home. At Hopkins, researchers like Rose Weeks are working with on projects funded by the Campus as a Living Lab program to study JHU’s travel footprint and develop strategies for emissions reduction. In the meantime, we know travel can be hard to navigate so we’ve broken it down into best practices by distance.
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For trips within a few hundred miles, you can compare estimated train, car, and air travel emissions with this Holiday Emission Calculator, developed by several Swedish researchers. While there are local variables, such as whether a train or bus is diesel-fueled, most forms of transport are preferable to short distance flights. Within the Northeast, Amtrak’s rail lines are electrified, making them a good option. Sites like Rome2Rio synthesize bus and train routes across companies, states, and even countries. Tickets booked in advance also tend to be significantly cheaper than air travel!
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Technology for “sustainable flying” has yet to be implemented en masse, making it important to strategize and think deeply about any airline travel. Start by building awareness around flight emissions with impact calculators. Plan your travel to include less frequent or longer stays within a single region. For commutes to and from the airport, take the MARC light rail, which stops directly at BWI. Be wary of carbon offset programs, many of which have been called out for greenwashing and fraudulent or ineffective practices.
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The reality is that there is no simple answer to traveling sustainably—especially in the U.S., where many forms of transportation are heavily individualized and fossil-fuel reliant. At an individual level, we can mindfully assess the options at hand. Collectively, we can advocate for investments in electrification, thoughtful urban planning, and widespread public transportation; and for the climate-conscious transportation systems we hope to use in Winter Breaks to come.
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