Housatonic Community College Environmental Fair

Earth Day Calendar

April 22 was Earth Day, but the observances continue:

Thurs Apr 23, 9:30-11:30 AM: Public forum, "Bridgeport’s Environment: What is being done, what you can do" with Atty General Richard Blumenthal, Mayor Bill Finch, and others. Housatonic Community College Event Center at Beacon Hall (2nd floor), 900 Lafayette Blvd, Bridgeport. Contact Dave Koch, dkoch@hcc.commnet.edu - http://www.hcc.commnet.edu/events/earthWeeks

Thurs April 23, 6-8pm: "Speaking of Green": Green Heat talk by John Ruhnke, president of JR's Comfortable Heat. He will discuss radiant floor heating and solar and geothermal heating. The Center for Green Building, 3380 Fairfield Ave, Bridgeport, 382-0774 - http://www.centerforgreenbuilding.com

Sat Apr 25, 12:30-5:30 PM: Earth Day Symposium: "Awakening the Dreamer, Changing the Dream." By donation, Unitarian Universalist Society, 20 Forest St, Stamford. Contact Laura, 840-1979 - http://awakeningthedreamer.org -
http://www.uusis.org

Sat Apr 25, 11-4: Green Earth Fair at Earthplace, 10 Woodside Ln, Westport, $5. 227-7253, greenearthfair@gmail.com - http://www.earthplace.org/calendar

Thurs Apr 30, 10-2: Green Fair: An Earth Day Celebration. Housatonic Community College, 900 Lafayette Blvd, Bridgeport. Contact LBayusik@hcc.commnet.edu, 332-5058 - http://www.hcc.commnet.edu/events/earthWeeks

Thurs Apr 30, 12-1:30 PM: "Green Building & Land Use Regs: What You Need to Know." Soundwaters talk by Gregory S. Sampson, attorney specializing in land-use and environmental law. Robinson & Cole, 1055 Washington Blvd., Stamford. RSVP soundbusiness@soundwaters.org, 406-3335 - http://www.soundwaters.org/busenv

Sat May 2, 12-4 PM: EcoChic Wedding & Home Show. Hotel Chesterfield, 1404 Shippan Ave, Stamford. $20 tickets. Contact: info@ctgreenscene.com,
470-8020 - http://www.greenweddingscene.com

Mon May 4, 5:30-7:30 PM: Union of Concerned Scientists president Kevin Knobloch talks about bringing current science to bear on shaping U.S. climate policies. Doubletree Hotel, 789 Connecticut Ave, Norwalk. RSVP at
http://www.ucsusa.org/forms/ucs-norwalk-ct-member-event.html

Tues May 5, 6-8 PM: Town of Fairfield GreenDrinks at Beach Cafe, 1270 Post Rd, Fairfield. 536-4695 - http://www.fairfieldgreenteam.org

Wed May 6, 6-8 PM: Norwalk GreenDrinks at Pirate Restaurant, 7 Wall St, Norwalk. 227-2065

Sat May 9, 9:30-3: Fairfield’s Earth Day Celebration at Fairfield Warde High School. Contact: ffldearthday@aol.com -
http://fairfieldearthday.wordpress.com

Sat May 16, 11-3: Norwalk-Wilton Tree Festival, Cranbury Park, Norwalk. 854-3200, info@ NorwalkTreeAlliance.org - http://www.norwalktreealliance.org

Thurs May 28, 2-9 PM: Sustainable Gardening Expo. Stamford Govt Center, 888 Washington Blvd, Stamford. A project of Sustainable Stamford, in cooperation with Bartlett Arboretum & Gardens, Mill River Collaborative, and Stamford Museum Nature & Center. Contact Erin McKenna, City of Stamford Land Use Bureau, 977-4715, emckenna@ci.stamford.ct.us -
http://sustainablegardeningexpo.eventbrite.com

UFO Lands In Bridgeport

Austin W. Mather Theatre - Bridgeport, CT (Photo: Jon Nowinski)

The other day while sitting in the Aquarium, someone walked in looking for a friend. He worked on rigging the solar stage at the Gathering of the Vibes. He had a strange story to tell. It seems one year he had been invited to a mysterious sonic and robotic event inside a UFO-shaped building not far from Seaside Park, where the Vibes are held.

I know the University of Bridgeport campus well, having been there many times, to the WPKN radio station or the library. I remembered seeing an odd shaped building, always wondered what it was, never paid much attention, so this got me curious. I asked Jon Nowinski of SRGA to join me on a field trip to investigate.

This UFO-shaped protusion is annex to the Arnold Bernhard Center at 84 Iranistan Avenue, over looking Long Island Sound. It's part of the UB School of Arts and Sciences building. The art gallery inside is currently featuring a very interesting avant-garde international graphic design exhibition.

I inquired and discovered the Austin W. Mather theatre was built back in 1980... but "beleive it or not!" closed shortly after in 1981 when the City of Bridgeport passed an ordinance mandating all public buildings required two fire emergency exits. Yes, my friends... this amazing looking tourist roadside attraction, has been boarded up for 28 years!!! Isn't that nuts? They never built a second exit, they just left it the way it was, locked the doors and threw away the key.

Would seem to be a no brainer. Anyone who has ever seen a plane release its passengers from the rear, or your average b-sci-fi UFO flick, knows exactly where the ramp needs to go, right where I'm pointing in the above photo!

I started speculating wildly as to what may have caused this to happen. Back in the 70's Bridgeport was a Sikorsky company town! Their engineers would use the Bridgeport Public Library Science & Technology room where hundreds of industry trade journals and thousands of technical books made it one of the best engineering reference library in the North East.

The Connecticut Inventors Club met there once a month. I was a member. I attended often. The Science & Technology room was also home of the largest selection of UFO-related titles I'd ever laid my eyes on... rows and rows of UFO books, filled with photographs, much I had never seen before or seen since.

It made sense, Sikorsky didn't want to leave any rocks unturned. Old man Sikorsky wanted to build the best possible vertical take-off aircraft possible. So he had his people study everything, no matter how far fetched, for ideas and inspiration, from the flight of insects, to UFO flying pattern reports.

Sikorsky had originally been invited to set up shop in Connecticut by Howard Hughes himself, who brought him over from France, and became his first customer. Then the old visionary died, and United Technologies bought Sikorsky. I suppose in their grand wisdom, decided much of the material and topics on display at the "public" library may have been a little too sensitive for national security. So they took all their stuff back, closed down the Science & Technology room, in essence ripping the heart out of the community.

I suspect the Austin W. Mather Theatre may have fallen victim to the pull out by Sikorsky from its interaction with the City. This UFO-shaped building may have been built as a testament to avionics and aeronautics, a piercing arrow into a bold new future of flying ships. So what happened?

(Design: Mariko Mori/Photo: Geekologie)

Dirty F***** Hippies!

Thanks to Dandelion Salad

Center for Green Building Speaking of Green Series

Center for Green Building Presents:

Speaking of Green

The Center for Green Building is proud to present our Spring 2009 Speaking of Green Series that will cover the many faces of the evolving environmental movement. Every Thursday evening, from 6pm-8pm, we will be hosting a free workshop, seminar, discussion or movie screening that will be accompanied by an industry professional guest speaker.

All are welcome!

March 12, 6-8pm
3380 Fairfield Avenue
Bridgeport, CT 06605
(203) 382-0774

Our next Speaking of Green topic will be:

Solar Energy:
Presented by Carolyn Humphreys

Carolyn is a Photovoltaic System Designer at Sunlight Solar. She will be speaking about solar possibilities and the new leasing program. Carolyn has been speaking across the state to get the message about solar energy out to consumers as well as educate the general public about this wonderful opportunity for clean and green energy.

Some future issues that will be focused on are:

Wind Power, Public Transportation, Environmental Stewardship, Nutrition and much more. We look forward to seeing you at the Center for Green Building!

Please call our showroom or check our events page on our website for updates. Feel free to forward this to your friends.

www.centerforgreenbuilding.com

Norwalk's Thinking Green Fri Feb 27 NCC

Think Green is coming to Norwalk, thanks to a program of the Greater Norwalk Chamber of Commerce.

The Chamber's Leadership Institute held its graduation breakfast on Wednesday morning at the Dolce Norwalk Center, and it was announced that the 17 participants have put together Think Green, an event that will feature several exhibitors that will highlight conservation and environmental measures.

Think Green will take place from 3 to 7 p.m. on Friday Feb. 27 at Norwalk Community College.

The Leadership Institute, which began in 1981, is a Chamber program designed for Norwalk's new and up-and-coming business and community leaders. The nine-week program focuses on a variety of topics -- such as local government, economic development, media and education -- to help prepare the individuals for leaderships roles. Local prominent business people lead the weekly sessions.

The cornerstone of the institute is a project that the participants work on together. Historically, the end results of the projects have been reports given during the graduation event. Last year the Chamber changed the criteria of the projects to have tangible results at the end of the program.

This year all 17 participants worked on a single project, Think Green.

"We wanted them to focus on an activity that would be beneficial to businesses and the people of the city. We wanted an all-encompassing project," said Tony Izzo, site director at Northrop Grumman Norden Systems and chairman of the Leadership Institute. "All of the members played an active role and they did an outstanding job. It's a good project that will help everybody out. We gave them very little direction at the beginning."

Think Green will be free of charge and open to the public. The exhibitors, most of whom are already lined up, will be charged a small fee, which will be donated to a local school. The list of exhibitors include South Norwalk Electric and Water Co., Green Demolitions, Aitoro, iPark, and General Electric.

Brian Griffin, vice president of the Greater Norwalk Chamber of Commerce, was impressed with this year's Leadership Institute participants.

"We gave them a vague description of what we wanted and they took it upon themselves to develop it and put it together," he said. "Even though they've graduated, they'll stay in touch and keep working on it until the expo. This (Think Green) is something we hope to continue doing every year or every other year."

This story is from The Hour, a Norwalk, CT, newspaper... Click
http://www.thehour.com/story/461248 to read the complete article on their website.

Nuke Sub Crash Raises Concerns

A recent collision between two nuclear submarines in the Atlantic Ocean has raised concerns among anti-nuclear organizations.

In the incident that took place earlier this month involved British and French submarines that were undergoing exercises. Neither sub suffered any heavy damage, and there was no loss in containment of the nuclear material on board.

The HMS Vanguard (see photo) is one of Britain's four nuclear powered subs. She was launched in 1994 and holds 16 nuclear-armed Trident missiles. The French's Le Triomphant was launched in 1997 and also carries 16 nuclear missiles.

This is not the first accident to involve nuclear submarines, and that safety record is a major concern for anti-nuclear activists. When the safety issues from the nuclear submarine service are coupled with those involving nuclear reactors, the negatives seem to outweigh the positives. A disaster involving one of the land-based nuclear plants, or a sub-based platform, would be disastrous.

To date there are six nuclear submarines that have sunk in incidents. Two were American and four were Russian. There have been 14 incidents involving radiation issues from on board nuclear reactors. And, of course, that does not account for the instances that were not leaked or released to the public.

This is an issue of major concern here in Connecticut. First, we are home to General Electric, suppliers of nearly all nuclear weapons and power plants to the U.S. Navy. We also have the Electric Boat Company, which builds the latest nuclear subs for the Navy based in Groton, CT. And last, but not least, our nuclear safety concerns involve both the Indian Point and Millstone plants. A breakdown in any one of these would be catastrophic for those living nearby, and we are very much in Ground Zero.

Add your comments to the discussion at Another Oops -- British, French nuclear subs collide in Atlantic