Good afternoon you know we're gonna have
to try that again it's always hard to
break into conversations especially
conversations among friends who may not
have seen one another for quite a while
thank you all for coming we're going to
start one more time dr. hrabowski is
here we've been well rehearsed good
afternoon welcome welcome to the second
annual wisdom Institute luncheon as you
know the wisdom Institute is you UMBC's
young association for all University
retirees both faculty and staff since
our inception we have sponsored many
events and programs we've partnered with
colleagues still actively employed on
campus as well as with persons in the
broader community together we have
offered many opportunities I'll
highlight just a few we have monthly
informal luncheons in the skylight we
take meditation walks with the Wellness
Program that's offered by HR we've
sponsored a bus trip to the American
african-american Museum and heritage
museum I'm not nervous am i we've taken
a bus trip to the African American
Heritage Museum in Washington DC in
partnership with the Arbutus community
we've held a pre-retirement dialogue
with the Erickson school focused on
questions that are outside the
information that HR will give members
have engaged in community service both
on and off campus I talked to one of our
leaders today who actually helped
prepare an interview to a mock interview
for our most recent prestigious scholar
honoree
a Truman so last year we were able to
talk about our roads this year we have a
new Truman which is really really
exciting
staff members have come back to work in
departments to help with faculty with
grants or to step in when administrative
assistants are on leave I could go on I
really could go on and I hope many of
you have been involved in some of these
programs but instead I'm going to ask
you to visit our website periodically
and see what might be of interest to you
if you don't see what you're looking for
let us know we'll do our best to see
that it happens and more than likely
we're going to strong-arm you into
leading the effort so no good deed goes
unpunished
but we we invite everyone to come and be
even more involved with the wisdom
Institute such opportunities to engage
have fun and continue to serve don't
just happen in a vacuum
there's a group of dedicated creative
and energetic individuals who truly work
selflessly to make sure that all of this
is possible and those are the members of
our wisdom Institute board wood board
members please stand and be recognized
and let's thank them together and Larry
Wilton sandy Parker were not able to be
here today special thanks to our
programming committee raise your hands
who would the unending support of Diana
Smith plan this very special day from
soup to nuts or maybe I should say from
authoress to dessert as you can see our
board is comprised of a most amazing
group of people and I'm honored to work
with each and every one of them and I'm
not alone however in recognizing their
achievements and creativity the '''l
association of retirement organizations
in higher education well known as a row
he has twice spotlighted wisdom
institute efforts efforts in their
newsletter and in our very first year of
existence we were nominated for an
Innovation Award even though we had not
been a year old it's really quite
something I want to note that the wisdom
Institute is indebted to our president
and our Provost dr. hrabowski and dr.
Rous
both of whom have lent their full
support and I do mean full support to
our efforts indeed they are our hosts
for today and the reason there are
absolutely no fees associated with our
gathering today is because they have
extended full payment so that we could
meet together dr. Rous extends his
sincere regrets he was not able to join
us today he had planned to do so and in
fact he was scheduled to give these
welcoming remarks but he was called away
at the very last moment but please know
he is with us in spirit
moment for reflection when I first came
here and it sounds so long ago but back
in 1987 as a visiting assistant
professor the campus looked nothing like
it does today the boxy red brick
buildings were predominant the built
environment was cold it was almost
sterile and I almost expected to see
guards walking back and forth the
breezeway is in terms of the natural
environment there were a few trees
scattered about and those trees served
as homes for some of the strangest
squirrels I have ever seen I hear that
you know what I'm talking about but it
wasn't too many years after I came on
campus that things began to change I
commented to many colleagues that the
campus was really beginning to look
different trees bushes shrubs flowers
they were all being planted in great
numbers everywhere on campus I asked how
did this happen and I was told and
forgive me for telling your story but I
was told that dr. hrabowski had just
assumed a leadership position in the
administration and he had made
beautifying the campus and
sustainability a top priority back then
I was told dr. hrabowski that you walked
around the campus and I've seen you do
this before for other reasons and
pointed to whole corridors and spaces
where things could be planted and the
campus could be beautified and things
could be improved we thank you I have to
say that the landscape today
is absolutely gorgeous and I hope you
felt as I did coming on campus I think
it looks wonderful and spring is here in
all its glory dr. hrabowski Freeman as
we know you and love you acknowledge the
importance of beauty in the natural
environment as necessary as a necessary
context indeed for his vision of
inclusivity and educational excellence
this orientation coupled with his deep
ethic of care and profound sense of
responsibility has served as a
foundation for our reputation as an
honors University that welcomes and
fosters inquiring minds Freeman we are
both grateful and proud thank you thank
you again welcome thank you all for
coming and it's my distinct pleasure to
invite dr. hrabowski to the podium the
association of retirement organizations
in higher education and she is
representative and they've twice now
recognized this for what we're doing so
Diane thank you again give another round
of applause would you please so I've
told several of you that I have a new
book with with with with the Philip and
Peter in my office coming out with
Hopkins press entitled the the empowered
University but then it says as a
semicolon after and it says shared
leadership culture change and academic
success and not draw heavily on that
wonderful book that I know everybody's
read I'm George the news by this point
if you haven't you really should read it
on our history on the policy he's here
in the state and Beyond on this 50
experiment that we've been a part of the
first sentence in the book and it's
written in my voice says it's not about
me because often with presidents write
these books it ends up sounding like
something that they did and so then when
you were talking yeah I did get really
excited about the appearance the
aesthetics the environmental issues I'm
serious but I want to give a very
outspoken person all the
would you all applaud patented new
please she was amazing I wasn't in the
Academy you're supposed to tell the
truth and while I might have had some
slight idea about the possibilities she
didn't just say we've got to do much
better she brought me photos from
campuses do you see this do you see this
we could do this we could do this and it
was the best definition of pushy I've
ever seen because because it wasn't
pushy about something for herself it was
about for all of us and so what you see
here is a result of what she did sending
Parker so many other people who were
involved and so it's important to tell
that I just came from a seminar this
morning by our what we call cs3 which is
the Center for social science research
and Christine Mallinson on immigration
and mobility in higher education and
several people spoke about issues
involving tuition and in-state tuition
but a fascinating conversation that led
to the discussion by George Lanoue who
said he had to get over here but it was
significant to hear him talking about
the big questions that we have to ask
including the fact that when he and Pat
were in Canada recently the people seem
to discourage them from wanting to
immigrate there to migrate there was
very interesting as welcoming as they
are and the kinds of questions when
asked about health policies and I
thought about that as I was looking at
Evan avea if you look up that named avi
LA and he is of the new Truman scholar
the son of immigrants and he is Latino
he is an economics major an amazing
young man but he won the special
National Policy competition on major
proposals for rethinking retirement of
the Millennials particularly
particularly those in the gig economy
those who've not had opportunities or
formal retirement benefits and and out
of the country literally he won first
place and wants to do that work wants to
think about retirement issues of people
coming from other countries our people
in this country who've not had the
benefit of a steady retirement kind of
approach of what should our country be
doing so it's it's a big deal by the way
I have asked Philip if I can say there
hello's daughter has been in intensive
care on for weeks and I asked you if
your faith to pray for them not just to
give them your thoughts and if if you
are close enough to just say we're
thinking about you Philip you know it's
really challenging when a parent is
dealing with something like that she had
been a PhD student at University of
Pennsylvania and it is a very serious
matter and so I have said to him Philip
when you need to call in or whatever but
family comes first please take the time
and be with your daughter so let's just
keep our thoughts and prayers with him
the other major point I wanted to make
is this that Tom would delight at you
here someone we're really delighted you
here the I appreciate that good friend
and when I think about you and I think
about will Baker or I'll think about my
bowler I mean some of us who know each
other it's just as I walked from table
to table I kept having memories about
different people from different times
all the way back all the way to Karen to
Betty to just look around the room and
you see folks I told Betty Glasco she's
reversing the aging process somehow way
and she gets upset when I say things
like that but the fact is that all of
you look so Susan the people I see here
and the point is this everybody has a
story each of you can tell many stories
about where you were talking about the
foundation for the things involving
computer science I mean it's it's very
we appreciate it
so today is a chance to celebrate the
foundation of UMBC anybody who was here
in the first 50 years I call the
founders of this place we've laid the
foundation just think about it and if we
are doing well and we really are it is
because of all the work and effort of so
many of you over the years in faculty
and staff in supporting this place it
has been an honor to be here and we are
now 50 what do we 50 53 years old so we
still babies in higher education and yet
the newest survey that was talked about
today by David B Maria the new
international person for the campus they
said this that in the times it is the
Times Higher Education survey the fact
is that we are about number 62 out of
400 and some campuses worldwide in
sustainability Development Goals it's
called the
it's called SDG and these are the goals
set by the United Nations for
universities or companies and others but
number 60 something out of 400 but what
he also said was in America the list for
those that are making the most progress
and this is involving everything from
social inequality gender and racial
inequality the environment that we are
there's chapter here list number one
Arizona state is number two UMBC is
number three in America it was a big
round of applause today so it's most
appropriate and with that said what that
says to me is two things one it's great
to be doing better than a lot of places
but two there's a lot of work to do
that's and that's why I think it's great
that the wisdom Institute today is
focused on these environmental matters
from great journalists about who's an
expert on the Chesapeake Bay somebody
who's a part of a sister institution
Salisbury we're delighted I'm gonna send
a note the chance is always talking
about systemness well this is I hate
that word but systemness right but it's
good to see the collaboration of cross
campuses in that way and then finally we
were cooking all night enjoy the food
thank you all right all right enjoy I
have a question are you ready for some
wise thinking about the Chesapeake Bay
yeah it's good well I am Patricia Lanoue
and as Diane mentioned we have a
planning committee okay in the back we
have a planning committee and this
committee asked for ideas about topics
for this year's luncheon and something
on the environment came up many many
times and then we brought it down to the
Chesapeake Bay and we are just delighted
that our first choice tom horton
accepted our invitation and on behalf of
the planning committee the
of you raised your hand before but sandy
Parker isn't here Leslie Morgan Brian
McKay Joyce Kenny and - did I forget we
really have thought a lot about you Tom
and we've received a lot of accolades
about Tom when we say Oh Tom Horton is
going to be our speaker we hear oh great
he's a wonderful raconteur he's as you
know a naturalist an author an
award-winning author did how many of you
saw some of his books and Brian McKay's
books as you came in and they are going
to be out there I think after our
luncheon if you didn't get a chance to
see them and purchase them before you
can he's an outdoorsman he's a filmmaker
and he's knowledgeable but beyond
knowledgeable reflective and it's Tom's
reflectiveness and his ability to pull
disparate parts together to assimilate
things and give us new insight and
meaning that I think is especially
important for what he's going to talk to
you about today he's been recognized as
one of the nation's foremost nature
writers as I said in several books and
he's also written articles and been
published in the National Geographic the
Smithsonian the New York Times the
Rolling Stones and the Baltimore Sun and
in fact it it was through the Baltimore
Sun years and years ago that I first was
introduced to Tom and read his columns
regularly in 13 years how many columns
do you think he wrote over 600 so he's
really prolific I have a copy of the
last column that you wrote
in 2005 and if some of you would like to
see it I made extra copies and and he
was quite wise in 2005 of what he wrote
and has continued to share with us he's
developed a passion I think for the
Chesapeake Bay the watershed
environmental issues in part he says
because of growing up on the Eastern
Shore where he was born and lived in
small towns on the Eastern Shore for he
recollects what you say two-thirds of
your life but he did get around he's
seen a lot of the world first started at
in Baltimore here he went to Hopkins and
had a degree reads received a degree in
biology and economics and then he
decided to venture out a little further
and in the early 70s he became an Arabic
translator for the Army Security Agency
and he went to Ethiopia North Yemen
Sudan Saudi Arabia and the Persian Gulf
a little different landscape and Eastern
Shore for sure currently he's taken on a
couple additional career goals he's
continuing to write and he's a regular
column columnist for the Bay Journal and
you all have on your table somewhere a
green half sheet two-sided you'll notice
and on one side you have a survey you
can take and on the other side are some
links to places that you may want to
check out to either read on a regular
basis or volunteer or get involved with
but the top on the list is the Bay
Journal and you can subscribe to the Bay
Journal online free and read what Tom is
writing now on a regular basis and I'm
sure they'd be happy for contributions
as well
Oh Tom's also in addition to the books
the award but winning books he's begun a
career in filmmaking and I think you've
done four or you're about to start your
fourth
but forth and he's he told me it's a
documentary about a little-known
community on the Eastern Shore called
San Domingo anybody heard of San Domingo
well you'll get to know about San
Domingo when he finishes this
documentary it was founded in 1820 by
free blacks from Haiti and the Dominican
Republic so good luck to you on that
film and we'll look forward to you're
watching it he's also an educator and
he's been an educator all along I think
when you lead tours when you write when
you talk to people as he's done your
teaching all the time but he has this
title now a professor of practice as dr.
hrabowski said at Salisbury and he
teaches writing and environmental
courses but the course that I'm most
excited about is his summer course and
he takes students for a month camping
and kayaking throughout the Chesapeake
Bay and the tributaries so all
throughout this month in addition to
paddling and sleeping in the ground they
are meeting with artists and scientists
and naturalist
and Waterman and Tom's contacts
throughout the watershed are enormous
and I'm sure those conversations are
really very beneficial both to the
artists and scientists and to the
students as well of course when they
come back after this month they have a
week to assimilate their learning and to
prepare for a final presentation and Tom
I'd love to come to this year's final
presentation I think it would be you let
us know well we'll put it on the wisdom
Institute website now I haven't
mentioned lobbying as one of the things
that Tom might have done so when I asked
him do you know he's passionate about
several of these issues these policy
issues I said have you ever lobbied and
he said well Patricia I'd like to but
you know journalist suggests don't lobby
however I had one exception in this
exception he said he occurred back in
2008 when he was a member of a team that
put together an effort to have the Smith
Island layer-cake become the official
dessert of Maryland and guess what the
bill passed so I'm sorry that we don't
have that Smith Island layered cake for
dessert this year but maybe Dianna we
ought to put it on the menu for next
year and but the nice thing about Tom
and there are many wonderful things
about Thomas he said he was glad for how
it helped the economy of some of the
women because it's become a very popular
thing to have the Smith Island cake and
and that's what tom is like he cares
about these other people we have the
pleasure of listening to Tom for about a
half an hour and then he will open it up
to questions and answers so I am
delighted to turn the podium over to you
Tom
Thank You Patricia ah she has a way of
making you sound more interesting than
you really are I got to tell you this is
not going to be as exciting as the last
talk I gave with Freeman in the audience
was several years ago I was following a
woman speaker who did not share my views
this guy sits in the back after I'm
finished and shouts out one of you has
got to be lying
at which point at which point I said
well it's her at which point her husband
a pretty good-sized old boy standing in
the back of the room invited me to step
outside
at which point my co-panelists from the
Sierra Club in the Nature Conservancy
were diving for the exits but but you
know it was the right dam question to
ask and and no one else had the guts to
do it so so anyway this will be a calmer
more collaborative experience I hope
than that and and she was lying but
anyway so you know it's it's a it's a
heavy thing to address something called
the wisdom Institute and I I've given it
a little thought you know one of the
wisest people I knew was my late friend
Tom Messner Tom was a total creative
genius his song Chesapeake borne has
become kind of an anthem of the
Chesapeake he was a sculptor dancer
singer storyteller folklorist brought
all of those talents to bear on
childhood environmental education and I
spent a lot of time in hospice when Tom
was dying he was a huge inspiration and
a mentor to me and I I promised I would
not do something this trite but toward
the end I said Tom if you had to sum it
all up you know what would you say and
knowing that's impossible and he just
said we're here to learn
and I you know I expect you people in
this room have figured that out a long
time ago the only thing I think I give
my students that might pass for wisdom
is I tell them if you're gonna get into
any of these save-the-world professions
whether it's beating weapons into
plowshares ending aids in Africa peace
in our time social justice saving the
planet you've got to figure ways to
build in reward and pleasure and fun or
you're gonna burn out because I have
seen that and I really think that's true
because you know when you set out to
save the world whatever aspect of it you
may choose you're going to lose and some
days believe it or not the world isn't
gonna seem grateful so you really need
to do that one caveat about my wisdom
this is a book I published first in 1991
sort of the closest thing you can get to
a textbook on Chesapeake Bay I published
this edition in 2003 at the time I would
say it represented the accumulated
scientific and environmental wisdom of
not only me but anybody I could talk to
around the Chesapeake who would be wise
about it I'm gonna do a third edition
and I reread this this book has two
paragraphs not strung together on
climate change which 16 years later
would you wouldn't even think about it
half the books going to be climate
change now so in 2003 we who thought we
were wise do not seem so wise and you
know arguably that is going to
everything I'm going to tell you today
could change quite a bit if we don't get
more serious about climate change so I
want to explain the bay to you a little
bit and I got some slides here and I may
need some help pulling them up there's
just three of them that will give a
little context for understanding what
I'm talking about
oh the insight about building some fun
in was said much better by EB White and
essayist back in the 50s he said
something like every morning I get up
torn between whether to lament all
that's wrong with the world or to just
go out and enjoy it and you have to do
some of both but he was pretty good he
worried about nuclear war back in the
50s and 60s let's see what I can do yeah
I have a thumb drive here called su for
Salisbury University it's and I just
need to pull that up and find her
you
yeah that's it okay we got it yeah
you
there's three slides here that will give
a little context this is a nice Raven
map it's the physiographic us just the
the features the rivers the mountains if
you start up there in Puget Sound at the
corner run around down the California
coast across through Texas where the
Mexicans are busy building the Great
Wall even as we speak
down down along the Gulf Coast you can
see the Mississippi come out in that big
jumbly Delta down there Florida Bay on
around the coast you get up to the
Chesapeake and whoa there's nothing like
that as far as an incursion of the
oceans into the landscape just in case
you don't see it that's us 187 miles the
ocean extends into the land from Norfolk
to Havre de Grace if you tease out all
of that tidal shoreline you end up with
according to the Virginia Institute of
Marine Science this year eleven thousand
six hundred and twenty-eight miles of
land water edge there is really nothing
like that anywhere else on the American
coastline and it explains a lot about
why so much of our culture and history
our heritage our livelihoods are linked
to the Chesapeake and it's tidal rivers
it's really quite unique and all that
edge is not just a cocktail party trivia
question because so much of nature and
so many humans all want waterfront real
estate and I'll talk about that a little
later so
you
we talked about the big picture this is
narrowing it down a little bit this is
the operative unit for all our efforts
to restore the bay it's the watershed
the drainage basin 40-odd significant
rivers run down into the main Bay meet
the salt tides from the ocean coming up
it's a big piece of piece of land it's
64,000 square miles forty-eight million
acres up the top there is the Baseball
Hall of Fame Cooperstown New York I take
partial credit for a sign that's right
outside the Baseball Hall of Fame that
says something like the Chesapeake Bay
starts here they didn't know till I came
up there doing a National Geographic
article and told them they said that's
kind of cool so goes out into Altoona
Pennsylvania down on that southwestern
corner to Lynchburg Virginia it's about
a sixth of the East Coast between
Vermont is a little north north
carolina's a little bit south and it all
drains into a body of water that looks
pretty big when you cross the Bay Bridge
or the bridge tunnel down at the mouth
but it's only about 1/16 the area of the
land but more than that the bay is kind
of an illusion it looks big but there
ain't much water in it it's about if you
went from Havre de Grace to Norfolk
you'd have about a million feet if you
went down to the widest part there in
Virginia about a hundred thousand feet
depth average about 21 feet try and
model that sometime a million by a
hundred thousand by 21 it's the water
gets pretty thin on any scale you'd care
to model it so the implications of that
for having to attend to good land uses
as opposed to polluting land uses on
that massive watershed are huge a very
very few coastal water bodies anywhere
on earth have that much land drain
into that little water and of course you
got some help from the ocean which
flushes it daily with tides four times a
day but it's pretty weak flushing the
tides on the bay or just a couple feet
there nothing like these big coastal
tides so you really have to watch that
Knology I still write in Doss which I
think most of you can thank God Sony
makes floppy drives that plug into USB
port
you
this is something most people even EPA
didn't pay attention to that gray area
far bigger than the Bay watershed is the
bay area about a third of the pollutants
we worry about most in Chesapeake Bay
come from dirty air the Clean Air Act is
darn near as important as the Clean
Water Act in restoring places like
Chesapeake Bay it's mainly nitrates
nitrogen oxides from burning fossil
fuels from the Ohio River Valley from as
far a little bit into Ontario I think so
very few people are aware of how
important the air shed is to restoring
the bay and why we really have to
politically it gets very interesting and
Maryland is part of a lot of regional
greenhouse gas clean air compacts which
try to make some inroads into this but
coal burning power plants in the Ohio
River Valley are pretty deadly to the
bay so that's kind of the context I'll
be talking in
okay we can get back to just just
talking a little bit now up an old guy
named Don Prichard who was a pioneer
oceanographer at johns hopkins used to
say in his classes when i was an
undergraduate at hopkins we are very
fortunate people we live in the age of
estuaries what he meant an estuary of
which the bay is a classic example are
these coastal water bodies where rivers
meet the ocean and there's some of the
most productive places on earth what Don
was talking about is estuaries including
the Chesapeake aren't even here
ninety percent of geologic time most of
the time the water is all tied up in the
glaciers ice ages only in these rather
brief ephemeral interglacials do the
oceans rise out of their basins crawl
across the continental shelves and swell
into nooks and crannies of the coastline
to form Chesapeake Bay's most the time
it's not here
Prichard said we should enjoy it we are
in our interglacial called the Holocene
some ecologists want to call it the
Anthropocene because it's the
interglacial where humans are having
influenced big time over nature the
people who make the final call on that
the geology boys they're there they're
gonna wait a few thousand years to
declare it a different you know they're
the hard rock guys want to see more
evidence then then a little polluted
water to call it the Anthropocene so the
Holocene but it is a particularly nice
and long and stable one and when you
think about it you really can't have the
development of a large and complex
civilization in an era of climate
instability and that's something we
really need to keep in mind with climate
change sea level rise which we worry
about a lot
made the bay without the glaciers
melting in the sea level rising from
20,000 years ago to about 3,000 years
ago there would be no Chesapeake Bay in
that 3,000 years the Seas have been
pretty stable not just here but
worldwide in that time human populations
have grown from millions to tens of
millions to built in several orders of
magnitude to seven and a half billion
headed toward nine or ten and now all of
a sudden we may see the end of that era
of stability so it's also interesting
that I mentioned humans like waterfront
of those seven and a half million people
on earth about half of us live pretty
close to an edge of land and water so
when the sea starts to become less
stable that's a big big deal so we live
in an age of estuaries much more
recently as of around here maybe the
1950s and 60s we've entered another age
unprecedented the age of eutrophic
estuaries estuaries that have become fat
to put it in human terms over fertilized
with nitrogen and phosphorus from human
activities from wastes to fossil
fuel-burning I'll go into that a little
bit later this age is not unique to the
bay this age of you trophy it's
happening to coastal waters from hong
kong harbor to the baltic to san
francisco bay to the gulf of mexico and
essentially what's happening is growing
populations discharge more wastes more
intensive agriculture to feed those
growing populations leeks fertilizers
the increased burning of fossil fuels to
heat and cool and transport those
growing populations
yada-yada and the baby comes over
fertilized probably about seven times
the amount of nutrients that the bay
evolved to handle we can't go back to
one
Evans but we think if we can go back to
about half what we're putting in the bay
now that would make it as good as it was
when I was a kid and that was a pretty
good pretty good Bay what happens is too
much fertilizer grows too much plant
life floating algae the floating algae
cuts the light going to critters that
live on the bays bottom and we've seen a
massive decrease in everything from
oysters to submerged aquatic vegetation
all of it critical habitat for a healthy
bay worse than that when the algae
decomposes it sucks the oxygen out of
the deeper waters creating what we call
dead zones and there are about 450
documented around the world the bay as
one of the the better study so then we
enter got the age of estuaries the age
of fat you trophic estuaries more
recently since the mid to late 80s we've
entered the age on the Chesapeake of
trying to restore your trophic estuaries
to something like we knew them at least
in the 1950s and the bay is sort of in
the forefront of that it happened after
several years of scientific inquiry into
whether we were just seeing natural
up-and-down cycles or something that was
new and we concluded in the late 70s it
was something new and it would take
about a 50% reduction in the pollution
were causing to bring things back to
normal so how's that all been going ah I
I can count on one hand the insights
I've had I gave you one I'm going to
give you maybe the only other I've had
I'm not given two great insights but at
some point fairly early in my career
covering environment for the Baltimore
Sun I had some other good job offers and
I didn't take them and I turned down
some others because I realized if you
liked writing about nature if you liked
covering the environmental story big and
small
we were running as good an experiment
macro cosmic scale experiment here on
the Chesapeake as you could ever wish
for
we had a world-class resource acre for
acre estuaries like the bay when there
Perkin long hitting on all their
cylinders there they're more productive
than almost any other parts of the
planetary environment we had screwed up
this world-class resource in a
world-class way to the point at some
time shortly after Earth Day the first
one was 1970 somewhere in the early 70s
the Chesapeake ecosystem literally
flipped upside down it made a dramatic
change from a place where the bulk of
the life and the productivity was on the
bottom when the water was still clear -
something that shifted to the top
floating algae and critters like
menhaden that could capitalize on it
like crabs that could stand it it's
pretty amazing thing to take an
ecosystem the size of the Chesapeake and
turn it upside down probably a little
bit like what we did when we started to
break the sod of the tall grass prairies
to grow wheat and you know we didn't
just turn an ecosystem upside down we
turned a culture that was based on
buffalo and free-range into agriculture
and fences and cattle instead of buffalo
so it was a pretty big thing we did and
then to make the experiment more
interesting we started if not a world
class the world's most comprehensive
attempt to reverse this even as we
continue to increase population about a
million and a half a decade in that
watershed since I was a boy the
population of the bay watershed is gone
from about 8 million to about eighteen
seventeen million seventeen and a half
million so can we do this this is pretty
fun to cover and that's what I've been
doing with the rest of my life there's
really you can break it
three aspects you got to cover pollution
that's all the crap we put in the bay
you also got to cover all stuff we take
out harvests because if you're taking
fish and crabs and oysters out faster
than they can reproduce your water
quality could be perfect and it still
wouldn't matter so what you put in what
you take out the final one and I'll
explain it a little more later is
resilience that goes back to that giant
landscape protecting all those systems
on the land like forests and wetlands
that produce very little pollution that
if we just leave them be help the bay
help itself they filter and buffer it
against polluted runoff against dirty
air some of the systems of resilience
lie in the bay itself oysters which
clean and clarify and filter the water
so how are we doing on those three areas
I'll just give you a thumbnail sketch
with pollution and the stuff we put in
the bay we have employed tried in true
technology good funding sources built
into the Clean Water Act to carry the
bay restoration on the back of better
sewage treatment and how good can that
be the Patuxent River which was where we
first started to notice things going
wrong in the 1960s since the 1950s on
the Patuxent River which drains a lot of
central Maryland the DC suburbs
population has increased from 30,000 to
1.2 million a 40 fold increase in
population and we have actually reduced
the pollution in that River from sewage
just through pure technology and
billions of dollars and laws they can
take your firstborn child if you don't
pay your water and sewer bill so sewage
we know sewage works and I would never
have thought we could achieve that the
caveat to that is our sewage treatment
plants around the bay are running pretty
close to the
it's of technology pretty close to the
limits you know once you take 90 some
percent of the pollution out getting
that remaining bit 1 you don't get that
much there's not that much left and it
costs a lot so the bottom line is sewage
has carried us to a large extent the
modest improvements we've seen have been
largely due to better sewage treatment
it's not going to carry us for the next
several decades a little bit a Clean Air
Act that too has has had a real
significant effect
it's a tough law it's not really
designed for estuaries it's designed to
protect human health but in protecting
human health making cars cleaner
smokestacks cleaner burning cleaner
fuels going to renewables we have you
know cranked down a good bit on that so
again a technological solution we kind
of like those because they don't make us
change our lifestyle much they're good
for the economy you create probably more
jobs than you lose from cranking down on
sources of pollution from pipes and
smokestacks where we have not done well
and it's going to be the struggle for
the next several decades is I wish there
was a better term we call them non-point
sources diffuse sources all of the
rainfall the water carried off through
Overland flow or through groundwater
from agriculture agriculture is the
biggest pollutant of the bay when I say
that to farm groups they all think I
hate them I try to tell them look you're
the biggest human land use in the bay
that's 64,000 square mile watershed
agriculture is about 40% of it how could
you not be a large source of pollution
it's not that an individual farm is so
bad but 40 percent of the watershed I
would have to say that probably a close
second to dealing with climate change is
figuring out
how in the hell we're going to feed
eight to ten billion people without
screwing up water quality except for
some rather small examples no one's
really figured that out the current
systems of modern agriculture we use
very meat intensive as part of it even
if a farmer does the best job he can put
a lot of stuff in the bay and there are
some things we can do some things we're
doing but it is well I'll give you an
example the Patuxent River for all of
the good work it did with sewage uh
literally decoupling pollution from
sewage from 1.2 million people it gets a
d-minus on Bay report cards why because
we didn't deal with the pollution coming
off the landscape we focused on the
pipes and we needed to do that was a
good thing but if you get a rainy year
it overwhelms everything we've done
because we haven't done a good job with
the landscape so that's kind of the
thumbnail sketch of how we're doing on
pollution could be worse could be better
harvests of two successes stand out rock
fish and crabs and I'm going to play you
if how am i doing on time Patricia
eight minutes okay I'm not going to show
that film clip I'm gonna okay it's just
a minute or two and then I'll explain it
let me see if I can do it
you
you
this is from a movie we made called
beautiful swimmers revisited
it's an hour-long film you can stream it
off this website free it's following up
40 years later on William Warner's 1976
Pulitzer Prize winner on crabbing the
Chesapeake wonderful book and there's
just one clip I want to show you
weighs approximately 110 grams almost
identical to the previous crab and it's
the only survey we have until very
recent years that covered the entire
Chesapeake Bay on this mid-january day
the research vessel bay eagle and its
crew from the Virginia Institute of
Marine Science or VIMS
is counting blue crabs buried in the mud
to predict how many will be available at
the harvest we should have a pretty good
year in terms of the dry survey Captain
John Olney jr. drags the bottom for
precisely 60 seconds at each station
just as Maryland County boys does in the
upper Chesapeake men and women of
science on their hands and knees and oil
skins on a cold wet and wind whipped
boat deck paw through clumps of mud
shell and detritus dredged from the bay
bottom there divining the future making
sense of a mysterious world an age-old
quest that stretches from magic to
science from shamans poking at the
intros of sacrifices to biologists
sifting the guts of the bay for blue
crabs down to the size of a fingernail
clipping so that's an hour-long film and
there's a lot of cool stuff in it but
the reason I made that film is that
little segments right there the hero of
that film is a 25 year random
statistical sampling survey of crabs
undertaken by some very wise scientists
before our crabs actually started to
decline from overfishing it allowed us
to count crabs you can't manage anything
from your bank account to the bay if you
can't count what's out there and without
those long-term surveys you can't do it
anyway uh-huh so this survey is the
reason that I don't know where that's
coming from is that controllable
that survey which hidden very sexy is
the reason in 2008 Tim Kaine and Martin
O'Malley the two governors of Virginia
and Maryland add the political backbone
the legal backing to stand on the beach
of the Potomac River and put some very
politically tough restrictions on crabs
without that survey they could not have
done it or they would have been sued and
lost in court the same thing happened in
1985 when the late governor Harry Hughes
he just died took probably a more
controversial decision to put a
moratorium on all fishing for the
state's premiere sport and commercial
fish the striped bass again Harry was
backed by 20 years of monitoring of
surveys that gave him the political
backbone and the legal backing I guess
my point is if you look at our success
in managing the bay where we have done
the science and followed it and let it
guide us in setting tough enforceable
deadlines rules where we have done
federal state or bi-state cooperation
oversight all of these things that
everybody hates to do and no one
campaigns for office saying I'm gonna be
the candidate of regulation and
enforcement they just don't ah where
we've done that with the rock fish in
the crab we've won we've done pretty
well it's not things are perfect I don't
think you can repeat those lessons
enough especially estuaries without
getting too much into the weeds are
particularly dynamic bodies of water
because oceans hitting rivers wet years
dry years it's shallow so the
temperature can flip quickly of all the
places on earth
you need long-term monitoring because
there's a lot of noise in there you know
a lot of natural ups and downs from week
to week wet or too dry a hot year too
cold that kind of monitoring that's the
first thing people cut it
would be like tree planting on campus if
you had to cut the budget who's gonna
know if you don't plant the next
generation of trees till after you're
out of here you know so it's easy to cut
okay we got them yet so where we've done
that where we haven't done it with
oysters with shad with menhaden we're
losing we're not doing well
resilience again this goes back to the
capacity of that big watershed to help
the bay help itself the more we can keep
the watershed like it was before John
Smith's time when seven or eight million
beavers roamed and ponded and dammed
every stream and created millions of
wetlands and held back the pollution in
the sediments that's Walter Boynton the
top bass scientist wants to load up
every FedEx and UPS truck on Sunday
night with beavers and distribute them
all over the watershed and Walters plan
is idiotic but it makes a lot of sense a
greener wetter landscape always results
in cleaner water and we have a number of
projects like planting forests along the
edges of land and water working toward
no net loss of the forests we've got
left protecting wetlands progress on all
of these ranges from way too slow to not
quite enough but making a little
progress also the resilience that lies
in the water boy stirs we are beginning
to create sanctuaries the legislature
just overrode the governor's veto to
expand the oyster sanctuary so we are
working on resilience it's it's a long
way to go because there are so many
other pressures that result in clearing
and paving and developing the landscape
especially as more and more people move
in so just to wrap up you know I I
started teaching a class at Salisbury
University on the bay ten years ago in
the last couple years I have told my
classes for the first time in in several
years I
tell them that we are showing
significant measurable signs of progress
by no means home-free we still have a
long way to go with agriculture we have
an even longer way to go with the state
of Pennsylvania which is about 38% 40%
of the watershed think about it you're
the governor of Pennsylvania all your
votes are over in Philly in the Delaware
River drainage over in Pittsburgh which
drains to the Mississippi it's mostly
cows and Republicans the governor's a
Democrat in between and that's that's
where you're expected to spend billions
and billions of dollars this is why to
clean up a stick State watershed six
state and the District of Columbia like
the bay you have to have a strong EPA I
don't need to dwell on why EPA is not
doing so good right now we do not have a
strong EPA and we won't until we get a
stronger EPA I guess so you know that
doesn't mean there's nothing you can do
and meanwhile climate change good news
about climate change is because so much
of what we need to do to fight climate
change involves switching from the
burning of fossil fuels
there are huge overlaps with the bay a
lot of what you do to combat climate
change also will reduce the dirty air
and other sources that are polluting the
Chesapeake it's not anywhere near a
hundred percent overlap but there are
considerable overlaps you could you
could deny climate change and love the
Chesapeake and actually endorse a lot of
things that would help with climate
change it's that much of an overlap so I
guess the the lessons I've covered or
follow the science voluntary doesn't
work the whole Bay clean up from 87 to
2010 was voluntary we knew I kind of
said it was a polite fiction in that
book in 2003 even EPA acknowledged that
in 2010 we've gone to a more regulatory
approach and the screaming is
not subsided but it's a good move we
can't do it all in a voluntary way
bigger picture things I usually end up
my Chesapeake Bay class the last few
weeks talking about things like diet
population energy things that go well
beyond the scope of the Chesapeake
cleanup but things that if we do not
attend to we'll eventually offset or
undercut a lot of the things the
Chesapeake Bay cleanup is about if you
want to make a big reduction in nitrogen
change your diet from lots of red meat
better yet - not so much meat ah a
Mediterranean diet which is hardly
meatless very healthy diet endorsed by
many nutritionists would probably if we
all did it cut a major Bay pollutant
nitrogen fertilizer by 40% that's about
what we need to do so diet is a huge
thing that an individual has control
over plant trees trees are the answer my
tree Forester friend says he's a
commercial logger but he's right you
can't find a place with a lot of trees
next to the water where the water isn't
in pretty good shape and if it's just in
your yard I have 1/10 of an acre yard I
have given away my lawn mower and weed
whacker
there is no grass left it's all trees
you can hardly see my house my daughter
says hey you don't need to paint it it's
invisible now so you know and I don't
use nearly as much air conditioning so
diet and trees population that is the
one thing that it's become a taboo we
talked about population a lot in the 60s
environmental groups almost universally
including the ones I love like the bay
foundation work solely on one side of
the equation the per capita footprint
they will tell you to do lots of things
like I'm telling you to reduce your per
capita impact that is important you
would
to do that if population were stable or
even declining but to ignore how many
people are moving in and this is not an
easy answer but when people ask me what
my answer is I say how would I know we
don't even discuss it how could I have
the answer no one wants to talk about it
and I find it very frustrating so
one other thing I have read some pretty
interesting critiques of modern
environmentalism that suggest that it
has cast its net too narrowly too
focused on nitrogen phosphorus clean air
clean water that to be really successful
environmentalists probably need to move
toward more of a green politics you can
argue that getting the money out of
politics in this country would help the
environment more than everything the
Sierra Club and the bay foundation can
achieve in a narrower focus in the next
twenty years so I think there's some
truth to that so that's thank you for
listening and I you know please don't
think that if I didn't mention something
you can't ask me about it because
there's a lot I didn't mention I told
him sea-level rise seems inevitable
based upon climate change and so do you
feel that we should really work to
ameliorate sea-level rise around the bay
where should we just write off places
like half of Dorchester County and Smith
Island and not spend the money you know
it's it's a good question because you
know the projections are that sea level
will rise three and a half to five and a
half feet by the end of this century it
could well be more but for Dorchester
County five feet would flood half of
Maryland's biggest County that's pretty
dramatic and we actually made a movie on
that you know there's the run of the
century that's one thing I would say
that the islands and the low-lying parts
of the bay are toast by 2100 but that's
a long time I'd also say I would vote
for spending maybe 2030 million to put
more erosion controls around unique
places like Tangier Island because I
think that could buy them even with seal
we'll rise another generation or two or
the next big storm could make me look
like a fool for saying that you don't
know and I think that nuance is lost
sometimes people sitting in Washington
say well they're not only gone by 2100
they vote for Trump so screw them I mean
I get that a lot even some of my
students I would say it's a little more
complex and yell if we can Maryland has
actually put about twenty million
dollars of rock around Smith Island a
unique little fishing community that
also votes for Trump and doesn't say
things that are politically correct all
the time but it's still worth preserving
in my I lived there for three years I'm
kind of biased I love them but so I
think it's it's a complicated answer but
the fact is we are going to lose there's
not a County that borders the bay in
Maryland or Virginia that isn't going to
lose ground and have to deal with the
question of property devaluation human
lives at risk from sea level rise and
we're going to lose tens of thousands of
acres of wetlands and we're trying to
put a good face on it as forests are
submerged they may turn into new
wetlands it's an imperfect process I
think net loss we're going to lose with
a bay lose a lot of the Bay's wetlands
which are some of the Bay's best habitat
but if we don't get a handle on sea
level rise you know pretty soon well
climate change it's not just sea level
rise the bay is about four degrees
Fahrenheit warmer as measured off the
dock at the University of Maryland lab
at Solomon since the 1930s the
projections are a bay in 2100 the
temperature of South Florida right now
that's a very different ecosystem and
like I say everything I'm telling you
with a South Florida Bay water
temperature in 2100 it's gonna be a
different place so we are really looking
at a shifting scale and shifting faster
than we're used to
it might actually be better for crabs
they do fine down in the Gulf of Mexico
in Florida we might end up crabbing year
round you'll have crab cakes fresh every
day I don't know other questions
if you don't ask I'll ask one no um
could you talk a little bit about the
cooperation or lack of cooperation among
the states around the bay I know there
have been times when I've heard a lot
about this and other times when I've
heard virtually nothing about this Oh so
could you talk a little bit more about
that well of course the the the bay
restoration program by design involves
EPA the federal government and
representatives from Maryland Virginia
West Virginia Pennsylvania Delaware and
the District of Columbia huh I remember
in 83 here in Marion Barry the mayor of
DC given a speech about the rockfish
which I believe had been written for him
I'm not sure he had ever uttered the
word rockfish before but he gave a good
delivery you know it was kind of cool to
see was it really well you you may have
known more about it than I thought yeah
so you know we include them all I
mentioned politically Pennsylvania if if
we were one state Maryland and Virginia
would be spending more money upstream in
what is called Pennsylvania now that's a
hard thing to do when you are a state to
spend scarce tax dollars in another
state it would actually make more sense
for us to put some of our pollution
money up in Pennsylvania the feds can
can funnel money somewhat that way so if
you just had a state of Chesapeake it's
clear we would manage it differently and
probably more efficiently you know some
of the states West Virginia is not real
thrilled about cleaning up the bay
I won't I won't say it doesn't matter
what West Virginia does it does but it's
that that's not gonna make it or break
it you know and they do do some things
but I guess
does that get at your question somewhat
or have I yeah okay yes sir
you
you
it is a big industry in places like on
the Eastern Shore depend on it and of
course the ocean coasts are massive
tourism and they are not technically in
the bay drainage but they're they're
vulnerable to climate change and sea
level rise
you know tourism huge now you know I was
tempted to talk about the economy in a
different way because I've talked about
population growth enough to know that
you can't separate it from the modern
economy which says you're either growing
or you're dying and you know we know we
can't grow forever but we have an
economy right now that's highly
dependent on consumption that is a
growing population to grow and as long
as we say it's grow or die and we
essentially say that at every level of
government both Republicans and
Democrats we lock ourselves into a
system that's going to be very hard to
to you know make it work sustainably in
fact virtually impossible in the long
run that's a that gets into a whole
nother discussion of steady state
economics and economics as if nature
mattered just a quick example for
Rolling Stone I spent four months in
Alaska covering what was then the
biggest oil spill in history that year
the nation's gross domestic product our
broadest measure of economic progress
leaped upward because of the billions
and billions Exxon was spending cleaning
up the oil spill it shouldn't have
leaped up like that but we don't count
the dead otters in the lack of spawning
and fish for the next ten years we don't
even measure those things we we are
accounting for progress is pretty
selective you get a divorce it counts
the money you spend on lawyers we don't
count the wreckage of family and
children that may need counseling or not
be as productive it's a what do you you
save what you value and our current
economic reckoning
does not value nature nearly as much as
it should and it certainly does not
count the loss of nature when we pave or
build it counts the money we put into
the construction industry so that sets a
whole nother tangent but yeah tourism is
a you know if if the bay is polluted I I
gotta say I went through a hearing a
long time ago and a realtor got up and
she was very heartfelt and she said no
one wants a cleaner bay more than the
real estate industry because we want
lots of people to keep moving here and I
okay good luck you know
well partly I I think you tend to have a
lot of people focused on the bay and
environment my generation and a little
older and a little younger partly
because we've got time to I can't tell
you how many books in places like Talbot
County I've signed for CEOs retired from
companies that probably didn't have
shining records environmentally and now
that they're retired and living on the
bay they're very interested and they're
giving money to it so what the hell so
yes I think I think we you know most of
the people in this room but you know
then there's people like Sarah Hansen
who I'm really glad to see you here
because she's she's got the potential to
do the kind of stuff I've been doing you
know communicating science and stuff and
gives me a lot of pleasure and hope to
see people like you show up at things
like this so but you know you know when
you're raising a family worrying about
the next step in your career you you
don't focus as much and I think if you
look at the average age of the bay
foundations and the Nature Conservancy's
membership it's shockingly old probably
60s maybe even late 60s that that's not
a good sign and of course they're aware
of that and working on it but Maryland
has passed something no that's I think
it's still the only one in the nation we
now have an environmental literacy law
that requires every school system to
incorporate environment from pre-k right
on up to 12th grade that's not something
that gives you a bang short term but
long term and some counties are running
with it others are hoping it goes away I
won't name names but many of the ones
hoping it goes away or over on my side
of the bay but anyway it's that that's
that's good because you know people in
this room we're not going to carry it
forever
thank you let's give them a hand and
appreciate we don't want you to go away
either so if some of you have questions
that you didn't get to ask I think he'll
be here for a while and really grateful
Tom we're now going to turn to Lynn
Schaeffer and Lynn is the vice president
for administration and finance on campus
right now and she's going to talk a
little bit about some of the
environmental initiatives that are
ongoing here at UMBC that were
referenced by dr. hrabowski and he
mentioned Sarah Hansen next to Sarah
Hansen is Larry Hennessy they are not
retired
but we invited them as guests because
they are both very involved and active
with some of the things that I'm sure
you're going to talk about Lynn Thank
You Patricia nice to see you nice to see
all of you thank you so much and I
really appreciate the opportunity to
talk to you a little bit about what's
been happening on campus we signed the
14 years Michigan from Oakland
University Wayne State University yeah
but I've made Maryland especially UMBC
my home so 12 years ago the President
signed the American college and
university presidents Climate Commission
commitment or what we finally call the
ACE Cu PCC anyways that was a commitment
signed now by over 900 university
presidents across the country to use
universities as a lab to demonstrate
what can be done for the environment to
combat climate change to educate the
next generation
to do the research necessary to keep
getting us to the next level of being
able to manage the things that time was
talking about and so I want to just talk
a little bit about what we've done in
the past 12 years with that commitment
so since 2007 when we signed it we have
increased enrollment by 18 percent we've
increased the building square footage by
19 percent and we have reduced our
greenhouse gas emissions by 20 percent
so pretty substantial yeah so I don't
know if it'll surprise you to know that
40% of our carbon footprint is
electricity usage and so we have reduced
our electricity you should usage over
this period by twelve million kilowatt
hours that's a 15 percent reduction plus
we now purchase 33% of our electricity
through renewable sources and some of
them direct investment in the Conowingo
Dam and some wind farms in Maryland so
we've invested 12 million dollars in
energy efficiency upgrades in lighting
in our HVAC and through performance
contracts where we borrow money to do
the work and we're gonna pay them back
over ten years with the savings and
those are going great we actually are
achieving more savings than we expected
and that's providing us a boon to do
some of the other things I'm going to
talk about so we have now five living
green roofs on campus they are in the
Patapsco Hall addition the
administration building the apartment
community center the Events Center yes
there's one here somewhere on this this
building and in the new
interdisciplinary Life Sciences Building
that's opening up this summer and those
those basically give us a way to filter
rainwater and to cool the buildings by
having that feature on the building
we have a we've been redesigning our
campus landscape so that it will clean
the water and support wildlife so things
like stormwater retention
bass bay protective landscaping natural
species
pervious pavers in various places
no mow zones on our campus and we have a
student built community garden and a
food forest and pollinator gardens I've
learned so much in this job in nineteen
twenty nineteen the National Wildlife
Federation named UMBC as a wildlife
habitat and I'm glad Larry Hennessy is
here because Larry's been working with a
student environmental task force for a
number of years to eliminate invasive
species and do cleanup across campus and
they've been awarded a 2019 keep Amir
keep Maryland beautiful grant to plant
native shrubs and understory trees thank
you for that work Larry so 20% of our
carbon footprint is commuting by
students we have another seven percent
commuting by faculty and staff and so
that's a big nut to crack and we all
love our single vehicles and so trying
to change behaviors especially on our
students part because they have maybe
better ability and motivation to do that
has been a challenge but we've done
things like expanding our public transit
fleet and using biodiesel buses and
shuttles having a rideshare program so
that people in the same area can find
each other and hopefully carpool
we have carpooling program where we give
priority parking to people who carpool
can prove they've carpooled and get here
before 10:30 in the morning
we have zip cars we have electric
vehicle charging stations and
we have instituted a bike share program
we still have single occupant vehicle
problem on our campus but we're gonna
continue to work on that one our
recycling program has now gone to single
stream which is great we continue some
of you when you were actively on campus
might have remembered recycle mania it's
something that comes around every March
and we were very proud that we always
placed very well and got rid of a ton
tons and tons of recycling during that
period well now our focus is more on
reducing waste to start with and so
being more sustainable in our practices
we've established composting in true
grits and in the Commons and that's
that's been really very popular with
students and still recycling or waste
I'll say solid waste is less than I
think it's like two tenths of a percent
right it's two-tenths of a percent of
our carbon footprint so we always think
of recycling maybe as the threshold
practice get people interested in that
and changing their behavior realizing
that it's doable
and then hopefully they'll continue to
do it we have a number of ways to engage
the campus community for students we
have eco ambassadors who go out peer to
peer teaching their fellow students
about sustainable practices and getting
them engaged in projects on campus
including planting trees which we do
plenty of every year for the faculty we
had an annual workshop on sustainability
across the disciplines for a number of
years that then morphed into a faculty
learning community under the faculty
development center and they have a
number of initiatives that they're
working on implementing right now for
staff we have a green office program we
have now more than 40 offices on campus
certified as green offices and that
includes all kinds of practices that are
pretty simple to do you know I got rid
of the printer in my office and so I
rarely print anything two sided printing
hibernation of your
ughter turning off lights really simple
things but again getting people into the
habit of changing their behavior our
dining services contract calls for 25
percent of food from local sustainable
and ethical sources and the dining hall
now contains in hydroponic garden to
grow greens and other kinds of
vegetables the dining hall is also
trayless straw las' and has a reusable
container system so that we get rid of
styrofoam and other kinds of things that
are really damaging to the environment
we have goals one of them is rewriting
the climate action plan for the
university the first one was written in
2009 and it called for carbon neutrality
by 2075 ok we all recognize that's way
too far out into the future and so but
at the time we just couldn't see our way
clear other than just buying a whole
bunch more renewable energy credits to
get to that now there's a lot more
knowledge of what kinds of things might
work and so we're planning on
significantly pulling up that time frame
for becoming carbon neutral on campus we
are finally establishing a formal
sustainability office on campus and in
the process of hiring an associate
director to lead that effort to just
pull together all the things that are
happening across campus and hopefully
take us to the next level we're going to
continue to search our business
improvements to reduce our impact one is
a new program called DocuSign it's a new
app that does ever does signatures and
workflow online so that we're not
carrying paper all around campus to get
signatures and we're always we're gonna
try to lead by example try to engage
more of the campus community hopefully
any of you who have ideas or any kind of
passion about this will join our efforts
and
get us to carbon neutrality sooner I'd
be happy to answer any questions or
we're gonna send this to you by the way
electronically my list of and I know
that our grounds folks really care about
the kinds of things they're putting on
our landscaping features first of all
limiting the amount of features that we
have to manage with any kind of
treatment and then using treatments that
are less damaging to the bay but we'll
look at look at that and it okay good
thank you okay thank you thank you I
appreciate that
thank you very much and Lynne we thank
you thank you for updating us about the
green efforts on campus as well as your
heroic efforts to make sure that UMBC is
always oriented to sustainability you
really have made a difference I was
listening to that list and I hope you
felt as I did I sat there and get in
again going wow this is great I am so
proud I am so proud we shall and in fact
as as as Lynn noted we are indeed going
to make sure that everyone receives an
email of that list and we will make sure
it's on our website we are really really
proud I had I had goose bumps during
both presentations thinking about work
that has been done and then got gray
hairs yet again thinking about the work
that's left to do but truly Lynn under
your leadership UMBC has adopted the
message and I think even more
importantly the actions associated with
the tagline sustainability matters
that's fantastic again I I get goose
bumps over things like this dr.
hrabowski not math problems I have to be
honest but UMBC has really become a
beautiful campus and we know didn't be
earlier in the day infused with flowers
and shrubs and trees although Tom I
guess we have more work to do because we
can still see our buildings
they need some trees it's a big big
difference now so we are grateful and we
are proud thank you Tom
Thank You Lynn and now it's time for
dessert
which is going to be fun there's coffee
tea and drinks at a side table please
feel free to get up and move around
picture if you see a legislature or the
governor I want you to think ting we're
getting more money to UMBC singled out
for you and BC that I have seen in my 40
years in Maryland it's it is amazing so
I want to give the governor you have to
get credit when credit is due as you
finish dessert and perhaps sip on coffee
and and begin these wonderful free
conversations I apologize for this
interlude but a few more comments and to
say as we close the formal part of our
day together I think this has been an
exciting and a thoughtful and Tom and
Lynn thought-provoking day as well I
think you feel as I do it's always
special to come to campus and it's
especially especially meaningful to see
friends and colleagues with whom we work
together so many years I find sheer
unadulterated joy just looking at
persons being together on behalf of
everyone here I would like to express my
deep appreciation again to tom horton I
appreciate your message Tom as well as
some of the images you created for me I
have to be honest I'm not a visualizer
but as you spoke I found myself trying
to envision the ocean literally crawling
across continents and filling nooks and
crannies and I sat there and i thought
dad's nooks and crannies for me that was
always a phrase dedicated to english
muffinz
never again just English muffinz I also
had never tried to visualize a whole
ecosystem like the Chesapeake Bay
turning upside
down what an incredible thought what an
incredible vision equally and perhaps
even more difficult for me but more fun
was trying to envision hundreds of
beavers being delivered by FedEx anxious
to build dams and save the bay
it's no wonder to me Tom that your voice
has been pivotal in local and state
efforts to save and restore the bay
thank you not only for sharing your
insights today but for being an advocate
for the bay for so many years you have
always been a force in building
environmental awareness and at the same
time you challenged us to do all that we
can to preserve and protect the natural
environment I say thank you again to
Lynn Shaffer the campus looks terrific
and it is thrilling to hear that we are
doing so many things that are right that
are meaningful and that are making a
difference
sustainability matters at UMBC and I'm
proud and grateful for that and I know
that you are too dr. hrabowski has left
but I want to again just acknowledge his
support and that of dr. Philip Rous
without their vision and their
commitment to ensure that we will always
be part of the UMBC community indeed
part of the engaged UMBC family the
wisdom Institute would truly never exist
they are benefactors to all that we do
and I want to thank again the wisdom
Institute board and especially the
programming committee they have planned
so many fabulous events and as you saw
on the PowerPoint we have even more up
and coming we're going to have breakfast
at OCAD I hope you will join us and then
go and listen to our students so 9
o'clock in the UC room 321 breakfast
informal gathering and then we can go
meet and greet and listen and learn from
our students
Brian McKay is going to be leading a
trip to the National Arboretum on May
1st and I think that's going to be a lot
of fun and remember we always have
informal luncheons at the skylight
please look at the website
you'll see all of the things that are
that are going on and if you're not
receiving information from us and want
to please make sure to fill out the form
on the website get it back to us and
we'll see that you get all the
information that you need clearly our
individual and collective efforts can
make a difference in preserving the bay
and its abundant resources our efforts
can also advance and protect the natural
spaces at UNBC I think the message today
is that there's still more work for us
to do and I think our response is that
we are indeed ready to do it we want to
thank each of you for coming coming out
on a day that turns out to have a little
bit of rain which we know is good good
for the environment
we hope you'll attend other wisdom
Institute events throughout the year and
engage in service opportunities we wish
we could send everyone home with flowers
but the person with a sticker on the
back of her or his chair is invited to
take the flowers on the table and enjoy
them at home we will be able however to
send everyone home with a wisdom
Institute tote bag thanks to the
suggestion of dr. Willie Loomis a Smith
and we want you to take this tote bag
with you and refuse a plastic bag when
shopping they'll be given to you as you
leave and again let me say it was lovely
to be back home in closing let me quote
a question posed by the late poet Mary
Oliver this question seemed especially
important and appropriate today
Oliver invites us to reflect tell me she
says tell me what it is you plan to do
with your one and precious wild life
thank you all for coming and enjoy the
remainder of the day please stay and
chat grab some more to drink enjoy
dessert and look at what we're going to
do next year and put it on your calendar
and come back thank you all
you
