Discovery

Transportation counts for more than one third of UMBC’s carbon footprint, so getting more students, faculty and staff to campus with fewer vehicles is high on the university’s sustainability agenda. The university has a dedicated system of commuter buses serving surrounding communities (UMBC Transit), but a campus initiative called Transportation Alternatives for a Greener UMBC (TAG UMBC) now offers alternatives to single passenger commuting that make driving to the university a greener experience as well. TAG UMBC works alongside the Climate Change Taskforce, specifically the Transportation Workgroup chaired by Julianne Simpson, the university’s assistant director for planning . “The taskforce… Continue Reading Zip and Volt

Want to see UMBC’s sustainable future? Just make your way to the roof of Patapsco Hall – where efforts make UMBC greener are intersecting with pedagogy and academic research. A recent $16.5 million renovation and addition to the residence hall – designed by Newman Architects and built by KBE Building Corporation – recently received a Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Gold certification. It is the first building on campus to receive this designation. One of the key features in obtaining this certification is Patapsco Hall’s “green roof.”  These green roofs are important elements of sustainable design since they… Continue Reading Raising the Roof

Most people stop thinking about their trash once they toss it in a bin. But with composting, the bin is only the beginning. “Composting is a way to make food waste into new food growth,” explains Madeline Hall ’12, geography and environmental systems, who was a key player in establishing a composting program at  UMBC. “It’s a way to bring the process full circle.” Even before she became a Student Government Association sustainability intern in 2011, Hall was working to show that composting was something students really wanted.  But before composting could become a part of UMBC’s sustainability efforts, Hall… Continue Reading Passing the Sniff Test

When UMBC President Freeman A. Hrabowski, III, signed the American College & University Presidents’ Climate Commitment in 2007, he took the first step to put UMBC on the path to a more sustainable future. Tanvi Gadhia ’09, geography and environmental systems, has the job of assessing UMBC’s progress in making its goal of becoming climate neutral and helping push the university to get there even more quickly. Gadhia was hired last year as UMBC’s first environmental sustainability coordinator. As a student, she led groups including UMBC Students for Environmental Awareness and the Maryland Student Climate Coalition – raising awareness about the issue… Continue Reading A Greener UMBC?

Climate change created by human activity is seen as a relatively recent phenomenon. But is it? There is general agreement that we now live in an epoch called the Anthropocene (or “the Age of Man”), in which there has been a new and accelerating human impact on Earth’s ecology due to industrial civilization. Many scientists peg the era’s starting point as 50, or perhaps 250, years ago. But Erle Ellis, a professor of geography and environmental systems at UMBC, is among those who argue that the Anthropocene wasn’t born yesterday. “Human engineering of ecosystems, which changed the biosphere at globally… Continue Reading Green Future: The Long View

Imagine driving a car fueled by reprocessed household trash. Or visiting a farm where a herd of beef cattle is fed with algae that might be vastly better for the environment than the corn and grains in common use today. Those are just two of the visions being that have been pursued over the past four years by small companies in the Maryland Clean Energy Technology Incubator (CETI)  at bwtech@UMBC Research & Technology Park. As the youngest of three business incubators housed within the research park, CETI has had its share of growing pains.  When the incubator was founded in 2009, the… Continue Reading Green Future: Seeds and Synergies

In the shadow of a guard tower and an electrified fence at the Maryland Correctional Institute for Women in Jessup, a simple patch of wildflowers blooms. But look more closely at the yellow partridge peas, red Indian blankets, and dozens of other species most of which are native to Maryland and you’ll see a carefully designed set of 25 distinct plots. Two or three times a week, a few inmates come here to cultivate these plots -– and to take careful notes about the plants’ progress. “This has been a joy,” says L.J., an inmate in her late twenties. “My… Continue Reading Green Future: Plotting a New Course

UMBC is making big steps toward making the university’s campus more sustainable. But as a state research university that’s growing every year, the faculty of UMBC and researchers affiliated with the university are also investigating how to make our cities and our planet greener.  They are creating new products that will cut down on pollution and waste. And they are creating works of art that help us feel more tangibly the effects of climate change. One of the most important centers for such research on campus is UMBC’s Center for Urban Environmental Research and Education (CUERE). The projects pursued at… Continue Reading Finding a Green Future

On a heavy studio table in UMBC’s Fine Arts building, artist Lisa Moren spreads out a sheet of beautiful marbleized paper, all fine waves and feathering. But the delicate patterns and the classical images they evoke belie the artist’s main ingredient: pigments derived from oils she collected from the 2010 British Petroleum spill in Louisiana’s Bastian Bay. “This type of marbleizing is traditionally known from Venetian books, the Renaissance books, and for all those beautiful colors. And mine are very monochromatic and brown,” laughed Moren, whose recent work revolves around the ever-evolving nature of nature, as it relates to sites… Continue Reading Green Future: Earth Tones

What is sustainability? The concept is becoming so ubiquitous that it can be hard to pin down, especially as it relates to our everyday lives. But Eric Zeemering, an assistant professor of public policy at UMBC, sees opportunity in the ambiguity. Using an approach called Q-methodology (a social science research tool designed to study people’s viewpoints), Zeemering has been knocking on doors across Baltimore, asking planners, builders, environmental advocates and community leaders to describe the least and most important things that Baltimore could do to become a more sustainable city. Zeemering’s earlier research on urban sustainability in the San Francisco… Continue Reading Green Future: Beyond Definition