Crafting a Campus Sustainability Action Plan: A Grassroots Approach

In recent decades, colleges and universities have taken a leadership role in developing institution-based Sustainability Action Plans (SAPs). A SAP includes a summation of past achievements, current initiatives, and the prioritized goals and implementation strategies for future action in terms of promoting environmental sustainability. These plans can also serve as pedagogical devices that teach students, staff and faculty important lessons of intentional living, global citizenship, and environmental responsibility. While many plans are adopted as top-down initiatives, there is great value in finding ways to engage the entire campus community in such endeavors at the grassroots level. This project documents a ground-up approach to developing a SAP at Gettysburg College, a liberal arts institution in Pennsylvania. Consisting of three phases, the project began with an assessment of current sustainability accomplishments as detailed in ASHE’s Sustainability Tracking and Rating System (STARS) data base. The second stage included an investigation of recent SAPs adopted by peer institutions and work by the college’s Sustainability Advisory Committee, President’s Office and student groups to develop and implement as campus survey on potential sustainability priorities. Finally, a series of focus groups consisting of various campus constituencies provided input for crafting a final draft SAP, which was then offered to the campus community for a second round of review. This bottom-up approach helped to cultivate grassroots ownership of the resulting SAP, leading to a greater likelihood of successful implementation. This project may serve as a useful model for other liberal arts institutions

Umphlett QCI March 2019

Highlights for the Basin Temperature Anomalies Plains Snowpack Agriculture Energy Transportation Temperature Precipitatio

Review of: Federal Judge\u27s Desk Reference to Environmental Economics (John A. Baden, ed.; Pacific Research Institute 1998)

Review of the book: Federal Judge\u27s Desk Reference to Environmental Economics (John A. Baden, ed.; Pacific Research Institute 1998). Dedication, forward, glossary, section introductions. LC 98-9206; ISBN 0-936488-84-0. [324 pp. paper. 755 Sansone Street, Ste. 450, San Francisco, CA. 94111. http:// www.pacificserch.org]

New Hybrid Protected Lands Layer for Vermont Conservation Design Analysis (February 2019)

This shapefile (.shp) is a hybrid of the March 2017 Edition of the Vermont Center for Geographic Information\u27s (VCGI) Vermont Protected Lands Database (VPLD), the Vermont Land Trust\u27s February 2019 Protected Lands database, and The Nature Conservancy\u27s Secured Areas (SA 2018+) database. The VLT and SA 2018+ datasets were used as the scaffolding for the hybrid protected lands layer, with some VCGI VPLD polygons retained if they contained unique contributions. These datasets were combined by C.D. Loeb because each input dataset was missing some protected lands polygons in the state of Vermont. Additionally, the VCGI VPLD dataset contained many overlapping polygons, making it unusable for the area calculations of interest to our study on the overlap between formally protected lands and Vermont Conservation Design landscape-level targets (see publication reference). This hybrid protected lands layer creates a more complete snapshot of Vermont’s protected lands for our study’s purposes than any other known, publicly available dataset as of February 2019, and also corrects for all improperly overlapping polygons. However, we know that this hybrid product still does not capture all of Vermont\u27s protected lands. Specifically, some Upper Valley Land Trust-protected parcels are missing from this hybrid protected lands layer, and there are probably other protected parcels that could not be captured by the input datasets. Thus, our hybrid product will likely underrepresent actual protections. This layer was created to intersect with Vermont Conservation Design targets for input into the software Tableau. Its purpose was to perform cross tabulations to compare Vermont Conservation Design targets with protected lands in Vermont to-date, and to calculate acreages of protected lands that are also design targets by primary protecting agency. All parcel attributes and delineations in the hybrid output are only as good as the parent datasets. In areas where parcels were digitized differently between parent datasets, “slivers” may have been generated by merging them. Our study objectives originally included an analysis of the GAP Status of protected lands in Vermont (reflected in this layer\u27s metadata); however, some serious errors were detected in parent datasets with regards to GAP Status, so GAP Status was discarded as an analysis object. Please note author-identified GAP Status issues if using this dataset. Please see the shapefile\u27s metadata for detailed creation steps. The user implies knowledge of the limitations of this dataset. This dataset should not be used to ascertain boundaries or legal acreages for any parcels. Note: This version of the hybrid protected lands layer does not have county boundaries embedded in it nor waterbodies excluded from it, since it was created to capture all formally protected lands in the state of Vermont to the best of the authors’ abilities. Prior to use in our analysis, this layer was modified to exclude waterbodies and to introduce county boundaries. To obtain the same hybrid protected lands layer with county boundaries embedded in it and waterbodies excluded from it, please contact C. D. Loeb at [email protected]

Umphlett QCI March 2016

Highlights for the Basin Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies Vegetation Conditions Early Signs of Spring Winter Wheat Breaks Dormancy 3-Month Precipitation and Temperature Outlooks Percent of Average Precipitation: Strong El Niño

Umphlett QCI Sept 2017

Highlights for the Basin Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies Drought Wildfires Impact Montana and Beyond Kansas City, MO Area Flooding Numerous Impacts to Agriculture 3-Month Precipitation and Temperature Outlooks U.S. Seasonal Drought Outloo

Umphlett QCI Sept 2016

Highlights for the Basin Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies Streamflow Conditions Challenging Season for Bird Breeding Mixed Impacts to Agriculture this Summer Unprecedented Fish Kill on Yellowstone River 3-Month Precipitation and Temperature Outlooks Soil Moisture Condition

Commentary: Are National Parks Still Relevant?

On the occasion of the National Parks centennial comes an irreverent question: Are the parks still relevant? Famously christened as America\u27s best idea by writer Wallace Stegner and reaffirmed in Ken Burns\u27 2009 PBS documentary, it seems brazen, if not blasphemous, to pose the question. [excerpt

Umphlett QCI Sept 2016

Highlights for the Basin Temperature and Precipitation Anomalies Streamflow Conditions Challenging Season for Bird Breeding Mixed Impacts to Agriculture this Summer Unprecedented Fish Kill on Yellowstone River 3-Month Precipitation and Temperature Outlooks Soil Moisture Condition