I think people feel like they don't know what to do about climate change.

It is definitely something I think about a lot.

You kind of see it every day.

It's always in the media, but it's also outside, Caring about the environment is really is caring for people.

particularly those ones coming up under after us in the next generation and together we need to come together as a community, as a state, as a nation, and address it.

With any issue that is an environmental issue, single people can make a difference.

Talking about climate change can be a tricky business.

There is a, a lot of difficulty navigating it because there is a lack of public awareness, a lack of public acceptance, When we don't talk about things, they become taboo.

They become secretive And so talking about climate change can destigmatize and demystify a lot of the myths and the fears around it.

And I think there's there's misconceptions to think that we're the only ones that are worried about it or concerned.

And if we actually have more conversations, I think we would find that more and more people have equal concerns, and especially our younger people.

You’re seeing hotter days, you're seeing more random, like weather patterns that kind of thing.

More deforestation, plain fields.

So it is something that's always on my mind.

Well, I think a lot of people have heard the word climate change.

I think there's some confusion.

I think there should be less because really, the basics of climate change are pretty straightforward.

And one of the basics we can track is the level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere is going up at a pretty fast rate.

And the basics of that is that the thicker the carbon dioxide layer gets in the atmosphere, the more heat it traps.

And so that's just a very direct measure that we can track every single year.

Of course, because we have hot summers already, those hottest temperatures during our summer become greater and greater.

And that puts a lot of stress, especially on older individuals and on very young kids.

But the other thing that it can have associated with it is with those warm, clear temperatures.

It has some knock on effects, like you start to heat up the the air and you have other pollutants in the air.

and generating more ozone.

So in those hot days, you also get these tropes, ferric ozone effects that are risky to our health as well.

one of the most important kind of foundation steps is learn about the environment around you.

Right?

I think, learn about the species and learn about the different weather patterns and the ecological dynamics, because when we learn about things, we can kind of put a name to them.

We can give a story to them.

I think with the younger generation, climate change maybe not on the forefront of a lot of their minds.

I know they see it online.

You know, they see it in the news, but they not they might not think about it day in and day out.

So I believe like initiatives that are workable, like having native plant gardens, for instance, is a great way to get them involved with, with the issue.

so the first step was to plant a native plant garden, here on campus, which you see behind us, Doctor Hardcastle working with some students on an endeavor grant.

So a little bit of education, bringing the students into the mix, into a public space was our first step.

So we're here in the Experimental Pollination Garden at USC, and this is part of the bigger project, to establish USC as a bee campus.

So meet campus USA.

There's an organization that I chose to honor cells with.

They're an initiative of the Conservatory Society.

And what they do.

And their main mission is to champion thing we have, which is to spread information about native plant gardens and pollinators.

And so bee campus is just a nice way of saying pollinator friendly, because we're not going to limit ourselves to bees.

we've got biologists here interested in every species, birds and plants and molds and butterflies and fish.

And so it all works together.

climate change is is one thing that we're certainly concerned about, but something that goes hand in hand with climate change is, is how biodiversity is decreasing, you know, throughout the world.

And so planting native plants is a way to help combat some of that loss of biodiversity, both by planting the plants themselves and giving them a space to to flourish, but also by all the different insects and other upper trophic levels within the community.

That's that it's helping to attract also, then beyond that, just the plants themselves, the native plants, compared with a lot of the other typical garden plants, have a lot deeper roots, than than a lot of plants that most people think about when they plant a garden.

And so all that deep root system is a great source of carbon sequestration.

You're you're building up these, these carbon stores underground with these really deep roots.

And at the same time, it's also reducing the amount of resources you need to maintain these native plants, you know, to maintain typical garden plants or a lawn very resource intensive, which can be a strain.

you know, maybe require even the use of fossil fuels, water, etc..

These native plants are adapted for this area, and so they're going to require minimal maintenance and therefore save us a lot of resources just by filling the space with them.

and we have, folks that are coordinating on this, not only other professors at USC, but part of the the grounds crew at USC, students that are doing research on this issue at USC.

the other, collaborators that I've been working with are at University of Evansville.

They're actually a little bit ahead of us.

this whole research question centers on what are the benefits humans get from having nature.

And in urban society, we kind of forget that nature exists.

And one of the things that a lot of folks in Evansville are investing in are bringing plants, native plants into their backyard.

And by doing that, they're providing food sources for pollinators.

And those pollinators then can also be pollinating gardens and providing resources that allow our fruits in our gardens to set.

And so get a harvest of apples or cherries or eggplants or tomatoes.

And so this research is demonstrating how important those native bees are, and specifically how important bumblebees are.

So the native plant garden is not supposed to be like a one off, one and done project.

It's supposed to be an example.

So having small populations of plants, I'll be honest, doesn't do a lot.

But when you can spread those populations across many yards, across many towns, it has a major impact.

So we think by showing these plants off and showing you what can be done as an alternative to traditional gardening, we're hoping to get more people to hop on board with us right.

You know, the idea that the more plants that you have, particularly trees in a space, the more that dampens, you know, the heat effect that you have in urban areas.

So you have that impact that you can actually make a huge effect on by, by planting trees in urban areas.

I've always been really invested in protecting the environment around me?

But I think trees are one of the best ways.

That we can improve, climate change at a local level.

I mean, climate change is a global problem, but decreasing carbon emissions a lot of times starts at the root of the problem, which is trees.

Trees are the solution plants.

Because plants consume carbon dioxide.

So one tree by itself is not going to save the whole city, but by planting a tree, you're adding to the overall picture of the urban forest and the overall benefits that that urban forest provides.

Every tree counts.

and I'm interning at the Department of Forestry with the city of Evansville, working on a project where I do a canopy assessment for the city of Evansville, and then also plant 100 to 120 trees, in underserved areas in Evansville.

course, there are areas that are more concrete than green.

Unfortunately, and in those areas, we want to try to get more trees planted because we need more canopy to help cooler climate, to help clean our air and to help cool communities.

The accumulation of all the trees helped do that, as well as help, intercept rainfall as before.

It hits the ground and goes into our storm sewers.

You know, we have to pay to manage our stormwater.

And so trees can help prevent some stormwater from getting into our sewers, and less than the amount that we have to pay to manage.

we're actually weighting things like, stormwater draining, urban heat island, also sociodemographic factors like educational attainment, race, and annual income.

And so we're waiting all of that into one map, which will be a priority planting map.

any urban heat island map that you look at, the city of Evansville or Assam in woods is cooling down a big portion of the east side of Evansville.

And this speaks to the importance of having green spaces and pocket forest throughout, not just Evansville, but any city.

Wesleyan woods is the largest urban growth forest in the United States.

I like to say that this is the Mona Lisa of ecosystems.

This is a rare space with an incredible, incredible amount of biodiversity.

And we are just so fortunate to have it right here in the middle of Evansville.

we're very fortunate to be working with the city of Evansville to reforest former par three golf course in Westerman Park.

And in those 75 acres, it's going to be years and decades of tree growth.

and with all that tree growth is carbon, right?

We know that trees need carbon to survive, and so they sequester carbon.

and over the years and years and decades, there's going to be carbon that is stored within the trees.

There's going to be carbon that's stored within the soil.

And as that forest matures, we can just, you know, we can we can imagine that there's more and more carbon that's going to be stored, making this place, even more important than it is today.

In our region, we know we have a lot of work to do to increase our urban canopy.

We're fortunate to have Westerman Woods providing a lot of that urban canopy.

but we still need to do a lot more work in many different areas of our city, our county and just the region in general I think one of the best ways for people to, sort of have grassroots climate action is to get involved with their local community.

And a lot of times that starts at the neighborhood.

and so getting involved with your neighborhood association, I think is a really good way.

And so by planting more trees, you're bringing down those, the those, those carbon emissions because the trees use carbon in, carbon dioxide in photosynthesis.

So by planting them in the city, you're helping globally because you're bringing down the emissions, in your city, it's a global problem that we can sort of think locally and get the benefits locally, but then also, address climate change, globally by bringing down carbon emissions.

One really great choice people can make is to work in community gardens and to grow their own foods, because that takes a whole different element of releasing carbon out of the atmosphere, right?

If you're growing your own food, you're not transporting that food in from a different area.

And all of that fuel cost isn't happening.

It's usually thought that between 5 and 10 times more energy is invested in transporting.

Then.

Then you get from the food itself, right?

So, so growing locally.

And if you're not growing your own, at least buying at the farmer's market is a way of reducing that carbon footprint of the food.

So we do have two community gardens, the one that I mentioned as far as the on the side of our building, we have four raised beds.

That produces a lot of a lot of.

A lot of great things as far as tomatoes, cucumbers.

And, it's for our neighborhood.

it's been very successful, you know, to see people in our neighborhood take care of it, to water the plants to make sure, you know, the trash around it is cleaned up.

you're going establishes a local nonprofit.

We do a lot of different things as far as mentoring, tutoring.

Of course, we have a center that we do a lot of different things as well as far as our resources that we provide during Covid.

Me personally, I was delivering meals every single day, and I noticed that there were a lot of food deserts in our community, and I didn't know that at the time.

You know, I knew there were issues, but I didn't realize it until I started to do that.

And after Covid, we said, there's there's still a huge need.

There's a lot of people that don't have access, whether it's transportation or, you know, just to be able to go to a grocery store up the street from you are just a few miles.

There's a lot of food deserts in our community.

This being one of them.

December, I ended up reaching out to Walmart.

I knew that they had a lot of opportunities, you know, to basically serve our community, give us the food and, let us, you know, give it out to the people in the community.

A lot of that food was being thrown away.

Fresh produce, a lot of things that could be used.

of the things that we wanted to stop that food waste.

And now a partnership was formed from that.

And since December, every Wednesday, we have a ton of people come.

We're we're able to serve them.

The food, not only that we get from Walmart, but, from our gardens, we have partnership with local farmers, but then also other, you know, restaurants and businesses have now, joined in on this.

So it's just been amazing to see, you know, being able to serve and it's growing, which just shows the need.

And we just want to be able to, you know, make sure we're continuing to do this and, bring along as many people as we can to help with this situation.

so climate change definitely affects me as a farmer, obviously, because all the work is outside.

So when you're at the mercy of Mother Nature and the rain and the hot weather and the cool weather and the wind blowing in the thunderstorms, all of those things can affect your in product, which affects your bottom line.

That's everything.

This is a startup, small produce farm.

In the local area here in Rockport.

So the number one thing that we're doing for sustainability right now is to grow the soil.

One of the things that we do to increase that life and to build the organic matter, is to put decayed plant matter on the soil.

So that leads you to a compost pile.

We get leaves from, the local city.

As well as, there's local farmers that we take upon, their manure from their cattle and their horses.

That goes a long way, as well as, unfortunately, not all of the produce that we pick and grow is number one beautiful.

Or it might go bad.

So we'll take that and add it to the compost as well.

So adding any kind of decayed matter at all can build that compost.

And as you continually turn it, it it puts aerobic life into that compost which when you put that on out onto your soil, it's just it's the most beautiful, tasty food that a plant could ever want.

So I definitely think everybody should try composting, because everybody has some kind of food scraps from their kitchen.

Right?

Anything that you're going to discard that's organic matter can be compost.

keeping that out of the landfill and instead putting it back into the earth or into your garden or wherever is always a net positive Because, a lot of times if if your vegetables are already shipped from thousands of miles away, there's already quite the carbon footprint on.

So if you can take that little bit left, of organic matter and use it locally, that's a net positive versus, just toss it in the trash and put it in a plastic bag and toss in a landfill where it never gets used again.

if the climates change this much just in the short amount of time that I've been doing it.

I'm going to assume that it's only going to continue going that direction.

So that makes me take pause and say, maybe I need to move things inside as in have greenhouses and high tunnels in order to shelter those plants.

A new empowers individuals and communities alike to sustainably grow pure produce that's better for people and the planet.

So we embrace hydroponic farming, which by definition is soil is growing or growing without dirt.

This gives us the ability to grow year round independent of the season or climate or geography, especially when it's done in a controlled environment system.

we use all home compostable materials, and some of which are upcycle that would have otherwise gone into the waste stream.

We can repurpose for productive uses for growing plants locally.

we've developed these home compostable polymers, these sea ponds that could be composted right at home without ever needing to go to a landfill can allow you to have an organic composting environment all at home, Food needs water.

There's no way to avoid it, but the vast majority of it runs off into waterways, which creates a self-perpetuating cycle of excessive water consumption, excessive water runoff of fertilizers and pesticides, increased water scarcity.

We are in a dangerous cycle, and hydroponics has the potential to break that cycle.

It has the potential to recirculate water to use 95% less water to grow locally on site.

but when we talk about sustainable practices, our waste stream and what we do with our trash is just as important as reducing our usage on the front end.

so right now we're at our what we call a botanical service center.

it has serves many purposes.

We have hay storage over here.

We have tropical greenhouses behind me.

but one of the biggest components is our large compost pile.

and so you can't really smell it on camera, but you can definitely see it on camera.

we've had a compost facility on zoo property for over 20 years now.

so all of that animal waste, hay, feces, manure, even our compostable plates and items and all of our kitchen scraps come over here, instead of going to the landfill.

and so for us, what we do is we create a compost pile with waste, and we're turning it over.

So we're turning it over till it breaks down into soil.

And then what we do with that soil is we take it back over to the zoo and then mix it with our mulch and use it in all of our planter beds around the zoo.

So, when you're traveling around the zoo and our tropical gardens and our outdoor areas that are mulched and look beautiful, it's because the animal waste is helping, reinvigorate it.

when you treat wastewater, you generate clean water.

There's some carbon dioxide that's generated in the treatment process, and then, you make sludge, so.

And the sludge is a resource that we can use to make energy from.

And that's really what this is about.

basically, when you flush your toilet or run water down the drain, that water ends up in the sewer, which ultimately comes, to the wastewater plants.

We have an east plant.

down here.

We have a west plant over on the west side.

those two plants actually.

Are there to remove something we call Bod, which is, organic chemicals that are in the water.

those were just released into the river, organisms in the river would, would consume that material and use up all the oxygen and kill the fish.

So our job is to take that stuff out before it goes to the river, So basically, we've industrialized the natural process that happens and would have happened in the waterway.

And then from that we end up with sludge we take that sludge and put it into something called an anaerobic digester.

in an anaerobic digester, there's a different kind of organisms that live in the water.

They operate without oxygen, and instead of releasing carbon dioxide, they release methane gas.

And we collect that methane gas and use it to power generators that make electricity.

That offsets part of the, electrical demand for the plant.

which is obviously going to reduce our carbon footprint, we believe solar is number one, source right now that we have to combat climate change and reduce our emissions.

This is the cape on Cody projects, and We donated two solar energy systems for these two homes, to demonstrate that solar is very, beneficial to the low income sector of our community.

this solar energy system, these are called grid tied.

So we're energy systems, and they are meant to to lower the electric bills on the, the homes we designed the systems to be very low cost, a low cost solar system.

And even these are expandable if the homeowner wants to expand in the future, the homeowners will be able to do it themselves.

You have two shipping container homes that were converted into affordable housing units.

There's 3000W of solar on each, house.

That'll generate about, 440 500 kilowatt hours per year.

That will save about, 3 to 5 metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions into our, our region here.

Yeah.

Behind us is, Bethlehem United Church of Christ.

And they they've had this system in for several years before any tax credits were even around.

So they bit the bullet and decided it was part of their green team mission to really switch over to a clean, quiet, you know, and save money in the long run.

It is their this is their goal and they're doing it.

the Indiana program associate for solar United neighbors, a national nonprofit 501 C3.

And our whole whole mission is to go solar, join folks together and fight for energy rights.

So that's our theory of change.

the amount of CO2 equivalents that you save is is hard to imagine.

And most of the modern systems have a little app to help you track that.

They show you your solar production during the day, and you can kind of geek out on the data, and it will show you how much carbon offsets that you are preventing going into the atmosphere.

And so like organization wide, we're over a million CO2 equivalents saved from the amount of solar that we've helped folks install.

We do solar 101 sessions.

We educate them all about solar.

We step through technology.

We talk about financing.

And it's really to roll into our Indiana ready set solar program that we launched at the end of June, You get a free roof review, a little satellite review.

You can talk to our solar help desk, you know, provide all the resources we possibly can to help folks go solar.

Patagonia exhibit here at Musker Park Zoo.

and during design and construction, we implemented several, sustainable cost savings energy savings practices and integrated into the exhibit.

One of the biggest features is geothermal heating and cooling.

you can imagine to keep the water cold enough for penguins.

So it's like in the 60s as far as, pool temperature.

we're heating we're heating it in the winter time.

And we're cooling it in the summertime.

We use our lake in the middle of Zoo Lake Victoria, as our geothermal spot to, for the penguins.

So at the bottom of the lake, there are coils filled with and kind of like an antifreeze material.

It's pumped all the way up the hill, all the way to penguins.

And that cools our water in the summertime and heats our water in the wintertime.

we did a study on our lake and found the capacity to use geothermal in the lake is huge for our zoo.

So, being able to add it to penguins of Patagonia.

So instead of having a huge, air conditioning unit and a huge compressor that you might find around an exhibit like this and some of our other exhibits that are older, we don't have any of that equipment.

So we've eliminated all that energy, savings.

and we use the equipment that is, like a heat pump that integrates it.

So it takes that free energy from the lake, It is hard to kind of get those concepts, but when you start looking at the animals that are right in front of you and saying, look, this isn't an existential talking discussion.

This is things that are affecting these animals in the wild right now.

what's the important, educational piece about penguins and their relationship to climate change is they're a keystone species, and they're one of those species that everybody has seen or can relate to or knows about.

this is one that everybody can relate to and it can go, oh, yeah, I know penguins.

I love penguins, and so I don't want bad things to happen to penguins.

We were just doing traditional mechanical recycling, and a lot of the things that come out of our LR cannot be mechanically recycled.

And so Barry, as a significant manufacturer of health care plastics, especially nonwovens, such as the surgical gowns and, what we call blue wrap that they used to, in this case, actually wrap some of the things that they sterilize in the hospital.

you know, we wanted to do something about this.

And so we worked with the deaconess here locally to set up a recycling program for that blue wrap.

75% of the waste created during a surgery is completely non hazardous.

because so much of it is the packaging components and things of that nature.

So we kind of found out that some of the cleanest waste you're ever going to get.

Right.

So how do we build a program and a process that keeps the patient's safety first and foremost?

Is that's the utmost concern at a hospital.

But how do we still manage this additional waste?

We have a responsibility.

in the O.R.. We, got with our educators and made sure we were doing everything properly.

We only recycled materials that are opened before a patient gets in the room.

And so it's all pre patient, we didn't want to deal with hazardous waste that could have been in contact with blood.

but we wanted to set up a recycling program for this blue wrap to accept sterile, sterile waste.

And that could be recycled and send it to a process called advanced recycling So instead of traditional mechanical recycling, that just kind of, grinds the plastics and makes it over.

This is actually breaking it down to its chemical feedstocks and remaking it.

surgery is where it gets very interesting and fun.

any packaging they open like this.

A lot of our supplies come like this.

they can recycle.

These are recyclable.

All of this material.

Like I said earlier, that is woven.

Looks like cloth or recyclable.

And then any gowns that they may take off before the patient enters the room again is recyclable.

So these are all materials that you wouldn't think you could recycle.

And we use a lot of them, that are clean plastic material that can be recycled and and just allows us to do something better with that versus throwing it away.

so we rely heavily on our environmental services staff that they're responsible for collecting all of the recycled materials in all of our different areas, and getting it to the right place for recycling.

So just like to give you some rough numbers like early on in the year over like an eight week period.

and at that point we looked at approximately costing about like 1,000 pounds a week or so.

I know I do things because I do them at work and vice versa.

So we want to make sure that there's also positive things and more beneficial things that are going on at work that can translate to the home environment.

I think that's such that's a responsibility for the corporation to build good stewardship in their work environment.

That could translate to the home.

resource to one another and, to kind of spur one another on in, in decreasing our waste.

One of the really, beneficial and fun things is we we have great volunteers.

And they have really procured this fabulous list.

It's called a zero waste.

Evansville Guide.

And it's ever changing and evolving because there's new places and things to discover.

But it's it's basically this one master guide to share.

Where can you recycle or turn in numerous things, anywhere from real cork to, bras to your single contact daily contact lens cases.

You know, where can we distribute those things to where they are hopefully recycled or reused?

we know there's really no such thing as zero waste, so there's there's no shaming involved, but it's just an online group that we encourage everyone to come.

So that we can share ideas, learn from one another, and just really tier one another on in this low waste, lifestyle, because it's often beneficial not only to our pocketbooks, but then to help us increase the lifespan of our landfill, we so in Dubois County, where where we are right now, this is our process center.

it's kind of, site for all the oddball items.

So we take all the electronics, we take appliances down to, coffee maker all the way up to a refrigerant based, refrigerator.

We can take all of that stuff.

Any electronics, we take chemicals, paints, fluorescent tubes.

We have a large item dumpster for those items that can't be recycled.

And then, of course, if we see something going in that dumpster that we think can be reused, we have our last chance corral right here, which is for those sort of last chance items that we pull, so they don't go in the dumpster, don't go to the landfill guys have tires.

Yes.

We do have a tire grant going on right now.

And we can take tires free probably till the end of the year.

How many?

As many as you got.

Really?

Yeah.

but I mean, anything can be on the rim if it needs to or whatever.

So we take those, we usually take those.

We usually charge $50 a piece for them.

So that's what our vendor charges us with this grant.

This is an item grant.

They just released this for the first time this year for solid waste districts.

But with this, I'm just super excited.

And I was so excited to tell our farmers and our land managers today.

If you have tires, bring them now.

So in their goodie bag, they each got a flier about our tire grant, even the big AG tires.

We will be able to take for free for this grant.

So that can be wonderful for somebody who's been holding on to several tires in their barn.

In addition to being an environmental hazard, it can be a real fire hazard We hope to have that going on basically through the end of the year, this is our ag recycling.

Our agricultural recycling day.

We hold this event one day every year for our farmers to be able to recycle, And we have, folks that come every year and they really look forward to it.

They like doing their part.

it's a day set up specifically, for farmers, homeowners that want to bring in empty chemical or fungicide containers, to recycle so they can, you know, so there's reducing our environmental footprint.

awesome thing they do.

They take everything free of charge and and utilize it for recycling.

The pesticide, because we don't like them to, go with the, regular residential recycling, just because of the, you know, that possible pesticide residue, etc.

even though the jugs are triple rinsed, they weren't really food grade or there wasn't food in them.

So that's why we do it once a year, and we work with one of our local recyclers to take that and get it recycled right away.

what we have now is not sustainable.

our transportation system based on fossil fuels is just not sustainable.

it's it will have tremendous impacts, negative impact on our environment.

But EVs can can we can keep our lifestyle as as it is, having, mobility that we're accustomed to but have very little impact or a lot less impact on our environment.

Because they don't have the, greenhouse gas emissions.

with electric vehicle.

You don't get that.

You don't get any of that pollution that's going out.

And by cutting those, we're putting less greenhouse gas emissions that are gonna, you know, makes the the blanket thicker around the Earth and holding more heat in We'll have our third annual electric vehicle ride and drive event.

So, it's called EVs for everyone.

I think this event, it just helps with education all around.

it's a great community engagement.

Our, Sheriff Joe Robinson was there with their new Tesla for the, sheriff's department, and he gave rides to whomever wanted one.

So it's just a lot of fun and great to bring awareness to electric vehicles in our community and and the need for more infrastructure around that as well.

Transportation is one of the higher segments of what's contributing to greenhouse gas emissions, and that's why we're working on it.

Have you?

The federal government has put a big emphasis on mass transportation just because it's so efficient.

Whenever you're moving 35 people in a 30ft vehicle or a 35ft vehicle versus two people in a ten foot car, it just is so much more efficient in getting people move from point A to point B, and it really cuts down on traffic as well.

and we've had, hybrids in our fleet since 2006, but this is a newer generation of hybrid that actually can run fully electric, we like it because you can isolate neighborhoods.

If you're going through a residential neighborhood, you can shut off the diesel engine.

so it's a lot quieter.

And also, there's not as much exhaust coming out, whenever we go through the hospital areas, it's an automatic EV zone.

So the vehicle's engine shuts off and it's running straight electric all the way through the hospital as it goes around and through the emergency department, then back out onto the street to kind of make it a little quieter for people that are in the hospital.

and then you go to C 2350 and you can see on it it's gone 22 miles, 21.3 miles today in electric mode only.

and it saved, 92 pounds and CO2.

with these new hybrids, they're they're a lot like the the newer hybrid cars start stop at, intersections, which we're getting about two miles more per gallon in diesel than what we would with a traditional diesel bus.

so over a 500,000 mile vehicle that two miles per gallon does add up, especially when you're putting in about 70 mile or 70 gallons of diesel for a day.

And, you know, that also starts really adding up with the amount of fossil fuel you're not using.

this is our home of the brave project, which is for veterans.

This was a vacant lot donated to us by Echo Housing.

And we built these three homes, gave them to veterans, but we wanted to incorporate multiple pillars of ours and affordable housing and energy efficiency are two of them.

So we were lucky to be able to incorporate both of them and provide energy efficient homes to our veterans.

There's a lot of issues when it comes to climate change.

And there's a lot of things that cause climate change.

and I don't want my foundation to be one of them.

So we try to make things as energy efficient as possible.

Through our weatherization program and the homes that we build, all of them are energy efficient when it comes to appliances, windows, doors, insulation, everything.

So our model is half price housing.

If it's 200,000 to build, we sell them for 100 and we provide, energy efficient appliances, a very stable home, and wraparound services.

Once they move in, So we felt globally, 24 homes locally, we've built three, and we're building our next one in Boulder.

So JT just received funding from the city of Evansville through Arpa dollars.

We don't actually have a weatherization program.

It's an enhancement to a program that's already existing.

And so we will go in and we will support things like, AC units, furnaces, water heaters, insulation, doors and windows.

Anything that will, will provide, a lower cost to an individual.

As long as it's become more energy efficient.

Our target population is low to moderate income households.

we remove barriers for weatherization.

So if your roof is leaking, and you need blown insulation in your attic, we'll replace the roof or patch it up so that we can weatherize and we can put, insulation in.

Community one has a mission to transform our city and contribute to the flourishing of its people by helping neighbors love their neighbors.

So sustainability and restoration is a very important part of community one's approach to all of our program areas.

When it comes to our housing, we say affordable and restorative housing.

We have incredible housing partners across our community that do a lot of new builds, which is a very important and necessary part of affordable housing.

Our sweet spot to step into the gap is really to do the restorative approach.

And so we're able to acquire blighted properties.

They're inhabitable, they're unsafe, and completely get those and then rebuild like new.

And so through that, we're able to try to preserve as much as we can of the home so that we don't have to replace everything.

We replace anything that needs, to be safe to move forward.

But we're able to use a lot of what's already there and kind of steward those resources and preserve the historical look of the home to, which is something that many residents have expressed they like to see in the neighborhood.

We started planting all the trees around this place, and then we started having them, energy efficient bulbs and so forth and all that.

And then the next final step was to install the solar panels.

which we think is the one of the ways to reduce the fossil fuel use the Green Machine award came from Snack Green initiative, which is a part of the Islamic Society of North America.

The purpose of this, is to promote environmental friendly practices in the mosque, and then persuade them to be conscious about the environment and the climate change.

It's the whole focus is to be environmental friendly practices I have to emphasize that this is not one person's effort.

It's a whole community affair.

And the leadership of the Islamic society, they this has been possible for that.

the realization was that there was so much saving then and we started did that extension building then it was easy to get that money to do that.

And now both of these buildings have the solar panels.

Almighty God has sent as the caretakers of this, not the destroyers.

spiritually, we try to but to refer to the people that it's not only economic reason, but it is a spiritual reason also, that this is a responsibility that you are.

You are the guardians of this place.

So you have to take care of that one too.

Tri-State Creation Care is an interfaith group of people who are interested in in that environment.

And this the people who volunteer for that belong to different congregations And the whole emphasis is, again, how we can promote and convince people to become environmental friendly and be conscious of the climate effects.

So the best way to do that, if all the people of faith all around the world would link up in their various religions and faith traditions and work towards the same goal, we can accomplish something a lot quicker.

I think pretty much all religions that we have encountered, every one of them, stands for being good stewards of the earth.

And it isn't just people of faith.

We are.

Tri-State Creation Care works with any person of goodwill.

They do not have to belong to a faith tradition.

we really feel strongly that we have to develop a new consciousness about our environment.

That's not only a physical transformation, but it's a spiritual social transformation.

it is, a part of our faith duty to try to be good stewards of the earth.

we have really wonderful opportunities here.

Really.

obviously have less common woods, but we have the parks, we have a lot of even private, you know, like at my parish, we turned, a grass field into a pollinator, garden and a prayer garden, one of the things that we try to encourage is to take a creation care pledge.

And one of the the elements of that is that commit to enjoying a bit of nature each day, It's just saying, okay, I'm going to leave my house and go for a walk.

the great thing about native plants is that you can have an impact on climate change directly.

And how would you impact climate change when you're growing native plants in your yard is that you convert part of your lawn.

So we want to be clear that this is not just allowing your lawn to become overgrown.

This is actually removing that lawn and then establishing basically what are many meadows, with a range of different native plant species.

One of the things that that does when many people are doing it, it is it reduces the amount of CO2 emissions because you're reducing the amount of lawn that's being mowed.

One lawn mower can actually put, running one hour puts the same amount of carbon dioxide as seven cars running, for an hour.

Park Zoo is also botanic gardens.

and while some people think that is some specific place inside the zoo, for us, that's the entire zoo is a botanic garden.

So right now, we're in the family garden.

And while the zoo has mini gardens throughout the park, tropical gardens, Amazonia, pollinator gardens.

This is where we kind of focus on what you can do in your own backyard to help bring in not only natural plants, native plants, but also pollinators to help attract hummingbirds and butterflies and bees.

What this garden does is really focuses on these types of plants that you can plant in your own backyard that are, drought resistant.

They're they're native, so they're more tolerant.

So our climate and you're not having to put, non-native species with heavy watering and heavy.

They survive and they do well.

And so really, they're a lower impact.

And they're actually the plants that the birds and the bees and the butterflies are used to seeing.

And they want to see.

So when you plant these types of areas in and around your house, they're not only are beautiful, but they also have a purpose for the native habitat around it.

the Southwest Indiana master Gardeners Association maintains the space for us.

so they do all the all the work in this area.

but they've got lots of great educational pieces inside the zoo, in this garden to talk about, really, how to make your backyard a friendly habitat for native wildlife.

the idea that part of establishing a really healthy pollinator garden is, is taking a moment and looking to see what kind of plants that you have to assess if you have any invasive species.

a really easy step to take if you have any invasive species like Japanese barberry.

The state has actually passed a law.

It's called the terrestrial Plant rule that has outlawed the sale of particularly invasive species.

So it's it's important to be aware of that.

we have this is a family garden.

We also have native pollinator gardens.

And we also have insect hotels.

and so we have these little pockets around the entire zoo, that we manage and have a message around them.

So they really integrate into our botanic garden Pollinators are essential, for the, good habitat to thrive.

And they come in so many forms.

we have pollinators that are birds.

We have pollinators that are hummingbirds and butterflies.

Monarchs, obviously are great pollinators.

And then, of course, bees.

Several bees that use these areas, to pollinate not only our food supply but also the plants around us.

So, these are critical to the environment.

and so when you help put them in your yard or in your planters, if they're annuals and they're natives and they're also flowering, you're only helping to add to, those native species getting what they need.

Education about climate change, sustainability and environmental ism is so important because you can't address an issue that you don't know about.

If you don't understand the root cause of something, then any applications to it won't do well.

So it's so important to educate our public and really put out good information that is digestible and understood.

That way we can come together holistically and really push for positive change.

The impact program is a technology transfer program that teaches young students about patents and inventions at federal agencies and at research universities.

So we explore inventions in buildings energy transportation health care and a variety of other emerging technologies.

So a lot of young people are really concerned about the climate crisis, and a lot of the technologies have already been invented.

They're just kind of sitting on a shelf somewhere at a research university or in a federal lab.

So this is giving them an opportunity to explore some of those inventions.

And we're presenting some of the challenges that they see in the world as opportunities to make the world a better place.

So Conservation Club is an environmentally focused club at Signature School.

We've just focus on sharing passion about the environment, climate change, just ways to spread our love and, you know, our hope and dreams for what we want our future to look like on our earth.

this year and spring of 2024, I was the head of prom committee.

So we collaborated with the conservation club to bring in all of the water jugs that they've purchased and bring in the biodegradable cups, and we use those as a way to kind of, make our event centered around the environment and to not harm the environment through our event.

It's the daily actions like that that make a difference.

I think what brings us all together is that we all have the same goal, and that's to protect the environment and to learn more about it.

So this is behind the scenes of one of our programs that, EVP puts on with our partner, Urban Seeds.

This is actually a virtual cooking and literacy program.

It's called Book and cook, and it's specifically meant for grades third through fifth grade.

For participants and their families within that grade level.

really, there's a few goals to the program.

It's really about, you know, focusing on increasing literacy.

I would say also food literacy.

You know, continuing to connect people with local farms and food resources.

You know, teach a little bit about agriculture as well as really those hands on cooking skills.

Really just trying to get kids hands on experience with, like, fresh, local ingredients.

we make all the ingredient kits the day before and distribute them to all the different library branches.

And then on Saturday, all the participants join me on zoom.

To, you know, cook the recipe alongside urban seeds.

they can also watch the recording later, as well as an option.

We also give them a set of books.

All of the books are somehow related to cooking recipes, nutrition.

Sometimes even just plants.

This year we had, a book relating to fungus and mushrooms.

So we try to tie in lots of different angles of cooking and food.

book and cook has been, to me a really awesome way to show a few different aspects of our work, kind of all in one program.

So once again, bringing in those local farms, you know, Urban Seeds is all about supporting local farms, and just increasing their viability within this community and the awareness of what local food and seasonal food is available in the community.

Why you should get local vegetables versus, something that's shipped in from far away is because one, you have a better flavor, you have a relationship with the farmer that grew it, and it's less of a carbon footprint.

So I feel like all all three of those things are super important.

But you may have to understand that things don't grow in the climate that you live in 365 days out of the year, so adjusting your diet to that can actually have a big, impact on the climate.

people care about our environment and the health of our environment and our quality of our air and our quality of water and those things are important.

And if we're not addressing those things, people will go to places where they are.

And so I feel like we are finally in our community, really wrapping our minds around, but also coming together to make meaningful change we have the power to make those choices and act on some solutions.

Now again, just start small, up your game as much as you can as often as you can.

And let's start working towards solutions.

And I think if we all gather around and, and do those right things, that I think that we have a bright future.

I think it's solvable.

Start small.

You can actually start in your house.

You can start wherever you are.

You can start somewhere and you don't have to start with, you know, 100 plants, 20 plants.

You can just start with one and just see how it goes.

And, we was struggling, you know, in the beginning we had to learn there's a lot of things that really didn't work out, but that's a part of it.

You know, it's a part of just trying to see what works.

Well, if it's.

But, I think you can start anywhere, to be honest.

That's