This weekend is the Home&Garden show at the fairgrounds, which are flat-out gorgeous. Don't miss the stock dog demo*.
Show costs $5 to park, but after that, admission is free.
APPLE had a booth, and a prominent tagline that I hadn't noticed before:
Living Well in a Changing World
This slogan does better match what APPLE does, & what's on offer at the APPLE Center up on Commercial St.; where I've had some conflict recently (the poster I assembled was non grata, particularly Tim DeChristopher's "Climate change is a war against the young") over the deliberate avoidance of the topic of climate change, except for the diversionary (link) "you can address climate change by personal carbon-footprint action" variety; but the "living well/changing world" tagline clarifies why climate education - about the science, about the stakes, about the moral imperative to fight it, about what actions are effective - lies beyond APPLE's bailiwick.
Their board president was in the booth, & confirmed-though-not-in-so-many-words that this [living well in a changing world] is indeed their focus.
(Which is their prerogative; it's just that many in this community are under the impression that APPLE advocates for climate change education & solutions as well.)
7 comments:
" ... many in this community are under the impression that APPLE advocates for climate change education & solutions as well."
Speaking for myself and not officially for APPLE (although I'm a member) I'd say that APPLE definitely advocates for climate change education, although that's not its primary focus.
For instance, see various postings over the years:
"APPLE grew from a seed planted at the Town Hall Institute's Peak Oil Conference in May 2005. In our first 18 months, APPLE started or inspired these spin-off groups/projects: Community Gardens, The Clean Power Co-operative of Nevada County, Peak Moment Television, Nevada City CarShare, and PowerUpNC.
Some of the events that we have organized or co-sponsored are:
November 2005: Richard Heinberg presentation
March 2006: Come Home to Eat (celebration of local food)
May 2006: Climate Change Town Hall Conference ... "
(http://www.apple-nc.org/?q=about)
etc etc etc.
Anna,
As I had informed you during our phone conversation many weeks ago, the reason your climate change poster was pulled from the APPLE Center was because it was not the 8.5 x 11 poster you had presented to our APPLE board originally. What you presented was one graph of the hockey stick climate change graph and nothing more. We agreed you could post this in the APPLE Center once you worked with Mali, the APPLE Center E.D.
This did not happen. What did happen was one day a huge, laminated poster that included much more data, graphs and information was posted, without authority, in the APPLE Center.
As I had said to you before, we can post this information, but it must first be reviewed by our board expert, Rick Hartman. I gave you his email and asked you to contact him and follow the protocol the APPLE board has set forth. From what I know of, you have yet to follow up on contacting Rick Hartman.
Ultimately, the crux of the matter is not that APPLE is not willing to post such information, it is that what you presented the APPLE board and what you posted in the APPLE Center were two distinctively different things.
Hi Reinette & Don; thanks for your comments.
Don ("APPLE definitely advocates for climate change education, although that's not its primary focus") - since Reinette's 2006 town hall meeting (thank you Reinette!), I have not seen this. I did see *one* book addressing climate change for sale in the APPLE Center, but it was of the "stop climate change by taking personal footprint-reduction actions" ilk. If APPLE's not educating on what solutions are *effective*, and not educating on what the science is telling us, then it's not educating. (on climate change)
Reinette, re getting approval for the poster, it sounds like there hasn't been clear communication among & from the APPLE folk - or else, people are speaking gently & expecting others to read between the lines, with variable results.
Re your above statement "we can post this information, but it must first be reviewed by our board expert, Rick Hartman...From what I know of, you have yet to follow up on contacting Rick Hartman. "
Actually, I'd emailed Rick ~mid-March, giving him the link to the poster & its references, and asking for feedback. Then I ran into Rick & spoke to him in person, telling him of my email & showing him a mini-mockup of the poster and asking for feedback. He was busy and put me off; and I haven't heard back.
But this appears to be moot, since (as I told you in an Apr 12 email, fwding the exchange) I've been told by Ann (board president) that (my paraphrase, in the email to you) approval of the poster is "an Apple Center Committee issue not a Board issue; but the Apple Center Committee hasn't yet found time to meet & talk about it [for over a month], & it's not clear when/if they will...)"
(I've asked when we could meet, & been told they're occupied with higher priority things.)
So the "living well in a changing world" motto did seem to make sense of my experience.
For the record though, you're correct in pointing out that I hadn't (but should have) worked with Mali before getting the poster made up; & while its main msg *is* the (APPLE Board-approved) Meinshausen graph, showing projected climate change under conditions of action vs. inaction, the poster *does* have add'l text and graphs, that neither Mali nor the other half of the APPLE Center committee had seen & approved beforehand.
(but if they can't find time to meet with me for over a month now, would they have found time to meet with me then?)
(fyi, I think I misidentified half the APPLE Center Committee, above - I believe Mali as Exec. Dir. is _not_ one of the two Committee Chairs.)
And I should clarify that AFAIK there was no reason/need for Rick to take time to review the poster, if (as the Board president told me) approving it is the APPLE Center's purview & not the Board's.
(unless, once again, I'm missing something...)
Kate nails it, in Where Activism Fails:
"We need people to understand the severity of climate change, and to see that planting a tree and buying organic lettuce will not solve the problem. We need people to understand that meaningful action, such as putting a price on carbon, is necessary to solve the problem."
IMO this is a shift:
APPLE's mission, from website sidebar: "working to reduce dependency on fossil fuels, and to promote a more self-reliant local economy in Nevada County, California"
APPLE's mission, from its IRS Form 990 filing on Guidestar:
"to educate and alert the citizens of Nevada County, California about the long-term consequences of fuel supply depletion and climate change, and to motivate those citizens to create the necessary structures for the transition from a fossil-fuel-dependent global economy to a sustainable, renewable, energy-based local economy."
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