By Jim Madigan Connecting Point WGBY
The Hitchcock Center for the Environment was founded in 1962 by Ethel Dubois (1906–1987), a retired guidance counselor. With a handful of dedicated volunteers, she provided summer camp and nature programs for low-income children, primarily from Holyoke and Springfield. Today, the Center remains true to its mission: to foster greater awareness and understanding of the environment and develop environmentally literate citizens. Recently Julie Johnson, Exec. Dir. of the Hitchcock Center for the Environment in Amherst discussed the new environmental center they are building.
By Susan Théberge and Darcy DuMont
The year 2014 was the warmest ever recorded. Every region of the United States except Hawaii has seen more extreme precipitation episodes in the last 10 years, led by the Northeast with a stunning 71 percent increase. This past winter’s snowfall records in Boston and elsewhere are consistent with climate predictions that warmer ocean temperatures feed storms with moisture, causing the blizzards and heavy rains we’ve been experiencing. Whether it’s flooding in the Northeast or drought in the Southwest, climate change is affecting all of us. This is the “new normal.” Although the science has been clear, world leaders have spent the last quarter-century doing little to address the crisis. We now have a small window of time left to prevent climate catastrophe. The U.N. Environment Program says we need to reach “net zero carbon” by century’s end — this will probably require stopping almost all fossil fuel usage worldwide by around 2050. To succeed, we need to start cutting back right now.
By Jessica Schultz
After many months of intense design, planning and review, work has begun at our new site! What has happened in May so far? The silt fencing has been installed around our site to protect wetlands and limit run off. The limit of work and center line of our driveway have been surveyed and staked. Site clearing has begun and is nearly finished. It’s looking a lot different out there and we have installed two time-lapse cameras on site the capture the changes as they happen – stay tuned as we work to bring you closer to how we’re working to restore our site and build a new home and teaching facility for our center.
Jenny Ivy Byrne Green Building News
The Hitchcock Center for the Environment, located in Amherst, broke ground May 1 on an environmental center designed and constructed to the world’s toughest sustainable development standards.
By Jessica Schultz
We are humbled and heartened by the many people who joined us at our groundbreaking ceremony on May 1st. Over 250 people gathered at our new site to mark this historic moment.
By Henry Lappen
In my Jan. 31 column, I wrote about the incredible complexity of trees’ hydraulic system. Now, I’m going to focus on another amazing way trees have evolved to survive: their hormonal system. Yes, that’s right — their hormonal system! The dictionary defines hormones as “regulatory substances produced in organisms to stimulate specific cells or tissues into action.” Like humans and other animals, plants make hormones to start, stop and control all sorts of functions. For instance, trees use hormones to stimulate leaf, stem and root growth, along with seed production and flowering. Trees, in fact, produce quite a variety of hormones, with names like auxins, gibberellins, cytokinins, ethylene and abscisic acid.
Diane Lederman MassLive.com
With the Hitchcock Center groundbreaking ceremony Friday afternoon at Hampshire College, the center has now launched an overall fundraising campaign to complete funding for the 9,000 square-foot project. The Building For the Future campaign has raised $4.6 million of the $5.8 million project cost. And now the center is asking the community at large to donate. A group of donors will match all donations given or pledged between now and May 31, of up to $100,000.
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Hitchcock Center for the Environment
at Hampshire College
845 West Street | Amherst MA 01002 | 413.256.6006 | 413.253.2809 fax