News & Events

September 24, 2024 Sustainability Lab @ T-REX

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Published on Wednesday August 7th, 2024

Save $ with Solar

Tuesday, September 24, 2024
3:45pm-5:00pm Presentation & Discussion (join in person or on Zoom)
5:00pm-6:00pm Networking (in person only)

Join in Person:
T-REX (911 Washington Ave. in downtown St. Louis)
Sharptooth Boardroom (5th Floor)
Plan your trip using public transit here.

Register and Join on Zoom:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAlf-2tqj0sGdFBcTx1tDpmLizht1yhnmwk

At this Lab, we will hear from a local school, church, and municipality that have installed solar, and the financial and other benefits they have seen. By learning from each other, more organizations can realize the financial savings, climate resilience benefits, and educational opportunities offered by solar energy. This event is a great opportunity for entities who are considering solar to meet and learn from a peer that has completed a project, and for all who are interested in learning more. Speakers will include:

• Mayor Brian K. Jackson, City of Beverly Hills
• Susan Zareh, teacher and founding member of the green committee at Forsyth Elementary School
• Darian Wigfall, Executive Director of St. Paul's Episcopal Church

Click here to save this event to your calendar. 

Success Spotlight: The Wedge Innovation Center

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Published on Wednesday August 7th, 2024

Author: Emily Hemingway, Executive Director, The Wedge

 

 

 

 

Photo: A rendering of The Wedge Innovation Center, to be housed in the renovated Wedge Bank.

 

The Wedge Innovation Center is a world-class, social impact center of innovation with coworking and offices for startups, businesses, and tech located in the heart of Alton, Illinois. The Wedge is part of a $30 million revitalization project that involves renovating the Wedge Bank and Elfgen buildings, incorporating sustainability features such as bike storage and showers, rooftop patios with greenery, street trees, and electric vehicle charging. To encourage bicycle access, the Wedge is located close to Madison County Transit's Confluence Trail, with future plans to extend the trail all the way to The Wedge.

Coming this winter, the Wedge is partnering with regional leaders to launch MAIN, the Midwest AI Network, a new 501(c)(3) that will also host a think-tank and Artificial Intelligence research lab in the Wedge Innovation Center. MAIN will serve as a public-private partnership striving to foster ethical AI leadership, front-line data innovation, and emerging technology collaboration between universities, startups, and industry leaders to drive the development of world class sustainable communities across the 8 Midwest states (Illinois, Missouri, Kansas, Indiana, Iowa, Nebraska, Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin, North Dakota, South Dakota). MAIN Labs will be focused on cloud storage and is not anticipated to have a substantially different energy output from other innovation spaces not focused on AI.

By hosting MAIN at the Wedge, our goal is to position the American Midwest as a global hub for artificial intelligence and sustainable communities by advancing cross-sector research, promoting economic growth through ethical data innovation, and fueling emerging technologies across the 8-state footprint.

With other tenants and projects at the Wedge around health data, broadband access, and food hubs, the Metro East community will have a front-row position on building sustainable rural communities through collaboration and ingenuity.

Upcoming Climate Fresks

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Published on Tuesday August 6th, 2024

Author: Kyle Crawford, OneSTL Communications Team

If we don’t communicate differently about climate change, we won’t notice the magnitude of our predicament until it's fundamentally too late. I am an educator by degree and profession and have found the learning structure of a Climate Fresk to be an approachable and effective exploration for almost anyone. The card game is creating a visualization of the often dense data published by the IPCC, the United Nation’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. An example of what is created in this group-sourced tabletop card play is pictured here.

Research about effective communication about climate change is advancing, and NNOCCI (the National Network for Ocean and Climate Change Interpretation) offers a research-based climate change communications training program. However, Climate Fresks differ from NNOCCI's training because they empower each person to evaluate what they know and discover what they don't know.

Over a million people all around the world have been through this cause-and-effect group exploration, and the experience is different every time. Every one of those participants were right when they entered the room and remained right when they left. This is not an effort to persuade. It’s a physical experience involving game play to feel the deeper context and inter-related systems that ultimately stem from and will force a shift in human behavior. 

Learning more about what’s being impacted, both on the inherited planetary level and to our local community where we have the most agency, is the point of a Climate Fresk. You can play this game for FREE at one of these upcoming events:

• August 18th - 1:30pm to 4:30pm - University City Public Library - Registration here
• September 1st - 1:30pm to 4:30pm - University City Public Library - Registration here
• September 15th - 1:30pm to 4:30pm - University City Public Library - Registration here
• September 29th - 1:30pm to 4:30pm - University City Public Library - Registration here

Can you think of a situation that could benefit from this learning together in an intentional, guided, and fun way? Contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. to explore where else to host Climate Fresks! Other public spaces? The workplace? Bars? It's been hosted in all these places and more around the world! 

July 30, 2024 Sustainability Lab @ T-REX

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Published on Friday June 28th, 2024

Sustainability Lab @ T-REX
Insurance and Climate Change

Tuesday, July 30, 2024
3:45pm-5:00pm Presentation & Discussion (join in person or on Zoom)
5:00pm-6:00pm Networking (in person only)

Join in Person:
T-REX (911 Washington Ave. in downtown St. Louis)
Sharptooth Boardroom (5th Floor)
Plan your trip using public transit here.

Register and Join on Zoom:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZcpf-Ctpz4tEtP_NBlZKqjvRmYQ_ugPH9wO

Climate change is having an undeniable and drastic impact on the insurance industry. People and businesses in communities across the country are finding it difficult if not impossible to get insurance because of recurring severe weather events such as hail, tornadoes, floods and wildfires. And those who can get insurance are seeing dramatic increases in premiums.

Join us as we hear a presentation from Daniel Pribe, Chief Actuary at Lumeris and discuss implications of climate change to our region, how insurance companies are reacting, and possible mitigation techniques.

Click here to download a calendar invite for this Lab.

July 17 Climate Fresk

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Published on Thursday June 27th, 2024

Climate Fresk: Public Climate Change Education Gameplay

A Climate Fresk is an orientation of sorts to the global realities of climate change through a structured event which has been happening all over the world since 2018. Climate Fresk gets its name from the fresco, or picture, created while placing and literally drawing connections between cards labeled with cause and effects across fifty relevant topics. Created by a French nonprofit which grew from an educator’s passion project to help make vital scientific data understood, this event is a gamification of the recurring United Nation’s IPCC (Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) Report contents to make that often dry data accessible to the broadest possible audience. The shared act of defining the connections establishes an awareness of the complications, and then the event moves to facilitated exploration about what to do with this new knowledge. The point of a Climate Fresk is to reinforce the importance of participation and reconsidering our assumptions. No previous knowledge is required; only a willingness to learn through participation.

This free Climate Fresk will take place on Sunday, July 21^st from 1:30 to 4:30 pm at the University City Public Library for a limited sized public audience. Minimum age for this event is 15.
Click this link to sign up: July 21st - Climate Fresk Workshop - UCCPL

June 25, 2024 Sustainability Lab @ T-REX

Details

Published on Tuesday May 28th, 2024

Sustainability Lab @ T-REX
New Options for Reuse & Reducing Single-Use Waste 

Tuesday, June 25, 2024
3:45pm-5:00pm Presentation & Discussion (join in person or on Zoom)
5:00pm-6:00pm Networking (in person only)

Join in Person:
T-REX (911 Washington Ave. in downtown St. Louis)
Sharptooth Boardroom (5th Floor)
Plan your trip using public transit here.

Register and Join on Zoom:
https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZAqcequqz0iE9aKO7K_OvioTSLaOqSEd3dN

At this Lab, earthday365 will be sharing about the environmental benefits of reuse and the effort to build a 'wash hub' in St. Louis, to expand the availability of reusable cups and serviceware. According to a life-cycle analysis of reusable and single-use cups, reusable options outperformed single-use cups across all environmental metrics. This includes single-use aluminum cups, which used more energy and created more carbon dioxide than single-use plastic options. 

Click here to download a calendar invite for this event