BY MONIQUE DUBOS

Imagine living in a region where your livelihood depended on the frequent flooding of your property.  David Lipset has lived with and chronicled the lives of people who make such a location their home. He shared how a population of roughly 3,000 in the Murik Lakes region of Papua New Guinea is being effected by rising sea levels at the March 6 Frontiers in the Environment seminar, "A Mangrove Lagoon in the Time of Climate Change: The Politics, Science and Culture of an Intertidal Environment in Papua New Guinea."

BY MONIQUE DUBOS

Solar power in Minnesota is inevitable. That was the message delivered by Fresh Energy executive director Michael Noble at the March 6 Frontiers in the Environment talk, "Unleashing Minnesota's Solar Power Potential." Fresh Energy is leading a campaign to bolster the state's clean energy future. 

BY MONIQUE DUBOS

What is noise, and how does it affect the natural world? These are among the questions Mark Pedelty, IonE resident fellow and College of Liberal Arts associate professor, posed at his February 27 Frontiers in the Environment seminar, "Sound Ecology: The Environmental Effects of Mechanical Noise and Human Music."

Pedelty is hoping to influence land development policy to take the effects of mechanical and human noise into account. For example, he noted that some songbirds sing louder and at a higher pitch in urban landscapes, and industrial noise has been shown to inhibit foraging and reproduction in certain frog species.

BY MONIQUE DUBOS

Tim Bristol is playing offense. That's how the Trout Unlimited Alaska director described his group's efforts to protect Alaska's vital watersheds at the Feb. 20 Frontiers in the Environment seminar, "Watersheds: Clean Water, Wild Places, Healthy Communities."

Trout Unlimited Alaska is fighting to protect two critical habitats and communities that rely on them: Bristol Bay in southwestern Alaska and the Tongass National Forest in the southeastern panhandle. Both areas boast productive salmon fisheries that have vital economic benefit to the communities that rely on them, said Bristol. Both are at risk from development projects that threaten the health of their watersheds.

BY MONIQUE DUBOS

If you're a fan of IonE's Momentum magazine, we have some good news for you: Momentum is no more.

Why good news? Because Momentum is now Ensia, an innovative online and print magazine and event series that's out to change the world. Reaching across sectors, disciplines, political persuasions and continents, Ensia aims to provide people who have the power to shape new solutions to environmental grand challenges with the innovative ideas, information and inspiration they need to do so.

What do you get when you mix more than 1,000 students, faculty, campus sustainability managers and others with three days' worth of interaction around sustainability issues? One inspiring conference - and, ultimately, a more sustainable campus and a more sustainable world. That was the goal of the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education (AASHE) for its annual meeting in Los Angeles last month. Among the inspired - and inspiring -  were nearly a dozen individuals representing the University of Minnesota.

University of Minnesota presenters included, from the Twin Cities, undergraduate students Christy Newell and Eric Sannerud, sustainability education coordinator Beth Mercer-Taylor, sustainability director Amy Short, sustainability coordinator Shane Stennes, alternative transportation manager Steve Sanders and graduate alumna Elizabeth Turner. From Duluth, presenters included sustainability coordinator Mindy Granley sustainability associate Bryan French and graduate student Brian Bluhm.

Mercer-Taylor had these thoughts to share in the wake of the event: