Donald Brown Lecture "Naviagting the Perfect Moral Storm: Climate Change Ethics in Light of a Thirty-Five Year Debate - Baker Nord Center for the Humanities

Donald Brown Lecture

Navigating the Perfect Moral Storm: Climate Change Ethics in Light of a Thirty-Five Year Debate

Thursday, February 28, 2013

Case Western Reserve University

Clark Hall Room 309

6-7pm

free and open to the public - registration recommended

From CWRU Baker-Nord Center Website:

Professor Donald Brown – scholar in residence for sustainability ethics and law at the Widener Environmental Law Center, and former director of the Pennsylvania Environmental Research Consortium – will address the critical questions of why climate change must be understood fundamentally as a civilization-challenging ethical problem, why an understanding that climate change is an ethical problem has profound practical significance for policy formation, and why ethics has failed to gain traction in climate change policy debates.

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About the speakers

Donald Brown

Donald A. Brown is Associate Professor of Environmental Ethics, Science, and Law at Penn State University where he is currently teaching interdisciplinary courses on climate change and sustainable development and acting as Program Director of the Collaborative Program on the Ethical Dimensions of Climate Change whose secretariat is the Rock Ethics Institute at Penn State. Mr. Brown is also director of the Pennsylvania Environmental Research Consortium, an organization comprised of 56 Pennsylvania universities and the Pennsylvania Departments of Environmental Protection and Conservation and Natural Resources. Before holding these positions he was an environmental lawyer for the states of Pennsylvania and New Jersey and Program Manager for United Nations Organizations at the United States Environmental Protection Agency's Office of International Environmental Policy. In this position he represented the United States Environmental Protection Agency on United States delegations to the United Nations negotiating climate change, biodiversity, and sustainable development issues. Mr. Brown has written about and lectured extensively on climate change issues over the last 20 years. He has lectured on climate change issues at 30 universities in eight countries and lectured on sustainability issues in 23 countries. His interest has been the need to integrate environmental science, economic, and law in environmental policy making. His latest book is American Heat: Ethical Problems with the U.S. Response to Global Warming.

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Additional Resources

Click HERE for Donald Brown's Ehtics and Climate blog.

Click HERE for the Yale forum on Climate Change and the Media.

RTA Public Meeting - University Circle/Little Italy Station: 2013.02.21

Via GCRTA webbernet site

Rendering by City Architecture (?) - probably.

University Circle/Little Italy Station Public Meeting

February 21, 2013

Holy Rosary Church Hall

12021 Mayfield Road, Cleveland, Ohio

6pm

Feb. 21: Public meeting regarding University Circle – Little Italy Station

The public is invited to attend an RTA-sponsored meeting to discuss the Environmental Assessment (EA) of the proposed University Circle – Little Italy Rapid Station. The EA, prepared by RTA and Michael Baker, Jr., Inc., in cooperation with the Federal Transit Administration, compares the Build Alternatives to a No Build Alternative, and identifies potential social, economic, environmental and transportation impacts of the alternatives. 

The meeting will take place at 6:00pm Thursday, February 21, 2013 at Holy Rosary Church Hall, 12021 Mayfield Road, Cleveland. The meeting site is served by the #9 - Mayfield bus route.

EA Documents:

Environmental Assessment (includes partial Appendix A), 19.2MB PDF

Appendix A - Maps and Plans (documents not included in the main document above), 31.2MB zip file

Appendix B - Planning Background Reports, 63.2MB zip file

Appendix C - Cultural Resources, 56.1MB zip file

Appendix D - Environmental Site Assessment, 40.5MB zip file

Appendix E - Noise and Vibration Analysis, 3.5MB zip file

Appendix F - Agency Coordination, 12.1MB zip file

Appendix G - Public Involvement, 24.4MB zip file

After February 11, 2013, the EA documents may also be reviewed at:

• Case Western Reserve University, Kelvin Smith Library, 11055 Euclid Ave.
• Cleveland State University, Michael Schwartz Library, Rhodes Tower, 2121 Euclid Ave.
• University Circle Inc., 10831 Magnolia Dr.
• Alta House, 12510 Mayfield Road
• Cuyahoga County Public Library branches at 4645 Mayfield Road or 4415 Northfield Road
• Cleveland Public Library branches at 325 Superior Ave., 1962 Stokes Blvd., 11535 Shaker Blvd., 11900 St. Clair Ave. or 10200 Superior Ave.

The public review period will take place from February 11 - March 13, 2013. Comments received by March 13, 2013 will be part of the official record.

To comment via postal mail, or to request hardcopy of the EA documents:

Maribeth Feke

Director of Planning & Programming

RTA

1240 W 6th St

Cleveland, OH 44113

To comment via e-mail, or if you require special accommodations:

Valerie Webb, vwebb@gcrta.org

Phone: 216-566-5260

PLUS!

Planning & Development: Major Projects - University Circle - Little Italy Rapid Station

Updated Feb. 8, 2013

Download a copy of the E 120 Master Plan (15.6MB)

in 2008, a

 transit-oriented development (TOD) plan for the Red Line rail station at Euclid Avenue and East 120th Street  called for the station location to be moved several blocks to East 119th Street and Mayfield Road, where it will be closer to Little Italy. It will be called University Circle - Little Italy Rapid Station.

The design is 90 percent complete. Construction is slated to begin in summer 2013.

On Feb. 21, 2013, RTA officials will hold a community meeting to discuss the Enviornment Assessment as it nears completion. Details on the meeting, the review / comment period and the Environmental Assment can be found here.

Background

In December 2011, the U.S. Department of Transportation, via the Federation Transit Administration, awarded RTA a $12.5 million grant.. It was part of the TIGER III program for national infrastructure investments. TIGER stands for Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery.

The $17.5 million project cost includes the design and construction of the station and rehabilitating two transit track bridges. One of RTA's goals is to improve the sidewalks and lighting under all of the bridges on both sides of Mayfield Road, for pedestrian access to and from the station.

On July 31, 2012, RTA held a community meeting with area stakeholders on the environmental impact of the new station. City Architecture presented information on the environmental impact and the design concepts. Residents were asked to view the presentation, read the handout, and submit comments.

In May 2011, The Plain Dealer wrote:

The project aims to mesh with a burst of development along Euclid Avenue, including the residential-retail Uptown project; the proposed, new home of the Museum of Contemporary Art; and the consolidation of the Cleveland Institute of Art into the Joseph McCullough Center for the Visual Arts. When completed, the station should be a strong example of what planners call transit-oriented development, in which rail stations complement residential, retail and institutional growth in neighborhoods.

To help fund the design effort for the station area, RTA worked with the Cleveland Foundation, the Northeast Ohio Areawide Coordinating Agency (NOACA), Little Italy, University Hospitals, the Cleveland Clinic and Case Western Reserve University.

Proposed development in the surrounding area includes:

• Two buildings (one five-story, one seven-story) featuring first-floor retail and nine floors of apartments.
• Retail use of approximately 24,000 square feet dedicated to convenience-oriented uses, such as a small grocer, dry cleaner and restaurants.
• Apartments in Building One (four floors, 48 units) designated to temporary corporate (institutional) housing. CWRU, University Hospitals, the Cleveland Clinic or other institutions and businesses could lease an entire floor or two.
• Each floor would contain 12 units, averaging 1,000 square feet per unit.
• Apartments in Building Two (five floors, 72 units) would be designated for market-rate apartments, with the future opportunity for these to convert to condo.
• The institutions would be able to offer their visiting professionals a place to stay on a short-term basis at the designated corporate housing area. A separate key card to create exclusivity would access these floors.
• The medical resident group and their families would look to this project as a place to rent for their 3 +/- year stint in Cleveland, rather than searching for housing in other areas.
• The first floor would feature convenience-oriented retail for the residents, as well as the 30,000+ employees of University Circle parking nearby or walking by.
• The building should offer services to distinguish it from other building and service the residents, such as a concierge for dry cleaning, car wash, theater tickets and dinner reservations.
• Incentives would be limited to new markets tax credits and tax abatement.

  

The lacking of a meaningful geometry

This is going to get a little personal. In no way should this be construed as any sort of slight against any individual and I hope that those that are not like minded are not easily offended. This is sort of aimed at any and all architecture/design students out there (as well as some practitioners) and it centers around a form that surprisingly is driven by having a center, the simple curve.

From an architectural point of view there is something about a properly proportioned curve that can make movement towards and alongside very exciting and dramatic. A slow reveal of what lay ahead as one glides along the face or the inherent grandeur of the closest point, made taller by perspective when one approaches from a tangent. They are forms that when overlapped create the most complex and potentially interesting spaces where they cross, hold and release. When juxtaposed with a harsh line or angle the area they encompass is immediately protected and deferred. They can undulate, dancing back and forth, they can diminish, creating tighter arcs until the foci is reached, they can expand to the point of becoming linear.

So what then is my problem with the curve? Well, specifically, and similar to the use of any geometry, there is an inherent requirement that the geometry is located in relation to something else. For those of you who had developed a curved form and attempting to create construction documents or a model of said shape, the one thing requisite to accuracy is the workpoint and relation of line(s) to said work point. My problem isn't with the curve, or line, or point, or plane, it is when the objects in question are arbitrary in their spatial relationship. When they are merely located, as in under the guise of night, haphazardly left strewn over sketch paper without a sense of relation or size with which to recreate. Why surely there is an intent left in the maddening scribbles, but without the logical reasoning of size and direction I cannot replicate nor grasp how these simple forms are meant to dance. Do they focus on a singular point of import? Do they create moments of specific compression and expansion with which to form moments of respite? Is there some misunderstood tension as if an old married couple who is secretly in love yet enjoys a good argument? How am I to know?

So I ask you, dear designers and such, if you are going to plop some geometry on me for whatever reason, especially something that goes completely against the function of space or requirements of construction, give me but a little explanation. It will alleviate quite a bit of cursing your name, repeatedly and vehemently and I attempt to work through was at least could be a painted word picture.

Dru- out.

Dave Gamble Benefit - Feb. 21st, 2013

Benefit for Dave Gamble

Thursday, February 21st, 2013

Sokolowski's University Inn

1201 University Road, Cleveland, Ohio

6pm

from Plain Press

(Plain Press, February 2013) David Gamble, Tremont resident and community activist, was struck by a vehicle and severely injured while cycling over the Lorain Carnegie Bridge on November 9^th. A benefit for Gamble will be held at Sokolowski’s University Inn at 1201 University Road on Thursday, February 21^st. Doors open at 6 p.m.  Dinner tickets are $30.00. There will also be silent auctions and raffles.

Tickets can be purchased at the door or via Pay Pal account, which is being set up for the event. For more information call Tremont West Development Corporation at 575-0920 or visit their website at www.tremontwest.org. Bike Cleveland and Ward 3 Councilman Joe Cimperman have graciously offered to help sponsor the event.

Gamble, an active member of the Tremont community for many years and a member of the Plain Press Board of Trustees, was struck from the rear by a vehicle while riding his bicycle to work as a overnight security guard on November 9^th.  Gamble is in the rehabilitation unit at St. Vincent Charity Hospital.

Donations to assist David Gamble can also be made at Fifth Third Bank on Professor Avenue in Tremont. The account name is “Gary Gamble for the benefit of David Gamble.”

Fundraiser for Dave Gamble Eventbrite