Part 2 of Carrie Albright’s interview with Bloomington’s Urban Greenspace Outreach Coordinator, Gillian FieldSix IN Orgs set to get $2 Million in grantsCOP30 in BrazilRare Aurora Borealis SightingsIn Nature talks Wild Turkey And…Notable Upcoming EventsAnd now for your environmental reports:
Indiana’s Recycling Market Development Board just awarded six Indiana organizations with $2 million in grant funding to expand recycling across the state, a decision expected to create 42 new jobs and prevent an additional 197,884 tons of materials from going into landfills annually.
The grant recipients aren’t just community recycling bins. They span themes of textile waste, food waste, and lumber production. Goodwill Industries of Michiana will receive over $300,000 to buy new equipment that will let them recycle more textiles and phase out 4 million plastic bags used by Goodwill shoppers. Greencycle in Marion County will dedicate over $450,000 to a wood waste grinder that will process more than 21,000 tons each year. And in LaPorte County, Nexus IN RNG received $500,000 to buy equipment that will divert 105,000 tons of organic waste—that’s food waste—from landfills each year, while also creating new jobs for this project.
The grant money comes from the Recycling Promotion and Assistance Fund, which is funded by a per-ton fee on solid waste disposed of at Indiana landfills. This means the fees we pay when trash goes to the landfill help fund programs that keep trash out of landfills in the first place. Indiana currently diverts about 19% of waste from landfills through recycling and composting, but the state’s goal is 50%. These grants are part of the effort to close that gap—turning waste into resources, creating jobs, and building what experts call a “circular economy” where materials get reused instead of buried.
This week, thousands of diplomats and climate experts began gathering in Brazil—right at the edge of the Amazon rainforest—for COP30, the latest round of United Nations climate talks.
This conference takes place November 10-21 and is being called the Amazon COP or even the Nature COP—a moment for the world to see what’s at stake through Brazil’s eyes.
For the first time, more than 1,000 Indigenous representatives will have access to the main negotiation venue. Brazil is proposing something called the Tropical Forest Forever Facility, which would financially reward countries for protecting forests rather than cutting them down. The Amazon covers 6.5 million square kilometers, holds 13% of known species on the planet, and stores between 150 and 200 billion tons of carbon—that’s equivalent to 15-20 years of global carbon emissions. But over 17% of the forest in Brazilian territory has already been cut down, and 31% is degraded. Scientists have warned that losing just 5% more could push the forest past a tipping point, irreversibly transforming it into a savanna and releasing 300 billion tons of carbon into the atmosphere, making it impossible to meet the Paris Agreement’s climate targets.
The conference will also focus on mobilizing $1.3 trillion a year in climate finance to help developing countries adapt to climate change. As one Brazilian climate leader put it, “Our window to prevent runaway climate change is closing fast. The next five years will determine the next hundred years. The world is looking to Brazil to show that a standing forest is worth more than one that’s cut down.”
The White House has confirmed that no high-level U.S. officials would be in attendance, likely due to Trump’s repeated insistence that human-caused climate change is a hoax.
Instead, California Governor Gavin Newsom and New Mexico’s Michelle Lujan Grisham have been the United States’ unofficial ambassadors. Whether COP30 becomes a turning point on climate progress or another round of unfulfilled promises will depend on whether world leaders choose action over politics, and implementation over negotiation.
Aurora Borealis Shows Off
GRIFFY LAKE via FACEBOOK -
Longtime Bloomington residents were stunned by a rare sighting on Tuesday evening—a glimpse of the incredible Aurora Borealis, or Northern Lights, dancing across our Midwest skies. The fantastical display of colors and lights was visible in Indiana and reached as far south as Florida with displays of green, red, and purple waves of light.
The sun is at the peak of its 11-year cycle, called solar maximum. The aurora occurred when the sun sent several bursts of energy called coronal mass ejections that reached Earth Tuesday night and early Wednesday. Forecasters explain that this created a severe geomagnetic storm and when those charged particles from the sun collide with gases in Earth’s atmosphere, they create these colorful light shows. Usually, you’d have to travel hundreds of miles north to see the aurora, but during strong storms like this one, they can stretch much farther south.
If you missed the display this week, you don’t need to book your ticket to the Arctic Circle just yet—we’re likely to see more of the aurora borealis over the next several months as the sun continues through this active phase. Nature’s light show might just be coming to our skies again soon.
And now for some upcoming events:
The Sassafras Audubon’s Semi-Annual Ducks and Donuts event is scheduled for Saturday, November 15th, from 8 to 11 am at the Stillwater Marsh observation platform. Enjoy donuts and coffee as you look for ducks.
An Identitree hike is scheduled for Sunday, November 16th, from 3 to 3:30 pm at McCormick’s Creek State Park. Join the naturalist at the Nature Center to hike to Echo Canyon to learn how to identify trees.
Make your own Animal Footprint Field Guide at McCormick’s Creek State Park on Friday, November 21st, from 2 to 2:45 pm. Meet in the Nature Center with the naturalist to create your own animal tracks field guide.
A Birding Trip to Paynetown State Recreation Area at Monroe Lake will take place on Saturday, November 22nd, beginning at 9 am. You will be looking for Common Loons, Bonaparte’s Gulls, grebes, and other waterfowl. Hopefully, you will get to see the Bald Eagle. Register at [email protected].
A Donaldson Cave Hike will take place at Spring Mill State Park on Sunday, November 23rd, beginning at 10 am. Meet at the Lakeview Activity Center to hike to the mouth of Donaldson Cave. Learn the history and all about karst topography.
EcoReport is brought to you in part by M-P-I Solar, a Bloomington business specializing in solar hot water, solar electricity and solar hot air systems. M-P-I Solar designs and installs solar power generation systems that encourage independence and individual responsibility. Found locally at 812-334-4003 and on the Web at M-P-I solar energy dot com.
This week’s headlines were written by Carrie Albright
Today’s news feature was produced by Carrie Albright
Julianna Dailey assembled the script, which was edited by the EcoReport team and produced the upcoming events.
Rich Benak is our engineer.
