by Judy Groleau, Vice President of Development, Second Nature
(This post is part of a weekly series by the Second Nature team about why we do what we do.)

In retrospect, very early on in my life, I can recall two constant themes that arose in almost of all the communication in my home as a child. It did not matter what the topic of discussion was, delivered in a soft spoken manner or as loud as shattering glass, somehow it always centered around money or more succinctly put, not enough money to make ends meet.  I believe that this is why I ended with a career in Development.

I am the youngest of five children and we were always encouraged to share as kids.  For me, it was always important to have things to call my own.  I would never share things unless my father or mother forced me to.  I remember always being eager to make a trade in lieu of sharing and was usually pretty successful at swaying one from “sharing something” to having one commit to “trading” instead.  No matter how many times I got the lecture from my dad, “You know they name streets after you, one way” it never dawned on me that there was any other way but to trade.  I always felt like a success when I was able to clench that “deal.”

The toy I dreamed most of having as a child was a cash register.  I spotted it in the annual edition of the Sears and Roebuck Christmas Wish catalog.  It was an especially good Christmas that year as Santa left me that very toy under the Christmas tree.  It was a hot pink, Tom Thumb, metal cash register with black buttons.    I ran about the house making and placing price tags on everything.  I made my own currency.  I sold siblings objects that belonged to them, back to them all for the love of the “transaction.”

By Peter Bardaglio, Senior Fellow, Second Nature

Welcome to the May 2011 issue of the TCCPI Newsletter, a monthly update from the Tompkins County Climate Protection Initiative (TCCPI).

TCCPI Backs Plan for Sustainability Center on the Commons

Ithaca Commons on a sunny spring day!

Members of the Tompkins County Climate Protection Initiative at a recent meeting strongly endorsed the concept of a sustainability center located on The Commons indowntown Ithaca and identified the establishment of such a center as one of its top priorities for 2011.

The proposed sustainability center will foster broader community awareness and involvement in sustainability efforts in Tompkins County. Local residents, visitors, and students from nearby educational institutions can learn and interact with a wide range of sustainability projects and programs underway in Tompkins County and the Finger Lakes region.

Displays, videos and interactive exhibits will allow visitors to the center to become informed about, and engaged in, those efforts. The facility will be staffed by a program coordinator, work-study students, and volunteers, and could provide office and meeting space for sustainability projects and internships.

The Sustainability Center Steering Committee is made up of the following individuals, all of whom are TCCPI members:

Through the ACUPCC, institutions agree to reduce and eventually eliminate their net greenhouse gas emissions from specified sources – including some indirect “Scope 3” sources, specifically: regular commuting to and from campus, and air travel paid for by the institution.  These Scope 3 emissions can be tricky to measure, and in fulfilling the ACUPCC schools have come up with creative and effective ways for doing so, from estimates based on zip codes to campus-wide surveys.

Now, initiatives like the ACUPCC are helping to drive innovations and new solutions to help organizations tackle these challenges more effectively.  A few years ago, students atMiddlebury College, conceived of Brighter Planet– and recently they’ve partnered with MasterCard to help organizations track travel emissions by calculating and reporting emissions from flights, hotel stays, car rentals, etc. based on purchases with corporate cards.

Learn more about the program in this article.

by Al DeLuca, Web Applications Developer, Second Nature
(This post is part of a weekly series by the Second Nature team about why we do what we do.)

Growing up there were two things that influenced why I work: books and go-karts. This might seem an odd mix, but it’s how things were for me. Go-karts were part of my nurturing, while books spoke to an innate nature in me, expressed as a predisposition towards language. Nature and nurture working in tandem, not as binary opposites, has been my life’s ambition and of late, if not my life’s work, at the very least the work I get paid for. Coming to Second Nature, thus far, has been an opportunity to find synthesis of thought and action and embodiment of ideas shared amongst like-minded individuals.

My family owned an amusement park on Cape Cod, Massachusetts which included as its prime draw the longest go-kart track in the commonwealth -- and the second longest in the country – at just over a third of a mile. While some might think this is every kid’s dream come true, it was considerably less fun than one might imagine. The smells of exhaust fumes and axle grease permeate my earliest memories, and work, at least during the busy summer season, went on late into the night. There were dangers as might be expected where horsepower meets adrenaline. There were aspects to it not fit for print. It was fun, but as it commuting to my brother and I, it slowly sunk in that “this much fun isn’t normal.” But I digress.