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Search for Sustainability
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Search for Sustainability

What is sustainability? While people think of environmental dilemmas when they think of sustainability, most people do not enter sustainability through the environment. They consider how they can sustain a business, the economy of a community, a 20130217_inq_cu1zencey17-aschool system. Sustainability involves many issues. Sustainability is about how everything in the world meshes together so that the people, places and things can be sustained for generations to come.

Today, I share with you an editorial from The Philadelphia Inquirer that can help you think of sustainability from far above the earth. Thank you Matt Zencey for sharing your thoughts.

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A Walk in the Woods

Isn’t it funny how you live in a place your entire life and never stop to see things that you’ve passed dozens of times? It always amazes me how people who live in the Philadelphia area and have never visited the Liberty Bell. When I worked in center city Philadelphia I was at a party making casual conversation with people I did not know. When I told them I lived in Cherry Hill, they wondered why I lived so “far” from work. IMG_0274 IMG_0281-1 IMG_0297I got to work in under 15 minutes when it took them 45 minutes or more to travel to center city from the western suburbs. The point is, they had no idea where Cherry Hill, NJ is – it is just over the bridge from center city Philadelphia.

I’ve passed the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge dozens of times. The 450 acres sits in the shadow of I-95, Philadelphia International Airport and Southwest Philadelphia. On a gray, but warm January Sunday, we stopped there for a walk in the woods. There were dozens of people – walking dogs, jogging; there was a little boy’s birthday party underway. From the Environmental Visitor’s Center to the trails, the refuge is a gem. There are signs showing how frogs are being preserved; birders were noting the different species throughout the refuge. Even in the middle of winter when the leaves and flowers are gone and the grass is dormant, this place sings with nature.

Despite the roar of aircraft from the airport and the hum of traffic from I-95, you feel as though you have a small piece of nature to enjoy. The well-kept trails, boardwalks and bridges along the winding paths make it easy for anyone to enjoy the refuge. Park rangers offer assistance; there are easy to follow maps and friendly people who will gladly tell you that they have been coming to the refuge for years. Perhaps you’ve passed by dozens of times as well. Find a few hours and visit the John Heinz National Wildlife Refuge.

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All Good Things

The cool wind shifts in Moultonborough

The wind in New Hampshire has taken a noticeable turn. While the breeze is still refreshing and clear, the 10 to 20-mph gusts are creating white caps on our little piece of Lake Winnipesaukee. The sky is crystal clear and the greenery vibrant and whooshing in these winds. The sun is warming things up a bit, but there is a slight chill letting us know that it is time for a change.

While the boys and men hike Mount Major about an hour from our vacation house, we are enjoying a bit of quiet while starting to pack our things for the long ride home tomorrow. It is always bittersweet ending a vacation. The memories are countless: discovering the simple

Simple pleasures 1

pleasures of swimming and floating on a calm lake with two families tossing balls; heading to Smitty’s Golf to hit a few buckets of balls and discovering – we’re not bad at this;

Simple pleasures 2

enjoying a local classic car show and gobbling pizza and salad at Pizza Barn in Ossipee; canoeing and rowboating out to an isolated, tiny island in the lake and building a small fire to toast marshmallows and make s’mores. Earlier in the week, we again enjoyed Rocky Gorge, nature’s swimming sight that Disney could never replicate, along the Kancamagus Highway around Conway, NH.

Simple fun at Rocky Gorge

The simple pleasures also include one of the boys thanking me for the great ideas that filled our second-to-last full day on vacation. We had to improvise given that our boat decided to konk out Wednesday afternoon. The fix could either be simple or more complex, but my husband reminded me we have boated more in these past two weeks than we ever have on vacation here in New Hampshire. We discovered new parts of the lake where we had never been before and I got to drive our boat several times enjoying how it glides across the waters and seems to have been made for this area.

The loon have been so incredibly active during these two weeks. In the past, there have been vacations when we did not see or hear a loon once. Nearly every night and morning, the call of the loon reminded us how

precious nature is. The lack of car and airplane noise and the vivid scenery that is present always in this

Simple pleasures 3

Sunset from "S'more" Island

place let me know that I will return often to find peace and joy.

I have said often that I find myself here in New Hampshire. That has been reinforced once again after a two-week respite. I have managed to get a little work done and enjoy restful, stress-free days and nights. We realize reality will face us with work and school in the days ahead. But during those stressful moments that will inevitably strike, if only for a second, I can close my eyes to find my happy place – a scene in New Hampshire frozen in time in my mind’s eye.

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Sustainable Cherry Hill – EPA Quality Award winner

April 23, 2010

In President Barack Obama’s statement marking the 40th anniversary of the first Earth Day in the United States he said, “As we continue to tackle our environmental challenges, it’s clear change won’t come from Washington alone. It will come from Americans across the country, who takes steps in their own homes and their own communities to make that change happen. “

Sustainable Cherry Hill’s founder and executive director, Lori Braunstein and six executive committee members were invited to the Environmental Protection Agency’s Region 2 offices in New York Friday, April 23, to be among several dozen organizations and individual advocates for our environment to accept the EPA’s highest honor, the Quality Award. Sustainable Cherry Hill (SCH) was nominated by New Jersey Senator Robert Menendez to receive this prestigious honor.

The ceremony atop the Weiss Federal Building in Lower Manhattan made each representative of SCH proud to represent the growing movement in Cherry Hill and surrounding communities aimed at raising community and region wide awareness to  make our environment cleaner and more sustainable for generations to come. 

EPA Regional Administrator Judith Enck took a moment to quote naturalist John Muir, whose words were taken to heart as we marked Earth Day: “Everybody needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to the body and soul.”

The guest speaker, Chief Oren Lyons of the Onondaga Nation, at the age of 79, spoke of his decades-long journey to understand the earth and the need to nurture nature every day.  He encouraged the gathering of environmental advocates to continue the collaboration and cooperation to protect and save our resources.  He said he fears the way things have been going, nature is at severe risk. “We’re in the spring of global warming,” Chief Lyons said. “We’re not prepared for what is coming.”

Chief Lyons said politics must be set aside and we must pick up the responsibility to preserve and protect our land, water and air. “We now place in your hands, the protection of all life,” the chief stated. “That’s our mandate.”

Chief Lyons words were inspiring. Also inspiring the accomplishments honored by the EPA of the many groups and individuals – from the 10-year old Northport, New York girl who raises money from a lemonade stand to plant trees in her community to the posthumous award to a citizen who spent decades protecting and preserving the coastal wetlands of Cape May.

Sustainable Cherry Hill is on a journey. We are collaborating and working more every day to raise awareness of how each one of us can make a difference in how we leave this planet for our children and our children’s children. We will do this one energy seminar at a time; one township green plan meeting at a time; one recycling event at a time; it is our mandate to work together to reduce our impact on our global resources through engaging and enlightening our family, friends and the community at large.

The EPA Quality award received April 23 makes note of our progress to date. We hope many more people will join us in the efforts ahead.