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Climate Change and Its Impact on Bird Migration Lecture Featuring Scott Weidensaul
Climate Change and Its Impact on Bird Migration Lecture featuring Scott Weidendsaul The Land Alliance hosted a special presentation featuring Scott Weidensaul – worldrenowned lecturer, bird author and photographer on Friday, October 7, 2016 from 6:00 pm to 8:00 pm at The Hoffman Center Nature Preserve and Wildlife Sanctuary in East Norwich. Weidensaul (pronounced “Why-densaul”) discussed Climate Change and Its Impact on Bird Migration. Scott Weidensaul is a skilled presenter and one of the most sought-after speakers in the country on conservation and nature. He is the author of more than two dozen books on natural history, including the Pulitzer Prize finalist Living on the Wind: Across the Hemisphere with Bird Migration and Return to Wild America: A Yearlong Search for the Continent’s Natural Soul. His latest book, published in 2015, is the Petersen Reference Guide to Owls of North America and the Caribbean. Weidensaul is a contributing editor for Audubon magazine and coordinates ornithological programs for Audubon’s historic Hog Island Camp on the coast of Maine. In addition to writing about wildlife, Weidensaul is an active field researcher whose work focuses on bird migration. He has lived almost all of his life among the long ridges and endless valleys of eastern Pennsylvania, in the heart of the central Appalachians, a landscape that has defined much of his work and where he studies the migration of hawks, owls and hummingbirds. Weidensaul co-directs Project Owlnet, a cooperative network for more than 125 owl-banding sites across North America, and Project SNOWstorm, which tracks the movements of snowy owls. Thank you to our generous sponsors The event was co-sponsored by The Hoffman Center, The North Shore Land Alliance, The Nature Conservancy on Long Island, Volunteers for Wildlife, North Country Garden Club and the Theodore Roosevelt Audubon Sanctuary.
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Land Conservation & Financial Strategies Lecture featuring Stephen J. Small
Updates on Land Conservation & Financial Strategies for Professionals and Landowners featuring Stephen J. Small The Enhanced Incentive for Conservation Easement Donations was made permanent by Congress at the end of 2015. This was a monumental victory for the conservation community. There will be no more doubt about the value of easement donations or whether the incentive would be renewed by Congress for a short term, retroactively or at all! With this news so timely and its potential impacts so great, the Land Alliance invited Stephen J. Small, Esq., the nation’s leading authority on private land protection options and strategies, to Long Island for two days of seminars. He was great! On May 11th, Mr. Small spoke to nearly 60 landowners and their advisors about preserving land, reducing taxes and protecting quality of life in our community. On May 12th, Mr. Small taught a three-hour seminar for approximately 80 lawyers, realtors, wealth advisors, appraisers, accountants and conservation professionals. His presentation included an extensive and technical review of land protection tools, financial strategies for landowners and a thorough explanation of how the tax benefits of land conservation can help landowners. Mr. Small, who has helped the Land Alliance twice before, is a tax attorney at his own firm in Boston, MA and an author of three books. More than 150,000 copies of his book, Preserving Family Lands, are in circulation. His most recent book, titled The Business of Open Space: What’s Next? provides a forward-thinking perspective on the future of land conservation. Before going into private practice, Mr. Small was an attorney-advisor in the Office of Chief Counsel of the Internal Revenue Service in Washington, D.C., where he wrote the federal income tax regulations on conservation easements. He has been counsel to landowners and easement holders in 45 states on 400+ transactions. He has been involved in the protection of more than 1.5 million acres of land including serving as counsel on the largest conservation easement transaction to date. Steve has worked tirelessly to educate conservation practitioners throughout his professional career, delivering in excess of 400 speeches to date. In 2015 Steve Small received the Kingsbury Browne Conservation Leadership Award, the highest award bestowed in the conservation community, for setting a national standard for donations he continues to facilitate to this day. Conservation has been Steve Small’s professional life’s work and the land conservation community, including the Land Alliance, is in his debt. He has made a vast difference in America’s landscape. The Land Alliance is most grateful to The Claire Friedlander Family Foundation for underwriting Mr. Small’s appearance and Ursula and Bill Niarachis of the Hoffman Center for hosting our events.
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NY Lecture Series: The New Climate Economy Featuring Jeremy Oppenheim
The New Climate Economy Featuring Jeremy Oppenheim On Wednesday, April 8, 2015, North Shore Land Alliance held its sixth annual New York Lecture Series event at the Explorers Club in New York City. This year’s featured speaker was Jeremy Oppenheim, Program Director of the New Climate Economy Project. Oppenheim, a distinguished speaker on global resource productivity and sustainability and author of Resource Revolution: Meeting the World’s Energy, Materials, Food and Water Needs, led an engaging and important discussion on how to combine economic growth with the protection of irreplaceable environmental assets. Jeremy presented an overview of The New Climate Economy Project which provides independent and authoritative evidence on the relationship between actions which can strengthen economic performance and those which reduce the risk of dangerous climate change. For the last five years, Jeremy has led McKinsey & Co’s Sustainability and Resource Productivity Practice. He is on sabbatical from his role as a Director of McKinsey to head up his project. Jeremy has worked with a wide range of private, public and social sector clients in many different countries. He has advised both developed and developing countries on ways in which they can combine robust economic growth with the protection of irreplaceable environmental assets, and has worked with leading corporations across the energy, mining, consumer goods, engineering and finance sectors. Jeremy has also served many of the world’s public international institutions, with a focus on their sustainable development and resource productivity strategies. We thank Mr. Oppenheim for coming to New York from the UK to talk to Land Alliance members and friends about this important topic. We also thank those who attended in support of the Land Alliance! Special Thanks to Event Sponsors: Suzy and Carter Bales * Roberta and Steve Denning * Alison and Tom Franco * Edward Nelson & Gibson, Dunne and Crutcher Georgia and Donald Gogel * Anne and Michael Golden * The Stewart and Constance Greenfield Foundation Lawrence Linden Adrianna Ma * Anne and Vincent Mai * Bridget and John Macaskill * Avanti and Juno Madan Hollis Russell & the William C. & Joyce C. O’Neil Charitable Trust Kim Elliman and the Open Space Institute * Elizabeth and Douglas Paul * Carol and Nicholas Paumgarten * The Robins Island Foundation * Victoria Shaw and Edwin Cohen * Silda Wall Spitzer * Missie and Zach Taylor
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The Future of Nature Featuring Bill McKibben
The Future of Nature Featuring Renowned Environmentalist and Author, Bill McKibben On April 25, 2012, the North Shore Land Alliance hosted an event in Manhattan featuring renowned environmentalist and author, Bill McKibben. Mr. McKibben has written several books on the environment including Earth, Making a Life on a Tough New Planet and The End of Nature. He has been called by Time magazine “the planet’s best green journalist.” Bill McKibben founded 350.org, an organization to draw immediate attention to the threat of climate change as the by-product of the industrial revolution and fossil fuel consumption. The name, 350.org, refers to the goal of restoring the earth to carbon emissions of no more than 350 parts per million (ppm). With a group of university friends, they ran a campaign in 2007 called Step It Up that organized over 2,000 rallies at iconic places in all 50 of the United States. These creative actions – from skiers descending a melting glacier to divers hosting an underwater event – helped convince many political leaders to adopt a common call to action: cutting carbon emissions 80% by 2050. Mr. McKibben spoke to an audience of over 100 people about the current measured level of carbon which is 393 ppm. If sustained this level will raise global temperatures and contribute to rising sea level, devastating droughts, the inability for large and traditionally productive countries like Russia to grow enough food to feed itself and possibly even more seismic activity. For the past 10,000 years of human activity, the period of time called the Holocene, the atmosphere had remained stable at 275 ppm. With the current rate of energy consumption, the carbon dioxide emitted into our atmosphere could result in a catastrophic 3-4 degree centigrade rise in global temperatures over time. The only solution is to immediately stop consuming fossil fuels and make the transition to energy efficient appliances and sun and wind power. This will not be fast or easy but cannot be avoided. The Land Alliance is most grateful to Mr. McKibben for taking time out of his busy schedule to educate and inspire us.
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