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Discover the African American Heritage Water Trail

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Discover the African American Heritage Water Trail

Lake Michigan, one of Chicagoland’s great treasures, is connected to the Mississippi River by a series of waterways, including the Little Calumet River, which flows through several south-side Chicago neighborhoods, carrying nearly two centuries of African American history. The African American Heritage Water Trail honors this history and the remarkable stories of African American freedom seekers and trailblazers who traveled, lived, worked, and overcame enormous obstacles around this river and its banks. Please stop right now and visit this beautiful website, where you’ll find everything you need to understand the trail and the stops along its way.

Meet Jillian Patton, Development Director, One Earth Collective

Meet Jillian Patton, Development Director, One Earth Collective

Join One Earth in offering a warm welcome to our new “squad member,” Jillian Patton, Development Director. She is fresh off a thirteen-year stint in New York City, where she was most recently part of the Development team at NYU School of Law. She was also previously part of the team that raised money to develop the storied High Line, a park built on a former elevated train line on the West Side of Manhattan. Established in 2009, it helped provide a model for similar urban greening projects nationwide, such as Chicago’s 606 path that runs along an old rail line here in the city.

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Youth Fight Back: COP26 in Their Words

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Youth Fight Back: COP26 in Their Words

Exhilarated. Optimistic. Stressed. Excited. Nervous. Every time the dozen of us youth met -- calling from Illinois, Maryland, and Texas--we would end our conversation with a one word description about how we felt. These were a few words that I remember being thrown out, and I also remember after hearing them, how aptly they served as a reflection for the climate movement as a whole.

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Once More into the Breach

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Once More into the Breach

For the next month the world will once again be focused on the treacherous global geopolitical terrain of climate change.

The 26th Conference of the Parties (COP26) of the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC) will be held in Glasgow, Scotland, beginning on October 31. The talks are scheduled to end on Friday, November 12, but if recent experience is any guide will be extended over the weekend as agreements are forged and contentious issues are resolved—or not, in which case they will be tabled for later consideration. Kicking the can down the road is standard operating procedure for these meetings, as one might expect for a 196-member international body that must operate by consensus.

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Q&A with Angela Tovar, Chief Sustainability Officer for the City of Chicago

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Q&A with Angela Tovar, Chief Sustainability Officer for the City of Chicago

As Chief Sustainability Officer for the City of Chicago, Angela Tovar has a big job: steering Mayor Lightfoot’s policy on environmental protection and climate change in addition to being a liaison between City Hall and community organizations in Chicago’s most polluted areas.

Q: What are some key points of that investment [to mitigate the effects of climate change]?

A: We’re focused on green infrastructure and flood-mitigation in vulnerable communities. And we will be planting 75,000 trees across the city over the next five years, for all the gifts trees provide, including heat mitigation. We’re supporting retrofitting for energy efficiency in low- to moderate-income housing and neighborhood-anchor institutions. And many other things—connecting residents with renewable-energy sources; finding better waste management solutions, including for organic waste; and exploring greener transportation options.

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'Can You Dig This' to Screen Online + In Person on Thursday, Oct. 21

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'Can You Dig This' to Screen Online + In Person on Thursday, Oct. 21

Much has been written about the lack of access to fresh and healthy foods in the West and South Sides of Chicago. Many of us read about it. Many of us live it. Some brilliant people are actively working to revise that story. People like Liz Abunaw, owner and operator of Forty Acres Fresh Market, which serves the city of Chicago and western suburbs along Interstate 290 up to Westchester, Ill. . . .

Abunaw is not alone in her efforts to enrich the local food supply. Austin Eats Initiative is a collaboration of organizations that promotes grocery access, culinary entrepreneurship, food education, community gardens, and urban farms in the Austin community, which is Chicago’s second-largest neighborhood by population and size. . . . On Thursday, Oct. 21, the group is staging a screening and discussion of the documentary film, “Can You Dig This.” You have two ways of seeing the film and participating in the discussion: in person or virtually.