Environment

I was scheduled to be out of town, but when my plans changed, I purchased my ticket to attend the Data Days CLE 2024 annual conference. The conference took place on Tuesday, October 22, 2024, at the Cleveland Public Library-Louis Stokes Wing. I have been following the activities of Data Days CLE on social media for years, but I have never been able to attend any of their events. I knew I would be in for an impressive day, and what I got was even more. It ended up also being a reunion with people I had not met in person for a while, and gave me the opportunity to meet new people who were attending or presenting.

I like how the Data Days CLE 2024 organizers make an effort to make it easy for all who are interested to attend their events. Since I follow Data Days CLE on social media, I had the opportunity to use the social media promo discount they offered to their followers. I recommend you see their current list of social media accounts at the bottom of their DataDaysCLE.org website, and follow those that you are active on, so that you learn about their future events.

I put together this blog post to share the photos and notes I took during the event. Of most importance is that I want to thank the organizers, sponsors, and presenters for making Data Days CLE possible. I enjoyed learning how our community is now better served after several years of work by the people participating in this annual conference.

I am a very lucky man! In October and November 2019, I was very fortunate to attend many great events. I am publishing seven blog posts today because I really want to thank the organizers of these events. With so much happening, I have not been able to publish my blog posts on a timely basis, but still wanted to recognize and recommend these organizations.

In the interest of time, these are not my usual full blog posts, so I encourage you to click on the links and watch the videos in the tweets to learn more:

• Cleveland Rising Summit
  October 29-31, 2019.
  I look forward to the years ahead when we will all see how the grand Cleveland Rising vision is carried out!

I am truly grateful to all those who made these great events possible.

I had heard about the work of Sustainable Cleveland for years from talking to their staff and volunteers at their booths at Cleveland area environmental events I attended. This was the first year I was able to attend their Annual Sustainable Cleveland Summit. I knew that each year had a theme:

• 2011- Energy Efficiency
• 2012- Local Foods
• 2013- Renewable Energy
• 2014- Zero Waste
• 2015- Clean Water
• 2016- Sustainable Transportation
• 2017- Vibrant Green Space
• 2018- Vital Neighborhoods
• 2019- Engaged People

What I did not fully realize was that the 11th Annual Sustainable Cleveland Summit was the final event planned as part of this ten-year initiative by the City of Cleveland Mayor's Office. At the Summit, the leaders committed to continue the work of Sustainable Cleveland, but they were not ready to announce in what form these activities will take place. I look forward to when these future initiatives are publicly announced.

In this blog post, I will share tweets and videos relating to the 11th Annual Sustainable Cleveland Summit, and the work of Sustainable Cleveland and its many partners.

To celebrate Earth Day, most years, we attend the Earth Day Coalition's EarthFest, and have written blog posts about our experiences at the event the past two years.

Earth Day 2017 was different -- out of some very negative things happening in our country, a very positive movement to take action grew! We mean, of course, the national March for Science in Washington D.C.!

The same day that it was announced that the national March for Science would be held on Earth Day, April 22, 2017, we learned to our delight that there would also be a March for Science in Cleveland!

The good people of Northeast Ohio came out in force! Congratulations to the March for Science Cleveland for this grand success!

We were excited to learn that Earth Day Coalition's EarthFest 2016 would take place on April 17th, the Sunday before Earth Day 2016 (April 22nd). We had a great time last year at EarthFest 2015, and were looking forward to attending again this year!

What made it even more fun this year is that while we were promoting the event on Twitter via @sos_jr, we ended up winning tickets from @GCRTA to attend the event!

Thank you, Greater Cleveland Regional Transit Authority - RTA!

When we got to EarthFest 2015 on Sunday, April 19th, things were hopping!

We arrived in the afternoon, and thus missed the opening ceremony. After seeing the large number of displays, we wished we had come sooner. Even though the EarthFest was now being held at the Cuyahoga County Fairgrounds, we did not know that it would be so big. We did not think that so many of the fairground buildings would be used. We were pleased to see so many people attending -- it was quite a crowd! -- and so many participating environmental organizations.