The Town of Cary, in cooperation with Trees for the Triangle, Inc., will host the first Cary Environmental Symposium on five consecutive weekend evenings beginning on Friday, September 1, 2023.
Tickets to Events
Links to the Town's ticketing service are posted in the descriptions of the presentations.
Musical Performances
Attendees will enter the Arts Center and take their seats to pieces played on the house's Steinway Model B grand piano by a Cary young lady and gentleman of whom it will
proudly be said in future years that we heard them here first.
Free Seedlings
Everyone who attends an event will receive a grassy-stage Longleaf pine seedling. [Or two!] — Please Note: The summer has been too hot and Longleaf seedlings are not ready to ship. I expect them in mid- to late-October. So, if you'd like seedlings, please send an email to George@BeautifyCary.org specifying how many seedlings you'd like, and your address, and I'll deliver them when they arrive.
Here are suggestions for planting Longleaf pine grassy-stage seedlings.
Speakers
Four accomplished speakers will present at the Cary Arts Center. Dates and times are listed below.
Film Screening
Cary native Jamie Berger will screen her award-winning documentary film, The Smell of Money, at the Cary Theater on September 29. The trailer for the film is posted below.
The Goal
The goal of the Symposium is to provoke thoughtful and principled civic debate on the challenges facing our air, land, water, and the effects those challenges have on life here in Cary and on earth. After each presentation, there will be an informal and spirited Question-and-Answer session. The presenters are listed below.
The Honorable Harold Weinbrecht
Mayor of the Town of Cary
Yuanduo Li – solo
Sonata No.2 : First movement [Frédérick Chopin]
Sonata in C Major, Op.33 No.3 : First movement [Muzio Clementi]
Olivia Li and Yuanduo Li – duo
Vocalise [Sergey Rachmaninoff]
La Valse [Maurice Ravel]
SAVING THE SPIRIT OF THE FOREST
Friday, September 1, 2023
Cary Arts Center
7:00 pm
Admission is free but tickets are required.
Seating is General Admission
Get Tickets
Books written by Dr. Richard Carroll:
After through-walking the Appalachian Trail in 1975 [south to north], Richard joined the Peace Corps and was posted to Africa. He stayed in Africa after leaving the Peace Corps and was recruited by the World Wildlife Fund, eventually rising to its vice-presidency. Along the way, he earned his Ph.D. from the Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies. He retired in 2010 after 30 years of service. During his time in Africa, Richard idealized, planned, and established the Dzanga-Sangha Forest Special Reserve, one of the largest nature-protection areas in the world.
In creating the Reserve, Richard worked closely with the leadership of the Central African Republic, the Republic of Congo, and Cameroon, the three countries whose land comprised the 2,650 square miles of the Reserve. In his presentation, Richard will take you on a walk through the Congo Basin and the Reserve to see how the people there, like the citizens of Cary, are trying to save the spirit of the forest, and how our cultural, physical, and spiritual lives are dependent on an intact forest.
THE ECONOMIC RISKS AND OPPORTUNITIES OF CLIMATE CHANGE
Saturday, September 9, 2023
Cary Arts Center
7:00 pm
Admission is free but tickets are required.
Seating is General Admission
Get Tickets
The risks and damage from climate change are being felt by individuals and businesses across the US. Wildfires, floods, sea level rise, and extreme heat now cost the US billions of dollars and hundreds of lives each year. How do we address these new risks? What can governments and businesses do? What technology is needed? And how do we adapt to our new normal? Join climate veteran Donald Addu for an evening of in-depth discussion and leave with a greater understanding of the issue and its solutions.
Donald Addu is a North Carolina native and a graduate of Appalachian State University with a degree in Ecology and Environmental Biology. As an avid outdoorsman, Donald enjoys fishing, hunting, hiking and rock climbing, all of which influences his work to understand climate change and how it impacts folks in North Carolina and across the South. Donald's work with the non-partisan Citizens Climate Lobby, included speaking tours across the South to places like Murfreesboro, TN, Bowling Green, KY, and St. Augustine, FL to help communities understand the risks and opportunities of taking climate action. Now with Climeworks, Donald works with Chief Sustainability Officers and Chief Risk Officers of Fortune 500 companies to understand the complexity of emission reduction and help these companies reach net-zero.
NETWORKS FOR LIFE: YOUR ROLE IN STITCHING THE NATURAL WORLD TOGETHER
Friday, September 15, 2023
Cary Arts Center
7:00 pm
Admission is $20. Tickets are required.
Seating is General Admission
Get Tickets
Biodiversity is essential to sustaining human societies because it is other living things that run our ecosystems. Yet throughout the United States, we have fragmented the habitats that support biodiversity by the way we have landscaped our cities, suburbs, and farmland. Isolated habitats cannot support wild populations large enough to survive normal environmental stresses. We can reconnect viable habitats by expanding existing greenways, building riparian corridors, and by changing the landscaping paradigm that dominates our yards and corporate landscapes. Replacing half the area that is now covered in barren lawn with plants that are best at supporting food webs would create over 20 million acres of connectivity and go a long way toward sustaining biodiversity in the future. How we landscape today will determine what life looks like tomorrow.
Doug Tallamy is a professor in the Department of Entomology and Wildlife Ecology at the University of Delaware, where he has taught insect taxonomy, behavioral ecology, and other related subjects. Chief among his research goals is to better understand the many ways insects interact with plants and how such interactions determine the diversity of animal communities.
PROJECT PANDO – A COMMUNITY-DRIVEN MODEL FOR HELPING TO HEAL LOCAL ECOLOGY
Saturday, September 23, 2023
Cary Arts Center
7:00 pm
Admission is free but tickets are required.
Seating is General Admission
Get Tickets
Our specific reasons may vary, but we all care about this beautiful planet we call home. Sadly, there is a lot changing here on Earth, including a huge loss of non-human life, topsoil, and clean water.
There is good news: trees were – and are – one of Nature’s most powerful tools for creating and maintaining the planet we know and love today. If we plant many new trees and care for the ones we have, we can begin healing our planet. To do this, we need to make a variety of native plants freely and widely available.
Project Pando is a community-driven effort to collect seeds from local, native trees and then raise these seeds into trees to be given away for free.
During this talk, I'll describe how Project Pando works and discuss its top five goals, which are:
Healthy, native trees in abundance create happy people and a vibrant planet!
THE SMELL OF MONEY
Friday, September 29, 2023
Cary Theater
7:00 pm
Admission is $10. For Cary Theater members, the cost is $8. Tickets are required.
Seating is General Admission
Get Tickets
Jamie Berger is a writer and documentary filmmaker born and raised in North Carolina. Her writing has been featured in Vox, The Guardian, USA Today, NowThis, The News & Observer, and more. Throughout her career, she has used writing and visual storytelling to draw attention to issues ranging from environmental racism to the climate crisis to other injustices wrought against people, animals, and the planet.
The Smell of Money shows how, a century after her grandfather claimed his freedom from slavery and the family land, Elsie Herring and her North Carolina community fight the world's largest pork corporation for their freedom to enjoy fresh air, clean water, and a life without the stench of manure. See the trailer below:
Please patronize and support the Symposium's sponsors.
I'm Kristen, and I opened A to Z Pharmacy in 2019 to help give my community they healthcare they deserve. My staff and I do our best every day to treat our patients like family. We know their names and stories; we know their preferences. We go out of our way to make sure our patients get the very best advice and service.
Our patients have been pleasantly surprised with how much money they have saved by switching to A to Z Pharmacy. I keep our prices low because I'm not trying to buy a corporate jet or make a giant bonus at the end of the year. I'm a mom just trying to survive among the corporate giants.
Come visit A to Z Pharmacy, located conveniently at the corner of Old Apex Road and W. Chatham Street in Cary. You will be pleasantly surprised by our helpful, friendly approach to your medication needs.
Abbey Road is located at W. Chatham and Old Apex. We have delicious food. We're dog-friendly. Some nights we have live music. There's a Trivia Contest every Thursday.
The American Legion was chartered by Congress in 1919 as a patriotic veterans organization. Focusing on service to veterans, active-duty members, and America’s communities, the Legion evolved from a group of war-weary World War I veterans into one of the most influential nonprofit groups in the United States. Membership swiftly grew to over 1 million, and local posts sprang up across the country. Today, membership stands at nearly 2 million in more than 13,000 posts worldwide.
Over the years, the Legion has influenced considerable social change in America, won hundreds of benefits for veterans, and produced many important programs for children and youth.
The Association is a non-partisan, science-based organization advocating for wetlands in the Carolinas.
The Cary, NC based group Cary Urban Gardeners for the Environment was founded by Mary Collins in 2018 as a forum for local gardeners who have the environment top of mind in their home gardens. We now have over 600 members, and there are no fees or requirements to join, except being interested and open to conservation and planting of native plants, and learning ways to have a home landscape and garden that is also sustainable. With so many great gardening groups out there, we have a niche that is aligned with this symposium. We periodically have tours and gatherings at local gardens that share our focus on a healthy environment, always free of charge. C-FUGE can be found here.
Mary has used the page to set up garden tours and promote other organizations that encourage urban gardening that restores and enhances our environment. The majority of page members live in Cary, but some members outside the Town also add expertise to the group.
The Cary Tree Archive is an ecosystem restoration. It is transforming eight acres of HOA-owned land from a field of aggressive grass and weeds to a forest populated with native Old Growth tree species. The Archive includes a native pollinator garden, a re-creation of a Longleaf pine savanna, a Food Forest that includes a mushroom pit, and two rock gardens are under construction. All planting and maintenance has been done by more than 800 citizen volunteers. It is the most ambitious land-restoration project in the Piedmont.
The Cary Woman’s Club is a 501(c)(3) charitable and service organization with its volunteers dedicated to community services and improvement. The mission of the Club is to promote the civic, cultural, social and educational advancement of Cary, North Carolina, and to provide service to our community.
The Cary Woman’s Club is a member club of the General Federation of Women’s Club, an international women’s organization founded in 1890 which is dedicated to community improvement by enhancing the lives of others through volunteer service.
As a member of the General Federation of Women’s Club, the Cary Woman’s Club focuses on community service programs in the following areas: Arts and Culture, Civic Engagement and Outreach, Education and Libraries, Environment, and Health and Wellness. Over the years, the Club has provided support to many non-profit organizations in the Cary area and beyond, as well as providing scholarships to high school seniors and to mature women.
At Curl Up & Dye in Cary, we integrate beauty, health and wellness into daily living while being committed with AVEDA to preserve and improve our environment. Our goal at Curl Up & Dye is to provide a personalized style for each individual, in a fun relaxing atmosphere. We use Aveda products because we believe in their products and company philosophy.
A very generous anonymous donation was given for the purpose of supporting Professor Tallamy's expenses related to the 2023 Cary Environmental Symposium.
GamersNexus strives to provide accurate reviews of consumer electronics and computer hardware. Our goal is to protect consumers while offering independent and useful data for PC building enthusiasts.
GamersNexus contributes to many local green initiatives and hopes to buy and protect land within its community for use as future wildlife habitats and parks.
Innatrix is an agricultural biotechnology company developing sustainable biological products to control untreatable crop pests and pathogens, to help farmers to increase yield at least 10% with ROI>3. Innatrix has a strong team full of great entrepreneurs and scientists, and several research and commercial partners. We have received U.S. patents to protect our protein evolution technology and RNAi technology. We are well funded by four venture capital funds, one NSF SBIR grant and NC Biotech Center, and found our market fit after interviewing over 160 customers.
Keep the Canopy, a project of the Stoneybrook Garden Club in Cary, works to maintain or increase our urban forest — informing and reminding citizens about the increasing importance of the large trees with which we have been blessed and advocating for Town policies that treat our tree canopy as essential infrastructure. The organized preservation of existing wooded areas is the best way to do that.
We love our planet. This is why we care for trees. We preserve, plant, and promote trees in a manner that attempts to maximize positive benefits for members of all ecosystems. Our Piedmont Prairies help achieve these outcomes as well. Our hope is to help address pressing environmental issues and restore life on Earth. Though we still have much to discover, we know this for certain: Healthy native trees in abundance create happy people and a more vibrant planet.
The Libertarian Party of Wake County hosts a weekly Meetup to discuss libertarian principles and current events. Everyone is welcome to come and participate, ask questions, or just listen. Occasionally we schedule speakers or discussions focused on a particular topic, but generally the meetup is more social and free-ranging.
For the latest schedule and special event information, go to our Facebook page.we love our planet. This is why we care for trees. We preserve, plant, and promote trees in a manner that attempts to maximize positive benefits for members of all ecosystems. Our Piedmont Prairies help achieve these outcomes as well. Our hope is to help address pressing environmental issues and restore life on Earth. Though we still have much to discover, we know this for certain: Healthy native trees in abundance create happy people and a more vibrant planet.
The North Carolina Chinese Business Association is a non-profit business association for professionals, students, and enterprises with a common interest in China. Our organization provides a forum for networking and entrepreneurial exchange, for advancing business knowledge, and for encouraging and facilitating coaching, mutual assistance and consultation among our members. In addition, NCCBA plays a significant role in facilitating China – North Carolina business relationships.
The North Carolina Green Party is an anti-racist, pro-women, pro-worker political party that supports gender equality and gender diversity and rejects capitalism in favor of a democratically run economy that responds to the needs of community and planet. We believe positive social and political change will come when progressive and radical people determine that movement activism must also include this critical element: building our own political power outside the confines of the capitalist two-party system. For this reason, the NCGP is a membership-based, dues-paying party and is fundamentally and structurally different from the two major parties—we’re funded by individual working-class members, not corporate interests and the ruling elite.
The NC League of Conservation Voters is the state’s leading pragmatic, nonpartisan voice for our state’s environment.
Members are fighting for clean air, clean water, and clean energy for every North Carolinian. Please join us in that fight now!
The mission of the North Carolina Native Plant Society is to promote the enjoyment and conservation of North Carolina’s native plants and their habitats through education, protection, cultivation, and advocacy.
The Margaret Reid Chapter serves the Triangle region with field trips and presentations, public outreach, native habitat and garden stewardship, plant swaps, and opportunities to share and learn with fellow native plant lovers. We welcome you to join us!
We are two people who love plants! This is a local-only operation run out of a very small backyard growing area that provides native plants to our nearby communities of Cary, Morrisville, and Apex. Currently we grow herbaceous wildflowers and a few grasses.
Piedmont Wildlife Center is a non-profit environmental organization encouraging conservation and inspiring people to build lifelong connections with nature through immersive outdoor education, citizen science, and wildlife stewardship.
Our hope is to help create free access to an endless supply of native trees to anybody and to any organization who wants or needs them. Our current focus is building a volunteer-driven tree nursery based in Raleigh that grows native trees from wild seeds to give to the public for free. We support this work with research, education, and events that help further our mission. We are creating a network of chapters so that other communities can replicate and improve on the work we are doing.
The mission of Scenic NC is to protect and sustain the natural scenic beauty of North Carolina by preserving and enhancing the natural and built environment through public policy, education, and community engagement.
Scenic NC is overseen by an all-volunteer Board. Board members live all across the state of North Carolina and bring a diverse background of preservation, conservation, government work and community engagement. Contact us at scenicncarolina@gmail.com for more information.
Toward Zero Waste North Carolina is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that envisions a state free of unnecessary waste, where individuals, families, businesses, and local governments are mindful of the resources they use, the waste they create, and emissions they produce; where reuse, refill, repair, composting, renewable energy, and zeroing emissions are the norm. We see a North Carolina where Zero Waste is no longer a concept, but the culture of our community!
The goal of Trees for the Triangle is to improve the environmental, aesthetic, and economic well-being of the Triangle – one tree at a time – until we reach our goal of planting 50,000 trees by 2050.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States is a nonprofit veterans service organization comprised of eligible veterans and military service members from the active, guard and reserve forces.
We trace our roots back to 1899 when veterans of the Spanish-American War (1898) and the Philippine Insurrection (1899-1902) founded local organizations to secure rights and benefits for their service. Many arrived home wounded or sick. There was no medical care or veterans' pension for them, and they were left to care for themselves.
In their misery, some of these veterans banded together and formed organizations that would eventually band together and become known as the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States. After chapters were formed in Ohio, Colorado and Pennsylvania, the movement quickly gained momentum. Today, membership stands at more than 1.5 million members of the VFW and its Auxiliary.
Wake Audubon is a chapter of Audubon NC and of the National Audubon Society. Located in Wake County, North Carolina, we have a membership of about 1,500 and hold monthly meetings, field trips, bird walks and other activities.