All We Can Save: Truth, Courage, and Solutions for the Climate Crisis Edited by Ayana Elizabeth Johnson & Katharine K. Wilkinson
Thank you to all who joined our discussion for this book last month! We really enjoyed hearing about the different passages that everyone shared.
Our volunteer opportunity this quarter is joining the TWIG Weed Wrangle team. On Saturday March 6, we will be assisting at this annual event throughout Nashville. There are a variety of locations so please sign upat one that works best for you, and be sure to read the safety guidelines. We love to see our TWIG volunteers in action, so if you take pics please tag us or send them to us after!
We've picked the next book!
Lab Girl By Hope Jahren
Lab Girl is a 2016 memoir by American geochemist, geobiologist, and professor Hope Jahren.
Geobiologist Hope Jahren has spent her life studying trees, flowers, seeds, and soil. Lab Girl is her revelatory treatise on plant life—but it is also a celebration of the lifelong curiosity, humility, and passion that drive every scientist. In these pages, Hope takes us back to her Minnesota childhood, where she spent hours in unfettered play in her father’s college laboratory. She tells us how she found a sanctuary in science, learning to perform lab work “with both the heart and the hands.” She introduces us to Bill, her brilliant, eccentric lab manager. And she extends the mantle of scientist to each one of her readers, inviting us to join her in observing and protecting our environment. Warm, luminous, compulsively readable, Lab Girl vividly demonstrates the mountains that we can move when love and work come together.
National Bestseller
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award for Autobiography
A New York Times Notable Book
Winner of the American Association for the Advancement of Science/Subaru Science Books & Film Prize for Excellence in Science Books
Finalist for the PEN/E.O. Wilson Literary Science Writing Award
One of the Best Books of the Year: The Washington Post, TIME.com, NPR, Slate, Entertainment Weekly, Newsday, Minneapolis Star Tribune, Kirkus Reviews
If you joined us for reading Black Faces, White Spaces; Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors last year, check out these upcoming events with author Carolyn Finney in Tennessee! Even if you have not had the chance to read her work yet, these look like really amazing discussions.
From Tennessee Naturalist Program:
Lecture: 2020 Vision, A Black Walden Pond & Other Musings
Author of “Black Faces, White Spaces: Reimagining the Relationship of African Americans to the Great Outdoors,” Dr. Carolyn Finney, will share her work on African Americans and environmental issues to consider this moment of racial reckoning and the creative responses to environmental and social challenges that are emerging.
Drawing from her book, her relationships “in the field”, her lived experience, and this moment of reckoning, Carolyn explores the complexities and contradictions of American history as it relates to green space, race and the power to shape the places we live in our own image. By engaging in “green” conversations with black people from around the country, Carolyn considers the power of resistance and resilience in the emergence of creative responses to environmental and social challenges in our cities and beyond.
Date/time: Thursday, February 25, 2021 at 6:00pm to 7:30pm
Cost: Free - Registration Required
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From Urban Green Lab + Stand Up Tennessee:
Equity & Authenticity: A Discussion with Dr. Carolyn Finney
A special Nashville Sustainability Roundtable event! Her speech will be followed by an interactive Q&A with our virtual audience. The first half of the presentation will be discussing why racial inequity in outdoor spaces and outdoor culture exists and what needs to change. The last half will be about the statements that organizations made after George Floyd’s murder sparked public outrage and how to make meaningful commitments and authentically engage in anti-racism work.
Donations received during this event will be equally split between Urban Green Lab and Stand Up Nashville.
Date/time: Wednesday, March 3 2021 at 12:00pm to 2:00pm
Cost: Free, Donations accepted - Registration Required
Help pick the next book!
We are seeking your input to help make this book club great!
We have a long Amazon list filled with amazing suggestions from members. Please view the list here. We are collecting answers and additional feedback via this short 2 minute survey!
Thank you so much!
All about Irises
Irises is TWIG's book club for current members! The Iris is the Tennessee State Flower, and a fitting acronym for what we hope to read together!
What's so different about our book club? Each meeting we will meet and discuss what we've read AND we will pair a service activity to go along with each book to support a local non-profit or sustainability initiative in Tennessee!
Meetings are every other month with a rotating location or virtually. The book club is led by
Renee Barker and Leah Sherry, and input from members is always appreciated.
Feel free to bring a friend who is not a member of TWIG! Their first two meetings are free (same as monthly meetings) and thereafter will be $5 per meeting.
If you ever wish to view past newsletters, check them out here.
