"No coal for Christmas! Hey hey, ho ho, fossil fuels have got to go!" 

Here in Baltimore, the holiday season has taken on a different spirit this year. Clad in Santa hats and costumes, city residents and activist allies have called for an end to the trafficking of coal bound for international markets through the city, speaking out against the air pollution and drifting black dust that local communities have endured for decades.

Take a look at this insightful report on these protests, written by two students at Johns Hopkins University. Both are members of the EDC's Sustainable Design Practicum, an ongoing community-based research and teaching collaboration with the South Baltimore Community Land Trust (SBCLT). With your charitable donations this year, please consider supporting SBCLT's work for environmental justice and a zero waste future in Baltimore and beyond.

2022 was an important year for the Ecological Design Collective. We registered as a non-profit project, and launched a new online community platform this fall. Take a look and sign in if you haven't already. We've worked hard to make this an engaging and inviting space. There's room to share and post as you would on corporate social media, but also resources to organize and strategize for more livable ecological futures. 

In the coming months, we'll have more events like the conversations on Green Building and Life-Centered Design that we hosted this fall (take a look at the links below for recordings of those events). We're planning much more for 2023, please reach out with any ideas you have. We'll be thinking a lot about what this collective could become.

In the spirit of the season, here's a Christmas carol from our friends at Extinction Rebellion that embodies the kind of hope we'll be carrying into the new year. Best wishes to you and all your kin, human and otherwise!

Cool down the world, the time has come 

For comp’nies to behave

Let gas, oil and coal, prepare to go 

Let’s live ecologically, 

Let’s live ecologically, 

Let’s live, let’s live ecologically