Solar Within City Limits

  • Tom O'Neill (in suit) develops new businesses for Exelon, an energy company best known for its fleet of nuclear power stations. The Chicago solar project is the company's largest to date. (Photo by Shawn Allee)

There’s a commercial-scale solar project
that’s getting some buzz in Chicago and
beyond. The builders promise to use up
some abandoned industrial space within
the city limits… and hope to provide
some local jobs. City governments across
the country like both of those ideas.
Shawn Allee looks at why this
urban solar project’s falling into place,
and whether it might get repeated across
the country:

Transcript

There’s a commercial-scale solar project
that’s getting some buzz in Chicago and
beyond. The builders promise to use up
some abandoned industrial space within
the city limits… and hope to provide
some local jobs. City governments across
the country like both of those ideas.
Shawn Allee looks at why this
urban solar project’s falling into place,
and whether it might get repeated across
the country:

Carrie Austin is a Chicago alderman, and, as she says, she’s constantly dealing with problems unique to Chicago. But she’s convinced she’s got one problem a lot other cities face, too: what to do with vacant industrial land. She’s got 200 acres of it in her neighborhood.

“The environmental issues left from the company, left us with such devastation without any regards to human life. That has been our fight all these years. ”

Austin says, even with some clean-up in recent years, it’s been tough getting someone to come in with some work – and jobs.

“We’ve talked to FedEx, Kinkos and many other corporate offices. Even to Wal-Mart, bringing some of their distrubution to such a large piece of land. But to no avail.”

Austin says there’s a portion of this land she’s not so worried about now. The energy company, Exelon, is putting up solar panels on about 40 acres. And for the first time in a long time, there’s the sound of new construction there.

“This site’s been vacant for thirty years.”

That’s Tom O’Neill – he develops new businesses for Exelon. We’re walking along a padded-down field of soil where there used to be factory walls, machines, and concrete floors.

“What’s changed is you don’t see the brush and the shrubbery and there was a building that used to be here. The whole site is now graded and you can see signs of the construction where the foundations are going to come out. If you look further west, you can actually see the foundations going in for the solar panels, so it’s changed quite a bit.”

This is a transformation a lot of cities would envy, but I’m curious why Exelon’s doing this in Chicago and whether it’ll repeat it in other cities. On the first question, O’Neill says Exelon’s putting up the panels because it’s got a plan to cut its own carbon emissions.

“This project here will displace 30 million pounds of greenhouse gases per year. So it is a part of our low-carbon initiative.”

This Chicago solar project qualifies for federal loan guarantees and tax credits, but even with that, it’s not clear Exelon will make a profit. So, the question is: will Exelon repeat this? O’Neill says he’s hopeful.

“It is a demonstration project to show what can be done and with its success will come other successes.”

To get an industry-wide view of whether other cities might get urban solar farms, I talk with Nathaniel Bullard. He analyses solar power markets for New Energy Finance, a consulting firm. Bullard says cities are eager to re-use land that can be an eye-sore, or even cost a city money to maintain. For example, some southwestern cities have old landfills – and they’re planning to put solar farms on top.

“We’ve actually see those go much larger than what’s on the books right now for Exelon.”

Bullard says companies are taking a closer look at solar power because states are mandating utilities buy at least some. And the US Congress changed some tax laws recently. Exelon is taking advantage of that.

“First thing to note in the Exelon project is that it is Exelon itself which is going to own its project. If this was a year ago, they would be purchasing the electricity on contract. Now, with a change in policy, investor-owned utilities is allowed to own the asset itself and take advantage of tax benefit.”

Bullard says we’re likely to see more urban solar projects like Chicago’s – if the technology gets cheaper and government incentives stay in place.

Bullard has this joke about solar power that he swears is true. He says, in the solar industry, the strongest light does not come from sunshine – it comes from government policy.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Diversity in Urban Forestry

  • Forest researchers say cities need to plant different kinds of trees. Many cities plant only a handful of species. (Photo courtesy of the US Forest Service)

Urban forest researchers say cities
need different kinds of trees. Having
too many of the same kind of trees
encourages pests. Lester Graham reports:

Transcript

Urban forest researchers say cities
need different kinds of trees. Having
too many of the same kind of trees
encourages pests. Lester Graham reports:

Pests have already wiped out native trees such as chestnuts, elms and now ash.

James Kielbaso is a forester with Michigan State University. He says native trees are great but, one of his students has found some cities are too reliant on them.

“An urban tree population should not consist of any more than ten or fifteen percent of any one species. He’s finding the trees that are most over-used tend to be our native trees.”

In some cases, maples make up 30% of a city’s trees. That means if a disease or a pest hits maples, a city could lose a third of its urban forest.

Kielbaso says people should plant tree species not already in the neighborhood and a few hardy foreign species could help diversify a city forest.

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

Related Links

Lessons From a Skyscraper

  • Shawn Allee gets a tour of a roof atop the Willis Tower from co-owner John Huston. The skyscraper will undergo a environmental rehab that will include replacing windows, adding wind turbines and cutting overall energy use. (Photo courtesy of Shawn Allee)

You might have heard the Sears Tower
in Chicago is now called the Willis
Tower. But there’s more changing for
America’s tallest skyscraper. Soon,
the Willis Tower will start an environmental
facelift that could cut eighty-percent
of its energy use. You might wonder:
what could a homeowner learn from what
the Willis Tower is doing? Shawn Allee thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask,
and went on a tour for the answer:

Transcript

You might have heard the Sears Tower
in Chicago is now called the Willis
Tower. But there’s more changing for
America’s tallest skyscraper. Soon,
the Willis Tower will start an environmental
facelift that could cut eighty-percent
of its energy use. You might wonder:
what could a homeowner learn from what
the Willis Tower is doing? Shawn Allee thought it wouldn’t hurt to ask,
and went on a tour for the answer:

One of the co-owners of the Willis Tower is John Huston. He says there’s plenty for
people to learn from the tower’s green rehab plans. To start – we’re at the base of the
tower, and we’re craning our necks up.

“We’re facing north. We’re looking at a hundred and ten floors, so that’s 16
thousand windows in total.”

Huston says those windows are the old single-paned kind common in 1974 – back
when the Willis Tower was finished. In the summer, the windows let heat in, and
during the winter, they let heat escape. And that black metal you see in photos? It
does the same thing.

Huston: “The building is clad in aluminum if you went outside in the winter, you
certainly wouldn’t want to wear an aluminum ski jacket.”

Allee: “You’d freeze.”

Huston: “Exactly.”

So, Huston says the first thing they’re gonna do at the Willis Tower is what he calls
“tighten the building’s envelope.” It means insulating the building from the outer
walls and replacing the windows – all sixteen thousand of ’em.

“It’s an incredible job. That’s what we have to change in order to conserve the 80%
of energy that we anticipate doing.”

Huston says energy consultants pretty much give homeowners the same energy
advice. He says, the nice thing is, once you do that it’s easier to figure out what’s
next.

“Watch your step.”

Huston takes me into the guts of the Willis Tower. This is where it’s heated and
cooled. He says since the building’s gonna waste less energy, he won’t need such
powerful equipment.

Huston: “A lot of what’s in here will disappear or shrink.”

Allee: “So what is this?”

Huston: “This is an electric boiler. It provides hot water to heat the building. Each
one of these consumes enough electricity to heat and light a town of 6,000 people.
We have eight of these throughout the building. It’s not just the boilers. in this
section behind us, you have all the pumps that move hot water throughout the
building. Each one of those pumps is hooked to an electric motor, and 50% of them
can be eliminated.”

Huston says the take-away here is that once a building requires less energy to heat
and cool it, the other savings can kind of cascade from that.

But there’s another lesson homeowners can learn from the Willis Tower’s green
rehab.

The architecture firm that planned this project is called Smith and Gill. Gordan
Gill tells me, their work was made easier by the fact the Willis Tower owners keep
records of their power use.

“When you’re designing something new, you’re predicting the performance of
something. Here, you can actually test it, since you have records of how much
energy was spent, how much energy was used – you know where you stand, exactly.
And so now, you can do mock-ups and tests and things like that.”

Gill says that’s a good reason for homeowners to hold onto their power and heating
bills, too. He says if you’re confident in your actual costs and likely savings, you’re
more likely to follow through with your rehab project.

“And that’s important because you’re avoiding the obsolescence of these buildings,
and I think that’s true from everything like Willis to people’s houses.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Keeping It Close to Home

  • Baylor Radtke bags up anemometers for the climbers to carry up the tower. The student crew placed three anemometers at different heights, along with two wind direction indicators. The data is recorded and analyzed to estimate average wind speed. Researcher Mike Mageau is getting detailed information on several towers up and down the North Shore of Lake Superior. (Photo by Stephanie Hemphill)

People concerned about energy are
getting more and more interested
in producing their own. Stephanie
Hemphill reports on an effort to
harvest the wind, and other natural
resources, to power a community:

Transcript

People concerned about energy are
getting more and more interested
in producing their own. Stephanie
Hemphill reports on an effort to
harvest the wind, and other natural
resources, to power a community:

(sound of climbing)

Three students are getting ready to climb a TV tower on Moose
Mountain on the north shore of Lake Superior. They’ll put up three
anemometers – little cups that spin in the wind and measure how fast
it’s blowing.

As they deploy their climbing equipment, their professor, Mike
Mageau, keeps asking if they have enough safety gear. He seems a
little anxious.

“Two of them are mountain climbers. So they seem to think this will
be no big deal.” (laughs)

Mageau teaches at the University of Minnesota Duluth. He’s been
measuring the wind on the high ridge that runs along the Lake
Superior shoreline.

“If you look at the statewide wind maps, they don’t give us credit for
having any wind along the North Shore of Lake Superior. But Grand
Portage was interested in wind, and they did some monitoring and we
helped them. This was years ago.”

That’s the Grand Portage Band of Ojibway Indians. Mageau got a
grant to install monitoring equipment up and down Lake Superior
shoreline.

“And we found 15 to 20 mile-an-hour average wind speeds at the
sites.”

That’s about the same as the best wind sites in Iowa, where huge
wind farms spread across the landscape.

Mageau doesn’t advocate a big wind farm here. Instead, the idea is
to put up one windmill for each community along the shore. One big
turbine could supply roughly half the electricity each town uses.

He knows some people are nervous about this. The North Shore of
Lake Superior is beautiful, and no one wants to ruin the scenery. It’s
also an important route for migrating birds. There’s concern that
birds could fly into the spinning blades. A separate group of
researchers is studying the migration routes.

“Are they flying close to the lake, along the peaks, just inland or
lakeside of the peak, where are they flying? So hopefully when we
pick a wind site we’ll stay away from the birds.”

If a wind tower is ever built here, the power would go to the town of
Grand Marais Minnesota, 20 miles north. And it would fit in with other
projects local folks are working on, to become more energy self-
sufficient.

Buck Benson owns the local hardware store. He says he and his
friends, George and Lonnie, hatched the idea while they were fishing.

“We were grumbling about all this stuff, ‘what can we really do.’ And,
when we came back home, George kept prodding us, ‘you know what
we talked about,’ so we formed a little group. And I think we’ve done
good work since we started this organization.”

The group has been researching various ideas about how to produce
energy locally. One team is pursuing that windmill idea we heard
about. Another project is a little closer to being built: they want to
burn the wood chips from a local sawmill in a central heating system
for the town.

(sound of buzzing)

The chips would come from Hedstrom Lumber mill. Howard
Hedstrom says the mill sells bark chipped off the trees. But he has to
haul it miles away to sell it.

“By the time you pay the freight, there’s not much left. And if it could
be used locally, why not use it locally and save all that transportation
cost.”

The city of Grand Marais has applied for a federal grant to pay for half
the cost of the boiler.

Communities across the country are looking to use what they’ve got
around them, instead of importing energy from a big coal or nuclear
plant miles away.

It helps keep money close to home, and it could be better for the
earth.

For The Environment Report, I’m Stephanie Hemphill.

Related Links

The ‘Burbs Aren’t Very Green

  • Some experts in the study say the U.S. could reduce emissions by up to 11% in the next 40 years - just by building housing closer together. (Photo courtesy of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory)

When the Senate picks up debate on
the climate change bill, we’re sure to
hear a lot about how power plants and
cars are contributing to the problem.
But a new study finds that we should
also be considering where we live. Julie
Grant reports that living in the suburbs
can create extra carbon emissions:

Transcript

When the Senate picks up debate on
the climate change bill, we’re sure to
hear a lot about how power plants and
cars are contributing to the problem.
But a new study finds that we should
also be considering where we live. Julie
Grant reports that living in the suburbs
can create extra carbon emissions:

Most Americans live in or near big cities – but those in the suburbs have to drive a lot.

The National Research Council completed a study for Congress. It finds that building housing closer together near urban centers could reduce the amount people drive. That would save energy and cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Marlon Boarnet is a professor at the University of California, Irvine. He was on the study committee.

“The best evidence out there leads us to believe that people who live in more dense development do in fact drive less. And we feel that the evidence can conclude that that’s a causal relationship.”

Even if single-family homes were built closer together, it would mean less greenhouse gases.

Some experts in the study say the U.S. could reduce emissions by up to 11% in the next 40 years – just by building housing closer together.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Seeing Abandoned Buildings Through a New Lens

  • Artist Julia Christensen peers through the ceiling of an abandoned auditorium in Gary, Indiana. (Photo by Anne Barnes)

We often take the buildings around us
for granted – that is, until those factories,
schools, or big retailers close shop and
people around town are left wondering –
what’s going to happen to that place?
One photographer’s making a career out
of documenting the surprising ways
people deal with this. Shawn Allee met her in the heart of America’s Rust
Belt:

Transcript

We often take the buildings around us
for granted – that is, until those factories,
schools, or big retailers close shop and
people around town are left wondering –
what’s going to happen to that place?
One photographer’s making a career out
of documenting the surprising ways
people deal with this. Shawn Allee met her in the heart of America’s Rust
Belt:

I meet Julia Christensen in Gary, Indiana.

She’s here for an art project: She’ll photograph buildings in Gary and ask people how they could be re-used in the future. I’m supposed to be the chauffer.

Christensen: We’re going to 5th avenue.

Allee: Where is that, exactly?

Christensen: Right. Uh…

Well, I’ll get to her current project in a sec but with all these wrong turns – I’ve got a chance to ask about her artwork in general.

I mean, what’s the point of documenting how people re-use buildings?

“Looking at use of urban space. It’s a structure we all share. No matter how you interpret it, there it is on he ground in front of you.”

Christensen’s got plenty of examples. She’s done photo exhibits of buildings in several cities, and she wrote this book called Big Box Reuse. It’s about how people reused buildings abandoned by Wal-Mart, K-Marts and other big retailers.

She photographed one big box store that got turned into an indoor go-cart track. Another became a school. And one store turned into a museum dedicated to the canned meat, SPAM.

“What it did was create this niche tourist industry. Over 10,000 people a year come to the SPAM museum and they spend money in the town, and it’s actually done something toward revitalization of this city, you know.”

Christensen says the point is that when big box stores get abandoned, they’re often a blight – kinda like one-building ghost-towns with enormous parking lots.

She found people assumed they were the only ones facing this problem.

“They’d be like, ‘huh, that’s interesting. You mean other people are dealing with this? How did they deal with those glass panes and those central pillars?’ And I became story-telling person who had information about big-box re-use.”

Christensen says she’s got a new art project. She’s interviewing people about old industrial sites, commercial buildings and homes. She’ll write stories about how these buildings could have totally new uses thirty years from now. Then, she’ll put photos and text together for art exhibits or maybe a book.

“It’s like an exercise to take these photos and write a caption for them in the context of the next thrity years, so it’s a little more exploratory.”

Right now, Christensen’s touring Rust Belt cities that are dealing with abandoned buildings. Gary Indiana is just one stop.

“So, we’ll turn left at Broadway.”

Christensen got a tip about a closed building.

“It is a closed performing arts school. It’s closed a few years ago when the city had to consolidate the schools.”

Christensen and I meet a young man named John. He lives nearby and he tells Christensen the closed school’s kind of an open wound.

“Kids just running through there, trust me. You see how the windows broken in?”

But Christensen asks John, What about the future? What could it be?

“I always thought of this being a recreational center for the kids. People can be indoors and play basketball and stuff all year round, stuff like that.”

Christensen notes all this and takes some snapshots of the building.

She’ll do this again and again in Gary and other Rust Belt towns. Christiansen says she wants to return some day – maybe with a book or photo exhibits. She wants people talking about what could happen to these places.

“People can come to arts and access a photo or a sculpture or a creative website from across the board, so I see the arts as central in the conversation about what our future is going to look like on the ground.”

Christensen says documentaries or art can’t solve all the problems people face with abandoned buildings but maybe it could be a good place to start.

For The Environment Report, I’m Shawn Allee.

Related Links

Shrinking a Rust Belt City

  • Mayor Jay Williams says that about ten years ago, they started holding community meetings to figure out how to make Youngstown run better for its smaller population. (Photo courtesy of Youngstown 2010)

Folks in lots of rust-belt cities
are used to hearing about the declining
population. Over the past thirty years,
people have been moving away from
cities such as Cleveland, Detroit,
and Indianapolis. Julie Grant visited
one city that’s embracing its newfound
smallness – and trying to un-build some
of its neighborhoods:

Transcript

Folks in lots of rust-belt cities
are used to hearing about the declining
population. Over the past thirty years,
people have been moving away from
cities such as Cleveland, Detroit,
and Indianapolis. Julie Grant visited
one city that’s embracing its newfound
smallness – and trying to un-build some
of its neighborhoods:

For decades, Youngstown, Ohio has been a city looking to its past. It was booming in the 1950s. The steel industry brought good paying, reliable jobs. City leaders back then planned for the population to blossom above 200,000.

It never got there. The steel mills closed, and people left. Youngstown lost a lot of people.

Mayor Jay Williams says that about ten years ago, they started holding community meetings. They wanted to figure out how to make the city run better for the 80,000 people who are still here.

“While it was an acknowledgement of the fact that we were going to be a smaller city, it also was an understanding that smaller didn’t have to be inferior. And that started a series of things that led us to where we are today.”

Now they are in the process of demolishing 2,000 abandoned homes and other buildings. They actually want the people to leave some areas – so the city doesn’t have to spend money on things like power, utilities and snow plows on those streets.

Mayor Williams says, in some neighborhoods, there are entire blocks that are abandoned, except for one or two houses.

“So from that standpoint, we do have a moral, and an ethical and legal obligation as a city to provide certain services. But what we’re trying to do is balance that with the fact that sometimes it doesn’t make economical or business sense.”

A lot of the times those holdouts are older folks, who don’t want to move – and might not accept that the city doesn’t plan to return to its former glory. The new leaders want to embrace the city’s new small-ness – and improve the quality.

Thing is, most of the leaders in Youngstown today are – young. The mayor is 37, the Congressman is 36, and Community Organizer Phil Kidd just turned 30. Kidd says his generation doesn’t really remember those glory days of the steel mills.

“So we don’t remember how things used to be. We’re not bitter about what happened. We are here by choice in Youngstown as young people. And when you bring that to the table, there’s a different type of lens in which you look at Youngstown, I think.”

Kidd says his generation can see that the infrastructure needs to be the right size for the people who live here now.
He says making the necessary changes will open up all kinds of new opportunities for Youngstown.

“And we look at it as almost a blank canvas, in a way, to really be progressive about being as kind of new urban pioneers, in a certain regard. But with respect for the history for this community.”

And that new vision is inadvertently attracting some young people back to the city.

Maggie Pence grew up in Youngstown, and like a lot of people, moved away after college. She needed a job. And some hope for a bright future.

“When I left, I thought, ‘this is just, nothing’s ever going to change.’ It’s always going to be lamenting the steel mills, waiting for the next big savior. It was the waiting, just waiting, to see what was going to happen.”

Today, Pence is swinging her 11-month old daughter at a park just north of downtown Youngstown. She and her husband are renovating what was a boarded up, foreclosed house nearby.

Pence largely credits city leaders for her decision. When she saw their plan, called Youngstown 2010, she decided it was time to move her family back from Brooklyn, New York, to Youngstown.

“Yeah, I mean, seeing 2010 and seeing what they were doing and having make sense to me made me realize that you could come home again, kind-of. I mean, okay, there’s a future.”

The city isn’t sure exactly what it’s going to do with all the new open space – once all the abandoned houses are demolished. Some people are planting trees and neighborhood gardens. Community leaders say the people who live here will have to decide what they want the new city to look like.

A lot of shrinking cities in the Rust Belt will have to figure that out. Sooner or later, shrinking tax bases won’t support all those barely used streets, sidewalks and water lines.

For The Environment Report, I’m Julie Grant.

Related Links

Parks in Parking Spaces

  • Every other day of the year, this little green oasis in Brooklyn is a parking space. (Photo by Norah Flaherty)

On September 18th, thousands of
people around the world will spend
the day sitting in parking spaces –
without their cars – as part of an
annual event called “Parking Day.”
The idea is to spark a conversation
about how we’re using our public spaces.
Nora Flaherty attended
last year’s Parking Day, and here’s
what she found:

Transcript

On September 18th, thousands of
people around the world will spend
the day sitting in parking spaces –
without their cars – as part of an
annual event called “Parking Day.”
The idea is to spark a conversation
about how we’re using our public spaces.
Nora Flaherty attended
last year’s Parking Day, and here’s
what she found:

(sound of park)

Last year at about this time, this little park on a busy Brooklyn
corner was packed. Packed with people like freelance writer Karen
Sherman. She was sitting cross-legged in the grass and just
beaming.

“Amazing! And the sun’s out and it’s this beautiful fall day and I
wish we could do it every day.”

But she couldn’t have done it every day— that little park was
temporary. Every other day of the year it’s a parking space.

In New York City last year, there were more than 50 parking day
parks – some with grass and fences, some with tents and lawn
chairs. And they didn’t just spring up overnight – as much as it
might have looked that way.

A few days before last year’s parking day, planning was underway
at a Brooklyn coffee house.

“So how long do we think it’s going to take to set up?”

Sod needed transporting, city permits needed confirming, and—
because of New York City’s unusual parking regulations—the
parking place had to be staked out at 3 am.

Anne Pope is the director of Sustainable Flatbush – the
organization that put together the parking-spot park in Brooklyn.
She says although Flatbush is one of the greenest neighborhoods in
Brooklyn, there aren’t a lot of public, green places where people
can just go and hang out.

“If you walk around the neighborhood you’ll say, ‘wow there’s so
much greenery and green space,’ but if it doesn’t happen to be
attached to a house you own you can’t access it.”

(sound of child fingerpainting)

So on Parking Day last year, parking spaces did become a place to
hang out, for adults, and for kids like brother and sister Quinn
Isreal and Yusuf Francis.

Quinn: “Whoa, Yusuf, you’re pushing me.”

Yusuf: “Whoopsie, sorry.”

Quinn: “It’s okay.”
They had just moved here from Georgia, and Quinn said this park,
with its soft grass, was a nice change from New York’s mostly
concrete playgrounds.

“‘Cause usually in parks when you fall you hurt yourself, but in
this park you don’t hurt yourself if you fall down, you’re going to
fall down on the grass.”

Now, finding a parking space on any day in New York City is
competitive.

Matt Shafer is with the Trust for Public Land – they were one of
the major sponsors of last year’s Parking Day. He says that not
everyone is thrilled to find they can’t find a place to put their car
because people are hanging out in parking spaces.

“Some people don’t quite grasp the concept of parking day; that’s
perfectly fine. In most cases it’s, ‘why are you taking up our
parking space?’”

For some people, though, the biggest disappointment is that the
little parking space park is gone the next day. Keka Marzigal is
with Sustainable Flatbush.

“A kid came by after school and he said, ‘this is so fun, we can
come here tomorrow and do our homework!’ and it really got me!”

There was no tomorrow for that little park. But, that kid might just
find another one this year as more people convert parking spaces
into parks for a day.

For The Environment Report, I’m Nora Flaherty.

Related Links

Hip Hop Artists Tackle Environmental Issues

  • Some Hip Hop artists are using their music to reach people about environmental issues affecting their communities (Photo source: Lestat at Wikimedia Commons)

When many people think of songs about the environment, they conjure up visions of folk singers and acoustic guitars. But the environment is becoming a more prevalent issue among Hip-Hop artists. Lester Graham reports they’re looking at the issue and how it affects their lives directly:

Transcript

When many people think of songs about the environment, they conjure up visions of folk singers and acoustic guitars. But the environment is becoming a more prevalent issue among Hip-Hop artists. Lester Graham reports they’re looking at the issue and how it affects their lives directly:

Environmentalists are often portrayed as treehugging elitists by conservative talk show hosts – and others.

That image really was never accurate, but the environmental movement is becoming more diverse. The environmental issues are becoming increasingly important to a wider swath of society.

Mike Cermack is a consultant for Boston’s public schools. He helps teachers figure out the best ways to teach classes such as environmental science.

He’s come to the conclusion that music can go a long way in getting the attention of kids in the classroom – especially since Hip-Hop artists started tackling the environment and not just as some distant ‘polar bears and butterflies’ issue.

“We really want to start at the corner store and ask deep questions like, ‘why isn’t there any fresh produce? Is that linked to the fact that diabetes and obesity is kind of rampant in our neighborhoods and in our families?’”

As people living in inner cities Cermack says – artists such as Mos Def did it in his song ‘New World Water.’

(clip of Mos Def song)
And it’s not just those big nationally known artists.

Mike Cermack says he stumbled into Boston’s local ‘green Hip-Hop’ movement by working with activists who were trying to stop a power plant from being built next to an elementary school.

“In talking with them further and getting to know them, also many of them turned out to be these really talented MCs, these talented lyricists who are using the new knowledge that they found working with the non-profits and kind of weaving those into their more traditional narratives of ‘this is what’s wrong with street/urban issues; this is what’s wrong with all the gangsters around/in my city.’ They’re saying how can we also bring in these environmental issues.”

And those artists are pulling in friends and bringing a whole lot of street cred to environmental issues.

Tem Blessed and Ben Gilbarg called in some of their Boston friends to perform ‘Green Anthem.’

(clip of ‘Green Anthem’)

“They’re staying true to their roots as kind of the voice social injustice and speaking out against urban problems and they’re really mixing it up with a lot of environmental issues.”

Mike Cermack says he’s been working to get students interested in environmental issues in the classroom, but Hip-Hop artists such as J-Live and Thes One get it done in a way the students know.

“They’re already used to loving the hip-hop tracks. And they know the MC. You know, it’s more important that the MC is from the community. That’s another big piece. I think it’s a really interesting start to this green hip-hop potential.”

For The Environment Report, I’m Lester Graham.

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Greening the Capital City’s Rooftops

  • This high-rise green roof in Washington DC required a large crane to lift the soil and gravel onto three floors. (Photo courtesy of DC Greenworks)

Green roofs are increasing in popularity across the US, especially in cities, where
there’s not a lot of space for gardens. Sabri Ben Achour explores the trend in
Washington, DC, where the city government is promoting the practice for it’s
environmental benefits:

Transcript

Green roofs are increasing in popularity across the US, especially in cities, where
there’s not a lot of space for gardens. Sabri Ben Achour explores the trend in
Washington, DC, where the city government is promoting the practice for it’s
environmental benefits:

In Washington, you can see flowers and vegetables growing on top of homes,
businesses, even government buildings throughout the city. DC officials say
Washington has nearly 70,000 square feet of rooftop greenery. Only Chicago has
more.

One big fan of these so called green roofs is a popular small hotel, Tabard Inn, just a
few blocks from the White House.

“There’s about 10 varieties of sedum on this roof.”

Sarah Murphy is giving a tour. She’s a horticulturalist.

“This is a very pungent oregano here on the corner, it looks heavily used.”

The city of Washington pays building owners about one-fourth of the cost of
incorporating greenery on rooftops. One big reason? Rainwater runoff.

Sarah Loveland works for an environmental consulting non-profit called DC
Greenworks.

She says Washington has what’s called a combined sewer system. The sewer
system doesn’t just take in what’s flushed down the drain, but also all the rain
running off roofs and streets.

“If you imagine that our sewage treatment plant has a dam, and the sewage system
combines with the storm water system before the treatment plant.”

So, when there’s a heavy rain, that dam at the sewage treatment plant overflows.

“You have both raw sewage and runoff from the streets going directly into the river
untreated.”

Three billion gallons of it a year, at one point.

The EPA sued the District of Columbia.

The city had to spend $150 million to address the problem. Part of that money goes
to green roof grants.

The green roofs slow down rain water – give it some place to soak instead of just
running off straight down the gutter. The city says roofs in the city prevent a million
gallons of storm water runoff from entering the Potomac River.

The roofs also insulate buildings – especially during the summer. Some studies
show they reduce energy costs by 20-30%. And they reduce the heat island effect in
the city, since they don’t get blisteringly hot like traditional roofs.

Green Roofs even offer some habitat for creatures, like bees.

Sarah Loveland with Greenworks, the consultant agency, says rooftop gardens are
also increasingly popular for growing food.

“Veggies are really popular, herbs are really popular – this is a trend that’s taking off
in the restaurant industry. There’s a lot of buzz around it.”

Blueberries and herbs abound in the rooftop gardens of the Tabard Inn, where Paul
Pell is executive chef.

(sound of celery chopping)

“Yeah, we go up and get whatever we want, so it’s fresh. We just climb out the
window when we need it. Chocolate basil goes with ice cream, nasturtiums go with
soups and salads.”

Washington has an advantage over some larger cities in its promotion of rooftop
gardens because federal law prohibits skyscrapers in the nation’s capital, so most
buildings don’t cast shadows over their neighbors.

As a result, most rooftops are sunny – all they need is greenery to soak up the rays.

For The Environment Report, I’m Sabri Ben-Achour.

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