Mandatory Green Roofs in Toronto? Maybe.

Recently there has a been a wave of enthusiasm in Toronto to mandate the implementation of green roofs on new buildings. The city has basically acknowledged the fact that green roofs provide many positives including reducing the urban heat island effect, reducing storm water runoff by reducing impervious surfaces, increasing insulation and roof longevity. Now the question obviously becomes whether or not to use market-based strategies or to simply use regulation.

Despite recent success in Chicago and Washington D.C., Toronto would be the first North American city to have a green roof mandate. Many programs already exist in countries like Japan, Germany, Switzerland, and France. While market-based strategies seem limited, Germany has implemented new storm water management taxes. By constructing green roofs, developers can avoid heavy costs, while making their buildings more desirable.

Green roofs have been implemented here at Virginia Tech. Many other universities, such as William & Mary, are considering implementing green roofs in their sustainability analysis.

One critique I have of the proposal is in the list of exclusions which includes schools, industrial facilities, low-income housing, and low- to mid-rise residential units. It would be foolish to dismiss these buildings for whatever reason. Green roofs on schools would provide extra green space for activities and learning. Since the government is normally subsidizing low-income housing anyway, why wouldn't the government want to get a better return on their investment and give extra private green space to those that can least afford it? Increasing green space on site at industrial centers can act as a filter for the emissions and pollution produced.

Coal: The Gas of Tomarrow

One might have a hard time believing that several major auto manufacturers are on the verge of bankruptcy with all the cars that are out congesting the roadways. With record numbers of cars on the roads, the demand for gasoline and petroleum in general has risen. This high demand mixed with political uncertainty in the Middle East has caused the price of petroleum reach record highs a year ago topping off at around four dollars a gallon. These high gas prices and the slowdown of the economy put a strain on the lower and middle class families, with more of their discretionary income going toward fueling their cars. During this time there was also a push to research more into finding an alternative fuel that could replace oil.
While many people are looking toward corn and other methods to generate fuel, the answer could have been under our feet the whole time. That’s right. Coal could be the answers to our dependency on foreign oil. The process is called coal-to-liquid and it takes coal and gasifies it and then it’s used to create a liquid fuel which is capable of powering our cars. With this technology we don’t have to depend on other countries for our oil supply. Also, another advantage of using coal is that we have plenty of it. Estimates say that here in the United States our coal deposits are more than that of all the world’s oil deposits combined. This means that the U.S. has the ability to produce a reliable supply of gasoline which will lead to stable fuel prices that are not affected by the whims of OPEC.
Although coal-to-liquid does have its benefits, the system is not perfect. Critics of the coal-to-liquid say that the burning this synthetic fuel is bad for the environment. They claim that burning these fuels emits about twice the harmful greenhouse gases that is produced burning traditional petroleum fuels. Also, if we were to use coal to fuel our cars we would have to mine more coal. This could have potential negative effects on communities where mountaintop removal and other destructive mining techniques are used.
I believe that using coal to produce fuels for our cars is a great idea. I would also help with the current economic state. Building these plants would be a costly venture, but in the long run would be well worth the money spent. Not to mention that the increased demand for coal would also provide jobs in communities who are already poverty stricken. It’s said that for every one job created in the coal industry, seven others open up in supporting industries. Although the fact that coal-to-liquid fuels may emit more greenhouse gases than petroleum based fuels the economic benefits outweigh the environmental cost.

The Problem of the Chesapeake Bay

It is well known that many of the restorative efforts being used today for the Chesapeake Bay watershed are failing. What is happening? Why is it that we spend millions of dollars to protect this important natural resource and yet no goals are being accomplished? Why do efforts never meet the set deadlines? Should we choose the well being of the Bay over the well being of the people who live there? To me this is a personal issue as my family owns a summer cottage on the Potomac River, part of the Bay watershed. I know what it is like to feel a connection with the bounty of the Bay. The River is an important part of my childhood and it has made me into the person I am today. I am not willing to stand by and watch it be destroyed.

For the year 2008, the Bay received a report card grade of C-. Unfortunately, this is the same grade the Bay received in 2007. Although C- may not sound so bad, many areas of the Bay tested as separate sections received failing grades of D or lower. With as much time and money that the nation spends on the Bay and its restoration, we have not been seeing the desired effects over time. It is not only the Bay waters that are being affected. All of the biodiversity that lives in and around the Bay are harmed by the Bay’s situation. Many populations have severely declined due to human effects of pollution and overharvesting. Two of the most popular examples of this, both only found in the Chesapeake Bay region, are the Blue Crab and the Chesapeake Bay oyster.

The motto of the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, “Save the Bay,” needs to become more than just something seen on bumper stickers. The Chesapeake Bay watershed touches parts of 6 states and Washington DC, and influences the lives of countless people. Even people who never see the Bay are affected by its degradation. Restoring the Bay to healthy levels is important for the people who currently live there, but also for the future generations who will hopefully know the same Bay that we know today. I hope that with the appointment of a new representative of the Bay in the Federal government, more goals will actually be accomplished and a change will be seen.

Connecting our Communities and Reducing Environmental Impact: Growing Greenway Expansion

As our population continues to grow, we are almost in a perpetual state of development. With the nation’s ongoing development, we have generally ignored the disappearance of our open spaces and greenways. What is a greenway anyhow? Greenways are sections of protected open space, primarily for recreation purposes. Greenways can improve communities in numerous ways: recreation, non-motorized transportation, economic and community development.

Most importantly, in terms of lessening our environmental impact, non-motorized transportation is vital. Several companies are now making a push for their employees to buy or repair their bicycles. Even the bailout package illuminates bike travel by giving companies a tax credit maximum of $20 a month for each employee that bikes to work. With this increase in bike travel, it is important to create greenways as safe system for commuters to get to and from work. Increased bike traffic on local highways, will create greater congestion and most certainly lead to increased numbers of bike accidents. According to a 1999 study performed by UNC Highway Safey Research Center, there were 750 bike fatalities and 51,000 injuries resulting from traffic crashes in the US.

A good example of a community that has utilized transportation greenways is our very own Blacksburg, VA. Anyone who lives, works, or has visited Blacksburg can easily notice that we are a very active biking community. Blacksburg is a great example of a community that has benefited from greenways.

Although Blacksburg does indeed have a few miles of transportation greenways throughout the town (such as the Huckleberry Trial); the town could benefit greatly with the addition of more. Recently, the town has made advancements on creating more greenways and liking more communities, with the construction of 2,260 ft of the proposed 6 mile Ellett Valley Trail. Those who will utilize the new path will be able to reduce their commute by bike, with a more direct route to the Industrial Park located just off South Main Street.

This is a great initiative that models what communities can do to plan for and implement greenways. Blacksburg continues to think about future of its greenways in their Parks and Recreation Master Plan proposal. These greenways are vital to provide safe and efficient means of non-motorized travel within our communities nationwide to reduce our carbon footprint.

Great Lake's Ice Cover is Declining

According to scientists of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, “ice cover on the Great Lakes has declined more than 30 percent since the 1970s, leaving the world’s largest system of freshwater lakes open to evaporation and lower water levels.” This is happening especially in the deepest, middle portions of Erie, Huron, Ontario and Superior. The ice is shrinking in these parts the most because the deeper the water is, the more heat it stores from summer. This makes the shallow areas freeze later than the deeper areas. The lack of ice increases solar input which makes the deeper parts of the lake get warmer. This leads to less ice cover, then more evaporation, then shallower waters that warm faster and the cycle starts all over again.

The amount of ice cover can vary from year to year. It is said that, “global climate change and regional climate patterns are competing over the Great Lakes.” But the reality is that no one thing takes over. In fact, this winter had a very large and long-lasting ice cover at the Great Lakes but the overall trend is still showing a decline. Having the global climate change and regional climate patterns different makes it hard to separate the two. This might be why some people don’t believe that global climate change is happening, even though it is. Proof of temperature elevation can be showed at Lake Superior. Researches found that the lake’s surface temperate has warmed by 2.5 degrees Celsius since 1979.

Ice loss can cause a lot of problems at the Great Lakes. Fish that reproduce in the fall lay eggs that can be destroyed by winter waves from a lake with no ice, This habitat change could affect certain species. Coastal areas can have a higher level of erosion because the shore won't be protected by ice. Less winter recreation on the lakes will have to take place. Just last month, a miles-wide block of ice broke off from the shoreline of Lake Erie. It trapped 134 fishermen offshore who had to wait for hours to be rescued by helicopters and air boats that can glide across the ice. Unfortunately, one man did not make it.

The ice cover is different from year to year, but the overall coverage on the lakes is steadily decreasing. Some people think that this can only need to negative things so I would suggest more research on the lakes and studies on global climate change. Other people even think that "the loss of ice could actually lead to feedback effects which would make it easier for ice to form." Even if this is true, predicting the climate patterns and how it will affect us is something we cannot do.

water quality issues

            According to water-technology.com, water pollution is the addition of foreign substances (pollutants) to a water source. Water pollution is damaging streams, rivers, lakes, and oceans all over the world and needs to be greatly reduced. The dire consequences that humans, wildlife, and forests face need to be addressed before it is too late. The causes of poor water quality are due to problems such as, sedimentation, runoff, erosion, and pH.

            Water quality is especially important to the survival of humans because it is a necessity of life. Approximately 66% of the human body is composed of water, therefore, human society would not survive if water quality became extremely poor. Also, the earth is made up of 80% water. Basically, with these high percentages we cannot afford to pollute our water.

The effects of water pollution on wildlife are just as important. The main animals that deal with this environmental problem are fish and other marine organisms. When these marine animals die from contaminated water it disrupts the food chain by either killing off main sources of food or by larger animals eating smaller animals that have been poisoned by lead and cadmium.

As a solution to the growing amount of water pollution not only in the United States, but also throughout the world, I suggest that we educate people on how to better protect our natural freshwater and saltwater habitats. Ways in which we can achieve better water quality habits include practicing smarter agriculture, reducing runoff of pesticides and fertilizers from urban and suburban lawns, driving less, and improving sewage treatment. In order to reach these goals we must reach out to other people for help. The sooner we clean up our water the better. 

When Did We Go Wrong?

POTENTIAL OF HEMPSEED OIL AS FUEL

With hindsight being 20-20 and we are approaching an energy crisis, with a major reliance on foreign countries for fuel; we are all left with our hands on your heads in confusion of how we allowed the most powerful country in the world become so vulnerable on foreign aid.    Some experts would look back just over a hundred years ago and find some fascinating information as America was about to start mass production of the Model T.  In 1894, Rudolph Diesel invented the combustion engine and it was planned to run off hempseed oil and various other vegetable oils.  The intentions were to provide an engine that could run off of fuel that was locally accessible and renewable.  It wasn’t till a few years later that petroleum blew up within the US as its main fuel source; this was the decline of hemp as a bio-fuel and the use of industrial hemp.  Hemp used to be considered as the ‘new billion-dollar cash crop’ until the plant’s legal status virtually wiped it out of production and the history books.    Hemp was used heavily in past history and American history in particular and provided goods and services to various growing industries. 

Current diesel engines can run on bio-diesel or waste vegetable oil with a few modifications to the tubing, but leaving the engine as-is.  There are two ways to produce fuel with hempseed oil, the first just by using the oil itself or converting it to bio-diesel and ethanol can also be created from the cellulose of the biomass.   Part of what makes hemp such an attractive bio-fuel is its multiple benefits to society and various industries, we could turn a lot of industries ‘greener’ with benefits and application of industrial hemp to replace current methods.  In fact, over a hundred years later the automotive industries turn back to hemp to help create more bio-gradable vehicles and accessories.  However, this seems like a great new idea, but in reality this was the initial way cars and their accessories were designed using resin stiffened hemp fibers by Henry Ford himself, in his Hemp Fiber car that was made of stiffened resin from hemp fibers and it ran on ethanol from hempseed oil. 

It is difficult to swallow the fact that we made have had the answers to major environmental problems already answered correctly the first time we tackled them.  But in today’s society and America’s cut-throat capitalist lifestyle, money talks and back then Dupont Chemical company and petroleum entrepreneurs made sure to shut down competing industries and has led to the illegalization of hemp and prevented options that could just be the answer to today’s energy crisis.    

 

 

CRP….. Where is it going?

Over the best several decades the CRP program has been a mainstay in habitat restoration and preservation in the entire United States but specifically in the Midwest. CRP which stands for conservation reserve program which is a program that pays farmers to not produce crops and plant the land back into native prairie grasses. This is very beneficial to upland game birds because it provides important cover habitat on the edges of agricultural fields. With the newest farm bill there has been lots of talk about reducing the amount of money allocated to the farm bill, they are also reducing the total number of acres that are allowed in the program.

This is significant because CRP plays a major role in both stationary and migratory game and non-game species. CRP is a major form of cover for nesting waterfowl and has played a major role in the increased populations in the past few years. I feel that with the resulting decline in CRP money this will send us wheeling back in the conservation department. The main supporting evidence of this is the success of waterfowl breeding in the U.S. pothole region compared to in Canada. In the U.S. with our CRP program the success of breeding pairs of waterfowl has dramatically increased over the years while in Canada which does not have an active CRP program breeding success rates has decreased at a steady rate over the years.

I feel that if something is not done now to combat this than we will see a dramatic decrease in wildlife production, and once this habitat is gone or developed it will be very hard if not impossible to get it back. We need to see an improvement now in our conservation programs and incentive based programs for both farmers and non-farming land owners or else there is no economic reason to continue with programs like CRP.

Welcome to Northern Virgnia...Expect Delays

Being raised in a Virginia suburb of DC called Manassas – often referred to as a part of NOVA – I never understood the mentality of the average working person willing to wake up everyday knowing they, like many suburbanites, can expect to sit in traffic around 71 hours every year. Let’s consider the scope, for instance: Tyson’s Corner of Fairfax County, Virginia, employs about 117,000 people but only about 17,000 actually reside within the areas limits. An estimated 100,000 people commute to and from the Tyson’s area everyday putting a significant strain on the roadways, and commuter tempers. This is merely a symptom of the problem that urban sprawl presents. Urban sprawl is a problem affecting millions of Americans that we must now resolve.

Sprawl is broadly summarized as growing at a rate faster than the underlying infrastructure can support and service. This creates a less densely populated area which promotes automobile dependency creating the commuter burdens previously mentioned. More so, the environmental impact of sprawl ranges from devastating forests and farmlands – and their wildlife, increasing flood threat, damaging surface and ground water resources, and degrading air quality. Damaging our surrounding environments from this sprawl creates a disconnect from nature that has negative social affects as well. For instance, there is less green space for kids to play in the evolving suburban areas, limiting the time spent outdoors, constraining their abilities to explore the natural world and develop the appropriate appreciation for the natural world they otherwise would have.

So what will it take to break this habit that is as publicly understated as it is reckless? New Urbanism and Smart Growth are catch phrases increasing in popularity as trains of thought to combat sprawl. New Urbanism uses a combination of renewable energy sources, electric transportation, and walkable urbanism for planning and retrofitting purposes. This approach focuses directly on the generation and usage of electrical energy to have less impact environmentally and reduce energy consumption. Smart Growth similarly strives for reduced environmental impact and energy consumption but emphasizes mixing land uses, diversifying transportation options, and increasing population densities.

Introducing the Asian Oyster to the Chesapeake Bay

Historically the Chesapeake Bay has been known for its oysters. The average catch from the 1950s to the 1970s,according to the Chesapeake Bay Foundation, was 25 million pounds. Today it has dropped to two percent of this. Not only does this affect the fishermen whose livelihood is harvesting oysters but they are also a keystone species. The oysters filter the bay's water as they feed off the algae. Other marine life depend on the oysters for food and habitat as well. The native oyster's alarming population levels have caused many involved with the Chesapeake Bay to look for some solution.

The Virginia Institue of Marine Science (VIMS) began to study non-native oyster species to introduce into the Bay. The aisan species, Suminoe oyster (C. ariakensis) was determined to be the best option to introduce to the Chesapeake Bay. Interest began to grow and many groups including government agencies and interest groups became concerned about problems associated with introducing a non-native species. The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers was put in charge of producing an Environmental Impact Statement. After years of research no decision was made. The Army Corps decided that while the asian oysters may thrive in the Bay, they could also multiply rapidly enough to cause the extinction of the native species.

The Chesapeake Bay Foundation came out strongly against introducing a non-native species. They believe that the best option for the Bay is to restore the native species. Non-native species can not be expected to fix the problem completley. Three options are to not introduce the species at all, have open-watered aquaculture of sterilized oysters and third to release reproducing non-native oysters. In my opinion simply not introducing the new species would not solve any part of the problem. Fishermen would suffer, and the conditions of the BAy would not improve. However putting the non-native species into the Bay without any restrictions raises too many questions. I think the best option at this point is to raise sterile oysters in open-water aquacultures. This prevents the non-native oysters release into the Bay. It also allows more time for studies to be done on the oyster and to try to improve populations of native oysters. As of now, there are too many un-answered questions to put the non-native asian oyster into the bay.