What Can Green Do For Your City?

 After watching Mayor Garcetti of Los Angeles at the Clinton Global Initiative announce the Mayors Climate Action commitments, I was inspired to investigate what cities are doing and how their action on the front line will impact our future. Climate change is now and it will not wait for culture to catch up to its concerns. As Mayor Garcetti had mentioned, a majority of the United States population resides in cities and 70% of the United States emissions originate in them, so the Mayors of these cities (especially large cities) cannot get by on inaction. The best place to strive for meaningful change is at the source.

Mayor Garcetti presented a few action plans for top city agendas and a few are as follows:

Mayor Garcetti of Los Angeles:

• Harnessing solar power energy and creating energy star buildings

Mayor Parker of Houston:

• Retrofitting streetlights with LED fixtures

and Mayor Nutter of Philadelphia:

• Creating large scale green infrastructure

While these actions appear prosperous, what are their actual impacts and what can be done to make them better?

How will harnessing solar power in Los Angeles offset carbon emissions on a large scale?

In Los Angeles:
Mayor Garcetti is not personally planning to implement large scale solar panels, but instead make it easier and more affordable for the residents to do so themselves. Mayor Garcetti is taking to City Hall to streamline permits for residential solar systems which will include making these available online. With these changes in current procedure, the city is expecting it's current 13,000 residential photovoltaic systems to TRIPLE by 2016. The reduction of power demand will reduce stress on the city to supply energy and actually give pay backs to residents who push power into the system.

How useful is solar energy to reduce carbon sourced electricity consumption? Great, but you will need to live in a place that facilitates its functionality.

In Houston:
While you would imagine places like Houston would be boasting about their capacity for photovoltaic systems, the highlight of carbon emission cutting at CGI was their street light LED retrofitting plans. Houston plans on converting all 165,000 street lights to LEDs over the next five years. This change is expected to use 50% of the old conventional HID's, a reduction that is expected to save Houston around $26 million over the next 10 years.
BUT, there are downsides to this LED retrofitting. The preparation and procedures for the implementation are lengthy and require a large amount of documentation and administration. And, more notably, the start up costs are enormous (often 2-4 times more expensive than their HID counterparts). This could be an issue if smaller cities that do not have the capital large cities are afforded want to hop aboard the LED express.

I foresee if LED technology reduces in cost, at least to a point where it is competitive with HIDs, it will be nationally implemented based on its projected energy consumption.

In Philadelphia:
In February of this year, the EPA awarded $5million of funding to researchers investigation green infrastructure in Philadelphia. With this funding, Philadelphia plans to explore the possibilities of more efficient storm water management by using pervious pavement, green roofs and rain barrels that will allow the storm water to seep into a surfaces or be temporarily stored rather than immediately rushing into the sewage system proceeding heavy rain. Among other things, many smaller (and large cities) such as Syracuse, New York, that face common issues will reap great reward from the research being done to prevent flooding and promote green friendly environments.

Check here for more information regarding alternative energy in major cities.

Climate Change: Retire Your Binoculars

source

While browsing NPR, a chilling title crossed my page, jabbing a needle through an issue that has grown to be near and dear to my heart.

More Than Half Of U.S. Bird Species Threatened By Climate Change

Bologna, there's no way that climate change has begun to affect anyone, it is still being debated..
Wrong, while the government has been disputing where the finger should point, mother earth has not been waiting for an answer.

It is easy to get caught up in how this can affect us, the "center of existence", but who is the real victim and how are they going to be affected?

BIRDS

In the study outlined by this article, of 588 species of birds in the U.S. and Canada, 314 of them will be facing, as the ornithologist have the displeasure of saying, "unsure outcomes" in the near future due to climate change.

Warmer climates have forced many birds, for example 40 species of Western song birds, to seek refuge in the cooler climate of the Western Mountains. But, as is discussed: What happens when these animals leave their natural habitats for lands they are unsure possess the ingredients they need for life? Uncertainty.

Climate change is not discriminative; your favorite all-american birds such as the bald eagle and the common loon will experience drastic reduction in habitable landscape within the next 65 years (up to 75%). Is it fair to our symbol of freedom and glory to be limited by humanly negligence?

Is it natural for record setting droughts in California, now exceeding the 1988 drought and the 1930's Dust Bowl? Is it natural for 90-95% of raptors nests to fail, in these areas because of droughts? The absence of these apex predators (such as raptors) will have a profound effect on the ecosystems they live in.

The effects of global warming are not localized to droughts and bird population. The effects go much deeper than the news media cares to cover:
1. Higher temperature
2. Changing landscapes
3. Wildlife danger
4. Rising seas
5. Increased drought, fight and flood chances
6. Stronger storms and increased storm damage
7. More heat-related illness and disease
8. Economic losses
For more comprehensive information on climate change and it's effects go HERE.

The summation of these consequences will bring changes in your lifetime and change the world as we know if for your children and your children's children.

Climate change is now, and collateral damage is imminent if we cannot find a way to secure the global environment.

What excuse will you use for spying on your neighbors when the local birds are dead or gone?