Green Roof Resource

National Geographic published an article in its June 2005 issue that links the urban heat island of Atlanta to an increase in the number of thunderstorms the metropolitan area experiences. I have been unable to track it down online, but I did come across some more information on this research on Mace Bentley’s homepage at Northern Illinois University. While green roofs are not mentioned in the article, minimizing storm damage could be another benefit for the technology that is waiting to be quantified.

While going through my files today, I found a booklet of Portland Ecoroof Tours by the Portland Bureau of Environmental Services. The document along with other useful information on “ecoroofs” (the term westerners prefer for green roofs) is available on the website.

Water quality trading, while not as established as air quality trading, is included on EPA’s website. One of the presentations at this month’s conference focused on nutrient trading within Virginia’s portion of the Chesapeake Bay’s Watershed. The commonwealth is developing a nutrient trade program to improve the nitrate and phosphate loads within the bay. While the TMDL program is the traditional path for trading, Virginia is implementing this program as a means to avoid the bay falling under a TMDL program.

Greenhouse gas trade growing sharply-World Bank - Yahoo! News reports that prices for CO2 have increased significantly since January. Current trading is at 16.70 euros per tonne.

The World Bank released a statement summarizing the state of the carbon trade in 2005. The bottom of the page has a link to the actual report.

Last week in Washington, DC the 3rd annual conference for Greening Rooftops for Sustainable Communities was held. The two-day event covered a wide-range of topics in three presentation tracks. While I could not attend all of the talks, I plan to summarize the more salient points from those that I did attend over the next couple of days. Those topics that were not covered will hopefully be included at next year’s conference in Boston (2006).