Green Roof Resource

Roof domination is in sight for greens. As the date for the annual conference approaches, green roofs enter the news and emails. I received three emails today with links to an AP story on green roofs. Posted on CNN (‘Green Roofs’ growing more popular) and MSN(Landscape architects tend to a green roof), the article announces the opening of an intensive green roof on the headquarters of the American Society of Landscape Architects in Washington, DC (check out the roofcam). The story also highlights greening efforts in North America and abroad.

While the country most known for green roofs is Germany, green roofs are popping up in North America (80% increase in greened area with Chicago as the big US leader), New Zealand, Australia, and China. A project in Beijing designed by Stephen Holl is a self-contained city with green on every rooftop. China launched an initiative last month to build energy efficient buildings to address rising energy costs.

When the environmental benefits to greenhouse gases, stormwater, and the urban heat island are properly quantified, it’s only a matter time before green becomes the new black.

Yesterday I went to the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan to listen to Andy Revkin, Environment Reporter for the New York Times. He gave a fascinating talk entitled, “The Daily Planet: A Journalist’s Search for Sustainability, from the Amazon to the Arctic.”

The talk traced his life to date, beginning with his belief as a twelve-year-old that he would become marine biologist, continuing to his infection with the journalism bug in route to the Mediterranean from New Zealand as a crewmember of the Wanderlust, and ending with his trip in 2003 to the North Pole as part of his continuing investigations into climate change.

His latest work focusing on climate change is a children’s book, The North Pole was Here. It is his hope that this new book will challenge adults to view the world and global climate change through their children’s eyes. The idea being that seeing the impact of climate change on the next generation will stimulate meaningful change in our current unsustainable path.

The talk was framed around humanity’s transformation of the landscape. He included landscape transformation due to fossil fuel extraction, urban and suburban growth, and the introduction of invasive species. One of his final points on landscape transformation demonstrated that the path toward sustainability is complex. “Renewable energy is not necessarily green energy.” This statement accompanied a photo of a desert dotted with wind turbines across the landscape. While wind turbines are appropriate in certain circumstances, replacing our nation’s current energy supply with wind would dramatically transform the landscape. It is important to recognize that the land will be transformed with any decision that is made regarding climate change – doing nothing results in continual ice melt and sea level rise, investing in renewable energy will impact our landscape in unintended ways as well.

The March 2006 issues of Biocycle features Penn State’s Center for Green Roof Research on the cover. Compost Utilization Goes through the Roof summarizes the history and current activities of the center. Current research activities include performance evaluation of compost in soil media, effects of ozone on green roof vegetation, and investigations of microbial communities found in green roof soil media.