Green Roof Resource

On Friday, I listened to Nigel Dunnett and Rosemary Coyne speak about projects in Sheffield and Birmingham both in the UK. Both cities have an industrial past, which gives hope for urban renewal and greening for Southeast Michigan and Detroit. In between Nigel and Rosemary’s presentations, Sandra Marshall spoke about policies encouraging green roofs from around the world. The policies focus on direct and indirect incentives but have expanded in recent years to move beyond stormwater management to include energy savings and the urban heat island effect. More information on this can be obtained from the Canadian Mortgage and Housing Corporation who funded the research for a report.

I split the afternoon session between policy and research. The policy talk by Hitesh Doshi, at Ryerson University in Toronto, quantified the benefits of green roofs at the city scale. The second talk was by Marco Schmidt, a professor at the Berlin Institute of Technology, who is investigating the use of vertical green walls on building exteriors.

Sunday morning I went to the Harvard Museum of Natural History where there is currently an exhibit on climate change and global warming. They had a nice active learning portion where you can vote your opinion on reducing US carbon emissions or funding low carbon technologies in developing countries. Additionally, they included information on how scientists take ice cores and deep ocean sediment cores to understand how the climate was thousands of years ago. However, the rest of the exhibit lacked strong and coherent evidence that the climate is changing. For the layperson or a child, much of the information would be difficult to understand. This is part of the reason why there is such a knowledge gap regarding climate change. It is difficult to present a convincing argument that is easy to understand. I look forward to seeing how well the argument is presented in the new documentary, An Inconvenient Truth.

The US Energy Information Administration released annual greenhouse emissions information on Monday. In an article by the NYT (12/21), Gas Emissions Reached High in US in ‘04, Andrew Revkin summarizes the report. Reductions in 2001 and 2002 were touted by the administration to be proof that progress was being made. However, trends suggest the dip was due to an economic slowdown with projected emissions in 2005 to exceed to 2004 levels. The complete greenhouse gas report is available online from the EIA.

You can order or preview a chapter of Green Office Buildings: A Practical Guide to Development, a new book edited by Anne Frej and published by the Urban Land Institute. The book describes the costs and benefits of green buildings and several green management practices for facilities (waste management, energy and water use efficiency, and of course, green roofs). Several case studies are presented from around the world with an emphasis on US projects. Policies and programs connected with US green building are also included. I picked a copy up from the library this week and look forward to reading it over the holidays.

This week in the NYT, 9 States in Plan to Cut Emissions by Power Plants reports of a proposal for 9 northeastern to freeze current power plant emissions at the current level and reduce emissions by 10% by 2020. The focus pollutant is carbon dioxide. While the Bush administration has refused to join Kyoto, cities and states are considering methods for compliance at the local and regional levels.

Here is a useful site for learning more about the acid rain program and the basics about cap and trade programs for air emissions. Learn more at EPA’s Clean Air Market Programs - Allowance Trading.