April 16, 2008

Clean air laws are once more mired in the courts. Now petitioners are asking a panel of judges to force the Bush administration to comply with a High Court ruling issued a year ago that said carbon dioxide emissions could be regulated.

In all likelihood, the issue won't be resolved until a new administration takes office. While the Bush administration says that it respects the U.S. Supreme Court's decision, it adds that it must consider several nuances that will have a profound affect on all aspects of the American economy. Critics of the tactic respond that the administration is dragging its feet in an effort to appeal to its industrial backers.

Detroit Gets Green is an effort to recognize that Green is exploding in Detroit -- and it's up to all of us to see the ship and hop on board. It's bigger than any one person, group or event.

To keep in touch with all the many green events happening please visit the calendar at Sustainable Detroit. From there, you'll find educational workshops, conferences, talks, and more.
 
Join us as we unearth new potential for community development: Food, Jobs, Energy. The Financial Institutions Community Development Conference Committee brings this special spring-time event under the theme Detroit Gets Green. The day will include an explosion of useful information, including case studies and a keynote by Soji Adeleja of the MSU Land Policy Institute.

March 28, 2008

Tougher smog rules are here. But the clean air debate once again illustrates the divide between a conservative, pro-industry administration and its harshest critics among the environmental and health communities. The standards aim to protect public health and set out to limit ozone pollution, or smog, by utilities and other manufacturers as well as the automotive sector.

The Environmental Protection Agency took the middle road. Ground level ozone, whose main component is smog and which contributes to heart and respiratory ailments, is triggered when sunlight reacts with nitrogen oxides and volatile organic compounds. The new rule changes the current standard of 80-84 parts per billion to 75 parts per billion. EPA's own scientific experts said that the threshold should be lowered to between 60 and 70 parts per billion, all to minimize the number of premature deaths.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
No. 08-OPA012

CHICAGO (Jan. 29, 2008) - U.S. Environmental Protection Agency Region 5 announced today that five Fortune 500 corporations in the region are now buying a total of more than 286.6 million kilowatt-hours of green power annually.

They are Kohl's Department Stores, Menomonee Falls, Wis., 236 million kWh; Baxter International Inc., Deerfield, Ill., 20.5 million kWh; GE Healthcare Headquarters, Waukesha, Wis., 15.8 million kWh; General Motors Service Parts Operations, Pontiac, Mich., 14.1 million kWh; and Monsanto/Agracetus Campus Middleton, Wis., 399,000 kWh. Kohl's was ranked eighth nationally on the amount of green energy purchased.

08:52, February 29, 2008
The Mayor of London, Ken Livingstone, announced on Thursday the start of a groundbreaking program to cut carbon emissions from London's buildings by 25 percent.

World leading energy service companies Dalkia and Honeywell were selected to help cut energy use in Greater London Authority buildings.

The move made London the first city in the world to have completed the municipal tender process and appointed a company following a deal developed by the Clinton Climate Initiative for the C40 group of cities at the New York Large Cities Climate Summit in May 2007.