Pierre Bull's Blog: Health and the Environment

A Nightmare on ‘Green’ Street: The Horrors of Budget-Setting Season

2010-04-30T16:03:12Z

The horror film series known as A Nightmare on Elm Street sets forth a tale in which the freakish villain, Freddy Krueger, enters his victim’s dreams, creates a suspenseful and chilling nightmare, and proceeds to kill them. It’s scary stuff, believe me. But the effects of a scary movie in freaking out an audience for one night pales in comparison to the lasting effects of an equally suspenseful and chilling process that we all bear witness to around this time every year: the state and local budget-setting process. A wide variety of environmental and clean energy benefit funds are set to fall victim to the seemingly bottomless pit of government debt as a result of tax revenues drying up from the latest deep economic recession.

Grab your loved ones tight and cover your eyes and ears if necessary. Here’s a round-up of recent headlines:

[New York] Groups Criticize a Proposal to Pull Environmental Funds (Oct 2009) by Mireya Navarro, New York Times Green Inc.

“ . . . Mr. Paterson proposed moving $90 million of the initiative’s money to the general fund, to help with the deficit once the lawsuit is resolved.”

[New Jersey] Governor’s Budget Grabs More Clean Energy Money (March 2010) by Matt Elliott, Environment New Jersey

TRENTON - Governor Christie announced today that, as part of his 2011 budget, he will take $20 million worth of clean energy money to help plug the state’s budget deficit. This is on top of the $286 million in clean energy money that he has already taken for the 2010 budget.

[Rhode Island] Clean-energy Fund May Fall Victim to Budget Deficit (April 2010) by Alex Kuffner, The Providence Journal

PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island environmental advocates are decrying a proposal in the General Assembly to strip $1 million from the state Renewable Energy Fund to help fill the state budget deficit.

As you’ve no doubt picked up from all the news of late, the underlying message from elected officials is that in order to stay fiscally afloat, governments need to sacrifice a wide array of program and service funding in order to meet the deficits. Here at NRDC, we will continue to defend such funds that are crucial for a safe and healthy environment and vital for our local and state economies to stay competitive in the race toward global leadership in emerging the clean energy economy. Furthermore, we continue to create and advocate for innovative policies that accomplish our important state and local environmental and clean energy goals by remaining ‘off-budget’.

A final piece of advice for all of us advocating for good causes that are perilously ‘on-budget’ in local and state budgets comes from the A Nightmare on Elm Street series itself, “Whatever you do, don’t fall asleep.”

Starting at the [roof] top for urban clean energy and health

2009-06-17T18:25:03Z

Whether it's the idea of growing one's own food in the midst of the current economic downturn or the gaining popularity of buying 'green' and 'local' - urban gardens and green roofs, particular those planted on rooftops in dense urban areas - have rapidly grown in popularity over the past year. Done right, these projects have the potential to benefit both local urban environments and our global environment in numerous ways. Here's a collection of recent stories in the media on these urban rooftop gardens:

The New York Times, "Urban Farming, A Bit Closer to the Sun"
A new large-scale hydroponic rooftop farm is now under development in Jamaica, Queens (with an adjacent solar photovoltaic array too!)

A plethora of environmental, social, and economic benefits of urban rooftop gardens exist and are spelled out quite thoroughly in Kaid Benfield's earlier blog post here. What has me so excited about rooftop gardens and green roofs in general are the enormous potential benefits these projects provide in saving energy and reducing global warming pollution. Two energy saving benefits I want to highlight in particular are reducing the urban 'heat island' and increasing building thermal performance.

Reducing the urban 'heat island'

Energy Secretary Stephen Chu recently quipped, the world should try to have "white roofs everywhere", citing that the reflectivity of white roofs versus dark-colored roofs could potentially reduce electricity use (in urban environments) for air conditioning by as much as 15 percent. The picture below depicts the physical processes that lead to the urban heat island problem.

Unfortunately, this form massive-scale "geo-engineering" to slap white paint on roofs does not come cheaply. A study done for NYC in 2002, titled, "New York City Regional Heat Island Initiative: Mitigating New York City's Heat Island with Urban Forestry, Living Roofs, and Light Surfaces" showed through high resolution satellite imagery that NYC could indeed reduce its city-wide air conditioning load. It also showed that given the three option of planting trees, 'green' living roofs, and light surfaces (white paint), the planting of trees and 'green' living roofs came out as far more cost effective in providing a long-term solution to the urban heat island problem.

Increasing building thermal performance

Published studies have shown green roofs to be effective at increasing a building's thermal performance, particularly in the summer in keeping cool air inside. Available studies can be found here, here, and here.

When you consider the twin issues of increasing electricity costs and higher carbon emissions, rooftop gardens and green roofs show to be a great option in fighting global warming and improving the health and environment of our cities.