The largely rural village of Homer Glen, located about 11 miles southwest of Chicago, adopted a groundbreaking ordinance in December that limits how much light a business can generate based on lumens, a measurement of emitted light. In doing so, the village became one of the first municipalities in the country to pass a law that specifically recognizes the night sky as a natural resource and that lays out specific measures to preserve it.

Only the Light You Need, Only Where You Need It

Homer Glen’s lighting law isn’t just about dimming the lights on the signs that businesses use to advertise themselves; it’s actually about encouraging the entire community to use lighting that is designed purposefully. It enforces two basic principles that seem like common sense but which most of us haven’t had reason to pay much attention to in the past: Use the right amount of light, and use it only when and where it’s needed.

In addition to specifying how much lighting can be used on properties and how bright the lights can be, the new ordinance requires businesses to dim outdoor lighting within an hour of their closing time. It also includes mandates that lighting fixtures must have shields or other means of directing light downward, rather than into neighboring properties or out into the night sky. Laser lights, flashing lights, searchlights and other intrusive lighting are prohibited.

One of the driving forces behind the new ordinance is the desire on the part of Homer Glen residents to preserve the rural nature of their community in the face of creeping suburban development (aka “sprawl”). But just as significant is the recognition that the bright lights that blot out the stars in the sky is needlessly wasteful and contributes to the problem of climate change. According to the International Dark-Sky Association (IDA), which provided advice on the new ordinance, wasted energy accounts for around 30 percent of outdoor lighting. That’s roughly equivalent to 38 million tons of carbon dioxide in the U.S. alone, and represents a financial loss of around $10 billion.

Night Light Is Extremely Unnatural

If addressing these energy inefficiencies isn’t enough to convince you that better lighting regulations are a good idea, consider the damage to wildlife caused by artificial light. The hazy “night glow” common to urban areas has the power to throw off the balance of light and dark to which all living things are adapted. Disrupting this balance changes animal behavior and alters relationships between species.

For many organisms, including birds, frogs, and even zooplankton in the waters off our cities’ shores, behaviors such as mating, feeding, and migration can be adversly impacted by the lack of true darkness. And it’s not just wild animals that are affected–plant species can get scrambled by artificial light as well. Concentrated light pollution has been shown to alter the seasonal development of decidious trees and change flowering patterns for some plants. In researching this issue, I was shocked to learn the range and seriousness of these wildlife impacts; it goes way beyond the issue of migratory birds becoming disoriented by brightly lit buildings (bad as that is). Click here to read more details on the natural implications of artificial light.

Less Lighting Is Better Lighting Is Safer Lighting

If you’re still skeptical of regulating light emissions because you’re convinced that public saftey would be compromised by limiting the amount of light allowed in a city, put your fears to rest. Consider this excerpt from Chicago Wilderness Magazine:

[Bob Gent, president of IDA] says communities don’t have to sacrifice safety for darker skies. Roads are safer when streetlights illuminate the roadway rather than shining in drivers’ eyes. And while bright lights may create the feeling of safety, studies show that they don’t actually prevent crime. Rather than leaving bright lights on all night, people concerned with safety are better off using security lights that are activated by motion detectors.

Homer Glen also discovered that better lighting benefits human health. People sleep better in the dark, and our bodies need darkness to produce melatonin, which protects against cancer. The National Cancer Institute recognizes that women who are exposed to bright lights while working the night shift may be at increased risk of developing breast cancer.

Homer Glen officials say that despite its novelty, the ordinance didn’t encounter much resistence from local businesses once the business owners realized how smart use of artificial lighting might contribute to the bottom line. It turns out most businesses can actually save money by taking a closer look at wasteful lighting.

We’ll Wonder Why We Ever Did It Any Other Way

At first blush, lighting may seem an odd thing for government to regulate. But after closer inspection, “lumen ordinances” seem like a slam dunk for any community that is serious about getting on the path to sustainability. They combine so many smart things in one package: Preserving the character of small towns, maintaining night skies dark enough for the pleasures of stargazing in our neighborhoods, improving energy efficiency to conserve resources and combat global warming, reducing the harmful effects of artificial lighting on plants and animals, and making the built environment healthier and safer for people. I’m trying to see a downside (besides some additional red tape), but I can’t find one.

If this type of regulation doesn’t become the norm in the U.S. in 10 or 15 years, I’ll be surprised. Here’s hoping it catches on even more quickly than that.

Related Reading:

Chicago Wilderness Magazine — Homer Glen Sees the Light

Chicago Tribune - Homer Glen Earns Honor for Light Ordinance

Chicago Public Radio - Interview with Village Trustee Russell Knaack (Audio Clip)

Photo credit: floridapfe

When the hour of 8 p.m. local time on Saturday arrives, the plan is that in dozens of cities across six continents, thousands of businesses and millions of individual citizens will be turning off their lights for 60 minutes. Earth Hour was a successful movement last year in Sydney, Australia, with 2.2 million people and over 2,000 businesses hitting the off switch. Even landmarks like the Harbour Bridge and the Opera House went dark for the occasion. The organizers claim that the Earth Hour 2007 event resulted in a 10.2 percent drop in energy usage, which is the equivalent of taking 48,000 cars off the road for that hour.

Now, I’ll admit that at first the idea of fighting global warming by turning off the lights for an hour struck me as kind of stupid. I mean, come on. The problem is so much bigger than that, isn’t it? What good does reducing our power consumption for one hour do when there are 8,759 other hours in a year? And aren’t there much bigger contributors to greenhouse gas emissions than the lights in my living room? (America’s addiction to driving huge SUVs comes immediately to mind.) And maybe most importantly, isn’t it counterproductive to ask people to sit in the dark, deprived of their electronic toys, as a way of pointing out the promise of the bright, new renewable energy future? As a recovering Catholic, this experiment in “doing without” reminded me of giving up something for Lent, which seemed like a downer of an environmental event and not a big draw.

But upon further reflection (and a little bit of research), the idea of Earth Hour has finally won me over. Of course the actual energy savings during an hour without nonessential lights (street lights, hospital lights, and other areas required for public safety will still remain lit) is going to be merely symbolic. With the help of their partners in the event, which include local utilities, the WWF will be measuring how much energy is saved and will report those numbers to indicate how the event reach has grown from the previous year. But the real impact won’t be quite that quantifiable. The most important impact of Earth Hour is that it will get people thinking about ways to make its temporary effects more lasting.

What people do during this self-imposed blackout is up to each individual, but the folks at World Wildlife Fund, the sponsor of the event, have listed some unplugged activities to consider, including giving your home an energy makeover, talking to your kids about going green, and grabbing a flashlight and cleaning up your neighborhood. It’s an effective way to raise people’s consciousness because it asks us to take time out of our regular routine and sit quietly, with minimal distractions, and think about how we might be able to reduce our carbon footprints. The fact that millions of other people are doing the same thing at the same time is actually pretty cool. It speaks to our need to connect with other people to solve this huge problem we all share. 

Beyond the earnest feelings of common purpose and humanity united across the planet, Earth Hour is a potent symbol because it allows us to literally see things differently for a short time. Signature skyscrapers, such as the Hancock Tower, and key landmarks like the Navy Pier Ferris wheel and Buckingham Fountain, will go dark. Theater marquees and shops on the Magnificent Mile will voluntarily turn off their lights. The city will look and feel different during this hour of temporary gloom, and it may be more fun to go out than to stay in.

At the risk of sounding like a civic booster or a crunchy environut with my head in the clouds, I’m on board with Earth Hour. With its sense of community and tangible alteration of the human environment, I think Earth Hour, like Earth Day, has real potential to catch on and become a recognized tradition and cultural touchstone. I’m looking forward to marking the occasion with a candle-lit dinner with my family, and maybe some bedtime stories with my son read by by flashlight. My wife and I will probably talk about things we can do to reduce our carbon footprint in our daily lives. And I’ll check the news later to see what the skyline looked like with all those lights out. It may just make me appreciate the city in its blazing glory that much more.

One thing I won’t be worried about during those 60 dark minutes: the rumored danger of a disruption due to flux in demand in the power grid. The Earth Hour website indicates that WWF is “working closely with the energy providers in each city to ensure a safe event with no adverse impact on power systems.” I highly doubt that the Illinois power utility ComEd would sign on as a major partner for this event if it couldn’t effectively handle the risk of power surges affecting its customer base. The company has dealt with enough bad press with regard to inability to meet peak summer electricity demand that it would not risk another controversy.

To register as a particpant in Earth Hour, click here. 

Photo credit: Chicagoist

Modeled after the Illinois Sustainable University Compact, which began in 2006, the new Illinois Sustainable Schools Compact sets out 12 achievable sustainability objectives for elementary and secondary schools. These goals focus on conserving energy, encouraging recycling, and practicing natural landscape techniques (including minimizing the use of chemical fertilizers, following a conservative watering schedule, using rain barrels, and planting drought-resistant native species). For complete list of the goals in the compact, click here (PDF).

Interestingly, four of the 12 goals put forward in the Illinois Sustainable Schools Compact are aimed at curriculum; rather than simply focus on greening the schools’ physical plant and operations, the compact calls for students to learn the concepts of environmental sustainability in deeper way. These curriculum goals call for the introduction of environmental studies in the classroom and promoting green awareness through community service projects, field trips, and environmental club activities. One of the goals suggests that students, teachers, and staff work together to create a rain garden on school property.

As an environmentalist and a parent, I think this kind of iniative is great to see. First, it sets some concrete objectives for school administrators who may be wondering which direction to go when implementing a green agenda. In the bureaucratic environment of school administration, having so many choices of direction can lead to paralysis. This compact provides a concrete framework to help schools prioritize many of the good ideas that may come from students, parents, faculty, and staff members wanting to see their school reduce its ecological footprint.

Second, even though school participation in the compact is completely voluntary, it puts the topic on the table, in a simple and straightforward way. It allows schools to benchmark their progress on a number of fronts against a statewide standard. In this era of school “accountability” it gives administrators a chance to see how they measure up against other schools on the issue of sustainability. Right now, simply signing the compact is a feature that may distinguish one school from another in the minds of parents choosing the right school for their children.  But down the road, parents will be able to ask school officials, “How many of the Illinois Sustainable Schools Compact goals has your school met?” It could be a powerful tool for measuring school performance in arenas that often get a lot of lip service but not much in the way of quantifiable evidence.

Finally, I think it’s vitally important that the teaching of environmental awareness become part of every school’s core curriculum. Children won’t have the framework to understand the challenges of climate change, water conservation, and renewable energy (to name just three global problems that society will have to confront in the coming decades) if these concepts aren’t addressed from an early age. If the next generation of scientists, engineers, activists, entrepreneurs, and educators receives a good grounding in environmental issues, they will be more likely to see the ecological problems facing humanity as intriguing challenges upon which they can base the work of a career. The sooner we can get the creative minds of tomorrow engaged in addressing the environmental challenges facing humanity, the better.

Hopefully, Illinois schools’ goal-oriented commitments to operate sustainably and teach students why such change is necessary will catch on in school systems around the U.S., and around the world. The earlier we expose all young people to the complex, unseen ecological costs of modern society, the sooner it will be possible to form the kind of political consensus that must accompany the truly transformative change it will take to create a more sustainable economy.

Further reading:

News story on Sustainable Universities Compact - DailyIllini.com

Sustainable Universities Compact - Lt. Gov. Pat Quinn

Photo credit: Standing Up for Illinois

For many Chicagoans, this announcement may alter the perception of a large grocery chain not known for being particularly green. In the Second City, Dominick’s is sort of the Pepsi to to Jewel-Osco’s Coke. These two large mainstream grocery stores are known for having stores in many of the city’s neighborhoods, and for serving very large portions of the populace with conventional packaged food and some organic produce. If you’re not a dedicated organic foodie doing your shopping at Whole Foods or Trader Joe’s (or at farmer’s markets or CSAs), chances are you’re a Dominick’s or Jewel regular.

But things are changing in the grocery landscape. In yet another sign that the market is recognizing a desire in the typical American consumer to make more responsible choices, even the mainstream grocers are getting serious about offering their customers greener options. Food items labeled organic and “natural” are claiming more and more shelf space at the big supermarkets. And the shift to biodiesel in the fleet of one of Chicago’s largest chains indicates that retailers are willing to green their operations behind the scenes because of the goodwill it generates when a company can be seen as a leader in environmental stewardship.

At the same time, it’s worth recognizing that Dominick’s shift to biodiesel fuel is more symbolic than revolutionary. The projected reduction in greenhouse gas emissions of more than 1 million pounds sounds good until you remember that these things are usually measured in tons. Changing the type of fuel in all these trucks has the global warming equivalent of taking 143 cars off the road. That’s a step in the right direction, but it’s not going to make a huge dent in the climate change problem.

Granted, there are other benefits to using a domestically produced biofuel instead of petroleum-based diesel–such as reducing America’s dependence on foreign oil, and reducing particulate pollution that has an adverse impact on air quality–but these aren’t the ones that Dominick’s is touting. They seem to be jumping on the global warming panic bandwagon. It’s not corporate greenwashing, but it seems like you could call it “green dumbing” when a company focuses on one narrow and marginal benefit of a new initiative at the expense of others.

And keep in mind that B20 biodiesel is still 80% conventional diesel. Not a whole lot is changing other than where these truck go to fill up their tanks. If a retailer wanted to get serious about efficiency in their fleet, they would follow the example set by Wal-Mart, which worked to upgrade its fleet to eliminate wasted fuel from unnecessary idling.

Dominick’s biofuel commitment is part of parent company Safeway’s national shift to the alternative truck fuel. The company has been innovative for implementing a number of measures in recent years to manage its carbon footprint reduce air pollution. These efforts have included purchasing renewable solar and wind energy, alternative construction practices, and alternative fuels.

According to an NBC news article, Safeway “has installed new energy-efficient refrigeration technology and freezer systems and uses LED lighting in some stores to reduce electricity usage. Safeway also operates an extensive recycling program in which nearly 500,000 tons of materials are recycled each year, including cardboard, plastics and compostable materials.”

To make a real dent in the problem and get the environmental credibility that it seems to be Safeway’s goal, retailers need to put together integrated programs using a variety of best practices. In 2006 Safeway joined the Chicago Climate Exchange, a voluntary, legally binding greenhouse gas emissions reduction, registry and trading program. This may be the biggest sign of a true corporate commitment, because meeting the carbon reductions required by membership in the Chicago Climate Exchange will require lots more innovation that putting a few more soybeans in the gas tank.

I’ll feel better about shopping at Dominick’s after knowing that good changes are afoot at this corporate behemoth. But I’m not going to delude myself into thinking it’s the greenest choice I can make. This retail giant is riding the green revolution, but they’re not out front by that much. I’ll watch what other changes they make, but for now, I’m still going to try to feed myself with local produce that didn’t have to get trucked across the country in the first place.

And if I get a craving for Cool Ranch Doritos, I’m going to skip the Jewel and try to find a Dominick’s instead.

Further reading:

Dominick’s Announces Shift to Biodiesel - Medill Reports

Safeway Converts U.S. Trucking Fleet to Biodiesel - NBC6.net

Photo credit: Safeway

But even more insidious than the harm posed by toxins used to rid our homes and workplaces of unwanted critters is the problem of chemical pesticides used to control outdoor pests. In fact, the use of chemicals to kill animals and plants in our yards is a lot more widespread than you may have guessed. Consider these statistics cited by the Safer Pest Control Project:

• 78 million households in the U.S. use home and garden pesticides.
• $700 million are spent annually on pesticides for U.S. lawns.
• 67 million pounds of synthetic pesticides are used on U.S. lawns each year.
• Three times as much pesticide is used on lawn per acre than on agricultural crops.

The Costs Run Even Deeper

These numbers would be arresting enough without the knowledge that spreading these toxins does a tremendous amount of ecological damage. Our lawn and garden pesticides inevitably make their way into the water table and cause harm to many, many more species than the ones we intend to kill. Some of the unintended consequences include these frightening little tidbits:

• 100 percent of fish in urban areas contain one or more pesticide.
• Of 30 commonly used lawn pesticides, 16 are toxic to birds, 24 are toxic to fish and aquatic organisms, and 11 are deadly to bees.
• Approximately 7 million birds a year die from exposure lawn care pesticides.

Lawns and Chemical Dependency

It wasn’t always this way. Sixty years ago, before the introduction of herbicides to the American homeowner, lawns were a purposeful mix of grasses, clover and, yes, dandelions. Most lawns today, currently covering 36,000 square miles of U.S. land, enough to blanket the state of Kentucky, are an unnatural monoculture of a single non-native plant species–turfgrass. And keeping all that turfgrass up to lush golf-course standards typically requires a chemical stew that many homeowners believe they need, to keep that suburban-dream lawn intact. The typical outcome, however, is actually a less healthy lawn more susceptible to disease, drought and insects.

“Most people look at a lawn and just see grass. But the most important thing about a lawn is the health of the soil underneath,” says Safer Pest Control Project’s Rachel Rosenberg. She explains that the common applications of “greening” treatments by lawncare companies often make grass look healthy in the short term, but that it actually weakens the lawn because the natural biology of the soil is thrown out of balance. The plants begin to depend on these chemicals, necessitating more and more treatments to maintain the same surface look.

“Americans have been sold a bill of goods,” says Rosenberg. “We want people to get their lawns off drugs.”

The Natural Way to a Green Lawn

Rosenberg insists that anyone can have a beautiful green lawn without the need for chemical fertilizers and pesticides that are pushed by many lawncare companies. Some of the more common principles of organic lawncare include:

• Using natural compost as a nutrient-rich top dressing
• Refraining from watering and mowing too often
• Planting a diverse mix of native plants to go with your grass
• Weeding by hand (an activity that many of the youngest gardeners in the family actually find fun)

In order to expand the commercial use of these and other organic lawncare practices, Safer Pest Control Project recently held a seminar for professional turf managers and landscapers (PDF). The first of its kind in Illinois, this two-day event last month attracted more than 100 lawncare professionals who came to learn how to implement organic practices into their operations and hear about the best nontoxic natural lawncare products on the market.

Interestingly, Rosenberg reports that over half the workshop participants were municipal employees from Chicago and surrounding communities looking to incorporate natural techniques into the maintenance of city parks and public spaces.

“We were really excited about this chance to expand the knowledge base in the industry,” says Rosenberg. “We’re hoping to create a market demand in which consumers will start saying to the lawncare industry, ‘I want an organic lawn.’” Rosenberg says that the goal is to help homeowners, landscapers, and distributors of lawncare products become educated enough to begin transitioning larger and larger portions of the industry spending to natural lawncare.

The thinking is, if consumer demand can help create the market for organic food, the same thing can happen with organic lawns. It takes a little more understanding and more patience to create an organic lawn, but the result can be a lawn that is much more robust and easier to maintain in the long run. And of course, we all benefit from the removal of chemicals from the outdoor spaces we enjoy.

At the same time, the landscaping industry needs to be able to meet the demand for organic lawncare as it grows. Thanks to Safer Pest Control Project’s work in the Midwest, the transformation is happening across the industry at an even faster pace.

More Food for Thought

Not yet convinced that caring for our lawns in a more responsible way is all that important? Let me leave you with a few more statistics about the tremendous environmental impact that the maintenance of turfgrass has in this country:

Pesticides

• 100% of all surface water and 33% to 50% of aquifers are contaminated with one or more pesticides.

Water Use

• 30% to 60% of urban water is used for watering lawns.
• 10,000 gallons of water are used per summer on the average 1,000 square foot lawn.

Fuel Use and Pollution

• Over 58 million of gallons of gasoline are used for lawnmowers each year.
• A single lawnmower pollutes as much in one hour as a car driven for 20 miles.
• Leaf blowers spew out about 26 times the amount of carbon monoxide as a new light-duty vehicle and 49 times more particulate matter.

Climate Change

• A lawn can act as a carbon sink (take carbon out of the atmosphere) if it is left relatively undisturbed, and watered properly and fertilized minimally. An organic lawn is a much more effective carbon sink than a chemically treated one.

Related Reading

Natural Pest Control - Chicago Wilderness

The Green, Green Grass of Home - Conscious Choice

Organic Gardening with Children - Green Options

Low Impact Lawn Care - Green Options User Journal

Murder Your Lawn - Green Options User Journal

Alternatives for Safer Lawn Care - Beyond Pesticides

Photo credit: This Old House

But before you go out and buy that can of Raid and take aim at the crawling menace, pause to ask yourself: Do you really want to coat your home in toxins that you can’t see and that may persist on surfaces for weeks? Are you willing to put your children and pets at even greater risk than what you yourself face from these poisonous chemicals? Are you sure the solution isn’t more dangerous than the problem?

Educating the public about the dangers of chemical pesticides and promoting safe, effective alternatives for dealing with pests is the mission of Chicago-based nonprofit Safer Pest Control Project. Since 1994 this organization — which began as a coalition of four environmental groups–has worked to reduce the risks to human health wherever pesticides are commonly used, including in schools, childcare centers, residential buildings, yards and parks and in agriculture.

The Problem of Pesticides: Bigger than You Think

What are the risks that pesticides pose? Safer Pest Control Project Executive Director Rachel Rosenberg says that the toxins in commercially available pesticides aren’t understood completely, even though these products have undergone risk assessment by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. “People think the EPA label on the bottle is some sort of Good Housekeeping seal of approval, but it’s not. It’s actually illegal for the manufacturers to claim that these products are completely safe.” She goes on to explain that most people have no idea how often they come into contact with pesticides. “Involuntary exposure happens all the time because pesticides are used everywhere, whether it’s in a grocery store, restaurants, the library, a police station, or your neighbor’s lawn.”

The Safer Pest Control Project has compiled some pretty scary statistics about the health costs of all this exposure, especially to children. In addition to the fact that pesticides are the second most common source of childhood poisonings, these chemicals have an insidious effect on small, growing bodies even when ingested in small amounts. That’s because kids have higher metabolism rates and often play on the ground and put objects in their mouths. Research has also shown:

• Children have a 50% higher incidence of leukemia if their mothers are exposed to pesticides in the home up to three months before a pregnancy, during or after it.
• Children under age 2 have 10 times the adult risk of developing cancer after pesticide and other chemical exposure; ages 3-15 have triple the risk.
• Children have a greater risk of developing asthma by age five after pesticide exposure within the first year of life.

Pest-Free Without Poison?

To help eliminate these dangers, the Safer Pest Control Project advocates for the use of Integrated Pest Management (IPM), a proven method of pest control that emphasizes simple, inexpensive prevention practices that cause the least harm to people and the environment. IPM focuses on eliminating the cause of pests by physically restricting the pests’ access to food, water and hiding places. Only as a last resort does an IPM strategy include the application of chemicals to control a species, and only the chemicals which are proven to be the least toxic available. An IPM plan can be used in many different contexts, whether agricultural or residential, and anyone can use these principles to control household or garden pests.

At its core, IPM is about coming to a deeper understanding about the biology of unwanted flora and fauna, and using that knowledge to engineer smarter, deeper solutions. It’s about shifting the paradigm from “eradication” to “control.” It’s about adjusting our mindset from “zap the bastards” with kill-on-contact poisons to “let’s out think these critters and make sure they also stay away in the future.” But changing these attitudes isn’t easy, especially in a society that has for many decades relied on chemical products to provide the illusion of immediate solutions.

Educating the Public, Reforming the Policy

The challenge of changing public perception is one the Safer Pest Control Project takes seriously, and it fights this battle on an impressive number of fronts. (Check out the list of educational resources SPCP provides, most of which are free and require just a simple registration.) As the only organization of its kind in the Midwest, it has worked with school districts and government agencies to expand the use of IPM in schools, day care centers and public housing throughout the region. Due largely to the efforts of Safer Pest Control Project, Illinois passed two laws in 1999 that require public schools to adopt safer methods of pest control inside school buildings. The organization has also worked with Chicago Public schools to produce training programs for administrators looking to implement IPM programs in schools.

In its collaboration with the Chicago Housing Authority, Safer Pest Control Project has worked to give training to building managers about IPM and to educate the low-income housing residents about how to make their homes less attractive to pests. “It can be as simple as clearing away cardboard boxes, which cockroaches love, ” Rosenberg says.

The stakes are high. As asthma rates skyrocket and more is learned about the long-term hidden dangers of all kinds of chemicals found in the products we use every day, the public debate about how to protect people from exposure to toxins figures to be a big part of the environmental movement in this country going forward. Safer Pest Control Project does amazing work to help the public not only understand the harm of toxic pesticides, but also to embrace different expectations about what constitutes responsible pest control.

Whether or not you’re convinced that pesticides put you personally at risk, you have to admire the concrete steps that Safer Pest Control Project is taking to equip the public with the knowledge and tools to make sure the most vulnerable members of our society aren’t harmed by our chemical habit. It may seem like common sense that all children need to grow up free of contact with chemicals that are designed to kill living things. But as George Orwell said, “To see what is in front of one’s nose needs a constant struggle.” Safer Pest Control Project should be commended for engaging in this struggle in such a comprehensive way.

Next week: Some eye-opening facts about the environmental costs of maintaining turf grass in yards and parks in the U.S., and what Safer Pest Control Project is doing to expand the practice of organic lawn care.

More Information

Video tips on pest control - Safer Pest Control Project

Factsheets on Least Toxic Control of Home Pests - Beyond Pesticides

Photo credit: Flickr

But the river which made the rise of this metropolis possible endured an incredible amount of abuse as the city grew up around it. For most of the last 200 years, the river was treated essentially as an open sewer, where household and industrial waste was dumped with abandon. (One particularly rancid part of the river earned the nickname “Bubbly Creek” because of methane buildup due to decomposing animal remains dumped by the Chicago stockyards, famously depicted in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.) The contamination led to many outbreaks of cholera, typhoid, and other diseases in the 1800s because the sewage flowed out into Lake Michigan, the source of the city’s drinking water. In 1900, a massive engineering project succeeded in using locks to reverse the flow of the river so that the pollution was sent southwest through the newly completed Chicago Sanitary and Ship canal and into the Missippi River watershed, away from Lake Michigan. When Chicagoans weren’t trying to ignore the stench of the river or actively abusing it, they seriously messed with the natural hydrology. Not much respect.

This human disrespect for the Chicago River continued up through the 1980s, when the river was often still clogged with garbage. But beginning in the 1990s, things started turning around for this urban waterway. Pollution levels started to drop (due in no small part to enforcement of Clear Water Act legislation) and people began to notice that the river, no longer smelly and unsightly, could actually be an enhancement to city life, a corridor of somewhat natural green space in an urban setting. People began using the river for recreational activities that put them in closer contact with the water, such as canoeing and kayaking, in addition to the larger pleasure boats and sightseeing ferries. New buildings along the river are now built so that people can walk along the shore and appreciate this natural asset, rather than being sited facing away from the river, as much architecture did in the 20th century.

Part of the reason for this river renaissance has been the work of the nonprofit group known as Friends of the Chicago River. This organization, active since the 1970s, focuses on creating “a greener river with healthy habitat, an accessible river that people can use and enjoy, and a river cared for by a broad group of supporters.” The group works in partnership with municipalities, businesses, community groups, schools, peer organizations, government agencies and individuals on projects that benefit the river.

One of the group’s more interesting projects is a “fish hotel” designed to create a more natural habitat for fish in an area that is otherwise very unhospitable. Much of the riverbed in Chicago currently consists of a concrete canal, devoid of the kind of vegetated nooks and crannies normally found in health river ecosystems. To help solve this problem, Friends of the Chicago River commissioned ecological consulting firm WRD Environmental to design and build a floating garden planted with native wetland vegetation that can provide food and shelter for fish that otherwise wouldn’t thrive there. The design the firm came up with is a floating structure containing native aquatic plants on the surface to attract insects for fish to eat; a second level with more wetland plants for shelter; and four deeper fish cribs, where bigger fish can linger and hide. A description of the project in Chicago Wilderness magazines describes it in more detail:

“Located just off the Michigan Avenue Bridge at the south end of the Magnificent Mile shopping district, the structure is anchored to the steel walls lining the river so that it doesn’t affect boat traffic. The habitat is about the size of a pontoon boat — 42 feet long by 10 feet wide. Eventually, the structure will be equipped with underwater cameras so people can see green sunfish and largemouth bass snack on clasping-leaf pondweed and bristly sedge. ”

The project recently won a City of Chicago GreenWorks Award for WRD. Though the structure has to be removed during winter, it will be back in the water come spring, allowing life to return to what had formerly been a watery wasteland.

It may be argued that attracting a few fish for the tourists to look at really doesn’t address the big issues (such as reducing pollution of stormwater runoff) of returning a 156-mile river system to ecological viability. Is this project getting attention from Mayor Daley because it fits in nicely with his grand vision of a commercial and retail riverwalk redevelopment in the Loop? Probably.  But it’s a start.  And if this design can be replicated in other cities facing the similar problems, we might see the day when some of our urban engineering insults to nature are at least mitigated, if not reversed.

Further Reading:

Firm Awarded for Fish Hotel - Gurnee Review

Michigan Avenue “Fish Hotel” - Chicago Wilderness

Photo Credit: WRD Environmental

But the 2008 presidential election is too momentous to simply throw up your hands and flip a coin — or to allow yourself to be swayed by a strictly emotional reaction to the candidates. The next president’s administration will have to deal with a slew of problems facing the country, and global climate change is just one of them. If you care about environmental issues and want your political leaders to take the lead on addressing the root causes of environmental degradation that have gone unmitigated during the last several years, you’re going to want to vote for a candidate who puts the environment at the top of his or her agenda — right up there with the Iraq war, the economy, health care, and immigration reform.

So how do you find out which candidates support the environmental issues that matter to you? It’s hasn’t been easy to tell from mainstream press coverage because the environment has gotten pushed to the back burner by more hot-button issues during the campaign. But a number of online sources have done the homework for us, and offer helpful side-by-side comparisons of the environmental platforms on offer.

The team at Grist has created an easy-to-navigate comparison chart of all the candidates’ stances on renewable energy and other climate issues, like coal-fired and nuclear power plants. The page includes plenty of links for further exploration of the issues, so you can get as detailed as you like with your research.

On his blog ecopolitology, Green Options writer Tim Hurst highlights a handy environmental scorecard of the remaining presidential candidates produced by EnviroWonk, a new spin-off blog from the stalwart EcoGeek. Click to find out who passed and who failed.

And don’t forget to support the greenest political candidates in state and local races. The folks at the League of Conservation Voters do great work advocating for sound environmental policies and tracking the voting records of lawmakers at all levels of government. As their website states:

Through our National Environmental Scorecard and Presidential Report Card we inform the public about the most important environmental legislation of the past Congressional session and show them how their own and other representatives voted.

We run tough and effective campaigns to defeat anti-environment candidates, and support those leaders who stand up for a clean, healthy future for America.

We educate the public, build coalitions, promote grassroots power, and train the next generation of environmental leaders as part of our grassroots efforts.

The LCV bases its endorsements on incumbents’ scorecards (gleaned from their environmental voting records) and candidates’ responses to an extensive eco-issues questionnaire. Click here to search for the scorecards for your representatives.

Voters can also check out their state chapters of LCV to find out more about local races where candidates are receiving major endorsement from the League:

• California
• New York
• Illinois
• Arizona
• Connecticut

Whatever you do — Democrat or GOPster — get out and vote. Your planet is depending on you.

Photo credit: jimmckay.blogspot.com

Realistically, we’ve got a long way to go before such a claim can be made with a straight face, but progress is being made. Some of the bolder initiatives that City Hall has launched in recent years have worked to expand the use of green roofs, support sustainable architecture, and reduce waste from plastic water bottles. There are other examples, but suffice to say that the mayor is backing up his green rhetoric with some real political muscle in a bid to leave a legacy as an early 21st century environmental leader.

But one criticism that can be made about Daley’s approach so far to creating a more sustainable city is that it is very top-down. Municipal government can put in place programs to encourage better resource management, but it can’t mandate a local green economy into existence. Achieving that goal takes the vision, dedication, and hard work of countless green business entrepreneurs and environmentally conscious consumers. And let’s face it, most of us don’t really enjoy when the government tells us what to do. Even when City Hall tackles an issue we’re passionate about, most of us wonder to ourselves, “Why are they doing it that way? Wouldn’t it be more effective to do X with the money?”

If you’ve ever had such idea, imagine for a moment that you could get help from your local government agencies to help make it a reality. Wouldn’t it be great to have such ideas nurtured instead of being left to die on the vine?

Enter the Chicago Conservation Corps. Also known as “C3″, this initiative of the Chicago Department of Environment aims to “recruit, train and support a network of volunteers who work together to improve the quality of life in our neighborhoods through environmental service projects that protect our water, clean our air, restore our land and save energy.”

Since 2006 Chicago Conservation Corps has been partnering with local nonprofits and other city agencies to provide training, technical assistance and resources to local citizens to get their homegrown service projects off the ground. Participants are dubbed “C3 Leaders” and after attending an orientation session and being accepted into the program, they attend five 3-hour training classes on urban environmental principles and skills.

After completing the training classes, C3 Leaders turn their learning into action by developing and leading an environmental service project in their communities over several months. C3 Leaders receive support in the form of project development guidance, mentoring on community outreach, and up to $500 worth of materials and supplies for the project.

Examples of projects that have emerged from C3 include neighborhood home energy audits, ride-sharing programs, and community garden development. One woman even organized a Plastic Bottle Awareness Day to coincide with the Chicago Air and Water Show, the city’s second most popular outdoor festival and one which draws over 2 million people to the city’s lakefront each August. According to the C3 blog, M. Grace Sielaff put together a team of volunteers that picked up thousands of littered water bottles that the air show throngs produced and made sure the city recycled them. And they’re going to do it again next year.

The Chicago Conservation Corps strikes me as a great way to capture the creativity and passion of an increasingly eco-conscious citizenry. Great ideas for better communities often come from the ground up, and this initiative is helping nurture those ideas with a little bit of funding, a lot of expertise, and plain old networking. C3 is like nutrient-rich compost for the grassroots, and I’m all for it. It’s going to take more than top-down solutions from government to transform the infrastructure of this city and the lifestyles of its residents into a shining green example for the rest of the country.

If you’ve ever felt a pang of guilt about how much garbage is created when ordering takeout, you’ve got good reason.  All those disposable containers and plastic bags made from petroleum create an environmental impact that goes on long after you’ve enjoyed the last of your Pad Thai leftovers. According to one report cited on Treehugger, over 1 million plastic bags are consumed in this country every minute. How many of those bags wind up in landfills after one use or, worse, end up wreaking havoc on marine life in the world’s oceans, is difficult to calculate. But it’s a trend that has been on a troubling upswing for a long time.  

To address this problem, an increasing number of restaurants and other food service providers have started to switch from petroleum-based plastic take-out items to compostable products made from renewable resources, such as corn (PLA) and sugar cane fiber (bagasse).  One of the major barriers that restaurants face when switching to such bio-based containers, however, is a painful difference in cost.

For example, restaurateur Dan Rosenthal who runs casual-Italian minichain Sopraffina Marketcaffe in Chicago found that he would pay a heavy price to replace the 400,000 non-biodegradable plastic bags he went through each year. The switch would entail 7 cents more per bag, for a total of $28,000 every year.

As this inspiring profile that appeared in the Chicago Reader chronicles, Rosenthal ponied up the money to switch to the bio-based bags anyway because he couldn’t stand the thought that his restaurants might be killing the sea turtles his activist mother was trying to save in Florida. But he found it hard to expand his use of more eco-friendly disposable wares because of the high cost and, in some cases, sheer lack of availability from distributors in the Midwest.

So Rosenthal enlisted the help of another well-connected figure in the Chicago restaurant scene, Ina Pinkney, to help organize other food service providers to combine their buying power and lower costs. In fairly short order, they had assembled a loose federation of environmentally focused food service providers into the Green Chicago Restaurant Co-op.

Bringing other restaurateurs and industry professionals on board turned out to be the easy part. The new co-op had to negotiate complicated pricing structures with a hierarchy of manufacturers, brokers, distributors, and redistributors just to make green products available in the Chicago market at all. One of its first successes was landing a line of corn-based containers, cups, plates, and cutlery manufactured by a Boulder company called Eco-Products.

The Green Chicago Restaurant Co-op has now created enough momentum to begin expanding the types of green supplies it orders–toilet paper is next on the list. The co-op is also planning future projects such as a joint recycling program and a free trade show for hospitality professionals featuring more than 100 green manufacturers and suppliers.

Stories of business leaders with a concern for the environment banding together to goose the green economy always leave me feeling optimistic. It takes real courage to buck the system, especially when your livelihood is at stake. As the Readerstory relates, the road to eco-smart restaurant operations isn’t an easy one: Conventional distributors don’t take kindly to being replaced, and they are often willing to play hardball with the early adopters. Another twist in this story is the uncomfortable fact that a lot of these alternative products are produced in China, which significantly reduces the earth-friendly character

But as forward-thinking entrepreneurs like Rosenthal take it into their own hands to start changing the rules of the game, we move closer to the day in which “sustainable business” is just the way business is done. Congrats to the Chicago restaurants who’ve decided to band together and create the kind of momentum that moves the market, not just our consciences. In a food-loving city like Chicago, the changes they are bringing about now figure to have a significant impact in the very near future.

More information:

Chicago Reader - Going Green Without Going Broke

GreenBiz.com - Greening Your Take-out Packaging

Chow.com - How Green Is Your Takeaway Container

Photo credit: The Web Restaurant Store