There were regular commands of us to close the refrigerator door and turn off the lights. And on very hot days – to cool down – we would close out the light and place a block of ice in front of the fan. Translation? Sustainability, conservation, recycle and reuse.

Earth Works Community Garden in Detroit | flickr / Jessica Reeder

African Americans were green conscious before green was vogue. Our culture, geography, religion and economic reality dictated it.  Today our health, life quality and community viability depend on it.  Simply put, going green for the African American community means going back to our traditions.

Today we hear terms like compostable material, back in the day we knew it as fertilizer.  Things like discarded vegetable ends, eggshells, coffee grounds and lawn clippings.  The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency reports that these items account for 26 percent of our total municipal solid waste stream.  When homes, restaurants, stadiums, hotels, convention centers, schools and other places toss these otherwise environmental assets into the trash, they end up trapped in oxygen-starved landfills.  Packed tightly and not able to fully breakdown (or decompose), methane -  a gas that’s more damaging to air quality than car exhaust (carbon dioxide) is released into the air.

Often when I am speaking to communities of color about what it means to be green, it never fails to hear someone push back, “you mean a tree hugger”?  We don’t have to become tree huggers, not that anything is wrong with that.  But we can begin right where we are.

For instance, my granny use to call ‘em ‘croker sacks’.  She would tell me to grab hers as she headed off to the Detroit Eastern Market – an open farmers market.   Today, they are known as canvas sacks (reusable cloth bags) you carry to the grocery store to cut down on the use of plastic bags.

Instead of using wood or charcoal during the family reunions and BBQ’s, consider propane, it burns much cleaner and prevents carbon monoxide from entering the atmosphere, our food and lungs.

Let go of the foam cups, plates and plastic utensils.  First, be clear Styrofoam cups do not exist! But a polystyrene cup does – aka a foam cup. A chemical called styrene can migrate into your food from these items.  Studies show that if you eat or drink beverages from foam products Styrene migration happens.  This transfer of chemicals to your food or drinks happen faster as the fat (in a bowl of chili), heat (in a cup of coffee), alcohol content or acids (in tea with lemon) rises.

The urban centers in the Great Lakes region are burdened with more than its share of environmental risks and polluted industrial zones.  A green lifestyle is an ethical awareness of what we consume and its impact on our environment. Just as we didn’t move away from traditions over night, we won’t return to them over night either but if we begin one step at a time, we can get there and bring our children with us.

As a child, the actively agile carp was a tough fish to get into the boat once it was hooked.  Successful bouts at pulling them in made me the star of many fishing trips that often ended the same way.  Grandma would praise my efforts, unhook the deep-bellied, high-backed catch, call it a bottom feeder and fling it clear across the pond, lake or slow flowing water we were fishing in.  Not a one ever invaded our home-bound cooler full of perch, crappie and blue gill.

Today, the Great Lakes Region is facing a different type of carp.  Asian carp are distinguished as an invasive specie that enjoys warm, shallow waters rich in fish and nutrients – like Lake Erie. Imported into the southern states during the 1960s and 1970s, Asian carp were great for research and algae control but they subsequently escaped during floods and headed up the Mississippi River. They entered the waterways via man-made canals and ocean freighters.

The Asian carp is large and dubbed an eating machine with a nearly bottomless appetite for food crucial to native fish life.  With no known predator in the U.S. to keep this fish in check,  different types of Asian carp can top 50 pounds.  They are known to leap from the water when agitated by boat motors, decimate other aquatic life, disrupt the region’s $16 billion recreational boating industry and drastically increase harmful changes in our Great Lakes.

Appointed last year by President Obama, federal Carp Czar John Goss is charged with finding a solution in the battle against the big fish.  Czar Goss and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have unveiled a four-year plan to look at long-term solutions.

Challenges with the plan include the length of time it takes and that it goes beyond its congressional mandate to study ways to “prevent“ invasive species movement and includes a study to “reduce risk” which automatically hinders expedited resolve.

Right now the Chicago portion of the study will not be completed until mid-2015. And much needed construction funding will not be authorized until after the federal study is completed.

A most immediate concern is keeping Long Lake near Akron, marshes in Indiana and the Maumee River near Toledo (known as tributaries) protected because they feed into Lake Erie.  As the Asian carp get closer to the Great Lakes, other fish like perch and walleye are crowded out toppling a $7 billion fishing industry and further adding to the regions job loss.

The National Wildlife Federation is working to stop the siege of lakes by invasive species from all sources. Keeping the Asian carp out of the Great Lakes would be a huge victory for these freshwater seas and all who treasure and benefit from them.  Join us at www.nwf.org/asiancarp

This piece was also published in the Cleveland Call & Post and The Michigan Chronicle.

Simone Lightfoot heads up regional urban initiatives for the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Great Lakes Regional Center. She integrates the work of the NWF with the region’s urban green efforts including air and water quality, sustainability, climate change, solid and hazardous waste, recycling, environmental justice, water conservation, invasive species, aged infrastructure, mass transit, wind energy, community college trainings and new economy jobs.

flickr / Gehad Hadidi

As a sister girl from Detroit – 12th st., Linwood and Grand River area – I experienced massive culture shock going off to the military after high school.

Serving under Daddy Bush the first time the U.S. went into the Middle East, I shared my living quarters with a white  roommate from Minnesota.  During the winter months – while barely clothed – they would park the thermostat between 62˚- 65˚ F.  I on the other hand would huddle in the corner of the couch layered in long johns, a robe and thick socks. Their daily hair washing left my bi-weekly attempts frequently without shampoo.  I drank whole milk, they drank 2%. I sopped my biscuits in butter and Alaga syrup, they chose plain.  I listened to Run DMC, they liked Bruce Hornsby and the Range.

Throughout the military our differences were plentiful but the one thing each soldier had in common was “the mission”, it came first.  Though not everyone had the role of leading the mission, every role was mission essential.

Across the Great Lakes region, every urban center is essential to our collective green success as we look to double exports, rely less on carbon, manufacture clean technologies, build greener communities and create employment.  Jobs like installers, line workers, electricians and pipe fitters, green entrepreneurs, urban planners, sustainability systems developers, recyclers and wind turbine fabricators.

The Midwest region is rich in opportunity to capture a leading green role.   Consider just a few of the many things we have to offer.  The global trade networks, with Dayton, Detroit, Indianapolis, Grand Rapids, Toledo and Youngstown are among the country’s to 20 metro areas with metro output exported abroad.

We have the research capacity of 15 major public and private research universities and manufacturing know how to build a clean low-carbon and clean energy economy. Michigan, Ohio and Illinois are among the top states in green tech patenting.  Be it battery technologies, hybrid systems or fuels cells,  not to mention wind energy, solar renewable component manufacturing or our blue waterways.

Even with all of our assets, historic challenges with race, class and equity remain.  Our green discussions, plans and projects must include and provide opportunity for urban center residents at all income levels, to obtain the education needed to work and create good paying jobs with benefits.   We have the chance to leverage our needs and assets with a new level, depth and type of engagement that aligns federal, state and local policies with philanthropic policies and investments.  This will better position the region to successfully compete with the realities of a changing world.

Essential to the success of this work is how urban centers and people of color are factored in. Our quest for regional green equity requires elected, selected, anointed and appointed policy makers be future focused.  They must think technically, act consciously and have a transparent commitment to oversight and inclusion. Our regional vision must connect our priorities, policies, investments and infrastructure with the urban realities on the ground.  Only then can we consider the mission of achieving regional green equity a success.

Simone Lightfoot heads up regional urban initiatives for the National Wildlife Federation (NWF) Great Lakes Regional Center. She integrates the work of the NWF with the region’s urban green efforts including air and water quality, sustainability, climate change, solid and hazardous waste, recycling, environmental justice, water conservation, invasive species, aged infrastructure, mass transit, wind energy, community college trainings and new economy jobs.

Years ago as a young staffer in the Michigan House of Representatives I had the great privilege of working for the Speaker Pro Tempore (second in charge) who also served as chairman of the House Labor committee.  By virtue of his position and the power that came with it, he single-handedly protected labor laws and the rights of public employees – always respecting the broad roles public employees play.

Today’s heightened political rhetoric of anti-environment; anti-renewable energy; anti-conservation; anti-labor and anti-public employees emanating from both the Congress and the states indicate that we are at an important crossroad. These challenges relate to one another and solutions lay in both our history and good common sense.

flickr / Clyde Robinson

Before public services – as we know them today – cities were squalid with inadequate water systems, over run refuse and barely tolerable living conditions.  Citizens relied on volunteer fire fighters, night watchman (not police) and individual property owners collecting trash and sweeping the streets.  It was precisely when the economic vitality and very existence of municipalities became threatened that nineteenth century civic and business elites, chose to support public services and public employees.  Once provided, these services became institutionalized, normal and routine; there was no going back…until today.

Public employees are essential to all life, life quality and advancing societies’ green best interest. They are those teachers and college instructors who introduce us to science, research and technological innovation around our natural resources (water, land and air).  They are judges who interpret energy and environmental laws, inspectors that ensure compliance of those laws and police officers that enforce violators of the law.

They are first responders like paramedics and firefighters, public health workers responsible for emergency preparedness and catastrophe relief.  Public lighting workers, snow plow drivers who clear our roads and bus drivers who transport our children and seniors.

Public employees provide cross coordination of broad agency efforts protecting animals, plant life and our waterways. They ensure against pollution, pesticides, radiation and toxic substances, and look out for public parks, wilderness, wildlife and endangered species.  Public employees protect our forestry, soil conservation, atmospheric monitoring and marine animals.  Including environmental clean up, restoration, city infrastructure, sewage and waste disposal not to mention safe workplace conditions, public safety, licensing and regulating along with broad municipal services at local city, county and township offices.

Although change is necessary all around, our collective reliance on and consumption of the indispensable benefits provided by public employees and green programs are indisputable.  But so is government’s role in backing public laws that are meaningful, measured and tempered through a humane lens amidst budget deficits. Congress and state legislatures must ensure clean and safe water, air, and land amidst budget deficits while respecting and valuing those public employees charged with carrying out that work.

This piece was also published in The Michigan Chronicle, The Cincinnati Herald and The Cleveland Call & Post.

Photo by Theresa Thompson

The weeks leading up to election 2010 were exhausting, from helping family members navigate absentee ballots, to engaging the faith community.  Not to mention taking part in political conversations, strategy sessions and debates pertaining to urban cities across the Great Lakes region.

In cities across the region attack ads, partisan sensationalism and over-the-top accusations defined the electoral season.  Solutions, or even references to greening our urban centers, were basically nonexistent.

Public policy makers up for election throughout the Great Lakes region barely mentioned urban vitality, surplus land reuse, urban farming, alternative energy, oil spills or the impact of climate change. There was no big push for urban recycling, stronger but greener cities, neighborhood preservation or green uses for vacant lands and buildings.  Mum was the word – but why?

Well, consider several factors.  First, although urban areas are widely recognized as the engines of economic prosperity, and essential to the Great Lakes regions renewal, to date green talking points and campaign slogans have not proven catchy in our cities.

Secondly, the urban electorate and voter turn out during off year elections play a major role in what political campaigns focus on – or not.

Then there are those in politics who view green advocates as tree-huggers that lack diversity, in other words, not quite the political mainstream.  Conversations behind the scenes revealed that many state and federal candidates view urban sustainability as a local issue (city, township, village, etc.) and they do not fully understand the local implications of climate change.

So, what do the Great Lakes region’s older industrial metropolitan areas do now? Having served both as an advocate for change and then on the other side as an elected official, the suggestion would be a “both and” not an “either or” approach.

Sustainability and climate change advocates must remain vigilant while reconfiguring our strategies based on which party is in control, which person is in place and what priorities are set.   We have to keep sounding the alarm that over the last 25 years cities in the Great Lakes region have undergone drastic changes.  The kind of changes that warrant state and federal policies that leverage, reflect and fund these new realities.

Compartmentalization can no longer be the order of the day.  We must understand
the connections between the environment and social issues to effectively
address:

• Climate change and health concerns specific to a rising senior population
• Retrofitting housing and assisting residents on fixed incomes
• Green jobs and felon re-enfranchisement, displaced autoworkers and single heads of households
• Air quality and asthma rates
• Technical needs and public education
• Smart growth and managing land inventories
• Linking central cities to their suburban areas and addressing race relations
• Comprehensive green planning, environmental justice and brownfield remediation and including voices and views of color
• New sustainable communities along with stormwater management, aligned public
• Transportation and insurance redlining
• Leveraging our regions university and medical center assets and at the same
• Time addressing higher education affordability
• Energy conservation and utility rates
• Urban sprawl and wildlife preservation

The list is infinite and the old suburb vs. inner city political barriers are outdated.

Urban centers within the Great Lakes region are rich in opportunity to address complex green challenges that now necessitate integrated, holistic and multidimensional responses.

Policy makers are not all knowing so let’s not assume otherwise. Send the winners of election 2010 a note of congratulations, introduce yourself and let them know that you will be in constant contact.  Attach a list of green solutions and a set of green talking points of your choice and then…hold them accountable.

Learn more about the NWF’s Great Lakes Urban Initiatives and Fair Climate work.