It was an unusually warm day in the greater Chicago region as I drove north towards Waukegan, IL in January. The temperature gauge in the car read 46 and it was only 7:30 in the morning. It was somewhat ironic that it was this warm, since I was on my way to present the Eco-Schools Green Flag award to the Cristo Rey St. Martin College Prep School(CRSMCP), who had been working for four years to reduce their environmental footprint, addressing such issues as energy use, climate change and waste reduction.

At 8 a.m. every Monday morning, CRSMCP comes together to share, learn and on this day to celebrate the tremendous strides they had made as a learning community in becoming more sustainable. This small, Catholic High School and their environmental club have been able to reduce their energy use by over 15% and their waste by over 50%. Over the past three years, CRSMCP has participated in the HSBC Eco-Schools Climate Initiative which is focused on developing a global network of schools actively participating in learning about climate change and finding ways to reduce carbon emissions and energy use in their schools and local communities.

CRSMCP Receives Green Flag Award – NWF

Academy of Global Citizenship

As the day progressed and I headed south towards Chicago, the temperature kept rising and instead of a cold, snowy and windy day which one would expect in late January in Chicago, it was mild and  sunny. I was heading south to visit and award another amazing school with the Green Flag Award, The Academy of Global Citizenship (AGC) a charter school in south Chicago.

Over the past four years, AGC has worked with NWF’s Eco-Schools USA, and  Schoolyard Habitat programs, the HSBC Eco-Schools Climate Initiative, and the Wrigley’s Litter Less Campaign to reduce their carbon footprint. Students at AGC spend over two hours a week outside in their gardens and outdoor learning classrooms, collecting eggs and vegetables and composting their breakfast and lunch waste. To date the Academy had diverted over 14,000 pounds of waste from the landfill and have a zero-waste breakfast and lunch program. They also have been able to reduce their carbon emissions by 17.8 tons!

As Dan Schnitzer, Director of Sustainability and Operations points out, “Our work on sustainability and our time outdoors is central to our curriculum. We use the natural world as a lens to learn and inspire and enable our students to take positive actions toward a more sustainable future.”

AGC Green Flag Award – NWF

Congratulations to both of these NWF Eco-Schools USA Green Flag Schools!

To resgister to become an NWF Eco-School or to learn more about the  program check out our website at: www.eco-schoolsusa.org

40,000 heat records have already been broken this year across the United States, according to the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. Here in Fredericksburg, Virginia, the signs of an unbalanced climate system have been felt in recent years not just in heatwaves, but increasingly in the form of unusually severe wind storms. This past weekend’s storm brought 80 mph wind gusts that snapped three trees in our backyard like pretzels, even though they were each a foot thick. Once again, my insurance company is teaching me new weather terminolgy to explain the latest climate disasters. A few years ago, the term was “micro-bursts” (not quite tornadoes, but similar impact). Now it is “derecho” (not quite hurricanes, but similar impact).

Global CO2 Emissions 1900-2008, via U.S. Department of Energy.

The current heat wave and climate disasters shouldn’t be catching us by surprise. Since the year 2000, we have witnessed nine of the ten hottest years ever recorded, according to NASA’s Goddard Institute for Space Studies, which tracks global surface temperatures. The first three months of this year has been the warmest first quarter ever in the United States, and March was an alarming 8 degrees warmer than average. As the planet heats, weather patterns are destabilized. Warm air sucks more water from the ground and holds more water (about 4% more for every 1 degree F increase in temperature). That’s one of the reasons our warming planet has been creating historic droughts out West and dumping torrential rains in the Midwest (in Iowa, for example, there have been four “100-year” flood events in the past 5 years, and 17 emergency disaster declarations for floods in the past two decades).

Scary Weather is a Warning:  We Need to Act

For the moment, we are paying attention to the weatherman, and the weather is scary.  But the media is still asleep at the switch when it comes to reporting the real story:  What is causing this climate to unravel?  The U.S. National Academy of Sciences completed an exhaustive review of scientific research and concluded more forcefully than ever in a landmark 2011 report that pollution from smokestacks and tailpipes is destabilizing our climate.  Here is how they put it in scientific terms:

“Climate change is occurring, is very likely caused primarily by the emission of greenhouse gases from human activities, and poses significant risks for a range of human and natural systems. … The sooner that serious efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions proceed, the lower the risks posed by climate change, and the less pressure there will be to make larger, more rapid, and potentially more expensive reductions later.”

Clear enough?  If not, here is a strong hint of what is going on: In the past 50 years, we have added one trillion tons of heat-trapping carbon dioxide emissions to the atmosphere from burning coal, oil and natural gas (Source: U.S. Department of Energy). Over this time, the amount of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere has increased 23%, from 322 ppm to 397 ppm (Source:  Mauna Loa Record, Scripps CO2 Program).

We can’t do anything about yesterday’s weather, but we need to be responsible stewards of the world we shape for our kids and future generations. We want to pass on a natural world full of abundant wildlife, but wildlife species are increasingly at risk as climate change threatens the very existence of thousands of species. Pollution from smokestacks and tailpipes  is loading the dice and increasing the likelihood of more frequent and increasingly severe storms and heat waves.  If we don’t talk about the source of the problems, then we can’t do anything about it. The decisions we make today will shape the future for generations to come. Why? Because much of the heat-trapping carbon pollution we put into the atmosphere will increase CO2 levels for centuries and even millennia. According to the IPCC’s 2007 report on the state of climate science:

“About 50% of a CO2 increase will be removed from the atmosphere within 30 years, and a further 30% will be removed within a few centuries. The remaining 20% may stay in the atmosphere for many thousands of years.”

So What Can We Do?

All we lack is the determination and leadership to change course on energy. We need more businesses to provide better energy options than are currently available to families. Some companies are out in front, including automobile manufacturers who have embraced goals of doubling the fuel economy of their vehicles by 2025. But other companies, such as Dominion Power here in Virginia, are dragging their heels and doing more to block the march to cleaner energy than help.

The best and first solution to reduce our “carbon footprint” on the planet is to stop wasting energy. Energy has long been taken for granted by consumers and businesses alike; we waste far more of it than we need to. We need to each do our part and pay more attention to how we use energy. But we also need to get more ambitious as a nation to bring to market the abundant ideas and technologies engineers and entrepreneurs have to cut energy waste.

To supply the energy we need, we have to rapidly accelerate the switch away from fossil fuels to renewable energy sources such as wind, geothermal and solar—energy sources that don’t pollute and don’t run out. These homegrown energy sources create jobs installing and maintaining the technologies. America already has 2.7 million clean economy jobs building a healthier environment, and clean energy is one of the fastest growing sources of good paying jobs in the nation. In addition, we depend on America’s great outdoors for 6 million jobs in the outdoor recreation industries, contributing $730 billion to the U.S. economy.

Wishful thinking won’t make this happen. America has vast wind, solar and geothermal resources, and the affordability and efficiency of renewable energy technologies such as wind and solar have been improving by leaps and bounds. But solar, wind and geothermal still account for less than 3 percent of U.S. electricity. The growth of these industries is being held back by the entrenched fossil fuel energy companies who are quite happy selling us coal and oil. American families and businesses spend $3 billion every day on oil, coal and natural gas.

It’s up to each of us to do what we can, but we won’t get the change we need unless we hold the politicians we elect accountable to make sure that energy companies everywhere are doing their fair share.  Congress continues to dole out billions of dollars to oil companies while vital tax credits for renewable energy are set to expire at the end of this year.

But there is one bright spot that could mark a turning point in whether we are getting serious about carbon pollution. The Environmental Protection Agency has proposed clean air standards to limit industrial carbon pollution from new power plants.  Polluters are launching a fierce counterattack and spending lavishly on lobbying and campaign contributions. One thing you can do right now is to join the more than two million Americans who have written the Environmental Protection Agency to support their new carbon standards. More Americans have supported this rule than any other federal rule in history.

It’s only a start, but standing up now for a better future is the right thing to do.  And who knows? Perhaps we can get some wind at our backs to take us where we need to go.

Pervious surfaces can help reduce the energy need to manage stormwater runoff by allowing water to filter through to the soil. (Michael F. Hein)

Traditional concrete made with Portland cement, used for constructing buildings and paving streets, gets its poor carbon reputation primarily from the energy required to manufacture it. The process of calcination requires a great deal of energy to heat calcium carbonate to 2,400°F to form lime, and adds an extra carbon load when lime and silica-containing materials are combined, resulting in the release of carbon dioxide. Transporting heavy ingredients such as sand adds an additional climate impact. Together, these factors play a major role in cement production’s 2.4 percent share of the global industrial- and energy-related carbon dioxide emissions pie.

But manufacturing and transporting concrete aren’t the only energy drains related to traditional concrete. Researchers are currently looking into two end-use climate impacts of concrete: stormwater runoff and increases in the urban heat island effect. Sustainable concrete designs offer solutions to these problems as well as to the issue of energy-intensity inherent in traditional concrete.

First, pervious concrete and permeable pavements help to save energy by mitigating stormwater runoff. Both designs consist of numerous voids (pervious concrete is composed of approximately 20 to 25 percent air space), resulting in a honeycomb-like structure. This permeable nature allows stormwater to drain down through several inches of material where it slowly infiltrates into the soil and eventually replenishes the water table. The water can also be drained into storage tanks where it is held until used on a property for irrigation and other non-potable purposes. An added benefit: the water is naturally filtered as it percolates through the system, removing many environmental pollutants and contaminants, including metals.

By contrast, where traditional concrete pavement is used, institutions invest in facilities to manage stormwater runoff such as catch basins, culverts, detention ponds, storm drains and the like, and energy is then used to convey the water and reintroduce into the environment. An NRDC Technical Report (A Clear Blue Future) notes that the state of California uses 19 percent of its electricity and 33 percent of non-power-plant natural gas for conveying and treating water. Some of this expense could be avoided with pervious surfaces, which are able to virtually eliminate stormwater runoff when properly designed.

“Typical native soils in the US absorb water during rainfall at the rate of 3 inches per hour,” says Dan Huffman, better known as “Mr. Pervious” of the National Ready Mixed Concrete Association. “With pervious concrete, we are very often able to manage stormwater at a rate of 200 inches of rain per hour. So as fast as rain can fall, it hits the surface, goes right through, and is gone.”

A close-up of permeable concrete. (Michael F. Hein)

Further, pervious pavements and interlocking concrete pavements, can be combined with ground source heat pumps to serve as thermal reservoirs for storage of heat or cold. As David Smith, technical director at the Interlocking Concrete Pavement Institute (an organization that represents the interlocking concrete pavement industry) puts it, “This technology has high potential in many parts of this country. This type of integral technology is what sustainable design and energy conservation are about.”

The second climate benefit of permeable pavements is the savings in cooling costs for buildings near paved parking lots. Dr. Liv Haselbach, associate professor at Washington State University, Pullman, recently presented brand new research at the Countermeasures to Urban Heat Islands Conference that suggests pervious concrete could indirectly help to reduce urban air conditioning requirements by preventing heat transfer. “Go to the beach in the summer and you’ll find the dark asphalt to be very hot on bare feet,” Haselbach illustrates. “If you walk instead on lighter-colored pavement, the heat isn’t as intense, so color matters. But if you walk on dark green grass, it’s not hot either. That’s because soils have voids and holes and can allow some evaporation from water in deeper layers, cooling the surface.”

Working on this premise, the research team (from Iowa State, led by John Kevern) embedded thermocouples into progressively deeper layers underneath traditional concrete and pervious concrete (with an aggregate sub-base of 18 inches). Tracking temperature changes by the hour, they discovered that pervious concrete pulled in slightly less heat than traditional concrete. Despite the fact that pervious concrete is often darker in color compared to traditional concrete, the void structure of pervious concrete acts as insulation and prevents the pavement from storing heat that would otherwise raise evening temperatures and result in a greater use of air conditioning in nearby buildings.

Pervious concrete (recognized as a US EPA Recommended Best Management Practice) and interlocking pavement designs are both commercially available and have been shown to work well in any climate-from Florida to Alaska. Generally speaking, these surfaces last longer (40+ years) than both concrete and asphalt (where resurfacing is required every 15 to 20 years), even in areas where the freeze-thaw cycles are extreme with some 150 year old installations still holding up well.

And it’s not just for low-use areas, either; pervious surfaces have been tested extensively in high-traffic locales as well. UNC-CH has installed permeable pavement at eight locations comprising more than 15 acres of their campus, including four large park-and-ride lots where commuters catch buses. Another site uses permeable interlocking concrete blocks. “Permeable pavement is part of our larger water resources strategy, which also includes using less-energy intensive harvested rainwater and reclaimed water,” comments Sally Hoyt, stormwater systems engineer.

Yet despite its versatility and durability, pervious surfaces have yet to make a significant showing in institutional building plans. “That’s just the way that the construction industry is-we don’t adapt to change very well and there’s lots of interest in protecting the status quo,” says Huffman. “Most geotechnical engineers learn early on in their education and spend most of their careers trying to keep water out from underneath pavement. Using permeable surfaces requires a major paradigm shift for them.”