Frustrated by Bush administration inaction on global warming, states and environmentalists urged the Supreme Court Wednesday to declare greenhouse gases to be air pollutants that the government must regulate.

The court’s first case on the politically charged topic showed an apparent split between its liberal and conservative justices, with Anthony Kennedy potentially the decisive vote in determining whether the administration must abandon its refusal to treat carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases as air pollutants that imperil public health.

Justice Samuel Alito, who with Chief Justice John Roberts seemed most skeptical of the states’ position, said that even in the best of circumstances, the reduction in greenhouse gases would be relatively small.

Justice David Souter indicated that every little bit would help. ”They don’t have to show that it will stop global warming. Their point is that will reduce the degree of global warming and likely reduce the degree of loss,” he said.

The case involves whether the Environmental Protection Agency must regulate emissions of greenhouse gases from new vehicles under a provision of the Clean Air Act. When a decision comes sometime before July, it could have a significant ripple effect that could extend to power plants as well as states’ efforts to impose more stringent regulations on car tailpipe emissions.

Many scientists believe that greenhouse gases, flowing into the atmosphere at an unprecedented rate, are leading to a warming of the Earth, rising sea levels and other marked ecological changes.

Carbon dioxide, the principal ”greenhouse” gas, is produced when fossil fuels such as oil and natural gas are burned. One way to reduce those emissions is to have more fuel-efficient cars.

”We own property, 200 miles of coastline, that we’re losing,” Massachusetts assistant attorney general James Milkey said on behalf of 12 states and 13 environmental groups that sued EPA.

Deputy Solicitor General Gregory Garre, representing the Bush administration, cautioned justices that EPA regulation could have a significant economic impact on the United States because 85 percent of the U.S. economy is tied to sources of greenhouse gas emissions.

Garre also argued that the EPA was right not to act given ”the substantial scientific uncertainty surrounding global climate change.”

Roberts pointed out that regulating carbon dioxide emissions from new vehicles addresses just one aspect of an issue of global dimensions.

The argument by those pushing for EPA action on vehicle emissions might or might not be valid, but it ”assumes everything else is going to remain constant,” Roberts observed.

Whether Roberts was correct, Congress is expected to become more involved next year in the debate on global warming because newly empowered Democrats have promised to give the issue a thorough airing.

Unions representing 10,000 EPA employees — more than half the agency’s work force — petitioned Congress on Wednesday seeking immediate action to address global warming. The employees also sent a signal to the Supreme Court that most of the agency’s rank-and-file disagree with the Bush administration’s approach on the issue.

The administration’s strongest argument at the court may have been in asserting that the states and environmental groups did not meet their legal burden to show they will be harmed by continued EPA inaction. Petitioners to courts must cross that threshold before the merits of a case may be addressed.

Milkey pointed out that even small reductions would be meaningful, pointing out that very small rises in the sea level would inundate significant portions of low-lying coastal land.

On this issue, in particular, Kennedy may well hold the key, lawyers on both sides of the case said. ”Justice Kennedy is the one everyone is focusing on and rightly so,” said Ann Klee, a former EPA general counsel in the Bush administration.

The case is Massachusetts v. Environmental Protection Agency, 05-1120.

[Read the New York Times article here.]

When the American architect Richard Meier was asked to design a church in Rome to commemorate the 2,000th anniversary of Christianity, he offered an imposing white concrete structure dominated by three soaring “sails.”

Richard Meier-designed church in Rome that ‘eats’ smog. Photo courtesy New York Times. (Click to enlarge)The project’s main technical sponsor got to work on a coating that would enhance Mr. Meier’s trademark white sculptural forms. It came up with a material that essentially cleans itself, minimizing the need for maintenance.

What the sponsor, the Italcementi Group, did not know was that the new material — which contains titanium dioxide, a white pigment — has another peculiarity. It “eats” surrounding smog.

Extensive testing has since determined that construction products containing titanium dioxide help to destroy pollutants found in car exhaust and heating emissions, scientists say.

Several companies are now developing smog-eating products that can be used not only for the facades of buildings but also in paint, plaster and paving materials for roads. The new substances are now being tried in buildings, squares and highways in Europe and Japan.

Hailed by some scientists as a breakthrough, the process is still being evaluated by others. The question, said Melanie L. Sattler, professor of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Texas at Arlington, is “whether coatings on buildings would be able to treat enough of the atmospheric air to make a difference.”

Titanium dioxide had been used in self-cleaning coatings before because of its photocatalytic properties: sunlight sets off a chemical reaction that accelerates natural oxidation. Upon testing its new compound, however, Italcementi realized that the material could also break down nitrogen oxides emitted in the burning of fossil fuels.

“Theoretical work in photocatalysis has been going on since the 1980s,” said Enrico Borgarello, Italcementi’s director of research and development. “The problem is that no one had developed any practical applications.”

According to Italcementi, tests in urban settings determined that some pollutants could be reduced by 20 to 70 percent.

The reduction of pollutants is greatest within about eight feet of a surface that has been treated, the company said. This means that a pedestrian on a street with traffic would inhale fewer pollutants while passing treated buildings.

In one test, paving material using photocatalytic cement was used to cover the asphalt surface of a 1,000-foot stretch of road outside Milan with an average traffic flow of 1,000 vehicles an hour. Tests showed a reduction of about 60 percent in nitrogen oxides at street level, according to Italcementi.

Environmental scientists and engineers are following the development with keen interest.

“Philosophically, it is better never to form pollutants than to find ways to destroy pollutants, but this is a useful technique for air pollutants that humans already make,” said Dr. Howard Liljestrand, a specialist in environmental chemistry at the University of Texas at Austin.

But he cautioned that the cost efficiency of such products would depend on long-term performance, adding, “Catalysts tend to lose their effectiveness over time.”

Now that Italcementi’s product, TX Active, has gone beyond the testing phase, does it work? Three years after Mr. Meier’s church opened in Tor Tre Teste, in eastern Rome, the bulk of the majestic structure remains remarkably bright, in contrast to the grimy gray joints, which were not treated with the product.

“It’s hard to say if it’s revolutionary,” Mr. Meier said by telephone, “but we’re happy with the results.”

[Read the article in the New York Times here.]

Why are citizens of the City of Light so intent on finding space for parks and gardens, for street trees and nature strips? For that matter, why would any city go to the bother and expense of growing green space in the stone and steel of an urban environment? At a time when half the world’s population lives in cities (a proportion expected to grow to 60 percent by 2030) and funds may be scarce for urban housing, schools, social services, fire and police protection, this is no trivial question.
Green space in Paris. (Click to enlarge)It’s true that in Paris, as in many other cities, parks and gardens are a luxury. “But they are also essential,” says Martine Petelot, a member of the Jardin Nomade, a small community garden on a vacant lot in the congested 11th arrondissement.

If the recent renaissance in urban parks and public spaces is any indication, many city residents and planners share Petelot’s perspective. The past five to ten years have seen an explosion of tree planting in cities and the creation of new parks and public gathering spots—a revolution inspired in part by new science.

A growing body of research suggests that spaces filled with leafy vegetation filter pollution and trap tiny particles of dirt and soot: Street trees can reduce airborne particulates from car and bus exhaust. Large groves of trees may have an even more profound green-lung effect for cities, cleansing the air of dangerous chemicals. In Chicago, scientists found that each year trees removed some 234 tons (212 metric tons) of particulates, 98 tons (89 metric tons) of nitrogen dioxide, 93 tons (84 metric tons) of sulfur dioxide, and 17 tons (15 metric tons) of carbon monoxide.

Tree leaves block sunlight as well, cooling islands of heat generated by hard city surfaces. The temperature of asphalt or concrete under a shade tree can be as much as 36°F (20°C) cooler than a patch of pavement in full summer sun; the air up under the canopy of mature trees may be five to ten degrees cooler.

Over the past decade, Frances Kuo and her colleagues at the Landscape and Human Health Laboratory of the University of Illinois have researched the effects of green space on city dwellers. The team carries out many of its studies in Chicago’s public housing neighborhoods, where barren expanses of hardscape reflect the old view that vegetation is an extravagance the city can’t afford.

One sequence of studies focused on residents of the Robert Taylor Homes, a cluster of 28 identical high-rise buildings, now mostly torn down, that formed the nation’s largest public housing development. Some of the buildings were surrounded by grass and trees, others by concrete and asphalt. Kuo and her team discovered that people living in buildings near green areas had a stronger sense of community and coped better with everyday stress and hardship. They were less aggressive and less violent, they performed better on tests of concentration, they managed their problems more effectively.

They also felt safer—and with good reason. In one of its more startling findings, the team upended the common belief that barren spaces are safer than green ones. A study of violent crime in a housing project of 98 apartment buildings showed that in and around buildings near vegetation that didn’t hamper visibility there were only half as many crimes as in areas near no vegetation. The greener the surroundings, says Kuo, the lower the crime rate against people and property. The team also found less litter and graffiti in natural landscapes.

[Read the full article from National Geographic here.]

Kia Sandstorm (click to enlarge)Designers on the road to the future in this year’s rendition of the Design Challenge, a shoot-out of car concepts submitted by local satellite design studios at the Los Angeles auto show, includes visions of a green Hummer — just as the Governator has promised — a wooden Mercedes and self-fabricating Volkswagens. The contest mandate focuses on green cars — not just zero-emission ones but fully recyclable vehicles. As befits the home of the film industry, the nine entries are not real cars but exist only as glittering digital images.

The studios took on the challenge with varying degrees of intensity and seriousness. BMW DesignWorks handed the task of creating a Mini entry to an intern designer, Gary Shiu. The Hummer 02 is credited to five designers at the General Motors West Coast Advanced Design Studio, including its chief, Frank Saucedo.

The Hummer 02 is built of panels containing living algae that theoretically produce more oxygen than its engine consumes. They unfold when the vehicle is parked and look like solar panels on a Mars lander. The Mercedes-Benz entry, the Recy, puts wooden wheel covers on a body inspired by Riva yachts. The Mini BioMoke is made of biodegradable panels impregnated with palm tree seeds, compostable after a five-year life cycle.

To offset the resources consumed in designing its Dynamic Space Frame entry, Audi purchased wind power from Renewable Energy Choice and planted trees through Trees for the Future’s Global Cooling Program. The Volkswagen Nanospyder is to be manufactured by “submolecular assemblers” who create objects from the atom up. Kia has taken the assignment with a bit of humor. It aims the Sandstorm, a dune buggy with a biodiesel plug-in hybrid, at beach bums and “ecofashionistas.”

Toyotas’ R.L.V., or renewable lifestyle vehicle, alternates between pedal drive and electric drive, saving on gym membership fees by turning the commute to work into an exercise session. Honda’s Extreme is a life-stage vehicle designed for easy alteration of its body to keep up with the changing biography of its owner.

These technologies are part fun, part silly, but all proof of the power of the dream of the “green Hummer”— the rolling embodiment of guilt-free gluttony. The hobo’s song was born of an empty stomach. The car designers’ dreams are born of a car culture running on empty, hungering for new ideas to let Angelenos (and the rest of us) keep pursuing our love affair with the automobile.

The winner will be announced at the show on Nov. 30. The concepts are online at laautoshow.com.

[Read the New York Times article here.]

From New York magazine:

The next time you’re in Central Park, go up to Harlem Meer on the north end, then wander westward on the pathway into the heart of the park. After the first sharp turn, look off to the west and you’ll see a thick stand of ash, its rough bark set off by delicate oval leaves. Long before New York existed, the ash thrived in this region, and the city’s settlers used the tree’s dense but springy wood to make everything from church pews to baseball bats. The ash has been here since the beginning.

But its time is about to come to an end. In recent years, foresters have quietly decided not to plant any new ash trees. Why? Because the city is becoming too warm and dry for them, and they’re dying off. Green and white ash, our local varieties, are classified as “hardiness zone three or four,” northern trees that prefer moist, well-drained soil. New York used to be like that, 200 years ago—but the temperature in the past century has risen over two degrees, and it’s getting drier every year. “Last year we had stretches without rain that were practically six weeks long,” says Neil Calvanese, vice-president of operations for the Central Park Conservancy, which maintains the park. And the warmer weather has introduced new wood-eating bugs that afflict the tree. Normally an ash will live 250 years, but this summer Calvanese had to chop down a majestic 130-footer when it stopped thriving. “Ash in the park,” he says, “I really don’t see as having much of a future.”

So he’s decided to let the ash slowly die off. An urban forester has to think decades into the future, and the city’s only going to get hotter and hotter. Instead of the ash, city foresters are starting to plant trees like the persimmon, which thrives in southern climates like Washington’s or even Atlanta’s. Because that’s what the future of New York looks like, weather-wise: There will be fewer and fewer wooden baseball bats and church pews—but plenty of reddish-purple persimmon fruit.

Nor is Calvanese alone in planning for the next 50 years. In September, while unveiling plans for a new city bureau, the Office of Long-term Planning and Sustainability, the mayor pledged to make climate-change issues a priority. It’s not hard to understand why the idea finally occurred to Bloomberg. This summer, the weather was Topic A among New Yorkers, as we sweltered through a record-busting heat wave in July. You could see it in the worried faces of people as they marched miserably down the liquefying sidewalks this summer: Is this it? Has global warming finally arrived? Is this what we’re in for—permanently? The abrupt shift into a spookily mild fall, and especially the freakishly warm last few weeks, has only fanned the conversational fires.

If it seems like the city has been getting hotter for years, it’s not your imagination: Six of the top-ten hottest summers in the city have occurred since 1990. (In fact, we haven’t had a top-ten coolest summer since 1927.) But our summers aren’t the only extreme weather, because our winters have been breaking records in precisely the other direction. The last four winters have all had snowfalls way above average, a string that we haven’t seen since the 1800s. Worse, that record-breaking snow is coming in huge dumps—not a flake in the sky for months and months, then a huge blizzard that sweeps through town, brings the city to a halt, and vanishes a week later.

The weather isn’t just getting harsher: It’s getting weirder. Here’s why.

[Read the full article here.]