In 2001, I was tapped to lead an affordable housing initiative called First Homes in Rochester MN for which I was sorely unprepared. We've financed more than 950 units of housing since 2001, in Rochester MN and the surrounding area. That's more than $150 million of investment in affordable rental and ownership housing. Our charge at the beginning was to create housing units for the local workforce as fast as possible. More than 100 local businesses, led by the Mayo Clinic, contributed more than $14 million to get things started.

I'm proud of our achievements, particularly the affordable homes we've helped create which provide a stable, affordable lifestyle for many low income families and children.

But there's a catch. Many of the homes we helped create contributed to sprawl. Our initial charge to create affordable homes fast meant that we took the fastest road when it came to siting developments.

In order to get things rolling, we had to go where the land was, and more importantly, where the ownership, zoning and infrastructure would allow for quick development timelines. It sounds obvious, but when a group of businesses give you $14 million, they expect results - right away. One thing we did right from the start was prohibit predatory mortgages, so we've avoided much of the housing crisis repercussions as a result.

I knew what we were doing wasn't sustainable. I knew that it could be much better. It took someone who literally knows nothing about housing or real estate finance to help show me the way.

I've been friends with polar explorer Eric Larsen since freshman year in college in 1989. Eric has always been the environmental conscience of those around him. Back in the early 1990s recycling was in its infancy, and we were accustomed to throwing away our aluminum cans. (Single use plastic water bottles were not in use at the time.) When they added the recycling bins at school, Eric would go through our garbage and take the recycling to the proper bins. God help you if he saw you throw away a pop can! Fast forward to the mid 2000s. Eric passes through Rochester from time to time on his many travels. He kept a small desk in my office for his use while he was in town. I'd take pride in showing him our housing projects, and he had a way of appreciating our progress while making an annoyance of himself by asking questions about our sustainability, our green building practices, and our impact on the environment.

Of course my first reaction was resentment. Eric obviously didn't (and still doesn't) understand the complexities of real estate development finance, and our project were hard enough to get accomplished without adding the complexities of "green building". Green building by the way, means different things to different people. For my purposes, it means a sustainable development approach that minimizes the environmental impacts and maximizes the long term liveability of the homes and neighborhoods.

Having an external conscience can be annoying, but helpful. As I thought more and more about the future of our organization and the community, I began to see that greenfield developments, while great for quick production of large numbers of suburban style homes, would only contribute long term to our community's bigger problems. Problems like connectivity, lack of walkability, reliance on cars and huge roadways, long term infrastructure costs, water quality issues, and a reduced quality of life. I started looking
around Rochester and I realized that the core neighborhoods were in serious disrepair. Decades of disinvestment, rental conversions, and parking lots to support the downtown had led to a virtual concrete moat around the downtown and dilapidated housing stock all around. Neighborhood associations had formed to address the crime these conditions created. However, the neighborhoods were unable to change the conditions and
addressed only the symptoms of the problem - crime and disruptive rental properties.

Sustainable Sites
I saw an opportunity to redirect our organization to a more sustainable approach by embracing the core neighborhoods. At the same time, downtown revitalization became a community aspiration, and our efforts would assist in creating the conditions for the downtown to improve. Our first effort was to begin purchasing dilapidated homes in the core neighborhoods and rehabilitating them. After the first few successful homes, we started working with the neighborhood association in the Kutzky Park neighborhood. It was immediately clear that without some type of long range plan, our efforts would be a drop in the bucket. We put together a process called Imagine Kutzky as a grassroots effort to build a long range plan for the neighborhood. Once we had the plan, First Homes began rehabilitating homes in earnest, and eliminating homes that the neighborhood identified as beyond repair.

Green Building
Eric continued to hound me about our building practices. He suggested green building as a way to decrease our organization's carbon footprint and to save money for our home buyers. We had heard from funders that green building was desirable, but no one could really tell us what green building meant. We hired a talented young architect named Adam Ferrari to lead our rehabilitation efforts. He immediately saw the green building opportunities within our organization and put together a plan to produce green rehabs
- or as he calls them, GreenHabs. The problem was, we couldn't find a good source of information about how to complete a green rehab, specifically, which investments paid off in terms of long term cost savings, environmental impact, and salability. Adam developed a program designed to use our rehab projects to produce the research necessary to understand the answers to these questions. We are in the middle of that project, with more than 15 homes completed to extremely high green standards - beyond
the requirements of our funders - and we intend to publish the results of our experience so that others can learn from them. We also decided that as an organization we would require ourselves and other developers we work with to develop new construction to meet LEED certification. We are just starting our second LEED project and the learning curve has been steep, but valuable.

First Homes has become a leader in core neighborhood revitalization, green building, and sustainable design in Minnesota. This is a far cry from our early days of counting rooftops in corn fields. We took an incremental approach to this change and it was difficult. But as Eric says – " begin with one step."

Our organization's orientation to sustainability has ensured our very existence. Without our focus on the core neighborhoods we wouldn't have survived the shift in funding priorities of our major funders. Our embrace of provable green building practices has ensured our reputation as an innovative organization that can adapt to the changing economy, funding patterns, and building best practices. Eric, to his credit, has never said I told you so - but he certainly hasn't let us off the hook. Our newest building which will be certified as LEED Silver, will be completed about the time Eric comes back from Mt. Everest. I fully expect him to ask why we didn't go for LEED Platinum. I won't have a good answer. But I'm already thinking about our next project and how we can get a little closer to Eric's, and now our, vision.

By Matt Vespa and Kevin Bundy of the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute

TIANJIN, China – When it comes to ensuring the future of the planet – at least one that's habitable for people and many plants and animals – no number is as important as 350.

Scientists have been telling us for years that carbon dioxide must be limited to 350 parts per million in our atmosphere in order to avoid the most disastrous consequences of global climate change. 350 is the key "if humanity wishes to preserve a planet similar to that one which civilization developed and to which life on Earth is adapted," according to Dr. James Hansen, one of the world's leading climatologists.

That number is a big reason why we're in Tianjin, China this week where world leaders will discuss how to address this unprecedented global crisis, prepare for more talks in Mexico later this year and, hopefully, take serious action to put us on a path toward reducing man-made carbon dioxide to safe levels.

CO2 levels have risen dramatically since the Industrial Revolution, jumping from 285 parts per million in the 1800s to around 392 today. As CO2 builds up, it traps the sun's heat close to the earth's surface. Global temperatures are already rising, along with sea levels worldwide.

The consequences of allowing the Earth's temperature to rise by even 2 degrees Celsius are dire: 97 percent of the world's coral reefs would disappear, billions more people would suffer from drought and limited drinking water; millions would be displaced by rising sea levels and cyclones; and agricultural yields would plummet.

In the Arctic, where summer sea ice could disappear by century's end, the survival of the polar bear, Arctic fox, Pacific walrus and other ice-dependent creatures would be in grave doubt. Sea ice also reflects heat back into space—heat that's absorbed by the oceans when the ice melts, hastening warming.

And scientists say the worst is yet to come. If greenhouse pollution continues unchecked, temperatures could rise by 6 degrees C by century's end.

To be honest, it's already too late to avoid some of the terrible effects of man-made global warming. Climate change already has caused tens of thousands of deaths, extinction of species, ocean acidification, loss of coral reefs, disappearing glaciers, vanishing sea ice, unprecedented heat waves and other extreme weather events..

But—if we act now—we still have a chance to rein in long-term CO2 emissions and put the planet's climate back on track.

That's where 350 comes in.

Climatologist Hansen and his colleagues have charted a path to 350 ppm by the end of this century. We must reduce greenhouse gas pollution to 42 percent below 1990 levels by the year 2020, dramatically cut fossil fuel emissions, phase out coal-fired power plants, end large-scale deforestation and reforest cut-over areas.

To reach 350, CO2 emissions must peak in the very near future and then begin a rapid decline. This won't be easy—but delaying action only makes the problem more difficult.

The science is clear that the window for meaningful action will close soon. World leaders met in Copenhagen last year but left with disappointing results.

Difficult questions of historical responsibility and international equity will be on the table in China. These questions must be resolved in order to reach an international agreement to avert the worst of the climate crisis. . Still, we remain hopeful that the end of 2010 will mark the beginning of a real and transformative shift toward 350 ppm or less. It can be done and has to be done. Too many future generations of people, plants and animals are counting on us.

--

Matt Vespa and Kevin Bundy are attorneys at the Center for Biological Diversity's Climate Law Institute in San Francisco. They are in Tianjin, China this week for the United Nations Climate Change Conference.

While the Senate was away on summer recess, global climate change didn't take a break.

This year is shaping up to be one of the hottest on record. Temperature records have fallen across the United States, Europe and central Asia and the news outlets have reported a steady stream of weather-related disasters. .

In Russia, heat and drought destroyed a fifth of the nation's wheat crop, fires raged, sometimes consuming entire villages, and hundreds drowned trying to find respite from the oppressive heat in lakes and rivers.

Drought in Canada is similarly projected to reduce the wheat crop by 20 percent.

China endured flooding and mudslides that killed 1,200 people.

In early August, Greenland shed its largest chunk of ice in nearly half a century -- a 100-square-mile floating ice island. Scientists predict that the entire ice mass of Greenland could disappear if temperatures rise by as little as 2ºC. The result: eventual global sea-level rise of as much as 23 feet. Low-lying cities such as New Orleans could be inundated.

And, as one publication declared, Pakistan marked a sad new benchmark in climate-related disasters with flooding that impacted an area about the size of England, killed about 1,600 people and displaced an astounding 15 million to 20 million people.

Scientists at the World Meteorological Organization said there's no doubt that atmospheric abnormality, including higher Atlantic Ocean temperatures, contributed to the catastrophes.

Meanwhile, here in the U.S., coastal ecosystems and communities face economic and environmental devastation from the massive BP oil gusher in the Gulf of Mexico. The full impacts of the spill -- the worst environmental disaster in U.S. history – likely won't be known for decades

Despite these crises, the Senate failed to pass climate legislation and instead went on summer recess. But we didn't. Joining forces with our allies at 350.org, 1Sky and Energy Action Coalition, our members attended debates, conferences and breakfasts with our elected officials sending them some clear messages.

Now is not the time to take a break -- it's time to ramp up efforts to combat climate change and oil spills. And we need climate policies that reduce carbon in our atmosphere to the level science demands, no more than 350 parts per million, and harnesses the Clean Air Act to get greenhouse gas pollution under control. Clearly, our climate can't wait.

http://www.biologicaldiversity.org
www.twitter.com/CBD_Climate

For the most up to date, detailed information on the oil catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, go to www.biologicaldiversity.org/gulf_disaster

The weather of 2010 continues the chaos of recent years. Severe flooding struck New England in March, Nashville in May, and Arkansas and Oklahoma in June. As extreme as the weather has been in the U.S. this year, things are more severe in other countries parts of the world, namely Pakistan and Russia.

Floods in Pakistan were the worst in that country's history, with two million people homeless, 20 million affected, and more than a million acres of croplands flooded. The UN calls this crisis the world's worst humanitarian disaster in recent history.

Meanwhile, Russia faced the worst heat wave and drought in its documented history, with unprecedented high temperatures in Moscow and hundreds of wildfires burning out of control this summer. The combination of extreme heat and thick smoke and smog from the fires doubled the city's death rate at the peak of the heat wave in July.

What can we say about the connection between these extreme weather events and climate change? We simply cannot know whether any particular weather event was "caused" by climate change, but direct observations show that extreme weather events have become more frequent in the past half-century. Scientists agree that the planet is warming and human activities are
primarily responsible for the warming that has occurred since the mid-20th century. There is also broad agreement that a warmer climate translates into more extreme weather events.

There are important lessons to be learned from this year's extreme weather events. But the over- emphasis on the cause of a particular event distracts us from the important point that climate change is just getting underway.

A more appropriate question to ask is whether global warming loads the dice in favor of certain types of events. When current weather events align with what the science tells us to expect from climate change, we can then ask what those events reveal about our vulnerabilities. Whether the event we are learning from is a consequence of climate change is irrelevant.

Instead, we should focus on how vulnerable we are to extreme weather events and think about how we can manage the associated risks. What should we be doing to minimize the damage and costs of the rising risk of similar events in the future? These are critically important questions that risk managers use to cope with uncertainty. It doesn't matter if the weather events this year are a consequence of climate change; we know the consequences were severe, and climate change increases the risk that even worse events will occur in the future.

Facts and Recent Lessons

Nearly the entire northern hemisphere experienced a massive heat wave this summer. The first half of 2010 was the warmest January-July period in the global temperature record, stretching back to 1880. Questioning the significance of this single-year observation is fair, but it fits perfectly into a multiple-decade pattern in which each year between 2000 and 2009 was warmer than the average temperature of the 1990s, and every year in the 1990s was warmer than the average temperature for the 1980s.

Past examples also shed light on our vulnerabilities in a warming world. For example, before the unprecedented European heat wave of 2003, we had no idea that a heat wave could kill 14,000 people in the fifth richest country in the world, France. Similarly, before Hurricane Katrina struck New Orleans, we did not know that a natural disaster could literally shut down a major American city and strand tens of thousands of helpless citizens without clean water, electricity, and communication to the outside world for days and weeks. It doesn't matter whether Katrina was a product of climate change. It matters that a warmer world brings the risk of more powerful hurricanes, and Katrina has taught us how vulnerable we can be, even in the world's richest country.

These circumstances validate the concept of climate change as a security threat multiplier, as theorized by a board of retired three- and four-star military officers a few years ago.Given the uncertainties and the associated risks, it does not make sense to focus on whether current events are supercharged by climate change. It does make sense, however, to take lessons from them about our current vulnerabilities and the risks involved in letting the climate continue to warm.

From msnbc.com's Vaughn Ververs:

Alaska Sen. Lisa Murkowski has conceded in her primary battle against unknown-challenger Joe Miller in the Alaska GOP primary after a full day of absentee vote counting that left her just 199 votes closer to victory than she was a week ago.

Saying that she can no longer see "a scenario where the primary will turn out in my favor," Murkowski threw in the towel on a re-election bid that she has trailed in by 1,668 votes since the primary on August 24. The counting of absentee and questionable ballots resumed Tuesday and although Murkowski at one point reduced her deficit to 1,210, the day ended with her behind by 1,630 votes.

While the primary between Miller and Murkowski revolved around some uniquely Alaskan dynamics, the outcome further advances the national midterm picture as well. Miller will become the fifth bona fide tea party-backed Republican Senate nominee this year, joining: Rand Paul in Kentucky, Sharon Angle in Nevada, Ken Buck in Colorado and Mike Lee in Utah.

Two of those candidates defeated incumbent Republican senators (Murkowski and Utah's Bob Bennett). The other three defeated GOP establishment-backed candidates in the primaries. If you're looking for the tea party's impact on this election, the senate races this fall will be the major barometer of its success.

For Immediate Release, May 25, 2010

Contact: Miyoko Saka@!$%#a, (510) 845-6703

Polar Bear to Greet President Obama in San Francisco With Plea: “Don’t Let Shell Drill in the Arctic This Summer”

What: The Center for Biological Diversity’s “Frostpaw” the Polar Bear will greet President Obama with the message: “Don’t let Shell drill in the Arctic this summer.” The president is expected to attend a fundraiser at the Fairmont for Senator Barbara Boxer.

When: Today, Tuesday, May 25, 2010 at 4:30 p.m.

Where: Fairmont Hotel, 950 Mason St., San Francisco

Background: “If we have learned anything from the catastrophe in the Gulf of Mexico, it’s that we cannot drill in the Arctic. Large domes, small domes, golf balls, garbage, chemical dispersants, fire — nothing has stopped the enormous flow of oil into the Gulf. Clearly, there are no safeguards that make offshore oil – particularly in the Arctic – safe,” said Miyoko Saka@!$%#a, the Center’s Oceans Program director. “With limited capacity to respond to potential spills and icy, harsh conditions, the Arctic is no place to take our next drilling gamble.”

The Obama administration has been embroiled in controversy since it was revealed on May 5, 2010 that Interior Secretary Ken Salazar allowed the Minerals Management Service to exempt BP’s offshore drilling plan from environmental review. The agency used a National Environmental Policy Act loophole meant to apply to minor projects with no, or minimal, negative effects — such as construction of outhouses and hiking trails. The controversy deepened when it came out that the agency routinely exempts hundreds of dangerous offshore oil drilling projects in the Gulf of Mexico from review every year.

This same agency also rubberstamped Shell’s Arctic summer drilling plan without conducting a proper environmental review of the possible consequences of drilling, including a large oil spill such as the one in the Gulf of Mexico.

Earlier this month, the Center filed suit against Secretary Salazar over his continued approval of offshore drilling plans in the Gulf without environmental review. Despite the catastrophe, Secretary Salazar allowed MMS to issue more than a dozen new drilling approvals — all exempt from environmental review — after the explosion.

“Shell’s plan for exploratory deepwater drilling in the Arctic in just one month must be re-examined in the light of the disaster in the Gulf, and President Obama must call a real halt to all offshore drilling today,” said Saka@!$%#a.

Photo opportunities

Earlier today, arctic explorer Eric Larson became the first person to Tweet from the North Pole. After a 51-day trek over ice flows and open water, he finally made it to his destination with two companions as part of his year-long project to Save The Poles and raise awareness about global warming. What's really amazing is that less than four months ago he was at the South Pole, and his next expedition will be to the peak of Mount Everest. Here is his Tweet:

Day 51. Standing on top of the world. Getting to the North Pole is the same as stopping Global Warming. Begin with one step.

News Release
For Immediate Release

Two Down...One to Go, Eric Larsen and Save the Poles Team Conquer North Pole Leg of Expedition on Earth Day
Renowned explorer, Eric Larsen, today announced the successful completion of the second leg of his three-part Save the Poles Expedition, and sends first Earth Day "Tweet" from the North Pole

GRAND MARAIS, Minn. (April 22, 2010) — After over 500 grueling miles and 51 days on the ice and open water, Polar explorer Eric Larsen just announced that his three-man expedition team reached the North Pole at 7 p.m. MST on Earth Day, Thursday, April 22, 2010. To commemorate the event, Eric and his team notified fans and followers of the expedition with real-time updates on Facebook and Twitter upon their arrival, making his expedition team the first to send out Earth Day greetings from the North Pole, an epicenter for the discussion on global climate change.

Today is Earth Day, 2010. This can mean many things to many people. It can be the day that you do something kind for the Earth or the environment. It can be the day that you laugh at all the tree hugging hippies and burn another tire in your backyard. Or, it can be just another day that passes you by without a second thought. But today, for Polar Explorer Eric Larsen..... today is the day that he arrives at the North Pole, reaching his goal on the second leg of an amazing, frozen trek around the world.

With hundreds of children in my yard everyday, thousands every month, all learning about environmental science, history, goal setting, team building, etc. it's a bit amazing to me that change doesn't happen faster in the US. The honesty of these children in combination with their observations really astounds me. They see needs for change, they articulate it, they describe actions that should produce it. They've been doing it for years and yet it change doesn't happen as I would hope. Most of these students are 10-14 years old and they get it, but so many lose it on the path to adulthood.

It's sad to say that one of the biggest barriers to change right now in the desperate fight against global warming is the willingness of too many to settle for national climate legislation that will leave us worse off than we are right now. I'm speaking specifically of the latest climate legislative proposal slated to come from Senators Kerry, Lieberman and Graham, next week -- ironically on the heels of the 40^th anniversary of Earth Day.

The Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a jumble of plastic trash that spans hundreds of miles northwest of Hawaii, has gotten lots of attention ever since billionaire adventurer and environmentalist David de Rothschild announced his plans to visit the trash mass on the Plastiki, a boat constructed from recycled waste and webs of plastic. Now the Plastiki has launched, and a group of architects from Rotterdam have already come up with another way to draw attention to the plastic gyre: a Hawaii-sized island made entirely out of recycled plastic.

Adventurer Eric Larsen is almost at the North Pole and plans to tweet in honor of Earth Day on April 22, just three days before he's expected to make it. What would you have Eric tweet to mark the occasion? We'll pass the ideas along and, who knows, he might just pick yours. Submit them below.

Paul Krugman writes of the economics of climate change or, more precisely, the economics of lessening climate change.

If wave and tidal technologies can scale up in Scotland's waters, marine energy experts say they will find plenty of potential elsewhere, much as the wind turbine technologies nurtured by Denmark in the 1970s and 1980s have gone worldwide. "There's definitely a global market for both wave and tidal energy, hence the reason that you've got big companies looking at it," says Amaan Lafayette, marine development manager at European power giant E.ON

It doesn't take a rocket scientist to know that if we want to avoid the worst impacts of global warming, we must rapidly transition away from all forms of fossil fuels. While Congress debates whether a proposed 20-percent renewable electric standard is too high, what we really need is a 100-percent renewable electric standard. It's an ambitious target, but with existing technology we can likely meet it -- we have to.

Rhode Island's attempt to build the nation's first offshore wind farm suffered a blow last Tuesday after a group representing the University — and several other of the state's largest consumers of energy — expressed its opposition to the project before the state's Public Utilities Commission.
The commission rejected a pricing agreement between Deepwater Wind, the project's developer, and power distributor National Grid that would have charged more for wind power than the prevailing cost from other sources.

On my weekly Iridium Satellite phone call with Elisabeth Harincar at Webexpeditions.net headquarters last night, she instructed me, 'see a polar bear. People like polar bear stories.' I kindly replied I would prefer not and it wasn't like polar bears are waiting behind every corner to pose for pictures.

Dr. James Hansen, Barbara Kingsolver, Ed Begley, Jr., Bonnie Raitt, Lemony Snicket,
Sierra Club Board Member Among First Signers

WASHINGTON— The Center for Biological Diversity today launched a campaign to gather 500,000 signatures on a People's Petition asking the Environmental Protection Agency to set a national pollution standard to reduce carbon dioxide pollution in the atmosphere to 350 parts per million. Atmospheric CO2 is currently at 390 parts per million and growing, causing a dangerous climate disruption.

The People's Petition is in support of a Clean Air Act legal filing submitted by the Center and 350.org in December 2009 to set an upper limit of 350 parts per million on dangerous greenhouse gas pollution. The EPA is currently reviewing the request and is expected to render a decision later this year.

Gone seem to be the days of good, lively debate. Recently there has been a ton of slapfighting between politicians, pundits, and the public. Labeling, over-generalizations, straw-man arguments and rhetoric are becoming so commonplace that people accept these counterproductive tactics as the rules of engagement. Likewise on the Vine, the most heated debates about the most controversial issues oftentimes slide down the path into name-calling, circular arguments, ad hominem attacks and other undesirable forms of debate.

Not sure we needed a study to conclude this but it never hurts to have an expert confirm the obvious. A study led by the London School of Economics professor Nicholas Stern has found that the world's biggest polluters fell short of "responsible" climate targets when they pledged emissions cuts for the non-binding Copenhagen Accord. The study comes from the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment at London School of Economics and Political Science, with the United Nations Environment Program.

In the United States alone, we consume approximately 500,000,000 bottles of water each week. Imagine that: while 1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water worldwide, other people spend billions of dollars on a bottled product that's no cleaner, harms people and the environment and costs up to 2,000 times the price of tap water.

Hoping to direct attention to climate change, adventurer Eric Larsen is trying to be the first to reach both poles and Mount Everest in one year. As part of that, he's asking readers to discuss climate issues like this one about global policy.

The graphs I had place in my article but didn't come through when I published it.

1. Cost of cap and trade program from estimates of the EPA to actual costs, with the sulfur dioxide emissions also noted.

2. Sulfur Dioxide emissions compared to electricity generated and US gross domestic product. All from government data.

Climate change is here and scientists need to do a better job of explaining it to the public, the director of the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration said Friday.

CLIMATE CHANGE experts lashed out at sceptics today with new research they say has revealed the "fingerprint" of man-made global warming.

The rate at which the oceans are becoming more acidic is greater today than at any time in tens of millions of years, according to a new study.

So here's the challenge: be the first person to ever trek to the South Pole, North Pole and top of Mount Everest in one year. It's not so much the "first-ever" label that Eric Larsen is after, but attention for his favorite cause: saving the ice.

Five glaring errors were discovered in one paragraph of the world's most authoritative report on global warming, forcing the Nobel Prize-winning panel of climate scientists who wrote it to apologize and promise to be more careful.

Next month's climate change summit in Copenhagen is not likely to produce a legally binding treaty to cut the greenhouse gas emissions that are widely blamed for global warming, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Friday.