Planet Detroit’s managing editor Nina Ignaczak spoke with Michelle Martinez, inaugural director of the Tishman Center for Social and Environmental Justice at the University of Michigan’s School for Environment & Sustainability. Martinez has 15 years of experience of practicing environmental justice in her hometown Detroit. Most recently she served as Executive Director of the Michigan […]
Posted inCommunity
Feeling like home: A Highland Park gardener reflects on her visit to Soul Fire Farm
Social media introduced me to Soul Fire Farm, an Afro-Indigenous-centered community farm committed to uprooting racism and seeding sovereignty in the food system. I would see their posts and photos of Black, Brown and Indigenous people digging and planting and tending animals and think, one day, I will visit that farm. I finally got the […]
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Southwest Michigan in the new heat belt?
CO2 2022/2021 : 416.35 ppm / 414.68 ppm Dear Michigan Climate News readers, We hope you're enjoying these last days of summer and looking forward to fall. In this week's issue, Ann Arbor bends on gas lines, southwest Michigan could be part of the new heat belt, and there's concerning news for Line 5. Read […]
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Policy Tracker: Railway merger could mean more pollution for Michigan
SUBSCRIBE TO MICHIGAN CLIMATE NEWS! Dear Michigan Climate News readers, This edition of our monthly policy tracker explores bills to promote ethanol and a funding measure to promote methane gas infrastructure. These updates follow the European Parliament's designation of natural gas as a "green fuel" for investment purposes and begs the question: Is gas green? […]
Posted inAccountability
Detroiters call on regulators to reject DTE’s rate hike, cite ‘utility redlining’
Juanita Gray has lived in her Detroit home for more than four decades. In recent years, she said she’s been paying higher electricity bills while service has deteriorated. She’s experienced several multi-day power outages that caused her to lose groceries. “Power goes out, stays out for a long time; when you try and call DTE […]
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From the headlines- August 15 – 19
Keep boiling water: A water main break in St. Clair County has left 7 communities with 133,000 residents under a boil water advisory – an improvement on the 935,000 people who had previously been under an advisory in Lapeer, Macomb, Oakland, and St. Clair counties. The Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) says it may take until September 3 to restore […]
Posted inCommunity
Nominate a Planet Detroit Climate Leader
Detroit is full of leaders — look in every neighborhood, every business, and every nonprofit, and you’ll find them. They’re usually humble and want to give credit to someone else. Without their efforts, we’d be lessened. That’s why Planet Detroit wants to honor the people and organizations making a difference in our city’s climate response. […]
Posted inGuides
The Inflation Reduction Act: What’s in it for Detroit’s most vulnerable communities?
President Joe Biden signed the Inflation Reduction Act into law Tuesday, marking the first real action taken by the U.S. government to address climate change. The bill contains $369 billion in investments and tax credits in clean energy and electric vehicles, but also significant investment in policies and technologies that could allow continued burning of […]
Posted inVoices
OPINION | The Inflation Reduction Act is now law. But its carbon fundamentalism won’t solve climate change for marginalized communities.
To meet the challenges of the global climate crisis, we need bold ideas and to speak truth to power. That’s the idea behind Climate/Justice, a Planet Detroit opinion column written by Detroit-based environmental justice activist Michelle Martinez. Martinez writes not only as an activist but as a mother and fourth-generation Detroiter. Martinez will be donating […]
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Michigan's northwoods threatened by climate change?
CO2 2022/2021 : 417.39 ppm / 414.54 ppm Dear Michigan Climate News readers, We just got back from a hike through pine and fir forests along Lake Superior and were greeted with new University of Michigan research shows that these boreal forests may change quickly due to climate change. In other news, we've got the […]