Researchers say gardens, parks, and other green spaces help boost mental health and offer pathways toward wellness. These Detroiters are taking advantage of nature’s healing effects. Demetrius Thomas felt called to the river. After playing music for a yoga class last Saturday, Thomas didn’t go right back home. Instead, he drove to Belle Isle. All […]
Posted inVoices
OPINION: The Inflation Reduction Act is a win for healthcare, but it needs to go further
The classic heart attack patient in medical textbooks is someone who collapsed while shoveling snow. For one 72-year-old metro Detroit resident, it was a flood. The stress of watching flood waters overtake her home, and moving possessions up from the basement, led to a heart attack. This is one example of how climate change is […]
Posted inUncategorized
Great Lakes threatened by toxic coal ash + climate change
CO2 2022/2021 : 417.39 ppm / 414.54 ppm Dear Michigan Climate News readers, What happens to coal after it's burned? It's transformed into toxic coal ash, and it poses a threat across the Great Lakes. In other news, Grand Rapids could feel more like Memphis by 2100 and Michigan could offer crucial habitat for the […]
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Coal ash timebomb ticks away in the Great Lakes
Many coal-fired power plants have been located on the shores of the Great Lakes, and there’s increasing concern that climate change-related flooding could cause water from coal ash ponds – waste ponds storing wet ash that include heavy metals like chromium, arsenic and selenium – could enter Lake Michigan. These impoundments are vulnerable to extreme […]
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From the Headlines- August 22 – 26
Punishing water debt: Highland Park will have to pay a disputed $21 million debt to the Great Lakes Water Authority (GLWA) following a Michigan Court of Appeals ruling. Highland Park Mayor Hubert Yopp says the city was overcharged after being compelled by the state to enter the GLWA system. However, two suburban sewage districts representing Macomb County residents joined […]
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ICYMI: Why carbon fundamentalism won’t solve climate change in Michigan
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 […]