Global warming. Depletion of world's fisheries by 2048. Loss of wetlands and forests. Submerged Chesapeake Bay grasses disappearing. The list goes on and on.

Hammered by all of these gloomy trends, most people find it challenging to believe that we can turn the tide and reverse the downward environmental spiral that we've collectively created. Yet there is reason for hope.

Quietly, incrementally, and largely under the radar of the media machine, millions of people are changing their ways to greener ones. Compact fluorescent bulb sales have increased by nineteen percent each year from 2001 to 2004. Close to 467,000 hybrid cars were purchased in 2006. Since 1970, the number of active farmers' markets has grown by eight hundred percent across the United States, signaling Americans' interest in consuming fresher, healthier foods that are not transported long distances.

Individuals are composting, buying seasonal food, installing solar panels on their homes, and more. Step by step, these small actions cumulatively signal that we are smart enough and wise enough to seek out a path of sustainability. This undercurrent of green awakening is rippling across the country, and Maryland is one of the leaders in that wave.

Addressing Global Warming
Maryland, along with several other states, is setting increasingly aggressive carbon reduction targets, putting pressure on Congress to take significant action on a national climate policy. This year, the state is preparing to join the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative, a coalition of states from Maryland to Maine committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions through statewide reduction goals and a regional cap-and-trade program. 

On a local level, Baltimore City has been recognized as a leader in energy efficiency measures. In 2005, then-mayor Martin O'Malley received the Leadership Award from the United States Energy Association's Energy Efficiency Forum—the first mayor in the nation to be bestowed such an honor. O'Malley received the award for his creation of an Energy Conservation Office in the city. This office is overseeing the replacement of standard light bulbs with compact fluorescent ones, modification of heating and cooling systems, and installation of water conservation measures in a multiyear, energy-saving plan ending in late 2007.

Similar retrofits were completed last month at seven main fire stations and sixteen other municipal and police buildings, with additional retrofits scheduled for completion at about 170 city schools by the end of this year. To date, three Baltimore City buildings have earned the Energy Star label for superior energy performance from the U.S. Department of Energy and the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, as a result of O'Malley's program. The City anticipates saving $8.4 million a year while simultaneously eliminating 61.4 tons of carbon dioxide, a significant contributor to global warming.

Even Baltimore City's vehicle fleet is going green. The city has owned electric cars for several years, but following the national trends toward biofuels (four billion gallons of ethanol, primarily from corn, were produced in the United States in 2006), all new city police cars by 2008 will have flex-fuel engines that can use either ethanol or gasoline. In addition to pumping ethanol, the city will be pumping biodiesel for its diesel vehicles by the middle of 2007. The City's biodiesel efforts parallel those of the Chesapeake Sustainable Business Alliance with the Baltimore Biodiesel Cooperative, in creating a pioneering biodiesel outlet next to the Mill Valley Garden Center and Farmer's Market in Remington.

Expansive Greening of Construction

Montgomery County approved the most aggressive green building legislation in the country in fall 2006, requiring that public and private construction and renovation of buildings that are at least 10,000 square feet meet LEED standards by 2008. Washington, D.C., followed suit as the first major U.S. city to require LEED standards by 2012 for buildings over 50,000 square feet.

"I'm quite excited about the progress in D.C. and Montgomery County," says David Pratt, president of the U.S. Green Building Council's Baltimore Chapter and principal of Lorax Partnerships, a green building consulting group in Columbia. "What I find strikingly important is that the development community in Montgomery County did not really resist the legislation. This is a sign that there is greater interest in integrating environmental decisions into the business world and our government decisions."

Baltimore City has proposed creating an Office of Sustainability to oversee the implementation of a number of green efforts including environmentally friendly building initiatives proposed in 2006. The City is also considering instituting property tax credits for high-performance buildings as well as establishing green building requirements similar to those in Washington, D.C.'s recent building standards, which are based on LEED benchmarks. Public hearings about these three initiatives will take place early this month.

Regionally there are people and groups pushing the envelope beyond LEED to create buildings and indoor environments closer to the ever-elusive goal of a completely sustainable building. Baltimore-based Furbish Company is the contractor for what will be the largest known strawbale building on the East Coast, at the Friends Community School in College Park. The 27,000- square-foot building is slated to be finished in fall 2007. This strawbale structure parallels the 2006 construction of a compacted-earth-block building at the Sandy Spring Friends School in Sandy Spring, Maryland. Both buildings are constructed of locally sourced, natural materials.

Adaptive Reuse and Green Redevelopment

Baltimore is already seen as a leader in the adaptive reuse movement, an approach that creatively renovates derelict buildings. Tide Point in Locust Point and the Natty Boh Tower in Brewers Hill are examples. (Both projects were done by Struever Bros. Eccles & Rouse, an investor in Urbanite.) But sometimes "green building" can encompass more than an independent structure and instead involve an entire neighborhood.

One promising green redevelopment effort in the city is the Westport Waterfront project at the mouth of the Middle Branch of the Patapsco River, just south of the stadiums. The area for redevelopment had been a derelict industrial site until the Turner Development Group bought it in 2004. This $1.4 billion, fifty-acre project is already being cast as a national model of urban development in its early stages.

The Westport project will be a mixed-use venture of residential and commercial areas. The National Center for Smart Growth and Research has been brought on as a consultant to assist from the early stages, to ensure that the redevelopment will incorporate as many eco-friendly components as possible. Located next to several mass transit stops, the project will include bioswales to capture and filter runoff, the re-creation of five acres of wetlands, and placement of ten miles of walking and biking trails. Patrick Turner, the developer of the Westport project, says, "We're exploring solar panels, and possibly a centralized heating and cooling plant for all the structures on site. Our vision is to transform what is now a rundown industrial site into a model sustainable neighborhood that can be emulated across the country."

With all of these efforts underway, and many more too numerous to include, eco-friendly change is definitely afoot. Perhaps not too far off in the future, as a result of all of these positive environmental trends, the only options we'll have will be green,
or greener. 

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