News

Humanity can farm more food from the seas to help feed the planet while shrinking mariculture’s negative impacts on biodiversity, according to new research led by the University of Michigan.

Research from the University of Michigan reveals a connection between pollen exposure and death rates among older adults with breathing problems.

Research led by the University of Michigan shows that communities of color in Texas face pronounced risks of E. coli exposure in nearby waters after intense rain.

Community program and policy interventions aimed at reducing screen time are less successful in neighborhoods that lack green space

To combat climate change, the world needs to pivot away from fossil fuels. But building battery electric vehicles and infrastructure for renewable energy will require enormous amounts of minerals and resources.

The Mellon Foundation has awarded nearly $4 million in a first-of-its kind grant to bolster the University of Michigan’s leading work in environmental justice.

Built on the expertise and experiences of urban agriculturalists, along with research from the University of Michigan, a new policy brief urges Congress to fully fund the Office of Urban Agriculture.

Small modular nuclear reactors, or SMRs, could help the U.S. meet emissions goals while also satisfying growing energy demands. Although the U.S. has not powered up an SMR yet due to some deployment challenges, cost and complexity, new research from the University of Michigan shows that they are an economically viable option. Max Vanatta, School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) doctoral student is the lead author. The other authors are SEAS Assistant Professor Michael Craig and Robb Stewart, chief technology officer of Alva Energy.

In certain parts of the U.S., the ability of residents to prepare for and respond to flooding is being undercut on three different levels.

Not all of us can afford to wear the latest styles fresh from the world’s maisons, so we often turn to fast-fashion retailers in order to participate in aesthetic trends. But our planet cannot sustain these habits, which cause an enormous amount of textile waste that unfairly burdens communities in the global South and actively harms the environment.

At the core of Campus Plan 2050 is a commitment to sustainability. The initiative proposes innovative infrastructure solutions, including geo-exchange systems designed for efficient heating and cooling through ground-source heat pumps, as well as extensive building retrofits that enhance energy efficiency and sustainability, and efficiency upgrades to the transit system.

Hundreds of terrestrial and aquatic animal species live in the Boca do Mamirauá Reserve, located in the upper reaches of the Amazon, at the confluence of the Solimões and Japurá rivers. It is the first destination of the U-M Pantanal Partnership students this year.

The University of Michigan Center for Sustainable Systems (CSS) and U-M's Naval Architecture and Marine Engineering have been awarded a $199,993 grant from the State of Michigan to develop a Michigan maritime strategy focused on climate action.

"Energy justice is this concept that really looks at how do communities participate in both the health environment and social impacts of our energy system, recognizing that the energy system has had certain burdens on communities. And so environmental justice is really saying that all communities, regardless of race and income and geography, should be afforded a clean environment."

The pathway to improving the health of hundreds of thousands of residents in Michigan’s largest cities is laid out in a new information hub that provides a panoramic look at the major factors impacting the wellbeing of these individuals.

U-M has received a $25 million grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration to support collaborative research initiatives addressing critical environmental challenges in U.S. coastal communities.

A new trailer is an exciting step forward in making fresh, local produce more accessible to the campus community.

Maximizing the benefits of clean energy requires new ways to store it, and U-M engineers will partner in a new research hub created by the U.S Department of Energy (DOE), designed to develop and further battery innovations.

Artisanal and small-scale mining plays a critical role in supplying the world with minerals vital for decarbonization, but this kind of mining typically lacks regulation and can be socially and environmentally harmful.

Maples is an Anishinaabe seed keeper, educator, and community organizer who has dedicated over a decade of work to Indigenous food sovereignty and justice.

In collaboration with the Michigan Climate Action Network (MiCAN) and Michigan Environmental Justice Coalition (MEJC), a group of 20 selected U-M graduate students recently published a comprehensive report about Michigan’s public power options.

Anyone who’s spent their winter months around the Great Lakes has probably had the uncanny experience of living through three seasons in a single weekend. According to new research from U-M, these wild weather swings are poised to become even more common in the future.

For carbon capture and utilization (CCU), public support depends on which aspect of the technology is being considered and which people are considering it, according to a new study conducted by researchers from University of Michigan and other institutions.

Each year, hundreds of thousands of Michigan parents worry whether they can afford to feed their children. Increased food prices, the state’s housing crisis, and the end of COVID-era financial support have all led to more Michigan families experiencing food insecurity today than before the pandemic.

As climate-induced migration increases in the U.S. and elsewhere around the world, what are the potential policies to help communities adapt and support residents? In a new Core Conversations podcast, Kaitlin Raimi explores how Americans view climate migrants, how policies could become a crucial factor influencing climate migration, and what the broader impacts of migration may mean for American society and the economy.

Urban agriculture can support cities’ wider goals and provide residents with self-grown, nutritious food if more governments start supporting – instead of criminalizing – the practice, Taubman College faculty member Lesli Hoey argues in a new book.

Faced with an ecological crisis, public health emergencies and socioeconomic inequities, agroecology emerges as a transdisciplinary beacon of hope.

An assessment ranks the feasibility of converting 245 operational coal power plants in the U.S. into advanced nuclear reactors, providing valuable insights for policymakers and utilities to meet decarbonization goals, according to a new study by University of Michigan researchers.

Traffic pollution emerges as a lead exacerbator for ailments that come with aging.

A recent University of Michigan study exposes a gap in sociology: a lack of focus on climate change. Societies fuel and face the consequences of this crisis, but sociology as a discipline appears insufficiently engaged with the issue, says Sofia Hiltner, U-M doctoral candidate in sociology.

“Clarity on vulnerable subgroups more susceptible to heat-related deaths will enable policymakers to design effective intervention strategies targeted to these subgroups. Downstream, this will ensure greater climate action equity.”

Nestled by the St. Clair River, a small rural neighborhood in St. Clair Township, Michigan, is surrounded by a high concentration of hazardous crude oil and natural gas facilities. For decades, Murphy Drive residents have been exposed to unreported chemical releases, oil spills, poor air quality and harmful odors.

Currently the director of the Office of Energy Justice and Equity and the secretarial adviser on equity at the U.S. Department of Energy, and formerly the department’s chief diversity officer, Baker will advance sustainability education and research across U-M schools and colleges.

The U.S. National Science Foundation has awarded a three-year, $614,000 grant to U-M and its international partners to create a new research initiative that will address the socioeconomic vulnerabilities of climate migrants in the Lake Victoria Basin (LVB) and Great Lakes Region (GLR).

Converting home heating systems from natural gas furnaces to electric heat pumps is seen as a way to address climate change by reducing greenhouse gas emissions. But a new U-M study of 51 Southeast Michigan households shows that switching to efficient, cold-climate heat pumps would increase annual utility bills by an average of about $1,100.

About a third of the food produced globally each year goes to waste, while approximately 800 million people suffer from hunger, according to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization.

According to a U-M survey, 86% of respondents either strongly or somewhat support adding rooftop solar panels. The survey found some regional variation: Rooftop solar drew support from 83% of leaders in the Upper Peninsula, while garnering 89% support from southeastern Michigan officials.

“Given that we sit in the heart of the Great Lakes and 21% of the world’s fresh surface water, we wanted to explore the region’s plans to identify the highest-impact, most innovative and scalable multi-state opportunities. We looked for what was working, to inform ways to accelerate community-based climate action."

“This work centers on the need to more actively link visual communication with advocacy around accessible design and move toward effective methods of communicating with, and on behalf of, audiences commonly overlooked by the built environment, It prioritizes another aspect of accessibility that is approachable and friendly and invites a diverse audience into an inclusive conversation.”

Local officials across Michigan increasingly view electric vehicle infrastructure planning as relevant for their governments, though many cite too few public charging stations and costs associated with adding them as barriers to expansion.

Extreme heat is America’s deadliest weather hazard, killing more people than hurricanes, floods, and tornadoes combined. Yet one obvious solution – increasing access to indoor cooling – is hindered by a lack of reliable data on which households have working air conditioning.

Among residents living within 3 miles of large-scale solar energy developments, positive attitudes about the projects outnumbered negative attitudes by a nearly 3-to-1 margin, according to a new survey of nearly 1,000 large-scale solar neighbors across the United States.

Researchers at U-M’s Rogel Cancer Center want to build a movement to understand how exposures to toxic metals, industrial pollution and “forever chemicals” called PFAS, are impacting the health and cancer risk of residents across Michigan.

"For more than four decades, Bunyan taught and mentored SEAS students, modeling for them how to be effective advocates for equity and justice in communities that face environmental racism. Thanks to Bunyan’s tireless passion for creating change, his legacy as an environmental justice pioneer will live on in future generations of advocates.”

A new data map showcasing diverse indicators of poverty and well-being throughout Michigan highlights the key challenges confronting residents in different parts of the state and suggests interventions for the state’s most critical needs.

U-M is marking late March and all of April with a series of events focused on sustainability and climate action, continuing a tradition that began with the first “Teach-In on the Environment” in 1970—which grew into what is now known as Earth Day.

What materials and methods will allow us to design and construct low-carbon buildings? How can architects and designers promote social justice through community ownership of land? Through its Pressing Matters grant program, Taubman College has funded five faculty-led research and creative practice projects that address these questions.

The global challenges posed by climate change are widespread, impacting various aspects of human life, with water resources at the forefront of these challenges. As climate change advances, it is projected to exacerbate water scarcity and access issues, given the intensification of water-related hazards (such as hurricanes and flooding) and rising temperatures that will lead to sea-level rise and saltwater intrusion.

Improving the U.S. electricity grid is necessary to lower costs, boost reliability and help tackle climate change, but it will take some serious soul searching by the leaders of entities that control the grid.

Despite the possibility of climate-smart agriculture improving food security, most CSA practices and technologies are not widely adopted in South Asia.

Rice exported to Haiti—mostly from the United States—contains unhealthy levels of arsenic and cadmium, which can increase the risk of various cancers, heart disease, diabetes and other illnesses, new research shows.

Spearheaded by SEAS PhD candidate Malu Castro, whose family is from Moloka‘i, the work of the first project supports one of the largest Land Back efforts in the modern era of the movement, and the second contributes to fostering and maintaining the longstanding tradition of subsistence agricultural production and other efforts to promote food sovereignty on the island.

Alexa White studies sustainable agriculture in connection with a broader focus on environmental justice. What sustainable agriculture means to people from different parts of the world—and from different socioeconomic strata—is the focus of her dissertation work as a Ph.D. candidate in ecology and evolutionary biology. What environmental justice means to her is, “the right and autonomy for individuals to have access to fresh food, water, and basic human resources without being disenfranchised or oppressed.”

“Often we look at climate change or widespread human poverty or these deep inequities that hold so many communities back generation after generation, and we say to ourselves, these challenges are too complex. I’m just one person; what can I do to really make a difference?”

The United States recently passed major climate change laws, such as the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (IIJA), the Inflation Reduction Act of 2022 (IRA), and the CHIPS and Science Act, which allocate funding with a goal of expanding energy-transition initiatives. Analysts suggest new investments could reduce greenhouse gas emissions by more than 40% below 2005 levels by 2030.

Four newly awarded sustainability “catalyst grants” at U-M are piloting innovative ways to bolster climate resilience and sustainability. Funded by the U-M Graham Sustainability Institute, these projects will explore renewable energy deployment in Nepal, climate justice in the Midwest, textile recycling innovation and equitable transportation planning.

"“And the warming will continue to accelerate until we halt the burning of fossil fuels. This means continued worsening extreme heat and heat waves, but also many other worsening climate extremes driven by warmer temperatures. More severe droughts, more intense rainfall, more devastating hurricanes and bigger, more widespread wildfires."

Concern for climate change grows—along with support for policies to reduce emissions—when people read about Americans being forced to move within the U.S. because of it. That’s in sharp contrast to learning about climate-induced moves to the U.S. by non-Americans, which doesn’t move the dial on climate change beliefs or policy support.

Is it actually cheaper to own an electric vehicle instead of a gas vehicle? It depends. U-M researchers say that where you live matters. For instance, a midsize SUV costs more to own in Detroit than in San Francisco—one of the most expensive cities in the country.

Rackham student and sociologist Joyce Ho’s research seeks to understand homeowners’ experiences and insurance companies’ responses in the aftermath of forest fires in northern California.

At the COP28 climate summit in Dubai, nearly 200 nations approved a global pact that calls for transitioning away from fossil fuels—a first. The deal also calls for tripling the use of renewable energy, doubling energy efficiency and slashing methane emissions.

The need for a compact came when, twenty-five years ago, a Canadian company decided they could fill tanker ships with Great Lakes water to sell to countries with water shortages. Wanting to protect the lakes, the Great Lakes states, along with Ontario and Quebec, began the complex negotiations that would lead to the formal agreement detailing how they’d work together to manage as well as protect the Great Lakes.

The Environmental Health Research-to-Action Academy is a community-academic partnership focused on building skills and intergenerational knowledge in environmental health, community science and policy advocacy to address cumulative environmental exposures in the nearby communities.

Autonomous and electric vehicles can be a positive force for people and the planet, but widespread gains require government incentives and investment to ensure access for users across the economic spectrum.

Associate Professor Tony Reames will be returning to the University of Michigan School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) from his leave of absence at the Department of Energy (DOE), where he served as the Principal Deputy Director for State and Community Energy Programs and the DOE’s Deputy Director for Energy Justice. Reames will become the Tishman Professor of Environmental Justice at SEAS and serve as the new Director of the SEAS Detroit Sustainability Clinic, effective January 2024.

“Renters are often left behind in the clean energy transition because they often only live in a building for a year at a time, so it can be challenging for them to invest in energy efficiency changes to their homes.”

Sixteen U-M students and their faculty adviser will attend the two-week COP28 climate summit in Dubai, United Arab Emirates. The students will observe the negotiations, attend side events and interact with various experts. This year’s conference runs from Nov. 30 to Dec. 12. U-M has sent student delegations to U.N. climate change conferences since 2009.

While Legionella bacteria can be found in natural freshwater environments, outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease are more often associated with large water systems in public buildings, cooling towers, and other places where water is stagnant or flows at a low rate.

Flint residents have learned to question everything in the decade since the city’s drinking water first began showing signs of lead contamination. Even now, after seven straight years with water meeting federal safety guidelines, the lack of trust remains for many. U-M researchers and their partners are addressing this lingering problem on multiple fronts — from continued testing to in-school education and consulting with the city.

Because large disparities in access to green technologies exist between countries in the Global North and the Global South and among different demographic groups within those countries, it’s important to focus on equity in access to energy services and not simply on energy technologies, according to a new U-M review paper.

"We all know that food is a basic need, a basic right. How do we make refugees feel welcome? My solution was to have a refugee garden.”

LSA’s Detroit River Story Lab teaches students from elementary school through college about the past and future of the vibrant body of water.

Ann Arbor and other cities across the Midwest and Northeast have been referred to by climate specialists as “climate havens,” natural areas of refuge that are relatively safe from extreme weather events such as intense heat and tropical storms.

“Over a third of the energy we use in our homes goes to waste. That’s a lot! Programs like TCLP’s are essential in helping residents save money, support their health, and protect the environment.”

"In many parts of the world, the air pollution monitoring network is inadequate, so people just don't know how bad pollution is in their neighborhoods. And even when they have a monitor nearby, households might not be aware of the full range of health damages that they could be experiencing. So people don't always take adequate measures to protect themselves."

Each peer-reviewed factsheet presents data on patterns of use, life cycle impacts, and sustainable solutions. Updated annually by a current SEAS graduate student, the collection is a free resource to inform journalists, policymakers, business professionals, students, teachers and the public.

“Water management will be one of the challenges of our generation,” Gilchrist told students. “In order to understand how we can meet that challenge, we need smart, we need bold, we need connected information professionals to be part of the process.”

We are in an “extraordinary moment” to create an equitable clean energy future. And Michigan, like other states, is an “essential part” of bringing forth that future.

"Michigan’s legislative leadership earlier this year announced its intention to introduce a package of bills to accelerate the Mi Healthy Climate Plan. Recently, Governor Whitmer put her support behind the proposal and echoed what those involved in the renewable energy transition have noted for some time: the current approach to permitting clean energy projects is broken."

U-M researchers will lead a new effort to strengthen the climate change resilience of vulnerable communities that span international boundaries and jurisdictions. The U.S. National Science Foundation has awarded $5 million to U-M to establish the Global Center for Understanding Climate Change Impacts on Transboundary Waters.

PFAS have contaminated water, food, and people through products such as Teflon pans, waterproof clothing, stain-resistant carpets and fabrics, and food packaging. They are often referred to as “forever chemicals” because they are resistant to breaking down and therefore last for decades in the environment.

“Water conservation and access” brings a slew of images to mind: wastewater flowing through main lines to a city treatment plant, a fisherman yanking invasive mussels off the hull of a trawler, the installation of filters in communities that lack access to safely managed drinking water.

The old adage “the end justifies the means” is one way to critically paraphrase the philosophical underpinnings of the early 20th century environmental conservation movement. Historically, conservation leaders have stolen land from Indigenous people, enacted eminent domain land grabs, and perpetrated other unjust actions in service of environmental conservation. Rackham alum Rebeca Villegas (M.S., M.U.R.P. ’20) is changing that harmful dynamic.

The devastating floods that ripped through the northeast United States are among the most recent in a long string of severe flooding events occurring worldwide, which make it plain that better flood predictions and safety plans are needed. According to the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, flooding causes $8 billion in losses on average annually in the U.S. alone.

Should states and Indigenous nations be able to influence energy projects they view as harmful or contrary to their laws and values? This question lies at the center of a heated debate over Enbridge Energy’s Line 5 pipeline, which carries oil and natural gas across Wisconsin and Michigan.

No amount of air pollution is good for the brain, but wildfires and the emissions resulting from agriculture and farming in particular may pose especially toxic threats to cognitive health, according to new research from U-M. Increasingly, evidence shows exposure to air pollution makes the brain susceptible to dementia.

The tools and policies that worked to significantly reduce threats to the Great Lakes over the past century are ill-equipped to handle today’s complex and interrelated challenges. A new set of stewardship principles is needed to work holistically and systematically on long-term social, economic, environmental, and racial-equity and resiliency concerns that have too often been sidelined in a rush for immediate results.

The Center for EmPowering Communities will help Michigan communities tackle the planning and zoning challenges related to renewable energy projects such as wind and solar installations. In addition, the center will spur collaborative research that integrates social science with technology design, community engagement and policymaking.

Air pollution is known to cause a host of negative effects on human health, with urban populations at particular risk. The National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS) estimates that 9 out of 10 urban area residents are impacted by air pollution.

In Detroit in 2019, there were four times as many hospitalizations for asthma than the state of Michigan as a whole, and Detroit ranks among the 20 most challenging cities for people with asthma to live.

The winning submission provided a hyperlocal blueprint for safe CO2 sequestration and integrative city planning in Houston, Texas, with a replicable pipeline system designed for major metropolitan areas.

"There’s a huge need for people who understand the natural environment and want to work in the urban setting. It’s a surprising gap where best and promising practices from natural resource management don’t make it into the urban planning and urban design space."

"We often say you don’t know where you’re going unless you know where you came from. Studying our history and being aware of all of the deep nuances of Black ag history is so important for what we’re doing today."

Reading about climate-induced immigration prompted negative, nativist attitudes among people toward the affected migrants—an unintended, perhaps even paradoxical effect of many delivering the original messages, according to researchers at U-M and elsewhere. The findings, the researchers say, raise cautionary flags for reporters, advocates and other communicators in their work related to forced migration caused by global climate change.

Engaging researchers from nine units across U-M and several other academic institutions, along with multisectoral partners, the projects will explore community solar, agrivoltaics, carbon-neutral building materials, aviation fuel waste reduction, and sustainable archeology.

Michigan is blessed with a significant portion of the world’s freshwater supply, but water quality and affordability have been persistent issues affecting households throughout the state. Because of the suburbanization of poverty, there are now more residents struggling to afford and access clean, safe water in suburban communities where there are also fewer social welfare institutions to meet their needs.

President Biden signed a historic executive order called Revitalizing Our Nation’s Commitment to Environmental Justice for All, which will direct federal agencies to focus on confronting longstanding environmental injustices. Kyle Whyte, the George Willis Pack Professor at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), a U.S. Science Envoy, and a member of the White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council, served as an advisor on the development of the executive order.

Participating in our democracy, particularly locally, and organizing for systems and policy change to promote the collective good is critical to building a clean energy future that is just and works for all. This was the overall sentiment of a panel that brought together three community activists and organizers who have emerged as powerful leaders that work on pushing forward solutions that consider the rights of all people.

Replacing all of the oldest school buses in the nation could lead to 1.3 million fewer daily absences annually, according to a U-M study. The suspected cause of these preventable absences is exposure to high levels of diesel exhaust fumes, which can leak into school bus cabins or enter buses through open windows. Over time, exposure can exacerbate respiratory illnesses and other conditions and lead to missed school days.

Instances of injustice lie everywhere—from workers’ rights violations to pollution that disproportionately harms low-income communities of color. The Erb Institute recently convened the workshop “Building Connections for Business, Sustainability & Justice Research,” bringing together scholars, corporate leaders and advocates to explore how research can inform solutions to pressing environmental, social and racial justice challenges.

A strong majority of Michigan local government leaders feel that good governance includes promoting environmental sustainability and “being green." A survey of nearly 1,400 leaders across the state found that fully 94% of Michigan local officials support local access to recycling in their communities.

“We are on the cusp of a clean-energy world, which we should all be immensely excited about and look forward to. Yet, we have this strange paradox where our world continues to warm 2.4 degrees above pre-industrial levels, and we don’t talk about it."

The risk of death rises among older adults with Alzheimer’s or other dementias in the months following exposure to a hurricane, a new U-M study shows. Their increased risk could be due to disruption of normal routine, such as access to caregiving, changes in living environment, loss in access to medications, and change in daily routines, said study first author Sue Anne Bell, assistant professor at the U-M School of Nursing.

As climate change and population growth make water scarcity increasingly common, a much larger share of the global population will be forced to reckon with the costs of urban water scarcity. A new study sheds light on how households bear the monetary and nonmonetary costs when water supply is intermittent, rather than continuous—with policy implications that could help make urban water safer, more sustainable and more equitable.

Janet Napolitano, former UC president, U.S. secretary of homeland security and Arizona governor, joined U-M sustainability experts for a panel discussion on climate action. The discussion, entitled “Working Together to Tackle the Climate Crisis,” centered around mobilizing government, higher education, the private sector, community stakeholders and individuals toward addressing the climate crisis.

“I wish to use this fellowship to answer these questions in the context of Mexico, documenting through “day in the life”-style illustrations of various people and communities interacting with water. I hope my findings can be transferable to other countries and regions facing similar challenges.”

The world’s building stock is expected to double by 2060, adding the equivalent of one New York City in new construction every month. Yet construction methods and materials that dominate the building sector are carbon-intensive, unhealthy for people, destructive to the environment, and are becoming increasingly expensive, with much of the burden falling on vulnerable populations.

The Graham Sustainability Institute’s Carbon Neutrality Acceleration Program (CNAP) announced $1,160,000 in funding for six new faculty research projects. They tackle a range of carbon neutrality topics and augment the CNAP portfolio, which addresses six critical technological and social decarbonization opportunities: energy storage; capturing, converting, and storing carbon; changing public opinion and behavior; ensuring an equitable and inclusive transition; material and process innovation; and transportation and alternative fuels.

Classmates Cecilia Garibay and Dolores Migdalia Perales teamed up to develop the Michigan Sustainability Case, “A Tale of Two (Polluted) Cities: Latinx communities and their allies face air pollution in Southwest Detroit and Southwest Los Angeles.”

Climate change deniers are using new strategies to spread their beliefs — namely the conspiracy theory that climate change is a hoax meant to subdue populations.

Most Southeast Michigan residents do not have equal access to urban green spaces, according to a new U-M study. Researchers analyzed data from seven counties in Southeast Michigan and looked at how far residents must travel to reach a park, community garden or some other form of urban green space.

The report calls for “urgency” in cleaning up toxic sediment on the bottom of the Detroit River. Remediation is needed on the Detroit side, but not on the Canadian side, according to the report.

Michigan Sea Grant recently received $500,000 in funding to help improve resilience under future climate change scenarios in disadvantaged coastal communities in Michigan and Wisconsin. The project will assess flood risk for disadvantaged communities in Berrien County, Michigan, and Milwaukee, and will provide a framework to extend the analysis throughout the Great Lakes.

A U-M startup that helped accelerate the removal of dangerous lead pipes in Flint and many other communities has joined a White House partnership aimed at replacing all of the nation’s lead service lines in a decade. The public-private initiative aims to expedite the removal of lead in drinking water — a problem that rose to national prominence when lead was discovered in Flint’s drinking water several years ago and spurred a public health crisis.

In the video, tribal leaders and Native community members share the ways that Line 5 harms Native communities and how a future with clean energy is possible and essential.

“It’s quite exciting to observe something as it’s happening. Many local experts are advocating for the implementation of new ideas about living with nature, water management, and dealing with climate change by adapting agricultural practices and other kinds of infrastructure rather than fighting against it."

During a U-M visit to promote the Biden-Harris Administration’s efforts to address climate change—which include the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act, the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law and the CHIPS and Science Act—Vice President Kamala Harris told the packed crowd that “we are modeling some of the best of what innovation looks like at this moment.

“I think that we are at one of the most incredible moments in this movement — a movement that, yes, we are a big part of, but that you all will be leading for years to come, and I’m so excited."

More than 90% of vehicle-owning households in the United States would see a reduction in the percentage of income spent on transportation energy—the gasoline or electricity that powers their cars, SUVs and pickups—if they switched to electric vehicles. However, more than half of the lowest-income U.S. households (an estimated 8.3 million households) would continue to experience high transportation energy burdens, defined in this study as spending more than 4% of household income on filling the tank or charging up.

"From my vantage point at a large public university, I know firsthand how activism and energy of students, with support from faculty and other university communities, has galvanized our institution to make real commitments and progress toward carbon neutrality."

Grown from an idea cultivated by U-M student Phimmasone Kym Owens, a collaboration between Jewish Family Services of Washtenaw County (JFS) and Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum (MBGNA) has given rise to an area that has been dubbed by its users as “The Freedom Garden” – a space where refugee clients can grow their own food through community gardening.

"There has been a lot of working trying to understand the role of urban gardens and farms in cities. And the general conclusion is that it can provide a lot of social, economic and environmental benefits. Urban agriculture is this sort of unique land use that is extremely customizable to the needs of the community. "

The Transformative Food Systems (TFS) Fellowship was created to attract student leaders who reflect the communities that are most affected by the interrelated environmental, health and economic food systems crises. The two-year program provides selected fellows with the learning and training needed to enable them to transform food systems to be equitable, healthy, and ecologically sound.

Hydrogen is an important energy carrier that can play a key role in reducing carbon emissions from heavy-duty vehicles and aviation, heating and distributed power, and industrial applications like steelmaking, glassmaking and semiconductor manufacturing. With growing interest around wider adoption of hydrogen and its potential economic and environmental benefits, U-M has launched a new initiative to support and catalyze multidisciplinary research involving the universe’s lightest and most abundant element.

U-M environmental justice expert Kyle Whyte is one of seven distinguished scientists in the country named U.S. Science Envoys by the Department of State. Through the Science Envoy Program, eminent U.S. scientists and engineers travel to foreign countries as private citizens, leveraging their expertise and networks to forge connections and identify opportunities for sustained international cooperation.

Since returning from COP27, the United Nations climate change conference, University of Michigan student delegates have been reflecting on their experiences. At the conclusion of COP, the Conference of the Parties agreed to establish loss and damage funding for vulnerable communities and recommitted to keeping the 1.5°C target goal alive through a new mitigation work program.

Access to quality housing is essential to our well-being and the gateway to resources. Unfortunately, this basic necessity remains out of reach for far too many families, creating an ongoing crisis plaguing millions of Americans.

The U-M School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS) announced a new $1 million award to catalyze the field of climate justice in the Midwest. Led by the Tishman Center for Social Justice and the Environment at SEAS, these funds will support the development of students as the next generation of environmental justice leaders and place them within environmental justice (EJ) organizations, while providing full-ride scholarships and summer internship grants.

Global climate talks in Egypt are heading into the home stretch with many issues still unresolved. Negotiators from nearly 200 countries have gathered in Sharm el-Sheikh for the COP27 conference in an effort to curb greenhouse gas emissions and avoid the worst ravages of climate change.

U-M Professor Ivette Perfecto recently highlighted the intersection of biodiversity conservation with agriculture on coffee farms. She stated that “about 40% of the Earth’s terrestrial surface is an agricultural system.” While many people may think that agriculture is always harmful to biodiversity, Perfecto says that many agricultural systems, such as the coffee agroforestry systems, can be diverse and “contribute significantly to the conservation of biodiversity.”

When an emergency causes a disruption in access to clean water, it seems reasonable to respond by providing the public with bottled water. In the short term, this can provide a safe supply of water while the problems get sorted out. But what if the emergency has lasted eight years, and counting, as it has in Flint, Michigan?

Spending time outside has been proven to promote overall well-being—and U-M medical and graduate student Kiley Adams, an avid lover of the outdoors, is helping ensure that everyone can enjoy the trails.

Flooding is the leading cause of property damage and deaths in the U.S. It’s bigger than earthquakes and forest fires put together. Branko Kerkez, an associate professor of civil and environmental engineering, and his students at the Digital Water Lab partnered with researchers at the U-M Center for Social Solutions to measure, better understand and prevent flooding and its aftermath in some of the most vulnerable communities.

Communities that are engaged in cleaning, mowing and repurposing vacant spaces are likely to experience greater reductions in violence and crime than neighborhoods that do not participate in these activities, according to new research led by the University of Michigan.

Obesity has been a major global health issue in recent decades as more people eat unhealthy diets and fail to exercise regularly. A new U-M notes that women in their late 40s and early 50s exposed long-term to air pollution—specifically, higher levels of fine particles, nitrogen dioxide and ozone—saw increases in their body size and composition measures.

Did you know that the average North American household uses roughly 240 gallons of water daily? Or that the Department of Energy estimates that 75% of U.S. energy will come from fossil fuels in 2050, which is widely inconsistent with IPCC carbon reduction goals? Did you know that just 16¢ of every dollar spent on food in 2020 went back to the farm, whereas, in 1975, it was 40¢?

Communities in the Great Lakes region need to start planning now for a future that may include “climate migrants” who leave behind increasingly frequent natural disasters in other parts of the country. And user-friendly web-based tools can be a central part of that planning process.

Many small and mid-sized communities like Goshen, IN simply don’t have the resources to tackle a global crisis like climate change on their own. So in 2018, Goshen was one of 12 cities that partnered with Great Lakes Integrated Sciences and Assessments (GLISA), an organization led by U-M that’s working to help small and mid-sized cities plan for a future that will be shaped by a changing climate.

Nearly one-quarter of adults age 25 and older in the United States experience transportation insecurity, meaning they are unable to move from place to place in a safe or timely manner. More than half of people living below the poverty line experience transportation insecurity, which is higher than the rate of food insecurity among people in poverty.

Reames received the award in recognition of his widely influential research into the intersections of affordability, access to clean energy resources and related disparities across race, class and place, which has been the cornerstone of discussions about equity among policy makers at all levels of government.

As U-M works toward carbon neutrality, plans are moving forward for renewable purchased electricity, widespread geo-exchange heating and cooling systems, and innovative financing mechanisms.

An online, mobile-friendly training module teaches salon owners and employees how to mitigate exposure to chemicals and volatile organic compounds that are ubiquitous in nail salon products like polishes, removers, artificial nails, adhesives, glues and hardeners.

Growing up in a small town in southern Brazil, Ana Paula Pimentel Walker witnessed firsthand the hardships endured by struggling, low-income families who lived in disenfranchised communities with few services and limited opportunities for self-betterment.

As a board member of the nonprofit Cass Community Social Services organization in Detroit, SEAS master’s student Isabella Shehab has seen firsthand the challenges the city and its residents face: vacant buildings, aging infrastructure, flooding. Now, Shehab is using a scholarship awarded through the Landscape Architecture Foundation (LAF) to research the impacts these challenges have on Detroit residents’ mental health and well-being—all with an eye on solutions.

The U-M Office of the Vice President for Research (OVPR) has awarded $450,000 in grants across eight research teams to explore persistent racial disparities embedded in systems ranging from health, education and wealth to criminal justice and infrastructure. Kyle Whyte, the George Willis Pack Professor at the School for Environment and Sustainability, is a team lead for one of the selected projects, which focuses on Indigenous peoples and climate injustice.

To bolster a just transition to cleaner, more resilient energy systems, the U-M Energy Equity Project has released the first standardized national framework for comprehensively measuring and advancing energy equity. Energy equity recognizes the historical and cumulative burdens of the energy system borne by frontline and low-income communities.

Floods are complex events, and they are about more than just heavy rain. Each community has its own unique geography and climate that can exacerbate flooding, so preparing to deal with future floods has to be tailored to the community.

U-M researchers are partnering with the Michigan Farm Bureau to understand the unique challenges rural families face when accessing nutritious meals through food assistance. Often, these programs are designed without the user perspective in mind and are implemented in ways that many families do not find accessible or respectful.

The U-M Department of Nuclear Engineering and Radiological Sciences has received $5.1 million funding for three projects to advance nuclear technology. The biggest project U-M leads, funded with $4 million from the Integrated Research Projects program, is focused on compact heat exchangers, which would transfer heat from a nuclear reactor to the systems that use the heat directly or convert it to electricity. They are much smaller and thus less expensive than traditional designs.

The Michigan Farmworker Project (MFP) is a community-based participatory research initiative aimed at improving the social and environmental health of Michigan’s farmworker population, who play a critical role in the state’s food supply chain. In May 2020, the researchers shared first-of-its-kind findings that provided evidence-based approaches to better protecting Michigan’s farmworkers from COVID-19 while providing essential work during the pandemic.

"Real climate action means Black, Brown and Indigenous peoples are leading the change—leading with their values, leading with their solutions and leading with their knowledge."

The Detroit River Story Lab’s Skiff and Schooner Program is setting sail for its second summer, this time accommodating even more students in its quest to foster connection between the river and its communities. Students from 15 Detroit high schools, two colleges and six youth-serving organizations will board the schooner throughout the summer to learn about various topics focused on the environmental and cultural history of the Detroit River, ranging from marine biology and wildlife restoration to the Underground Railroad.

Middle-aged women with higher blood concentrations of a common group of synthetic chemicals known as PFAS are at greater risk of developing high blood pressure, compared to their peers who have lower levels of these substances. Called "forever chemicals," PFAS are used in everyday household items such as shampoo, dental floss, cosmetics, nonstick cookware, food packaging, stain-resistant coatings for carpeting, upholstery and clothing.

Because environmental justice screening tools will affect community members impacted by disproportionate environmental burdens, soliciting input from the environmental justice community is crucial to developing and using screening tools, according to a new study from U-M.

Pregnant women’s exposures to chemicals increased considerably in the last decade, according to a recently published study. John Meeker, a professor at the University of Michigan School of Public Health, says the study also shows that Hispanic women and other women of color and those of lower socioeconomic status and education had higher concentrations of multiple pesticides and parabens “consistent with prior evidence that chemical exposures are frequently higher among women of color.”

Three tenure track faculty positions will be hired, one each in the Ford School, the School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), and the School of Public Health (SPH), to examine the connections among racism and racial violence, environmental injustice and racialized health disparities to achieve better knowledge of the way policies and actions exacerbate or ameliorate unequal burdens of harm, according to the University’s Anti-Racism Hiring Initiative.

A wide-scale look at Detroit’s urban gardens finds that while they don’t seem to foreshadow gentrification in the city, there are some unsettling trends about where they’re located and the sociodemographics in those areas.

Math achievement for school-age children in Flint decreased and the proportion of children with special needs increased as a result of the Michigan city’s water crisis during 2014-16, according to a new U-M study.

Two years into the pandemic, 72% of Detroit residents say their financial situation has stabilized or improved compared to a year ago, and there's evidence that stimulus checks and the expanded Child Tax Credit played a role in reducing Detroiters' experiences of economic hardship. Additionally, 17% of Detroiters reported experiencing one or more utility or service shut-offs in the last year, with the most common form being the disconnection of phone or internet service.

"Greenprint Detroit: Advancing Ecological Literacy through the Lens of Legacy Soils" aims to advance ecological literacy of the community members of the McDougall-Hunt Neighborhood (bounded by Gratiot, Vernor, and Mt. Elliot) on Detroit’s east side.

As the world turns its attention to electric vehicles as a replacement for gas-powered cars and trucks, some vehicles such as long-haul trucks and planes will need a bridge between gas and electric. Natural gas could be a viable alternative. It’s widely available and burns more cleanly than gasoline. There are even conversion kits already available to allow your passenger cars or long-haul trucks to run on natural gas, says Adam Matzger, a U-M professor of chemistry.

"As members of the Michigan Business Sustainability Roundtable (MBSR), convened by the Erb Institute at University of Michigan, we urge all Michiganders to come together in collaboration and support of Michigan’s movement toward a healthier and more sustainable economy."

Recycling remains popular with local government leaders in Michigan, which recently established a goal of tripling the state’s current per capita recycling rate. Still, those leaders often encounter difficulties in implementing their programs, tied to costs, improper recycling practices by users and a lack of end markets for their recycled materials, according to a new U-M report.

“Educator and Activist” is a vivid account of Bryant’s journey as an educator and activist in the movements for civil rights, students’ rights, women’s rights, international peace, and a healthy environment for all. As a young professor, Bryant was chosen to launch U-M's pioneering Environmental Justice program.

The state of Michigan has released a draft of the Michigan Environmental Justice Mapping and Screening Tool (MiEJScreen), which helps identify and address places where residents are disproportionately burdened by environmental hazards. The screening tool was developed to help inform planning and policy decisions and be a resource for all Michiganders to better understand and address the environmental factors that communities face.

Taubman College Associate Professor of Urban and Regional Planning Lesli Hoey is leading a team of U-M faculty awarded a competitive grant from the Gilbert Whitaker Fund for the Improvement of Teaching to pilot a new Transformative Food Systems (TFS) Seminar. The interdisciplinary team seeks to fill a key gap in U-M’s sustainable food systems curriculum through a new cross-unit course.

Despite Detroit’s reputation as a mecca for urban agriculture, a new analysis of the city’s Lower Eastside, which covers 15 square miles, found that community and private gardens occupy less than 1% of the vacant land. Even so, gardens there play an important role in reducing neighborhood blight and have the potential to provide other significant benefits to residents in the future.

More than 20% of older adults in the United States will experience food insufficiency at some point in their 60s and 70s, according to a U-M study.

U-M announced steps toward procuring 100% renewable purchased power, expanded plans for geothermal heating and cooling systems, and $10 million in funding for additional LED lighting in approximately 100 buildings across all three campuses. The announcements come as the university launches a progress-tracking dashboard — available online for interested members of the community — and $300 million in “green bonds” for projects that align with U-M carbon neutrality goals.

The majority of Michigan local leaders report recycling is somewhat or very important to their community members, with 65% of officials from the state’s largest jurisdictions saying recycling issues are very important in their communities, according to a U-M survey. The findings come as the state, once a national leader in recycling, has fallen behind the national average over time.

Malik Yakini is a co-founder and executive director of the Detroit Black Community Food Security Network, which aims to combat food insecurity and cultivate food sovereignty in Detroit’s Black community. The organization has operated the city’s largest urban farm, D-Town, in Rouge Park for more than 20 years and is working to launch the Detroit People’s Food Co-op.

To Paul Draus, a trash-filled city alleyway is an opportunity, a river abused by industrial waste has potential and people battling addiction have promise. Detroit has plenty of all three, and Draus has joined arms with people trying to transform those seemingly undesirable qualities into something beneficial and beautiful.

The Food Literacy for All series is a community-academic partnership course that invites guest speakers each week to address “challenges and opportunities of diverse food systems.” Recent speaker Dr. Priya Fielding-Singh, a sociologist and assistant professor at the University of Utah, researches the causes and consequences of health disparities in the US, with a focus on gender and family.

For the environmental movement to be effective, it must be something that everyone participates in, marine biologist and climate policy expert Ayana Elizabeth Johnson said.

In a new U-M study, researchers set out to understand the air pollutant emissions impacts of electrifying motorcycle taxis in Kampala, Uganda. Findings indicate that electrified motorcycles can reduce emissions of global and some local air pollutants, yielding global and potentially local sustainability benefits.

Five newly awarded catalyst grants from the Graham Sustainability Institute will fund projects designed to advance potential infrastructure solutions across energy, transportation, and the built environment. The projects will facilitate climate change adaptation, test products aimed to reduce carbon emissions, and foreground equity and justice in sustainability interventions.

State-level environmental justice screening tools are being supported by environmental justice advocacy groups in Michigan and across the country, according to a new U-M study. These screening tools document the communities that are hardest hit by environmental injustices.

In recent years, lakeside communities have struggled to cope with the effect of rising water levels and erosion on the beaches that have made them such attractive places for vacationers and residents alike. As a professor of urban and regional planning, Richard Norton’s work explores how humans can safely adapt to these environmental changes, while also protecting the unique ecosystems that make the Great Lakes region special.

When SEAS alumna Brittany Turner (MS ’15), a member of the Haliwa-Saponi Tribe from Hollister, North Carolina, started Cheyanne Symone in 2018, she saw a need for “high-quality and sustainable Indigenous-style beaded earrings that were versatile enough to be worn every day in a professional work environment and yet bold enough to make a statement.”

A lack of information is an often overlooked but important cause of pollution exposure among low-income households or communities of color. U-M say the disproportionate exposure of pollution on those vulnerable groups is widely studied and known, as are such causes as income inequality, discrimination and the decision of industries to locate factories in places where their costs are lowest.

How do various foods and media shape who we are and think we can be, how we want to feel, and what we hope to look like? Are they good for us, or not?

Millions of workers in coastal Africa—most of them women—spend their days preserving fish by smoking them in rudimentary, wood-fired mud ovens. U-M researchers and their colleagues looked at the air pollutant exposures and health symptoms experienced by fish smokers in two coastal cities in the West African nation of Ghana.

Mcity, a public-private mobility research partnership to advance transportation safety, sustainability, equity and accessibility is starting the new year with new leadership.

Poverty Solutions at U-M joined Detroit Mayor Mike Duggan and researchers from Wayne State University to present findings from a new report that suggests the 2020 U.S. Census may have significantly undercounted Detroit’s population. An undercount of this magnitude would result in a significant reduction in the financial resources that Detroiters and Michiganders receive.

How do human and social capital affect people in the aftermath of a disastrous shock? Ford School professor Elisabeth Gerber and School for Environment and Sustainability professor Arun Agrawal examined the question with data gathered before and after the 2015 earthquakes in Nepal, using a novel machine-learning based analytical approach.

U-M researchers have identified 55 chemicals of concern found in the walls, floors, ceilings and furniture in homes across the United States, including some that have concentrations that are 1,000 times higher than recommended. Among the worst offenders was formaldehyde, which is often included in wooden furniture, base cabinetry and wood, cork, and bamboo flooring.

Water and sewer service affordability, at both the household and community levels, is a widespread and growing problem across Michigan. Left unchecked, it is likely to increase in the future, according to a new statewide assessment.

The School for Environment and Sustainability is welcoming two new members to its faculty: environmental justice experts Dr. Brandy Brown and Dr. Cedric Taylor.

A team of researchers used data from 60 million individual American households to look into how carbon emissions caused by household energy use vary by race and ethnicity across the country. Paradoxically, this first national-level analysis found that even though energy-efficient homes are more often found in white neighborhoods, carbon emissions from these neighborhoods are higher than in African American neighborhoods.

The School for Environment and Sustainability has launched the SEAS Sustainability Clinic, which aims to help the city of Detroit and nonprofits serving it address the impacts of climate change on the natural and built environment, human health and city finances, while working to enhance sustainability policy and action.

Without a sustainable water supply, life in the desert is all but impossible. Flows of the Colorado are steadily shrinking because it’s snowing and raining less in the headwaters. Even bigger reductions in river flow have occurred due to the impact of relentless global warming.

Nearly 38,000 households in Detroit—which equates to more than 1 in 7 occupied homes—have faced major issues with exposed wires or electrical problems, broken furnace or heating problems, or lack of hot or running water in their homes in the past year.

In order to motivate people to address climate change, you need to speak about it in “human terms,” said Gina McCarthy, the country’s first National Climate Advisor, during the Oct. 14 Peter M. Wege Lecture on Sustainability.

The NorthLight Foundation and Dan and Sheryl Tishman have committed an $11.125 million gift to the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability to expand the school’s environmental justice efforts and impact at a pivotal time for social justice.

A coaster minibusiness grew from a U-M course that brought together students of business, engineering and art and design. The class worked closely with Cass Community Social Services, a Detroit-based nonprofit dedicated to providing food, housing, health services and job programs, to brainstorm and set up the business. It uses materials that would otherwise enter the waste stream, like rubber, glass and wood.

Municipal takeover policies are often presented by supporters as rational, apolitical and technocratic responses to municipal financial distress. But a U-M researcher and colleagues found that a city’s level of financial distress is an unreliable predictor of the likelihood of state takeover, while the race and economic status of residents, as well as a city’s level of reliance on state revenue sharing, were better predictors.

The U-M Ford School of Public Policy is launching a new Center for Racial Justice designed to expand knowledge about the complex intersections between race and public policy and create a community of leaders, scholars and students engaged in social justice work focused on racial equity.

Homeownership has been a core value and aspiration for many American households over the last half century. However, beneath this ideal, there is a legacy of racist housing policies that left low-income individuals and people of color disproportionately exposed to the impacts of environmental burdens.

The push for consumers to go electric for their energy needs has significant environmental benefits as the world deals with the disruptive, deadly effects of climate change. Yet the economic burden of a big switch could fall more on lower-income, minority communities.

New research used direct satellite observations of floods to reveal that the proportion of the world’s population exposed to floods has grown by 24% since the turn of the century—10 times higher than scientists previously thought—due to both increased flooding and population migration.

The recent flooding in the Detroit area has raised many issues for residents. Homes that were already in need of repairs were damaged even further. Detroiters don't want to move, but restricted government funds for home repairs are making that option look better each day.

“We are not accustomed to thinking about equity in the context of innovation. But in recent years, we have begun to recognize that marginalized communities — including those who are low-income and those who come from historically disadvantaged communities of color — are often unable to access the benefits of science and technology, but may be disproportionately subject to the harms.”

“Detroit has a lot of land, but it doesn’t have a lot of available quality housing,” says Sharon Haar, a professor of architecture whose research focuses on the social dimension of architecture and how humanitarian concerns can be addressed by design. Detroit, like many cities, is in great need of housing that’s both accessible and appropriate for its residents — especially the 40 percent of Black Detroiters who don’t have access to a car.

Like many regions across the country, southwestern Michigan is preparing for the closure of a nuclear power facility, the Palisades Nuclear Power Plant. The impact of this transition on a community can lead to reduced tax base, lost employment, reduction in services and an unused site.

How will actions taken towards preventing climate change affect communities that rely on a fossil fuel economy? In a recent report titled "Mapping the US Energy Economy to Inform Transition Planning," Daniel Raimi, Ford School lecturer and fellow at Resources for the Future, explored the economic consequences of moving away from fossil fuels for those communities.

Ensuring water access and affordability for Detroit residents is critical. The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored the importance of universal access to safe and affordable water for public health, as well as the barriers and challenges to this goal created by conditions of high poverty and aging infrastructure.

Dr. Tony Reames, an assistant professor at the School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), has been appointed a Senior Advisor to the Department of Energy’s Office of Economic Impact and Diversity. In this role, Reames will be responsible for energy justice policy and analysis to ensure energy investments and benefits reach frontline communities and Black, Indigenous, and other communities of color.

The routes and schedules of public transit, the presence or absence of sidewalks, the availability of different transportation options, and the design of highways that have divided cities—these are examples of aspects of transportation systems that can profoundly impact underserved communities’ access to basic needs like jobs, healthcare, education, and even food.

Dolores Perales is the inaugural winner of the Young Climate Leader Award, given by the Michigan Climate Action Network. She is pursuing a dual master’s degree in urban and regional planning and environment and sustainability. Perales co-manages the Southwest Detroit Environmental Vision Project’s farms and orchard, including coordinating volunteers and working with the community to teach sustainability.

Indigenous peoples, local communities, and Afro-descendant peoples are being denied rights to their land on a global scale. Securing a path to sovereignty will require the mobilization of stakeholders at many levels.

Despite widespread calls for a just transition to cleaner, more resilient energy systems, there isn’t a standardized measurement framework for evaluating the equity of clean energy programs. As a result, utility administrators, regulators, and energy advocates have been judging equity on an ad hoc basis. The Urban Energy Justice Lab at the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability announced a new program aimed at addressing this gap.

U-M will achieve carbon neutrality across all greenhouse gas emission scopes, committing to geothermal heating and cooling projects, electric buses, the creation of a revolving fund for energy-efficiency projects and the appointment of a new executive-level leader, reporting to the president, focusing on carbon neutrality-related efforts.

Three projects have been selected to receive funding through the Graham Sustainability Institute’s catalyst grants, which provide support for small-scale, collaborative, interdisciplinary sustainability research. The projects seek to, respectively, improve urban stream quality in Washtenaw County and beyond, convert alleys in Detroit into net-zero community spaces, and protect nail salon workers from toxic exposure.

The impact of our world's ever-growing population and resulting pollution only compounds concerns related to our Earth's rapidly changing climate. In a recent conversation, U-M climate, environment, and sustainability experts discuss climate change and what we can do to address it in our community, across the nation, and around the world.

Earth Day is every day to folks like Tony Reames, a U-M assistant professor of environmental justice and sustainable systems who is at the forefront of the movement to create efficient, affordable and equitable energy systems.

To LSA Collegiate Fellow and anthropologist Alyssa Paredes, the banana narrative is a parable for commerce, environmental degradation, and disparity. By uncovering the complex paradoxes and disconnects in the banana industry, Paredes reveals how industrialized food production shapes the fate of many rural regions in our world.

The White House Environmental Justice Advisory Council (WHEJAC) was established by President Biden’s Executive Order on Tackling the Climate Crisis at Home and Abroad to fulfill his and Vice President Harris's commitment to confronting long standing environmental injustices and to ensuring that historically marginalized and polluted, overburdened communities have greater input on federal policies and decisions.

Larissa Larsen, associate professor of urban and regional planning and director of the urban and regional planning doctoral program at Taubman College, faced a skeptical audience when she started sounding the alarm on climate change and particularly the issue of extreme heat in 2000. In 2006, she co-authored an article that was the first to document that lower-income and communities of color were disproportionately impacted by the urban heat island.

The President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality at the University of Michigan has submitted its final report, which contains recommendations to help the university achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions. The report includes 50 recommendations that U-M could take to mitigate greenhouse gas emissions across the Ann Arbor, Dearborn and Flint campuses.

U-M researchers will enlist the help of citizen scientists in a new project to digitize thousands of historical records—some dating back more than a century—about Michigan inland lake conditions and fish abundances. Scientists will feed the digitized data into computer models to study the impacts of climate change and other factors on the fish in Michigan’s inland lakes.

Co-producing climate information improves Great Lakes cities' adaptation to climate change, but how can these partnerships be sustained long-term? One successful model, according to a Gala learning case, is through the Great Lakes Climate Adaptation Network (GLCAN), which has linked a number of organizations together to provide Great Lakes cities with the information they need to adapt.

Pursuing energy and climate innovations grows ever more critical, but must include the involvement and participation of marginalized, vulnerable communities from the beginning.

A study published by U-M researchers quantifies the air pollution that impacts Latinx communities in California due to beef production. The study focuses on Costco's beef supply chain in California and explores the environmental impacts of air pollution resulting from beef production in the San Joaquin Valley, a region that has some of the worst air quality in the United States.

Black COVID-19 survivors experience worse outcomes related to care access, recovery, and social and economic factors when compared to their white counterparts, according to research on the impact of COVID-19 on Michiganders.

The President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality, charged with recommending scalable and transferable strategies for U-M to achieve net-zero emissions, has released its preliminary draft recommendations for public comment. The draft report includes a collection of steps that U-M could take to reduce greenhouse gas emissions across the Flint, Dearborn and Ann Arbor campuses, including Michigan Medicine.

Zahir Janmohamed, co-founder of the James Beard nominated podcast Racist Sandwich, discusses why he thinks the subjects of race, gender, class cannot be separated from discussions about food; and offers advice and lessons learned from his successes and failures to get traditional media to center their stories around non-white, non-male voices.

Dominic Bednar, a PhD candidate in the U-M School for Environment and Sustainability (SEAS), was selected for a Fulbright Award to travel to Santiago, Chile, where he will study energy efficiency, energy poverty, and firewood use among residential areas.

Some Detroiters spend up to 30% of their monthly income on home energy bills, a sky-high rate that places the city among the Top 10 nationally in a category that researchers call household energy burden. The COVID-19 pandemic has only worsened the situation, adding financial challenges that make it increasingly difficult for many low- and moderate-income residents to pay their utility bills.

We’ve all heard the axiom: “Give a man a fish, and he will eat for a day. Teach a man to fish, and he will eat for a lifetime.” That’s all well and good, says Alex Bryan, BA ’07. “But it’s a lot easier to learn to fish if you’re not really hungry at the time.”

A community-based research project aims to provide policymakers, philanthropic organizations, nonprofits and other service providers with clear guidance on how Detroiters define economic well-being and what strategies they think will work best to increase economic mobility, which is the ability to improve one’s economic status.

Catherine Hausman, Associate Professor of Public Policy at the U-M Ford School of Public Policy and a faculty research fellow at the National Bureau of Economics Research, explains the concept and arguments for and against a carbon tax.

Forest restoration is a crucial element in strategies to mitigate climate change and conserve global biodiversity in the coming decades, and much of the focus is on formerly tree-covered lands in the tropics. A new study finds that nearly 300 million people in the tropics live on lands suitable for forest restoration, and about a billion people live within 5 miles of such lands.

Despite the initial moratoria on evictions, foreclosures and utility shut-offs under Michigan’s state of emergency, 11 percent of households say they have experienced a utility shut-off or housing hardship since the pandemic started.

When pursuing carbon neutrality, it’s often easy to focus on the technical, whether energy efficiency standards of new buildings, electricity procurement options, or how to power campus vehicles. For two research teams supporting the President’s Commission on Carbon Neutrality, these strategies, though crucial, represent one side of a coin.

The extent of Southeast Michigan’s tree canopy and its urban sprawl both increased between 1985 and 2015, according to a new U-M study that used aerial photos and satellite images to map individual buildings and small patches of street trees.

Pipelines that run beneath our feet, some as old as the cities they service, are often far past their intended lifespan and the need for replacing them looms as an expense most municipalities can’t afford.

The homes of wealthy Americans generate about 25% more greenhouse gases than residences in lower-income neighborhoods, mainly due to their larger size. In the nation’s most affluent suburbs, those emissions can be as much as 15 times higher than in nearby lower-income neighborhoods.

Concurrent failures of federal drinking water standards and Michigan’s emergency manager law reinforced and magnified each other, leading to the Flint water crisis, according to Sara Hughes, an assistant professor at U-M's School for Environment and Sustainability.

As states started closing schools and issuing stay-home orders in March because of the coronavirus, four out of 10 low-income Americans were already struggling to afford enough food for their households, say University of Michigan researchers. And only 18% of them were able to stock up enough food for two weeks, they say.

Even before the coronavirus pandemic wreaked havoc with the nation’s food supply and economy, one in seven adults between the ages of 50 and 80 already had trouble getting enough food because of cost or other issues, a new poll finds. The percentage who said they’d experienced food insecurity in the past year was even higher among those in their pre-Medicare years, and those who are African American or Latino.

Children whose families have access to food assistance get more education, live longer and are less likely to rely on public assistance or be incarcerated as they grow up, according to a U-M-led study.

Some of our most cherished sustainable farming practices — from organic agriculture to the farm cooperative and the CSA — have roots in African wisdom. Yet, discrimination and violence against African-American farmers has led to our decline from 14 percent of all growers in 1920 to less than 2 percent today, with a corresponding loss of over 14 million acres of land.

Households that are unable to meet their energy needs—such as heating, cooling, and electric—are known as “energy poor.” But despite the prevalence of energy poor households in the U.S, energy poverty is not recognized as a distinct problem on the federal level. This results in limited responses—and little assistance—to households in need.

U-M researchers have created a searchable, sortable public database of Michigan zoning ordinances related to siting renewable energy, such as windmill farms and solar panel fields.

Detroit growers Jerry Hebron, Ashley Atkinson and Naim Edwards and environmental justice advocate Michelle Martinez discuss how climate change directly impacts urban agriculture and environmental issues in Detroit.

Pakou Hang, co-founder of the Minnesota-based Hmong American Farmers Association, speaks about the policies and practices that can feed a robust ecosystem and support the resilience of farmers of color.

Jessica Holmes presents an overview of the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and the potential impact of recent proposals on food insecure families, noting the impact of poverty on one’s overall health and life expectancy.

As the effects of climate change become more pronounced, we will see more intense hurricanes coming out of the Atlantic Ocean, repeating this process of destruction and displacement.

Most of the cities in Michigan will be dealing with harsh consequences of climate change, and vulnerable groups who are disproportionately affected by it will continue to do so now and into the future, according to a new U-M study.

Breast cancer patients who endured Hurricane Katrina in 2005 have a 15% higher mortality rate than those patients not exposed to the storm, according to a U-M researcher.

Most people over age 50 say they’re ready for natural disasters and emergency situations, but a new national poll shows that many haven’t taken key steps to protect their health and well-being in case of severe weather, long-term power outages or other situations.

Many hazardous chemicals that cause health issues continue to be used in industrial, commercial and private settings, despite documented harms. As the federal government implements the Frank Lautenberg Chemical Safety for the 21st Century Act, experts say some of the same problems that plagued the earlier Toxic Substances Control Act are hampering progress, despite new legal requirements that promise better protection.

A new study by a U-M student team has identified “hot spots” of environmental injustice across the state. U.S. census tracts in Detroit, Grand Rapids, Flint, Saginaw, Lansing and Kalamazoo are among the hot spots identified in the study, which was released today.

The Flint Water Crisis prompted the state of Michigan to adopt a new Lead and Copper Rule (LCR)—the guidelines that water utilities must follow to ensure the public’s health is protected. The most proactive LCR in the country, the University of Michigan Water Center formed a project team, funded by the CS Mott Foundation, to help guide the implementation process.

Although shrinking cities exist across the U.S., they are concentrated in the American Rust Belt and the Northeast. Urban shrinkage can be bad for drinking water in two ways: through aging infrastructure and reduced water demand.

In 2014, the city of Flint began using the Flint River as its drinking water source. The switch, imposed on the city by state-appointed emergency managers, led to what University of Michigan researcher Paul Mohai calls it the worst example of environmental injustice in recent U.S. history.

The federal response to hurricanes Harvey and Irma was faster and more generous than the help sent to Puerto Rico in preparation and in the aftermath of Hurricane Maria, according to U-M researchers.

U-M environmental researcher Paul Mohai and colleagues published a study in which they surveyed polluters, and found that race was the main determinant predictor of where these places were sited, Hicken said. In another study, they found that these neighborhoods were there first and the polluters came after.

There are three tenets of energy justice. The first is distributional justice, which focuses on the benefits and burdens of energy generation. The second is procedural justice, which considers access to participation in the energy decision-making process. The third is recognition justice, which is the identification of energy injustices affecting specific populations.

A team of students and a professor at the U-M, along with colleagues at the University of Sonora in Mexico, have developed a prototype single-stage distillation unit powered by solar energy that desalinates water in arid coastal areas where wells are depleted.

Energy-efficient lightbulbs are more expensive and less available in high-poverty urban areas than in more affluent locations, according to a U-M study conducted in Wayne County.

Minority and low-income neighborhoods and communities in transition are disproportionately targeted by industries that follow the path of least resistance when deciding where to locate hazardous waste sites and other polluting facilities.

A list of the 40 most influential environmental justice conflicts in American history—compiled by students at U-M—has been added to a new “Global Atlas of Environmental Justice,” an interactive online map detailing about 1,000 environmental conflicts worldwide.