As the wind energy industry in Northern Ohio gets closer to building the world's first freshwater wind farm on Lake Erie, people are getting curious about the potential impact on lakeshore views. This simulated image, created recently by the Ohio Department of Natural Resources Office of Coastal Management, shows what a large, commercial wind turbine will look like if located one, three, or ten miles out in the lake. (Click here for a larger image.)

The current plan is to build a 20-megawatt pilot wind farm of four to five turbines by the end of 2012. Most likely they will be located about seven miles offshore, which will make them appear quite small on the horizon. The hope is that a successful demonstration will help make Ohio the epicenter for freshwater wind turbine manufacturing. The effort is being led the Lake Erie Energy Development Corp. (LEEDCo).

To appreciate the relative impacts of different types of energy production, also check out these pictures of mountaintop removal coal mining and the BP oil spill in the Gulf.

In recent days we’ve seen more scientific confirmations of climate change. On May 19, the National Research Council released a major report, “Advancing the Science of Climate Change,” which affirms that there is a strong, credible body of evidence that climate change is occurring and is caused in large part by human activities.

"Climate change is occurring, is caused largely by human activities, and poses significant risks for — and in many cases is already affecting — a broad range of human and natural systems," the report concludes.

Multiple lines of evidence support scientific understanding of climate change. The core phenomenon, scientific questions, and hypotheses have been examined thoroughly and have stood firm in the face of serious debate and careful evaluation of alternative explanations, according to the press release about the report.

As part of its comprehensive study of climate change, the National Research Council also issued companion reports calling for the U.S. to act now to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and develop a national strategy to adapt to the inevitable impacts of climate change.

Meanwhile, on May 17, the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration reported that the combined global land and ocean surface temperature was the warmest on record for both April and for the period from January-April.

Some of the region's most interesting bioregional investigations are being led by citizen scientists using new Web-based tools. They are uncovering geological features that have been covered up by modern civilization — and reasons for early human settlement patterns that have been lost to history.

This was on display last week at a talk by Roy Larick about the Bluestone Heights project. Larick, a professional archeologist based in Northeast Ohio, spoke at a meeting of the Cleveland Geological Society at the Cleveland Museum of Natural History.

Larick and his colleagues are combining the publicly-available remote sensing data of Google Earth with historical maps to create images that stimulate deeper thinking about the physical realities of place. For instance, they have combined the latest digital elevation models of terrain (data which provide extremely detailed images of elevation changes) and the locations of the earliest stone houses of the Western Reserve. The combined map provides fresh insights about the outcroppings of sandstone building materials used by early settlers.

The Medical Mart and Convention Center project in downtown Cleveland is providing an opportunity to rethink the Mall, one of the most significant civic spaces in the country. At a public forum on May 6, designers offered preliminary ideas for transforming what is now a forbidding and poorly used space on top of the old underground Convention Center. The goal will be to combine the historic ideals of the City Beautiful movement and the best of contemporary urban design — while creating a family-friendly activity space that will enliven the everyday life of the city.

Shannon Nichol of the Gustafson Guthrie Nichol (GGN) landscape architecture firm suggested seven design principles that will guide the planning of a renovated Mall:

As the 40th anniversary of Earth Day approaches next week, I've been thinking about the early days of the environmental movement in Cleveland. In 1970 I was only 13 years old, and I can't remember the first Earth Day. But a number of years ago I was asked to write an article for the Encyclopedia of Cleveland History on environmentalism in Greater Cleveland, and the article included the following account of events:

Today is World Water Day, a day to reflect on the importance of water. I've been trying to think deeply about our relationship to water here in the Lake Erie Basin. Below are some thoughts. Please add your own thoughts in a comment.

Deep water

I am mostly water, so I am mostly Lake Erie. The cells of my body also could contain water from the blood of dinosaurs. I probably just inhaled a thousand water molecules given off by the person next to me. Tomorrow I will be a new person because of the water flowing through me.

Water is the ultimate public good. You can’t own water or even possess it very long. Water just passes through everything — rising, falling, boiling, condensing, evaporating, transpiring, precipitating, infiltrating, seeping, vaporizing, freezing, melting, cycling, flowing. Along the way, it makes all life possible. (Or could it be the reverse? Did life evolve in some mysterious way to serve water?)

As people of the Great Lakes freshwater miracle, we have the luxury of being complacent about water. We don’t know the desperate thirst of the world. We even spend a lot of time and effort trying to avoid water, trying to stay dry. Some day we will throw away our raincoats and water-proofing materials, and we will figure how to work with water in a more intimate way. Our clothes will be like permeable cell membranes. Our buildings will be grown out of organic, water-based materials. Buildings like trees. Cities like forests. You won’t have to be one of the fortunate few with lakefront property to have a biophilic relationship with water.

The City of Cleveland is seeking a consulting firm to help develop a strategic vision and plan for the Sustainable Cleveland 2019 process.  The work will help set priorities by evaluating  the hundreds of ideas generated by the Sustainable Cleveland Summit last August and determining which ones have the best chance of strengthening the local economy. 

The request for proposals was released yesterday. Applicants have until March 5 to respond with their ideas for accomplishing the following:

"The strategic vision should include an overall assessment of where Cleveland should be after ten years of working towards transforming our economy into a sustainable economy. The consultant should also outline an organizational approach to oversee and execute the vision. The strategic plan should outline the steps we need to take as a community to get to the vision. The plan should include at a minimum the following areas, with emphasis being placed on the first: business development, local government policy recommendations, workforce development, and marketing and communications.

State officials and sustainable transportation advocates cheered today's announcement of $400 million of federal funding for development of Ohio's "3C" passenger rail corridor linking Cleveland, Columbus, and Cincinnati. 

"With today’s historic announcement by President Obama, Ohio takes a major step toward modernizing our state’s transportation infrastructure," said Governor Ted Strickland. "The 3C Corridor will create economic development opportunities and serve as a model of environmental sustainability. Most importantly, it will put thousands of Ohioans to work over the next few years."  

See more on the 3C passenger rail plan here.

While the current plan will offer modest service at first -- a handful of trains a day at speeds up to 79 miles per hour -- it will be a vital downpayment on a transportation alternative that will begin to rebalance the state's transportation system after decades of automobile-oriented development. Go here for more on how the funds might be spent from an analysis by All Aboard Ohio.

It's not often that public officials get to do something truly transformational for Greater Cleveland. The board members of the Northeast Ohio Regional Sewer District (NEORSD) did so on Jan. 7 as they voted to approve the creation of a new stormwater program.

This program is one of the most important developments for local water quality that I have seen in the past 25 years. At last we will have an agency with professional staff and construction budget to deal with stormwater on a watershed basis. We will be able to make real progress on the region’s most serious remaining water quality problems, getting to the root of problems instead of sending them downstream.

This program can be our green infrastructure agency. It can help our region become a leader in retrofitting the urban landscape to reduce stormwater runoff and restore ecological functioning. This is one of our best opportunities for creating the green city on a blue lake that we all dream about. 

Capacity to redesign the urban landscape

The NEORSD stormwater program was just one of the big organizational capacity additions in the past year that will allow Greater Cleveland to rethink the urban landscape. The second was the creation of the Cuyahoga County Land Bank, which provides new legal and financial capacity for acquiring and accelerating the reuse of vacant properties.

A couple of weeks ago, a Plain Dealer reporter called me for a year-end story about trends that will shape Cleveland and the region in the coming decade. Here is the outline of what I said:

Macro-trends driving change:

• Climate change and rising energy prices
• Global resource scarcities
• Demographic changes -- aging population, retiring baby boomers, young people earning less than their parents
• Flat or declining incomes in Northeast Ohio because of global competition
• Increasing concerns about health and food

These trends will drive changes in lifestyles. More people will seek affordable, low-consumption, low-mileage, low-carbon lives in cities.

This can be positive for cities like Cleveland: