By Jane Elder
Right now we’re watching a really bad petroleum-based horror story play out in the Gulf of Mexico. All things considered, this is a really good ecosystem, even though it has known some hard knocks, like being home to the world’s largest marine dead zone, thanks to all the chemical fertilizers and semi-treated sewage that our great heartland has flushed down the Mississippi River for decades.
Where the zones aren’t dead, the Gulf and its coast have been one of our hemisphere’s most productive marine habitats. This foodweb with delectable …

Nine businesses and utilities headquartered in the Great Lakes are among 60 organizations that signed a letter urging U.S. Senate action on energy and climate legislation (PDF).
The Great Lakes businesses are: General Motors Co., Ford Motor Co., Chrysler, Dow Chemical Co. and DTE Energy in Michigan; Deere & Co. and Excelon Corp. in Illinois; Owens Corning Corp. in Ohio; and Johnson Controls in Wisconsin.
Another company with connections to a hotly contested mine in Michigan’s Upper Peninsula also signed the letter.
The letter says that “the time is now” to act on …

Watch the latest installment of the Greening of Flint documentary under production and offer your ideas for shaping it.

This week: The Kings perceive karate and farming as self-defense.

By Jane Elder
If, in casual conversation, I were to turn to you and say, “OK, you have a month to carefully identify, consider, and recommend all the major elements of a framework that two nations will use to protect the water quality of the largest freshwater ecosystem in the known galaxy and by the way, that framework should be designed to last a few decades or more” you would laugh at me out of incredulity, or ask if this was some wacky reality show to boost summer ratings, or you …

Crude oil, once nearly 30 percent of energy produced in state, is now only 4 percent. Production dropped 85 percent between 1980 and 2007. Alternative energy production in Michigan is increasing, but lags other Great Lakes states.

It has been a month since the BP oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico and the political reverberations have finally made their way to the Great Lakes.
The Michigan Democratic Party on Monday released a video stating that drilling in the Great Lakes could lead to the same kind of disaster here. The two minute video shows graphic images of dead wildlife set against a spooky soundtrack and stark quotes. It then superimposes drilling rigs on Michigan landmarks such as the Mackinac Bridge, Grand Hotel and the RenCen. That’s …

Today the Michigan League of Conservation Voters slapped a big fat zero on 12 Michigan legislators for lousy environmental voting records.
The scores are in the non-profit group’s 2009-2010 Environmental Scorecard, a report that rates the state’s elected officials based on their voting record on bills that would affect the state’s natural resources and its citizens’ environmental health.
You can read the 20-page report here (PDF) or search for your Senator or Representative here.
Those earning the zero-percent “Dis-Honorable Mention” include Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop (R-Rochester) and Sen. Gerald Van Woerkom (R-Muskegon). …

Echo recently covered the prospect of the Great Lakes states supplanting their steady diet of coal with biomass – that’s trees, crop waste and other plants that can be burned for energy.
It’s an attractive but tricky plan. If done right, it could be a “carbon-neutral” fuel because crops can be managed to absorb carbon dioxide and the vegetation would theoretically decompose and release its carbon anyway. If done wrong, we’ll rack up a carbon debt from still-recovering forest resources instead of fossil fuels.
If it wasn’t already complicated enough, try figuring …

Garlic mustard, purple loosestrife and other alien plants are threatening Michigan’s Upper Peninsula’s ecosystem. A $150,000 federal grant will help local government agencies and environmental groups control the invaders.

A psychiatric hospital that once stood on 414 acres in southeast Michigan and housed thousands of long-term patients is littered with “Do Not Trespass” signs. Can it be safely rehabilitated for another use?