Earth Day 2007: It's cool to be green

DETROIT- Just in time for the 37th anniversary of Earth Day, the Earth is back. Green is cool; global warming is hot.

"It's a great time to be an environmentalist," said Lana Pollack, executive director of the Michigan Environmental Council in Lansing. "I really believe the public has reached a tipping point in terms of concern and understanding about global warming. There's been a big change, even in just the last year."

Consider:

Wayne County runs its road-maintenance and salt trucks on biodiesel and Novi is urging all developers to build green buildings, which conserve energy and water.

Fuel-efficient cars and trucks powered by gas engines and electric motors are proliferating, as General Motors joins Toyota, Honda and Ford in the hybrid race. GM unveiled a plug-in hybrid concept at the Detroit auto show in January that may never need gasoline.

The Earth is big on magazine covers. May's Vanity Fair magazine is its Green Issue; California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's fight against global warming graced a recent Newsweek cover.

Retailers are joining the green movement. The goal of the world's biggest retailer, Wal-Mart, is to get 100 percent of its energy from sustainable sources and produce zero waste. Home Depot, the nation's second- biggest retailer, announced plans last week for a line of 3,000 eco-friendly products like natural insect killers and energy-saving light bulbs.

A Detroit Free Press-Local 4 Michigan Poll of students at the state's three biggest universities this month found that 3 of 4 students think global warming will worsen in the next 15-20 years. On no other issue, including global terrorism and nuclear proliferation, were students so pessimistic about the future.

A USA Today/ Gallup Poll last month found that more Americans than ever before _ 60 percent, up from 48 percent a decade ago _ believe global warming is already changing the world's climate. A slightly larger percentage of Americans think it will cause major or extreme changes in climate and weather over the next 50 years.

There are still skeptics _ led by conservative talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh _ but their numbers and power are dwindling.

Even ExxonMobil, an oil company that was funding global warming skeptics who create the impression that the science on climate change is iffy, has stopped funneling money to skeptics and says it's time to take action, said Andy Hoffman, a University of Michigan business school professor who studies business reaction to environmental issues.

He calls this the "third wave" of the environmental movement, following waves around 1970 and 1990.

"I think the growing scientific, social and political consensus is that global warming is real and has to be dealt with, and that's the driver of this third wave," Hoffman said.

Tim Solack, 51, likes working on cars, driving cars and working on his St. Clair Riverfront house in Marine City, Mich. He's a former factory worker turned firefighter. In November, he caught the environment bug.

"I've never been like this before," he said.

A battalion chief for the Redford Fire Department, he said he hadn't paid much attention to global warming until he watched Al Gore's documentary "An Inconvenient Truth."

It seemed to answer his questions about why less ice was flowing in the river. And it inspired him to take vacation time and pay his own way last month to Nashville to become one of 1,000 people trained by Gore to spread the global warming gospel.

Now he's a crusader. Solack has helped promote a solar wind farm near an elementary school. He is an expert on melting ice shelves and thawing permafrost. He spends hours downloading scientific reports on the family computer, which he seldom used a year ago.

"My family is number one, but this comes next," he said.

Among his five sons, one supports him, but another warned him on his way to Nashville not to get brainwashed. Solack's wife wishes he would resume his work on the house. Fellow firefighters think he's crazy.

"Eventually they'll get it," he said.

Others have answered the call in different ways.

Nathan Zack, 26, of Farmington Hills is part of a new generation creating green businesses. His mother was active in Greenpeace and he learned recycling at home.

At 19, he started an electronics recycling business in his family garage that has grown into one of the largest in the nation. Zack's company, Great Lakes Electronics Corp., recycles 30 million pounds a year of cell phones, computers, hard drives, TVs and office equipment. None of the discarded technology goes to landfills. He employs 75 people and has plants in Detroit, Canada and Florida.

"I saw a need," he said.

Sarah Kubik, a Wayne State University student in sociology and peace and conflict studies, started a nonprofit trash recycling firm in Detroit.

"What campuses are doing now is not like 37 years ago," said Kubik, 28. "We're not scaling buildings, pointing fingers and saying corporations are evil. Students are coming back in a radical way saying we need solutions."

The idea was to start on campus and move outward, she said.

Kubik started Earth Week last year at WSU and helped organize an event again this year, as well as an Earth Day celebration Saturday in Cass Park.

She pushed Wayne State administrators to start a recycling program. Now they're considering other environmental initiatives, including greener investments. She helped organize a recycling program in Detroit's Midtown area and started Recycle Detroit, part of a joint venture that won a city recycling contract.

A fourth-generation Detroiter who plans to stay in the city, Kubik doesn't own a car. She gets to most places by walking or biking.

"I want to push Detroit in a more green direction," she said. "Youth are saying enough is enough."