Skip to: Content
Skip to: Site Navigation
Skip to: Search
SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 22, 2009
| Subscribe to Newser's RSS feeds RSS | Follow Newser on Twitter Twitter


 GLOSSIES 
8

New Orleans Repair an Experiment in Green

Share

(Newser) – Four years after Katrina, the rebuilding of New Orleans is becoming an exercise in environmentally friendly reconstruction, Bryan Walsh writes in Time. Global Green USA, the American arm of a group founded by Mikhail Gorbachev, is leading the pack by building a sustainable village in the city's Lower Ninth Ward, and retrofitting schools with solar panels and wetland habitats to make them more energy efficient.

The federal government is also pitching in, paying to "green up" city libraries and install highly efficient, solar-powered LED streetlights. But progress is slow so far, and, notes Walsh, may be ultimately pointless in a below-sea-level city like New Orleans, which remains vulnerable to hurricanes and rising sea levels. On the other hand, all US cities need to be greened up in time—and New Orleans could prove to be the perfect test case.

Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, top, talks with Matt Petersen, right, president of Global Green U.S.A. during a tour of a green-built house in the Holy Cross neighborhood in New Orleans.
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, top, talks with Matt Petersen, right, president of Global Green U.S.A. during a tour of a green-built house in the Holy Cross neighborhood in New Orleans.   (AP Photo)
Brad Pitt walks to a news conference with Global Green USA in front of an environmentally friendly house under construction in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.
Brad Pitt walks to a news conference with Global Green USA in front of an environmentally friendly house under construction in the Lower Ninth Ward of New Orleans.   (AP Photo)
Reconstruction continues apace behind the remnants of a home in he 9th Ward.
Reconstruction continues apace behind the remnants of a home in he 9th Ward.   (AP Photo)
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, center, talks with Matt Petersen, right, and an interpreter, in New Orleans, Friday, Oct. 5, 2007.
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev, center, talks with Matt Petersen, right, and an interpreter, in New Orleans, Friday, Oct. 5, 2007.   (AP Photo/Ann Heisenfelt)
« Prev« Prev | Next »Next » Slideshow
OFF THE GRID
11.20.09
The Health-Care Wars Have Just Begun
11.19.09
Sarah Palin Deserves Some More Attention
8 comments
VIEWING:
 
ryderbackside
Aug 29, 09 7:54 PM CDT
Hopefully optimistic. Reply
Vote up! Vote down!
0
Deebles
Aug 29, 09 7:55 PM CDT
Gorbachev has to be happy he wasn't Yeltsin on the tanks. Gorbachev was the first Russian kept alive because this country fed Russia for years after WW11. That's why he was the first to not think we were devils. Also the reason that Reagan lengthened the fall of the wall rather than shortened it--popular misconception. He shit on Gorbachev like a big dog and let the Yeltsin garbage take over the country. History--always history. Also why a KGB nobody like Putin is what he is cause we had no plan for that just like we didn't have for Iraq. And I ain't blaming anybody, we had no plan for the south in 1865 either. We're doers; not planners. Might want to keep that in mind as every little thing we used to ignore has nuclear weapons. Which by the way no one would have if FDR hadn't got sucked up into Einstein's paranoia. Which weirdly brings you back to the Nazis. If Hitler hadn't made the Copenhagen School--all the the greatest physicists-- flee to all countries in the late 30's because they were Jewish, Einstein might not have feared that the few Christian and Jewish physicists who remained in Germany would invent an atomic bomb before us. That is the most forthright example you will ever get about how religion is detrimental. It wasn't science that split that atom--it was religion. Reply
Vote up! Vote down!
-1
IN RESPONSE:
shonangreg
Aug 29, 09 10:51 PM CDT
A truly bewildering intellect . . .
Vote up! Vote down!
0
IN RESPONSE:
Deebles
Aug 29, 09 11:27 PM CDT
I'm sorry shon, I just can't help it. I know it's weird to go from that article to atomic bombs but that is just how my brain works. My son is inventing new energy, but I can't do math beyond Calculus. So, I got this thing--and thank you for writing intellect which is so different from intelligence. I just got this weird thing about putting things together. And that is what happened with the atomic bomb. And that son got his doctorate in physics when he was 24. His brother killed himself. Intelligence isn't what it's racked up to be. This is not a jury of my peers You need to question why I'm here at all since according to Quantum the only reaction is the observer. Actually, that is what I like--that every thought is just nothing unless I hit submit. Submit is the new slit tin the experiment.
Vote up! Vote down!
-1
IN RESPONSE:
shonangreg
Aug 30, 09 6:02 AM CDT
Actually, Neeley, I screwed it up :-( I meant ........................................................... "Truly, you have a dizzying intellect." (Princess Bride, the man in black)
Vote up! Vote down!
0

View all 8 comments »

LEAVE A
COMMENT Comment Policy
Facebook ConnectPost this comment to Facebook?

After connecting you will have the option to post your comment on your Facebook profile.

 

Related Newser Stories

64 Stories

Army Corps' Negligence Led to Katrina Flooding: Judge

Feds could be on the hook for billions in damages

Nov 18, 09 8:30 PM CST
(Newser) - In an opinion that could open the federal government to billions in damage claims, a judge ruled today that the failure of the Army Corps of Engineers to maintain an outlet channel led directly to disastrous flooding in and around New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.... More »

MORE ABOUT:
Hurricane Katrina • New Orleans • flooding • civil lawsuits • Army Corps of Engineers • disaster • Mississippi River-Gulf Outlet • New Orleans levees • Lower Ninth Ward • Stanwood Duval • neglect • mismanagement

investigation

The Memorial Killings:
What Katrina Doctors Did

Report details how staff responded to agonizing situation

Aug 28, 09 10:09 AM CDT
(Newser) - In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the staff at one New Orleans hospital faced a torturous dilemma: For critically ill patients who would have to be carried down as many as 8 flights of stairs and back up to the roof of a garage, evacuation seemed impossible. With rumors of... More »

MORE ABOUT:
Hurricane Katrina • investigation • New Orleans • euthanasia • Dr. Anna Pou • riots • doctors • medical emergency • ProPublica

 Brad Pitt for Mayor? 
 'I Don't Have a Chance'

But no, he's not running for mayor

Aug 13, 09 11:34 AM CDT
(Newser) - To mark the fourth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina, Brad Pitt spoke to MSNBC about his effort to rebuild the Lower 9th Ward with his Make It Right foundation—and the grassroots campaign to push him to run for mayor of New Orleans. He says he'd run if chosen, but “... More »

MORE ABOUT:
entertainment • Hurricane Katrina • Brad Pitt • New Orleans • celebrity • celebrity humanitarianism • Ninth Ward

64 Stories


US  •  Science & Health 
TwitterFollow @NewserUS on Twitter

 
Hurricane Katrina • New Orleans • green building • construction • reconstruction • housing industry • rebuilding • Global Green USA

from our news partners