Riverside Park 693.jpg
Font Awesome map marker.svg Angle down icon.svg Location data
Loading map...
Location Michigan, United States
  • News New grant program asks residents to ‘throw shade,’ foster climate resiliency in Flint, flintbeat.com (Aug 02, 2023)

Read more

Wikipedia W icon.svg

Michigan ( MISH-ig-ən) is a state in the Great Lakes region of the Upper Midwestern United States. It borders Wisconsin to the northwest in the Upper Peninsula, and Indiana and Ohio to the south in the Lower Peninsula; it is also connected by Lakes Superior, Michigan, Huron, and Erie to Minnesota and Illinois, and the Canadian province of Ontario. With a population of nearly 10.12 million and an area of 96,716 sq mi (250,490 km2), Michigan is the 10th-largest state by population, the 11th-largest by area, and the largest by area east of the Mississippi River. Its capital is Lansing, and its largest city is Detroit. Metro Detroit is among the nation's most populous and largest metropolitan economies. The name derives from a gallicized variant of the original Ojibwe word ᒥᓯᑲᒥ (mishigami), meaning "large water" or "large lake".

Michigan consists of two peninsulas. The Lower Peninsula resembles the shape of a mitten, and comprises a majority of the state's land area. The Upper Peninsula (often called "the U.P.") is separated from the Lower Peninsula by the Straits of Mackinac, a five-mile (8 km) channel that joins Lake Huron to Lake Michigan. The Mackinac Bridge connects the peninsulas. Michigan has the longest freshwater coastline of any political subdivision in the United States, being bordered by four of the five Great Lakes and Lake St. Clair. It also has 64,980 inland lakes and ponds. Michigan has the second-most water area of any state, behind only Alaska.

Climate change[edit | edit source]

Wikipedia W icon.svg

Climate change in Michigan encompasses the effects of climate change, attributed to man-made increases in atmospheric greenhouse gases, in the U.S. state of Michigan.

The United States Environmental Protection Agency states that "Michigan's climate is changing. Most of the state has warmed two to three degrees (F) in the last century. Severe thunderstorms and tornadoes are becoming more frequent, and ice cover on the Great Lakes is forming later or melting sooner. In the coming decades, the state will have more extremely hot days, which may harm public health in urban areas and corn harvests in rural areas".

Biodiversity[edit | edit source]

Michigan Nature Association[edit | edit source]

Wikipedia W icon.svg

Michigan Nature Association is a nonprofit conservation organization established in 1952. It has 176 nature sanctuaries in 58 counties throughout Michigan under its jurisdiction.

Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy[edit | edit source]

Wikipedia W icon.svg

The Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy (GTRLC) is a 501(c)(3) non-profit organization based in Traverse City, Michigan. It is an independent organization with its own by-laws, policies, board, staff, and budget. The organization is funded by private donors as well as local, state, and national foundations. The Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy has a volunteer Board of Directors and a professional year-round, full-time professional staff.

Foundation

In 1991, Rotary Charities of Traverse City determined that protecting natural resources was critical to the region's quality of life and created a four-county steering committee designed to establish a local land trust. As a result, the Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy was born. Since then, the organization has worked to protect the important and significant landscapes that make Michigan's Antrim, Benzie, Grand Traverse, Kalkaska, and Manistee counties unique.

Mission

The GTRLC focuses land conservation efforts to permanently protect crucial wildlife habitat and corridors; critical watersheds, which protect the water quality of northern Michigan; unique high-quality farm lands; valuable forestland; and ecologically significant dunes along Lake Michigan's beautiful and endangered shore. We protect land in several ways:

  • By working with landowners to permanently protect private land through voluntary conservation easements
  • By acquiring high quality natural lands; some of these lands are the "best of the best" and become nature preserves which are open to the public
  • By assisting local units of government with land transfers that result in enhanced public access to nature and improved recreational opportunities
  • By providing technical assistance to local units of government with the administration of farmland protection programs

Accomplishments

As of early 2020, the Conservancy had protected roughly 44,000 acres of natural, scenic, and farm lands and over 130 miles of shoreline along the region's exceptional rivers, lakes, and streams through land acquisition, conservation easements, and land transfers.

The Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy has assisted more than a dozen units of government in creating or expanding public natural areas and parks. Since 1991, the organization has helped secure over $67 million from the Michigan Department of Natural Resources Trust Fund on behalf of community-led land conservation efforts across its service region.

State and national partners

The Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy is one of many independent land trusts across the U.S. GTRLC's work is part of a broader network of conservation. GTRLC is a member of the Heart of the Lakes Center for Land Conservation, which acts as a legislative liaison in the State of Michigan and coordinates and promotes sound land preservation policies. GTRLC is also a member of the Land Trust Alliance, a Washington, D.C.-based organization which performs a similar role with the U.S. Congress and appropriate departments of the Federal Government.

External links

  • Grand Traverse Regional Land Conservancy's Website

Huron Mountain Wildlife Foundation[edit | edit source]

Wikipedia W icon.svg

The Huron Mountain Wildlife Foundation (HMWF) is a not-for-profit organization with the sole mission of supporting research in ecology, geology, and other field sciences in the Lake Superior region. It was established in 1955, and has supported a wide range of research focusing on the natural history of the Huron Mountains region.

The Foundation maintains a field station at Ives Lake, near the town of Big Bay, in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. The Ives Lake Field Station is adjacent to the private Huron Mountain Club, and much of the research sponsored by the Foundation takes place on the private lands of the Club. The Huron Mountain Club is one of the largest private natural areas in the Great Lakes region and includes extensive tracts of old-growth forest and a number of protected lakes. The Huron Mountain Wildlife Foundation can provide access to the lands for appropriate research purposes.

HMWF has sponsored a series of occasional publications, including an ongoing all-taxa biodiversity inventory. These are freely available, along with a large collection of historical research reports, at the Foundation's website.

Wilson Ornithological Society[edit | edit source]

Wikipedia W icon.svg

The Wilson Ornithological Society (WOS) is an ornithological organization that was formally established in 1886 as the Wilson Ornithological Chapter of the Agassiz Association. It is based at the Museum of Zoology, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, United States. It was named after Alexander Wilson, a prominent early American ornithologist. The name of the group later evolved through being generally known as the Wilson Ornithological Club (or just the Wilson Club) until it became the WOS in 1955. It publishes the Wilson Journal of Ornithology (previously the Wilson Bulletin). It is a member of the Ornithological Council.

Other initiatives

Nature centers in Michigan W

Environment quality[edit | edit source]

Environmentally Concerned Citizens of South Central Michigan[edit | edit source]

Wikipedia W icon.svg

Environmentally Concerned Citizens of South Central Michigan (ECCSCM) is an association of citizens in Michigan, who are concerned about the consequences of concentrated animal feeding operations (CAFOs). The ECCSCM is located in the Western Lake Erie Watershed.

The association's aim is to educate the public on the health risks and the environmental damage (such as air and water pollution) of CAFOs. They also promote sustainable alternatives (such as eating local food, pasture-based meat, eggs and dairy).ECCSCM is concerned about the area's drinking water, the risk of liquid manure systems, which might drain to field tiles, which drain to streams and then finally flow to Lake Erie. ECCSCM claims that CAFOs in this area are violating Michigan's Water Quality Standards. The organization also monitors and reports illegal activities of CAFOs.

Lynn Henning, who won the Goldman Environmental Prize for her fight against CAFOs, had a leading role in the formation of the ECCSCM.

Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay[edit | edit source]

Wikipedia W icon.svg

The Watershed Center Grand Traverse Bay was founded in 1990. This non-profit organization advocates for clean water in Grand Traverse Bay and protects and preserves the Bay's watershed.

This environmental organization's work encompasses Leelanau County, Grand Traverse County, Antrim County and Kalkaska County in Michigan. The group is based in Traverse City.

Department of Environmental Quality, michigan.gov

Open spaces[edit | edit source]

Wikipedia: Protected areas of Michigan

Community energy[edit | edit source]

Solar power[edit | edit source]

Wikipedia W icon.svg

Solar power in Michigan has been growing in recent years due to new technological improvements, falling solar prices and a variety of regulatory actions and financial incentives. The largest solar farm in Michigan is Assembly Solar, completed in 2022, which has 347 MW of capacity. Small-scale solar provided 50% of Michigan solar electricity as recently as 2020 but multiple solar farms in the 100 MW to 200 MW range are proposed to be completed by the middle of the decade. Although among the lowest U.S. states for solar irradiance, Michigan mostly lies farther south than Germany where solar power is heavily deployed. Michigan is expected to use 120 TWh per year in 2030. To reach a 100% solar electrical grid would require 2.4% of Michigan's land area to host 108 GW of installed capacity.

Michigan had over 759 MW of solar capacity in 2021. December 2020 marked a high point with over 105 MW brought online in that month alone. December 2021 saw 110 MW added. In 2016, solar provided only about 0.25% of all electricity. This rose to 0.58% in 2021.

Wind power[edit | edit source]

Wikipedia W icon.svg

Wind power in Michigan is a developing industry. The industrial base from the automotive industry has led to a number of companies producing wind turbine parts in the state. The development of wind farms in the state, however, has lagged behind. In January 2021, there were a total of 1,481 wind turbines in the state with a nameplate capacity of 2,549 MW. The nameplate total exceeded 2,000 MW when Pine River came online in March 2019.

Cycling activism[edit | edit source]

Wikipedia:

Cycling in Michigan (category)

Reduce, reuse, repair and recycle[edit | edit source]

Recycle Ann Arbor

Sustainable transport[edit | edit source]

Canals in Michigan W

Towards sustainable economies[edit | edit source]

Lansing

The Mid-Michigan bioregion is home to a number of both for-profit and nonprofit cooperative enterprises, including the Mid-Michigan Time Bank, the Lansing Maker's Network, and the Mid-Michigan Renewable Energy Cooperative. By leveraging time, tools, and talents, these groups will form the backbone of the Mid-Michigan Mutual Aid Network to help the region find new ways to build a sustainable new economy.

"Mutual Aid Networks provide a platform for communities to build from the ground up through identifying strengths and resources that are present globally which can be put into action through local location-specific projects," says Marshall Clabueaux, a renewable energy activist and social entrepreneur.[1]

Resources[edit | edit source]

Citizens data initiative[edit | edit source]

Energy Data & Statistics for Michigan

News and comment[edit | edit source]

2019

Cooperative bookstore launches in Hamtramck, Michigan, Jul 26[2]

2017

In Flint Neighborhood, Vacant Lots Will Soon Bear Fruit, Jul 20[3]

2015

Cheap Michigan Wind Energy Set To Save Consumers $15 Million Annually, June 9[4]

Near you[edit | edit source]

Detroit

External links[edit | edit source]

References[edit | edit source]

FA info icon.svg Angle down icon.svg Page data
Keywords us states
Authors Phil Green
License CC-BY-SA-3.0
Language English (en)
Related 0 subpages, 97 pages link here
Aliases Michigan
Impact 863 page views
Created September 19, 2014 by Phil Green
Modified September 8, 2023 by StandardWikitext bot
Cookies help us deliver our services. By using our services, you agree to our use of cookies.