But as president of the Michigan Environmental Council and a former state senator, she is acutely aware of just how important cars are to her home state, where one out of four jobs is in auto or auto-parts manufacturing. Environmentally driven change is about to transform the industry, Pollack argues, and Detroit may be falling behind. There's a competitive threat coming, significantly but not exclusively driven by environmental realities that Michigan leaders, both inside and outside the auto industry, are loathe to acknowledge. Foreign manufacturers and domestic startups pioneering the new technologies could take a huge market share before the slower-moving traditional auto industry has had the opportunity to adapt and recover. The Council is teaming up with other Joyce grantees in an ambitious, two-year Clean Car Campaign.
Cars cause a host of environmental problems.
Car manufacturing consumes huge amounts of energy and employs such toxic substances as lead, mercury, cadmium, asbestos, and chlorinated solvents. The motor vehicle sector releases nearly 100 million pounds annually of substances that must be reported to the government's Toxic Release Inventory. Much of that hits the Midwest, where American automobile manufacturing is concentrated. Figuring out ways to reduce pollution from the industry has been a central focus of the Ecology Center of Ann Arbor, another Joyce grantee. Now we've developed a broader life-cycle approach to reducing environmental impacts that looks at changing the whole product system.