Give a Minute is a web based civil engagement application that allows people to submit ideas about a certain topic.  It acts as a huge digital white board where all ideas are posted on virtual post-its.  Viewers can see these ideas, share them on Facebook, and even organize into virtual ‘action groups’ that allow communities to actually implement some of the suggestions.  If a neighborhood on Staten Island wanted to get a rain barrel system going, they can start planning through these action groups.

Sounds like a good idea?  Mayor Bloomberg certainly thinks so: he’s sponsored Give a Minute as part of his PlaNYC 2030 program which will be released in May.  ”This kind of open call for ideas – or ‘crowdsourcing,’ as it’s called – has helped cutting-edge companies like Facebook and Netflix improve services and save money.  And with more than 8.4 million people in our crowd, imagine what we can come up with.”  In fact, if Mayor Bloomberg sees an idea on the virtual board that he likes, he can even endorse that idea and potentially contact the person(s) who suggested it.

Give a Minute was created its first virtual suggestion board in Chicago.  Local Projects, the group that created and streamlined this web application, asked for suggestions on ways to encourage use of public transit in Chicago.  To date, there have been at least 2,000 responses, ideas, and suggestions on how best to address the transit issue in Chicago.

When Give A Minute’s online suggestion box opens to New York this coming May, the question is “Hey NYC, what can we do to green our neighborhoods?”

You can be sure that New Yorkers will have a lot of answers.

(Source)

DUMBO Underwater from Eric Corriel on Vimeo.

I recently stumbled upon a video of an art installation in 81 Front Street (Brooklyn) that shows how sea level rise will cause the East River to flood parts of the DUMBO (Down By the Manhattan Bridge Overpass) neighborhood.  It reminds me of a high tech version of an installation that CISC put on Governor’s Island during City of Water Day this past August.

While scientists can report the data on sea level rise and other effects of global climate change, I think a broad social movement towards sustainability will come through artists and others who use visual medians to provide tangible projections of what our environment could look like in the future.  Thinking about twenty feet is one thing; seeing virtual water twenty feet off the ground is another.

About the work:

DUMBO Underwater is part of the DUMBO Arts Festival which takes place in DUMBO, Brooklyn, September 24 – 26, 2010. It will be available from sundown to sunrise at 81 Front Street until October 13, 2010. It is roughly 80′ x 9′ and runs 50′ on loop.  DUMBO Underwater is a sponsored project of the New York Foundation for the Arts.  (Eric Corriel)

However, a new pilot project currently conducted by the Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) could provide some comfort in knowing that when the brakes grind against the rails, they’re also making energy.  The pilot project, funded by the Pennsylvania Energy Development Authority and partnered with Viridity Energy, hopes to install a smart electrical grid in the Philadelphia transit system to cut electricity bills.  Currently, the project involves 38 substations within the transit system and is expected to generate $500,000 worth of electrical energy per year.  The ultimate goal is to be able to cut SEPTA’s electrical bills by 40 percent as well as generate revenue through selling electricity back to the grid.

The smart grid system harnesses regenerative braking technology in order to generate electricity as the subway cars brake.  The electricity produced is stored in large batteries within the cars and released into the electrical grid when needed.  This is different from the current system in SEPTA’s, which can redistribute regenerative energy from one train’s braking action into another’s acceleration, but only when they happen simultaneously.  In fact, many city subway transit systems have some sort of regenerative braking ability; for example, the MTA subway car-models that run on the , , , ,  and  routes have regenerative braking that feeds energy back to the Third Rail.

Many systems, however, don’t have a storage capacity, which is useful since not all energy can be used the minute its produced.  The SEPTA project is geared towards finding a storage solution to the issue.  However, the project is faced with two challenges.  One is finding a battery that can store and release electricity for hundreds of thousands of cycles.  The other is developing software to be able to simultaneously analyze electrical data from SEPTA’s grid and the surrounding electrical grid in order to determine energy use from the stored energy.

While cutting its own electrical bill is one goal, the project also has the broader objective of helping to contribute to the surrounding energy grids.  When demand for electricity is high, price for that electricity also rises; so, it may be more economical during these times to sell electricity back to the local energy grids.  This would help more urban areas where energy demands fluctuate greatly simply because many more buildings and electricity using facilities exist within a small area.

With the economy still struggling to pick itself up and city budgets still tight, public transit systems should watch this project closely.

Maybe if the MTA picked this up, I wouldn’t mind hearing the brakes screech.  At least I know that on a cold autumn day, part of the heat energy will probably come from those annoying brakes.

While we humans enjoy the lights, migrating birds depend on light as one of the ways they find their way south at night.  While usually the only source of light are the stars and the moon, birds flying through urban areas meet lit up skyscrapers and other tall buildings, causing confusion for the birds and a potentiaally fatal collision.  Imagine getting up at 5am and going to work after only 4 hours of sleep; sometimes we don’t notice the glass door that blocks us from our favorite coffee joint.  That’s close to what these birds are feeling.  The NYC Audubon estimates that 90,000 birds die each year from colliding with tall buildings during the annual migration south in New York City alone.  The Field Museum of Chicago estimates that when one building turns off its lights, it can reduce the number of birds killed by 83% per building.

The New York City Audubon started the Lights Out Campaign in 2005 in response to the growing concern over bird collisions.  This campaign began on September 1 and will last to October 31.  If you are interested in registering your building for this campaign, contact Leslie Chase at lchase@nycaudubon.org.

All the more reason to turn off the lights when you leave.  Saving electricity and saving the birds!

Like Bigfoot and disappearing planes in the Bermuda Triangle, the lack of an overwhelming movement towards a sustainable society has always confused me.  The evidence is all there; for at least the past two decades, scientists have provided an enormous wealth of facts that all point to the urgent need of changing the way our world functions so that we won’t wreck our environment.  But for a significant portion of the population, it doesn’t seem to register as an important issue.  Why is there that disconnect?

The UNEP’s lifestyle team, led by Sweden, has released a report that may provide an answer as to why a disconnect exists between scientists and society.  What got my attention was the focus on modern environmental communication; the report finds that today’s communication about sustainability revolves around self denial – don’t drive, don’t use non-recyclable goods, etc.  As evident with the lack of a substantial societal overhaul of consumer lifestyle, this communication isn’t working and certainly isn’t attractive to most.  The report finds that thus far, environmental communication hasn’t concentrated on the positive effects of changing to a more sustainable lifestyle and what it can add to the quality of life for a person.   In fact, most of the communication carries a holier-than-thou undertone.  Accordingly, the report suggests that environmental groups and other sustainability organizations shift the dialog from “you can’t do this because it’s unsustainable” to “look what you can do when you are sustainable.”  As a college student who is just starting to understand the real world, this seems obvious to me: I’m more likely to do something when I’m presented with the positive possibilities rather than the negative consequences of not doing something.  For example, I didn’t buy a water bottle and water filter because someone told me to not use plastic bottles because they are bad; rather, a friend suggested I use those two things because it would save me money and relieve me from the hassle of running to the store to buy another case of water.  As the report highlights, it’s better to show the positive outcomes that can come about if a more sustainable lifestyle is adopted rather than preaching negative consequences of the status quo.

This report follows similar reports by the Sustainable Consumption Roundtable (2006) and Center for Research on Environemntal Decisions at Columbia (2009).  It hints at a potential major trend in the environmental activism community: a change in communication to make the research more applicable to the rest of society.  It may be all we need to really set off the sustainability revolution.

However, these areas may soon be in danger.  New proposed rules in regards to community gardens will come into effect on September 17th, 2010 as the old agreements from 2002 are set to expire.  This came about after former attorney general Eliot Spitzer sued the City in order to preserve community gardens and other small inlet green spaces from development – usually from luxury condominium developers. Before this time, a struggle existed between developers and community leaders which revolved around the use of unused properties around communities.  The agreement in 2002 gave a temporary victory for community leaders, but the new rules may cause tensions to rise again.

The problem with the new, permanent rules is that they don’t include any preservation clauses.  What this means is that city developers may take the property in which the community gardens are on and develop them, though city officials have stated that there have been no plans so far to develop these spaces.  However, there have been conflicts in the past between developers and community garden organizers where existing community gardens were destroyed, such as those in the Lower East Side like the Chico Mendez Mural Garden.

Organizations, proponents of community gardens, and community leaders are stepping up awareness campaigns in light of the new rules.  One such organization, Time’s Up, organized a bicycle rally on July 29th, chanting “the developers are coming” and dressing up as eighteenth century patriots to warn community members, especially ones who had community gardens.

The City had opened a section under the NYC Rules website in which members of the community were allowed to comment on the rules.  The deadline for comments was August 10^th.

Sitting outside in the sizzling heat during my lunch break, I often imagine myself taking a dip in the pool to cool off.  But, I run into a problem.  None of the eleven ‘intermediate’ classification pools, aka your normal ones, are anywhere near me.  However, for future hot interns – or anyone who wants to take a dip – all you may need to do is walk to the nearest waterfront.  A proposed project to revitalize NYC’s floating pool culture may just be the answer to NYC’s sweltering heat.

The project, called +Pool, aims to increase the use of NYC’s natural resources by creating a clean water environment for people to enjoy the city’s waterways.  The project also strives to bring back the attention of New Yorkers to the water ways, which once played a major role in the City’s development and is now affected by the lack of attention to the water.

The first floating pools were actually baths.  These baths existed in the city since the early 19th century, becoming especially popular after the Civil War as public health advocates petitioned for more public baths to increase personal hygiene. The first free public floating bath opened in 1870 in the Hudson and East Rivers.  Twenty years later, fifteen more of these were opened.  However, by the 20th century, the quality of the city’s water had degraded too much and these facilities were shut down.

Fast forward to 2007, when the Floating Pool Lady project launched.  Using an old cargo barge, Ann Buttenwieser and the Neptune Foundation, along with designers from Jonathan Kirschenfeld Associates, created a seven lane, 25-meter long floating pool.  The Floating Pool Lady is currently docked at Barretto Point Park in Hunts Point.

What those at the +Pool project hope to do is take the Floating Pool Lady idea one step further; putting the pool literally next to the river.  Project collaborators are in contact with those at the Floating Pool Lady project to discuss further development of +Pool.  ”We hope to put people back right next to the water,” Project Manager for +Pool Dong-Ping Wong said in a phone interview when I called the organization.

In addition to providing a clean water environment for patrons to swim it, the pool itself acts as a filter in the river, helping to cleanse the water “like a giant strainer dropped into the river,” according to the concept site.  Wong notes that while the filtered water released from the pool may not be a significant amount to improve the quality of the river as  whole, it’s a start.

With an increased concentration on water in the past decade – in part due to the Mayor’s plaNYC 2030 proposal – projects such as +Pool hope to reconnect people back to the water in which this city was founded upon.  As average global temperatures increase and affect local weather, possibly resulting in heat waves like we’ve seen this summer, it’s refreshing to know that the next pool hitting the water can also help our environment.

As most are probably aware, Times Square did not experience a flood in the past weeks, but the familiar red of its  walkways is now replaced with blue swirls, mimicking the flow of water on land.  This sweeping plain of blue is the most recent Molly Dillworth public art installation.  Her “Cool Water, Hot Island” was selected by the Department of Transportation as an 18 month temporary replacement of the Times Square pedestrian walkway design as the city moves forward in its plan to revamp the area, according to a statement by the Department of Transportation.

The design was supposed to act as both an abstract representation of the Heat Island effect that most urban centers have, as well as a white roof.  The white roof concept is based on the fact that lighter (more white) surfaces reflect heat and light more than darker surfaces, thus decreasing the energy absorbed by those surfaces.  Thus, a white surface is actually a couple of degrees cooler than a black one.

While it certainly attracts passer bys, it doesn’t necessarily draw them in. A glance at people’s interaction with the installation shows one flaw that prevents this design from achieving the desired educational and emotional effect.  Many people step around or over the installment, not looking at it.  Mainly, the lack of signs explaining the display causes the display to be purely aesthetic. In fact, the one explanation sign on 42nd and Broadway that was there during the creation of the installation was removed after completion.  Chatting with pedestrians on the sidewalk, I found that a good number of people thought the installation was simply a new design because the plain red was old.

On the other hand, people are noticing the change.  The installment definitely leaves pedestrians curious of the ‘who, what, and why,’ of this installation.

Since “Cool Water, Hot Island” was just completed a few weeks ago,  hopefully signs explaining the design, or even displaying the name of the installation, will crop up as more people ask about the installation.  In the meantime, if you ever find yourself in Times Square and see some confused pedestrians looking at the design, explain it to them.  It may be the start of an interesting conversation.