Just this morning I saw a great tweet on the feed for Beyond Coal–the Sierra Club’s initiative to phase out coal fired power plants and stop new ones from developing–about new exercise equipment being tested for gyms. The “Green System” ellipticals and bikes will A) feed energy back to the grid and B) Show exercisers how many watts they are producing. Similar products in existence are inverters that can be attached to various stationary bikes. This set up, which includes both the bike/elliptical and the inverter, will increase system efficiency by 40%, allowing for up to 70% of the energy created by exercisers to be returned to the grid. Additionally, programs to incentivize maximum energy production are in the works. Discounts on gym memberships and other prizes will be awarded to those who perform, which is of course why we are at the gym in the first place.  The pilot is set to launch at the Hotel Grand Pacific in Victoria, British Columbia, Canada this February.  But I think this could work in our over-achieving, competitive, vanity obsessed, future thinking city as well.

There are of course micro-scale examples of translating this energy into use. Occupy Wall Street campers were using bicycle power generators–only after the NYPD confiscated their gas fueled ones. The annual Coachella music festival has the Energy FACTory DJ Mixer, which is a power-cordless stage where musicians play their sets powered by the see-saws, bikes, and a human-hamster wheel that power the equipment. (Note, the video linked there talks about a whole slew of sustainability projects that people engage with at Coachella. Watch it!) And  on a similar note, there is the green dance floor that captures the energy of the party people upon it.  NYC apparently has a few of these. I have yet to encounter one, but let us know if you have!

The initiative to accept food stamps at Grow NYC markets began in 2007 and at that time, these transactions amounted to a few thousand dollars. By 2009, it was $251,000. In 2010 we were up to $505,000. And in 2011, $620,000 worth of food stamps was spent at participating Grow NYC markets. Note, there are other markets that accept food stamps that are not affiliated with Grow NYC. A map of them can be seen here.

Nationwide, low-income Americans spent about .01 of their foodstamps in Green Markets. GOOD has a nice map showing which states have signed on to make this type of transaction more convenient for their food consumers and they kindly outline which states continuously hold out. Colorado, Delaware, Hawaii, Idaho, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, Nevada, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Utah, Virginia, and Wyoming.  I’d be interested in seeing  a map that highlights overlap between big agribusiness turf and the program deniers.

We still have a long way to go in getting fresh food to all Americans. But it took many steps for the food system to change, to the point where the Crop Life Association came out against Michelle Obama for declaring the White House Garden as organic. For some seriously mind-blowing reading, take a look at the association’s call to arms for a letter writing campaign to tell the First Lady that the garden should not be organic.  For a more indepth discussion of that whole escapade, you can listen to Michael Pollan’s Illustrated Food Rules on the January 2nd, 2012 Leonard Lopate show.

Ultimately, every step taken to bring us to our current food system status-quo, every bill signed, every food pyramid created, every subsidy awarded, every cultural norm established, will need to be replaced by steps in a different direction, supported by a vision to take us there. I’d like to think that $620,000 worth of food stamps spent at  Grow NYC markets in 2011 is one of those steps.    [image via year of plenty]

While there seems to be a healthy amount of anti-fracking sentiment and concern over the long term losses in property values–the Baseball Hall of Fame in Cooperstown, NY along with other businesses have issued a statement coming out against it–there are some loud voices in support of natural gas exploration. These residents claim that the towns are out of line and this is something the state decides.  One 3rd generation farmer who did lease her land to an oil company has already sued her town. And and it is quite certain that there will be more along those lines.

While the Institute for Sustainable Cities has no formal position on the fracking debate–as of yet,  I Carina Molnar, personally hold the view that the precautionary principle is likely the way to go here. So, interpret that as you like.  I also believe that the movement to restore local control over what actually happens locally is a shift in the right direction for all political strategy. But this particular situation proves the need for a larger authority to mediate and take into account the needs of one geographic place and all those who rely on something from there, water, in this case.  It is sort of the tragedy of the commons with a contemporary twist: If only we weren’t all potentially effected by the decision of Land Owner A, s/he could do whatever s/he wanted.The land itself is not the issue since A owns it. What is at stake is what happens to the public good based on what happens on A’s land. We can come up with ballpark figures as to how bad the worst case scenario would be. But the more important argument in my mind is, how much value is added by keeping that ecosystem in tact and healthy in the first place.

So, where are the wind energy advocates on this one? A quick google search shows some action on this in Pennsylvania. But I am actually curious as to what the alternatives are…More on this soon.

[image via Chemical Heritage Foundation]

My favorite response was found on Tree Hugger, who very simply said: “You Are Now One of 7 Billion People on Planet Earth.  Our recommendation: Live accordingly.” There is of course a more in-depth discussion of what this all means for limited resources paired with growing appetites for them over at Dot Earth.

I guess I would probably say the same thing to these babies as I would to any other one: You were born into exciting and amazing times, but they are also full of anxieties and concern that a lot of things need to be fixed. So you will have to work hard to contribute to the cause of betterment. Also, that is not going to get any easier for you, so you will have to be innovative, but you will have tools and talent beyond measure to make that happen. You will also have to learn about the role of lobbying in politics if you want all of your efforts to go anywhere. Live in a city. Be close to the people you care about. And yes, you will survive your teenage years.

In the time I wrote this, many more babies were born. And we now have 7,000,274,589 people on the planet. What do you you want to tell them?

[image via World Population Day]

All of these options have benefits and drawbacks, conveniences and hassles, but they all help us support local, fresh food supplies, which is mutually beneficial for both producers and consumers.

I recently had the pleasure of meeting Mallory Sustick who is involved in a new farm to table (via the internets) project called Plovgh (pronounced plough).  You will notice that their site is still in development, but as it says on there already, “Plovgh is a way to find, purchase, and receive food from farms.” It is sort of a hybrid, mash-up of many different models of sustainable food procurement in New York City. It is like a farmers market because there is no middle-man: You buy products based on certain farmers offerings, through Plovhgs website. It is like a CSA, because there is a specific pick up point in your neighborhood where you go get your goodies. And well, actually, nothing is really like the Park Slope Food Coop. It is, after all, the largest working food coop in the country. But you get my point. The Plovghs model will connect people to local farmers on their terms and schedule, at prices that are comparable to existing offers for such foods.

Check out their website and sign up to receive updates and news. You can follow them on twitter too @plovgh. [Image credit: Hand Plough by Frankie Roberto, on Flickr.]

Here is a great video from DEP about how the wastewater treatment process works at the North River Plant. The plant utilizes gravity to bring sewage to the plant: wastewater runs downhill to the plant from the higher elevations of Washington Heights and Inwood. An artificial slope is created to bring the wastewater up from Lower Manhattan: “a sewer line about six inches below the street at Bank Street gradually drops to a depth of 50 feet by the time it reaches the Upper West Side.” Once it gets to the plant, the wastewater is pumped five stories up by engines like the one that caught fire last week. As the sewage slowly descends, “it goes through aeration and settling tanks, as well as a biological process that digests much of the waste”.

When the fire shut down the North River plant, the city temporarily returned to dealing with Manhattan’s West Side sewage as it had prior to the Clean Water Act in 1972: dumping it directly into the Hudson River and Harlem Rivers. Here is a list of the 56 outfall locations, through which the waste water rushed out into the rivers. The sight of raw sewage in the water on Friday made me appreciate the 14 sewage treatment plants that were built with federal funds after 1972.

While the infrastructural improvements precipitated by the Clean Water Act have significantly improved the quality of our waters, New York City, like many other older urban areas, has a combined sewer system. This sewer system is a result of 19^th Century engineering, which could not have foreseen modern rates of water usage. The system does not separate clean rainwater from dirty wastewater. During heavy rains, when a lot of rainwater enters the sewers, the capacity of the sewer system becomes exceeded. The excess water is discharged directly into the rivers, similarly to what happened last week when the North River plant was out of commission. Even though the amount of wastewater dumped into the water— 360 million gallons—  is horrifying to think about, the Combine Sewer Overflow (CSO) sends a similar amount of wastewater into the water after a few days of very heavy rainfall.

Now that the plant is running again – thanks to one hundred people working overtime on an extremely hot day – the raw sewage will decapitate in a few days, making the waters safe for usage. As far as long term solutions to the CSO problem, the most sustainable options are those that decrease the amount of water that enters the sewer system (source-control), rather than “end of pipe” controls, which attempt to deal with the wastewater after it enters the system (large holding tanks, for instance). Here are some figures from Riverkeeper about green solutions to the CSO problem:

• Greenstreets could decrease CSOs by 14,800 gallons
• Street trees could decrease CSOs by 13,170 gallons
• New green roofs could decrease CSOs by 810 gallons; retrofitted green roofs could decrease CSOs by 865 gallons; and incentivized green roofs could decrease CSOs by 12,000 gallons
• Rain barrels could decrease CSOs by 9,000 gallons.

Images courtesy of Gotham Gazette, New York Times and Wikipedia

But the near half million residents of Murcia, Spain got to ponder this offer quite recently. Congestion and parking woes had gotten so out of hand in the city that public officials decided that if people were willing to trade in their cars by the end of June, they would get free tram passes for life. This was step 1 in a 3 part campaign to get people thinking outside their cars. Step 2 included public displays of the dismantling of cars that were turned in and step 3 included automobile installations such as the one featured here, that highlighted just how hard it was to park.  They also created some fun PSAs to get the word out.

I haven’t found any numbers on how many people actually took advantage of the trade-in. Will keep on the hunt for that. But one thing is clear to me: In the age of marketing, they used an innovative, provocative and fun campaign to get people thinking about this personal decision with a collective impact. Image via Fast Company.

In full disclosure, I did not ride to work today. But my bike is definitely my preferred method of movement to and from and she gets used more days than not. I think I can likely say the same for Lucette Gilbert, who you can see in this wonderful short on Streetfilms today.  Besides wanting to go ride my bike next to her, she speaks to the timelessness of cycling. She has memories of needing her bike as a child in France to go visit her friends, in her pre-phone world. And she loves the new infrastructure of New York City that has allowed her to witness more and more people riding.

If you ever get to encounter Lucette, don’t tell her you are impressed by her still riding. She finds it offensive, which while it makes for a great sound-byte that speaks to her sweet and sassy character (I hope to be such a strong 70 + year old, still on my bike of course), it is actually just a reminder that bikes can be for everyone. As my good friend Kelly has said, (and perhaps it came from some other cycling friends she has met on her bike travels) All for bikes and bikes for all!

Panelists:
Babette Audant
Lecturer, Culinary Arts Program and Urban Farm Faculty Project Manager, Kingsborough, Community College

Ari Fainchtien
PhD Candidate, Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy, Murdoch University
CTO of Stakeware

Deborah Greig
Urban Agriculture Coordinator, East New York Farms

Laura Lawson
Author of City Bountiful: A Century of Community Gardening in America
Chair, Landscape Architecture Department, Rutgers University

Moderated by Michael Menser, Assistant Professor of Philosophy, Brooklyn College