The next round of community conversations for the update of PlaNYC was announced. For more on the update process see my post on PlaNYC 2.0. The schedule for upcoming meetings is:

Upper Manhattan
Monday, December 6th, 2010
7:00PM – 9:00PM
State Office Building 2nd Flr. Gallery
163 West 125th Street, (enter on 126th)
A, B, C, D, 2, 3,4,5,6 trains to 125th
Community Partner: WEACT

Eastern Queens
Thursday, December 9th, 2010
7:00PM – 9:00PM
Bayside High School
32-24 Corporal Kennedy Street, Bayside NY 11361

South Brooklyn
Thursday, December 16th, 2010
6:00PM – 8:00PM
St. Michael’s RC Church, 352 42nd Street,
Enter at Auditorium on 43rd St.
R train to 45th and the D,N,R to 36th
Community Partner: UPROSE

The Brooklyn Daily Eagle is proud that Brooklyn is featured prominently in PlaNYC imagery.

The C40 Climate Leadership Group met in November Hong Kong for a workshop titled Low Carbon Cities for High Quality Living. The group consists of leaders from large cities around the world committed to tackling global climate change.  New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg was elected chair of the group. The group’s website includes informative sections on best practices and climate action plans from around the world.

Lastly, in a recent post about the ongoing climate negotiations in Cancún, Mexico, Andrew Revkin (author of NY Times DotEarth blog) mourns the absence of Ted Kheel and his conflict resolution skills.

The New York Times reports that Paterson administration officials said they “hoped that Andrew M. Cuomo, the governor-elect, would use it as a guide in promoting a shift to clean energy in New York State.” The NYTimes article also comments on Paterson administration actions that have cut funds to state environmental organizations tasked with accomplishing the very goals outlined in the Climate Action Council’s report.

Yes, New York State is in an unprecedented budget crisis, but the governor’s own report calls for turning “climate policy into an engine for economic growth.” The logic of this report, and of PlaNYC, and many other green house gas reduction plans is that it makes long-term economic sense to go green. Let’s hope governor-elect Cuomo has the foresight to restore environmental funding and invest even more into green initiatives that will reduce carbon emissions and strengthen the economy at the same time. Better yet, let’s make sure Cuomo moves forward with the goals of Climate Action Council report.

Submit your comments on the website: http://www.nyclimatecomments.us/ or send written comments to:

Climate Action Plan
NYSERDA
17 Columbia Circle
Albany, NY 12203-6399

Sign up for the Climate Action Plan mailing list (listserve) (under “Contact Us” on the left hand side) to receive direct notification of an informational webinar, public hearings and other information related to the Climate Action Plan.

Contact governor-elect Cuomo via his campaign website: http://www.andrewcuomo.com/contact

Now it is time for PlaNYC 2.0. Mayor Bloomberg’s Office of Long Term Planning and Sustainability recently released a progress report about the plan that can be downloaded here: http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc2030/html/news/update.shtml. As part of the mandated four year update of the plan, they are now soliciting public feedback through internet sites, emails, text messages, and community conversation meetings.

I attended one such community conversation on October 19th, 2010. This meeting was held at the Borough of Manhattan Community College, a CUNY school. David Bragdon, the newly appointed head of PlaNYC reported on the progress of the plan’s goals thus far and acknowledged the feedback that had already been voiced about including solid waste, food systems, and sustainable economic growth into the updated plan. In the breakout session that I participated on we discussed climate change. The people within my group emphasized that the goal of a 30% reduction by 2030 may not be ambitious enough to avoid severe climate change consequences. The burning question about the carbon reduction goals of PlaNYC right now may be: How do we reach the 30% reduction goal sooner than 2030? It was fitting that this community conversation was held at a CUNY school because the CUNY system (along with other major NYC universities) has agreed to accept the challenge to reduce the institutional carbon footprint by 2017 instead of by 2030. Whatever your feelings are about the merits of PlaNYC, at the very least it has shown the potential to open dialogues about sustainability. In my future posts I plan to cover CUNY’s efforts to meet the ambitious 2017 deadline, and place these efforts in the context of PlaNYC, other New York City sustainability efforts, and sustainability efforts across the country and around the world.

Do you have any ideas you would like to see incorporated into the update of PlaNYC?

Here’s how you can participate.

Community Conversation Meetings

Bronx
October 26, 6-8 pm
Lincoln Hospital, Bronx
First Floor Conference area, Main Entrance
234 East 149th Street, Between Morris and Park
Co-sponsored by Youth Ministries for Peace and Justice and the Campaign for New York’s Future
Transit

West Queens
November 3, 6-8 pm
Frank Sinatra School for the Arts
Tony Bennett Concert Hall
35-12 35th Avenue, Astoria 11106
Co-Sponsored by the Campaign for New York’s Future
Transit

[Several meetings have already occurred, and additional events will be announced]

Website to vote for ideas:

www.allourideas.org/planyc

Text Message #:

Fill in the blank by texting your idea to 917-791-3064 (the official PLANYC mobile input unit.) “One idea to create a greener, greater New York City is to ____.”

Clouding the skies of the apparent optimism surrounding Copenhagen, however, is the developing “climate file” controversy.  Andy Revkin, of Dot Earth, has provided the most lucid coverage of this unfolding debacle but there doesn’t appear to be much musing about how it might effect the actual proceedings at the summit.  Sure, “climate skeptics” have now secured copious amounts of fodder for their arguments, but will the controversy cast significant shadows over Copenhagen?

The British Government recently released a map that forecasts the disastrous scenarios that could play out with a 4 degree (C) rise in temperature across the globe.  It features nine categories of effects (including drought, sea-level rise, and permafrost) which can be toggled on and off.  The selected category tab displays a “hot spot” on the map that comes accompanied with some explanatory text.

The graphics of the map may not be super sleek and the data behind it may not be groundbreaking, but the real significance of the release lies in the official shift in discourse which it represents.  The Guardian reports that until recently politicians have been unwilling to entertain the prospect of failing to stop global warming at the 2 degree mark.  With the Copenhagen talks looming near–talks which Foreign Secretary Miliband described as “the most complicated international negotiations ever attempted”–this release should be understood as an attempt to turn up the heat (sorry, I couldn’t resist!) on Copenhagen.

Last week the Guardian reported on an opinion poll that found the American public ranking climate change lower in priority than almost any other nation included in the study.  We couldn’t even muster a majority (only 44% thought it should be a major focus) and delivered numbers that compared most closely with those of Iraq and the Palestinian Territories!

Of course, these (not-so-sleek) bar graphs should be taken with a grain of salt since public opinion polls can, as we all know, be tweaked in such a way that almost any result is possible.  It’s all about how the questions get asked, who is doing the asking and how the random pool of respondents gets selected.  However, the general pattern appears compatible with recent studies which have found the economy winning out over the environment for people across the U.S. (Gallup recently declared the scales tipped in this direction for the first time in 25 years and the notoriously green State of California has been cooling off on Climate Change as the hot issue).

Rather than wallowing in the frustration, cynicism and despondency so easily encouraged by these polls, we should understand that we’ve really only got our work cut out for us!  The economy and the environment are, in fact, inseperable issues and always have been.  The challenge is convincing so many Americans that this is the case, that we can’t choose between development and sustainability, that we need to find a way to fit both agendas together.

Photo Courtesy of the NY Times

The New York Times published an article yesterday revealing a correlation between summer heat and homicide rates in NYC. The reason for the correlation reported by the Times is straightforward: more people get together to interact during warm summer months, increasing the likelihood of crime.

If homicide rates correlate with air temperature, and if the world continues to warm globally, then it looks like we can expect more homicides in the future if all else remains unchanged. This is yet another problem that the city will have to prepare for in the coming years.

The Times provides an interactive map showing major crimes by year in NYC since 2003, which is updated when new information becomes available. Although the map does not provide homicide rates expected in the future, looking at the most recent climate change projections provided by the New York City Panel on Climate Change (NPCC) can give you a sense what may in store.

Read the Times article here

Get NPCC climate change projections here

A map from the report of changing run-off patterns and population densities

The New York Times recently reported on a new study which documents and forecasts the increasing prevalence of large-scale, climate change-induced displacement and migration of human populations. The bulky document is authored by a host of heavy-hitting agencies, including the United Nations, CARE, and Columbia University. As Tom Zeller points out, the report is packed with rich maps and comprehensive data. I also like it for it’s emphasis on the unique problems posed by rapid urbanization of human populations.

By 2050 when human population is projected to peak, some 9 billion people will live on Earth. The majority of them will live in urban areas with crushing environmental footprints. Many megacities are located in areas prone to sea level rise. Climate change will visit urban and rural areas alike with increasingly frequent and violent hazard events. Flooding, intense storms, or droughts, or more gradual but significant changes in regional climates place great stress on livelihood systems. These pressures will contribute to migration and displacement, along with myriad other factors.

Read the full report here.

Read the Times article here.

As many people have heard, the New York City Panel on Climate Change released the Climate Risk Information (CRI) report this past Tuesday. Formed as part of the Mayor’s PlaNYC initiative to address the effects of a warming planet on New York City, CISC Director, Bill Solecki, co-chairs this panel with Cynthia Rosenzweig of the Goddard Institute for Space Studies.

There is ample press on the report’s release. But the major points, as seen in the Mayor’s Press Release are:

• Approximately 2.5 to 4.5 times more days per year over 90 degrees than experienced on average from 1971-2000;
• Approximately 2.5 to 4 times more heat waves (as defined as three consecutive days over 90 degrees) a year than experienced on average from 1971-2000;
• More frequent, intense rainstorms;
• A current 1-in-10 year coastal flood about once every 1 to 3 years; and
• A current 1-in-100 year coastal flood about once every 15 to 35 years.

Next steps for New York? Findings here will be used to help the City’s Climate Change Adaptation Task Force negate their work. Next steps for you? Start thinking about how you can be part of the growing movement to SERIOUSLY confront the situation. A good start might be joining folks in DC for a march and sit in at a Coal Fired Power Plant. For more information about this event and why now is the time to up the ante and not only celebrate the good work of Obama thus far, visit Yale360.

Here we go New York…

The ushering in of our new president has been accompanied by an almost giddy excitement of a return to science. But apparently some would prefer to keep science in the closet on a few issues and a cold winter has provided fodder for the global warming denying flame.

Some news organizations are having a snow-day with our recent weather patterns and what it means for global warming. Media Matters did a nice job of discussing each of the”this is global warming? wink-wink nudge-nudge,” moments, which includes discussing the irony of having to cancel global warming senate hearings because of snow.

While it is quite simple to appeal to the masses with such talk, especially while people are dealing with a snowier and icier winter than they have for a while–so a little warmer sounds good, actually!–the science is still there. Time series data, that spans decades and not just seasons reveals that yes, the earth is warming, even though it is cold out today and will be tomorrow.

So keep those boots on as you muck around the concrete jungle of slush. But be careful what you wish for. Think August on the subway platform and rising tides and remember that we need winters that stay this way.