Gotham Gazette

The Place for New York Policy and politics

environment

environment

  • Long Island is Becoming a Clean Energy Hub to Replicate Across the Northeast and Beyond

    The Calverton Solar Energy Center, Riverhead, NY (photo: National Grid)


    This week, thousands of leaders are in New York for Climate Week 2022. While the presentations and networking are happening in New York City, the action is taking place to the east on Long Island. 

    As more clean energy solutions like offshore wind, solar, battery storage, and clean hydrogen surface, Long Island is quickly emerging as a clean energy hub. Applying the solutions that are working here to other communities throughout the Northeast will be critical to

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  • City’s Greenways Get Another Boost as Officials Plot Expansion

    NYC Greenway


    New York City’s greenways are getting another lift. Greenways, paths for pedestrians and non-motorized vehicles exclusively, are viewed by supporters as boons for safe, environmentally-friendly alternatives to traditional transportation and opportunities for quality-of-life-boosting recreation.

    Advocates stress that building these pathways, ideally in an expansive and connected network, has several benefits. Those include reducing car use and pressure on mass transit, offering venues for outdoor exercise, and creating green spaces that line the thoroughfares and prevent flooding and even

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  • To Protect New York from the Climate Crisis, We Must Transform Our Streets

    Eastern Parkway (photo: NYC Parks)


    It’s another record-breaking hot summer in New York, and we can all agree that the climate crisis is already here. Sweltering days, terrifying flash floods, and increasingly poor air quality are putting all New Yorkers at risk,especially those living in historically underinvested communities. ...

  • To Beat Extreme Heat, New York City Needs to Look to the Streets

    Street heat (photo: Benjamin Kanter/Mayoral Photo Office)


    It's summer in New York City, and the word on the street is heat – literally. Some of the hottest places are the pavement itself,including the city’s 6,300 miles of streets and highways. To more effectively address urban heat islands, New York City would benefit from a cohesive, science-based approach that studies

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  • What Does the Supreme Court EPA Ruling Mean for New York Climate Efforts?

    Gov. Hochul cuts a solar farm ribbon (photo: Philip Kamrass/ New York Power Authority)


    Elected and appointed officials, candidates for office, and environmental activists in New York  were reenergized to fight against climate change locally in the wake of a June Supreme Court ruling that limits the power of the federal Environmental Protection Agency.

    The decision in West

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  • Senate Deal Could Mean Big Boost to New York Climate Efforts

    Senator Chuck Schumer (photo: Kevin P. Coughlin/Governor's Office)


    ***Update: The Senate passed the Inflation Reduction Act in a party-line vote on Sunday, August 7, though with some changes since the original deal was announced by Senate Majority Leader Schumer and Senator Manchin. The final agreement included a narrower corporate minimum tax and dropped the closure of the carried interest loophole, at the urging of Senator Kyrsten Sinema, though Schumer added an excise tax on stock buybacks to the bill. Republicans, on the other hand, blocked a cap on the price of insulin under private

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  • NY-10 Candidates Talk Climate Action at Environment-Focused Forum

    Candidates Niou, Rivera, Simon at Tuesday's forum (photo: The Cooper Union/Marget Long)


    Several Democratic candidates running to represent New York’s new 10th congressional district answered questions related to climate and sustainability challenges facing the district and New York City during a forum held at The Great Hall in Cooper Union Tuesday evening. Such issues are especially relevant in the district given that much of it is along the waterfront, whether its Manhattan or Brooklyn side.

    The panel, hosted by the New York League of

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  • New York Must Take on Massive Packaging Waste

    Garbage (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    In a recentTikTok video, a woman opens a giant cardboard box and pulls out layers and layers of bubble wrap, only to reveal four more tiny cardboard boxes, each of which contain a single napkin ring. The caption reads, “Am I on PUNK’D?

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  • New City Budget Incrementally Expands Composting Programs as Council Considers Citywide Mandate

    Community composting (photo: William Alatriste/City Council)


    When Mayor Eric Adams was running for City Hall, he pledged to expand the city’s incipient residential curbside composting program. But despite a push for more by some City Council members, the recently approved $101 billion budget for next fiscal year, beginning July 1, only marginally increases funding for other composting programs while halting the promised expansion of residential curbside composting. 

    The city’s voluntary curbside composting program has moved forward in fits and starts. Organics account for about a third of

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  • New City Budget Includes Some Added Funding to Implement Landmark Building Emissions Law

    A rally for green jobs outside City Hall (photo: Jeff Reed/City Council)


    In 2024, New York City will begin capping emissions from the city’s largest buildings – which are its worst polluters – under Local Law 97, which was approved as part of the city’s Climate Mobilization Act of 2019. The law requires buildings to be retrofitted with energy-efficient and sustainable systems – upgrading heating and cooling systems, possibly installing solar energy, for instance – to significantly reduce their carbon footprint to meet those emissions caps, or otherwise face hefty

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  • Slate of Insurgent Candidates Focused on Climate Seizes on Failure of State Bill

    Climate march (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


    The Democrat-led state Legislature ended its session over the weekend without passing any additional major pieces of climate-related legislation that some legislators and activists had been pushing for months. The failure to act has provided renewed vigor to several candidates running in the primaries this year who had already been centering climate action in their campaigns, many of them challenging incumbent Democrats.

    They say that the state must take immediate and extraordinary action as the adverse effects of climate change continue

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  • New York Deserves the Future Promised by 30x30

    Precious New York (photo: Carl Heilman/Governor's Office)


    Warmer spring weather ushers in reminders of the natural beauty we have in New York, from the vibrant blooms of the dogwood and magnolia trees to the return of migratory birds singing. People swarm back to our local parks where picnic baskets and roller skates make a long-awaited resurgence. The Hudson River teems to life with the reappearance of kayakers who can be spotted from way above by hikers in the Catskills.

    We enjoy some of the most marvelous landscapes the United

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  • Bitcoin Mining is Gobbling Up New York's Precious Renewable Energy

     

    Bitcoin is a popular cryptocurrency (photo: Kanchanara)


    Like time inSteve Miller’s classic-rock song, New York’s decarbonization targets keep slipping into the future.

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  • New York City Electeds, Advocates Outline Priorities for State Climate Action Council

    Mayor Adams and others discuss wind energy plans (photo: Ed Reed/Mayoral Photography Office)


    New York’s sweeping Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act of 2019 set the state on a path to reaching net-zero emissions over the next three decades. The law established a Climate Action Council that drafted a framework for achieving that goal, and is now more than halfway through the process of seeking public input on its proposed plan. 

    The Council held its seventh public hearing on Tuesday in Brooklyn, out of

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  • ‘Public Solar NYC’ Rooftop Renewable Energy Plan in Development

    Rooftop solar (photo: Ethan Geringer-Sameth)


    It was a small world on the roof of a five-storey co-op in West Harlem where Michael Anglin, the building’s treasurer, was showing off its solar panels.

    New York City Comptroller Brad Lander and a team from his office were touring the configuration to understand what went into installing it in the heavily-regulated city, considered by industry insiders to be one of the hardest markets in the world to erect solar panels. Also there was Rit Aggarwala, Lander's long-time associate

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  • 6 Ways You Can Keep New York City Green This Earth Day and Beyond

    Get out to the park (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    Many New Yorkers know that Friday, April 22 marks Earth Day 2022, but few know that this year’s celebration has a theme: Invest In Our Planet. Clearly, this city’s knack for financial investment is unparalleled, yet when it comes to investing in our planet’s future, we continue to lag behind major U.S. cities in key areas such as electric

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  • During Earth Week, Advocates Press New York State and City Leaders to Go Bolder on Climate Policy

    Climate action (photo: Paige Polk/Mayoral Photography Office)


    With the global climate crisis heading to the point of no return, dozens of climate activist groups are rallying ahead of Earth Day, April 22, calling on Governor Kathy Hochul and the state Legislature to pass a a raft of bills they say are crucial to the local and global effort to fight climate change, global warming, and their ill effects.

    The bills include efforts to cut carbon emissions, build green infrastructure, reduce the state’s reliance on fossil fuels, prevent harmful cryptocurrency mining, and create tens of thousands of

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  • Max Politics Podcast: Earth Week 2022, with Julie Tighe & Daniel Zarrilli on New York Climate Policy

    Earth Week 2022 in New York (photo: Office of Governor Hochul)


    April 19, 2022 - Max Politics Podcast: Earth Week 2022 in New York, with Julie Tighe & Daniel Zarrilli

    Julie Tighe, President of the New York League of Conservation Voters, and Daniel Zarrilli is the Special Advisor on Climate & Sustainability at Columbia University and former New York City Chief Climate Policy Advisor, joined the show during Earth Week 2022 to discuss New York climate and environmental policy. 

    Listen to the conversation and let us know what you think, on Twitter ...

  • Resilient Public Schools are Key to Our Children’s and Our City’s Future

    The future of schools in NYC (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    Two years after lockdown, we’re entering a new phase of the pandemic. Mask and vaccine mandates have been rolled back across the state, and we’re eager to return to some kind of ‘normal.’ We have a new mayor and a new City Council, being tested for the first time. And we’re at a crossroads: what lessons have we learned? How can we ensure that our city is resilient, not just in the face of another health crisis or a new variant, but universally?

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  • Letter To The Editor: Papering Over Recycling Success

    Paper recycling (photo: Michael Anton/NY City Department of Sanitation))


    To the Editor:  

    The March 28, 2022 column, “For the Earth, It’s Essential New York Leaders Pass Extended Producer Responsibility,” by New York League of Conservation Voters President Julie Tighe misses the mark by urging lawmakers in Albany to pass an Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) policy. State legislators should pursue a more deliberative approach to consider New

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  • New York Can and Must Stop Insurance Companies from Fueling the Climate Crisis

    Gov. Hochul (photo: office of governor Kathy Hochul)


    We are often told that insurance companies are “like a good neighbor” or “on our side.” And for many things in life this is true. But when it comes to climate change—the single greatest threat to global health and security—insurance companies could be making things much more dangerous for all of us.

    Why? Because as long as insurers continue to underwrite and invest in fossil fuel companies, the companies will continue to pump emissions into our

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  • For the Earth, It's Essential New York Leaders Pass Extended Producer Responsibility

    Trash (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayoral Photography Office)


    New Yorkers buy and order a lot of stuff. And all of that stuff comes in packaging, all too much of it plastic. So much stuff that of the 17 million tons of waste generated annually in New York State, 40% comes from product packaging and paper products – plastic containers, glass bottles, aluminum cans, cardboard, and other materials.

    Across the United States,...

  • Strengthening New York City’s Natural Areas to Tackle Unemployment and Climate Change

     

    Trees and jobs (photo: Ed Reed/Mayor's)


    New York City’s20,000 acresof natural areas have been a lifeline for New Yorkers throughout the pandemic and form the first line of defense against the harms of climate change. But decades of underinvestment in the care and preservation of these vital open spaces threatens their longevity, even as surging visitation adds new stresses.

    At a time when New

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  • Elected Officials and Activists Call on Mayor to Fully Implement NYC 'Green New Deal'

    Thursday's rally (photo: @NYCComptroller)


    With climate crises bearing down on New York City, including hurricanes and tropical storms that flooded landlocked neighborhoods and killed more than a dozen New Yorkers last year, elected officials and activists are pressing Mayor Eric Adams to act with urgency in implementing a law to tackle carbon emissions in the city.

    At a rally in midtown Manhattan on Thursday morning, climate activists gathered with officials including Public

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  • Will New York City Be Ready to Implement Landmark Building Emissions Law?

    Buildings of New York City (photo: Michael Appleton/Mayor's Office)


    New York’s Climate Mobilization Act of 2019, billed a “Green New Deal” for the city, included a groundbreaking law to cut carbon emissions by the biggest buildings, and the biggest polluters, in the city through caps and mandated energy upgrades and retrofits — or face financial penalties. The first set of emissions caps are set to go into effect in 2024, and the city has the complicated task ahead of setting new rules and regulations by the start of 2023, a formidable task with 10 months to go.

    While Mayor Eric Adams’ administration

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