“How to solve climate change and make life more awesome”

Ezra Klein podcast: You can listen to this conversation — and others — by subscribing to The Ezra Klein Show

This conversation is about a vision of decarbonization that is genuinely awesome, and how we can actually get there.

Ezra Klein

“Can you paint a picture of what it could be like to live in a decarbonized world? Is there a vision of a decarbonized future that could actually be awesome — that people will want to buy into?”

Saul Griffith

“I think this is a great question. All of the politicians are pitching their climate plans from some top-down economic view, saying things like, “We’ll decarbonize this industry by this date.” It all sounds very abstract. No one has presented the Green New Deal from the kitchen table out: What will it look like in my home?

Instead of burning natural gas to make your coffee in the morning, you’ll have an induction range, which [can] be programmed to cook your coffee for you in a way that’s much easier. You’ll have better air quality, which will help cure things like allergies and severe asthma. You won’t have to worry about carbon monoxide anymore. You’ll be warmed by your radiant floor heating, which won’t give you that dry mouth in the middle of the night. The car will be charged overnight by renewables like wind. The rest of your house will be powered by the solar on your roof that day.

Also, your total energy costs will go way down. We ran the numbers grossly for Australia, and if you did that package of electric vehicles, heat pumps, and rooftop solar, you would save the average Australian family about $1,000 to $2,000 a year. So there’s more money in your pocket to enjoy the rest of your life.

I think our failure on fixing climate change is just a rhetorical failure of imagination. We haven’t been able to convince ourselves that it’s going to be great. It’s going to be great.”

“The largest material flows globally are

#1 Dirt: humans move gigatons and gigatons of dirt every year–agriculture

2^nd largest material flow we move is CO2

3^rd trees, paper, pulp

4^th cement, and concrete ½ to 1 ton of cement for every person on the planet every year.

We currently put 50 gigatons of CO2 into the atmosphere every year.

Realistic estimates, are we could draw down on at least 3 to as many as 5 gigatons of CO2 a year just by changing the way we make concrete and cement and by managing forestry better.

Those technologies where we are trapping CO2 in physical, solid material that have a long resonance time in our economies is totally sensible. And at the rate of 3 to 5 gigatons a year if we do the other project to decarbonize  in a decade or two as we could, over those two decades if we’re also deploying that carbon sequestration in our material economy you can take out enough to get us close to the 1.5 degrees.”

– Saul Griffith is an inventor, a MacArthur genius fellow, and the founder and CEO of Otherlab, a high-tech research and development company on the frontlines of trying to imagine our clean energy future.

Local “Beat Cops” Police Officers Bozzo and Officer Urena Meeting to Hear from Community

Safety concerns, suggestions of how to help, good news, etc.

Build awareness with your neighbors.

Cascade High School, 198 Forsyth (at Stanton)

Thursday February 27th, 2020

6pm doors open

6:30pm Meeting Starts

Appreciations to the women and men of our local precinct.

• Park Manager, New York City Department of Parks Tompkins Square Park Supervisor
• Caroline Bragdon, Director of Neighborhood Interventions, Bureau of Veterinary and Pest Control Services New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene
• Pamela Ito, Director of Education, The Horticultural Society of New York

Thanks to The Hort’s Pam Ito for organizing this important event. And to Exxex Market for space. This program was made possible in part by public funds from the New York City Department of Youth and Community Development in partnership with New York City Council Member Margaret Chin.

Awaiting word of a ribbon cutting ceremony.

For an update of the progress and history of the quest to return the Stanton Parkhouse to the community as promised for decades…see Wendy Brawer of Green Map’s ‘deck’ here.

(With thanks to the Pratt Center for Community Development and Keenah Suh)

Would also like the bathrooms open 24/7 with those same hours of security positions keeping an eye on everything to assist those who are homeless or just out because NYC “never sleeps”?

photos Keena Suh

A few photos from yesterday’s Audubon Outreach Meeting. And a visit from a concerned Park denizen.

Thank you to Audubon NY Richard Santagelo, Amy Simmons, and Emily Tyrer for volunteering her time to educate us all. And for bringing us information to take with us. Thank you to Kim Fong of the BRC for welcoming this resource.

Very appreciative of Parks workers, local birders, Seniors at the BRC, interns, Bob Humber and all our volunteer park caregivers for their input.

and Ceci Cela Patisserie coffee and treats!!

We’ll hold another meeting for those who couldn’t make this one. Stay tuned.

And pre-visit from Tenement Museum and New Forsyth Conservancy Gardener Jason:

Emily’s beautiful survey displays (English version will be available for comment at the BRC – see Bob Humber). Others in Chinese are on their way:

And last… a visit from a Sharp-Shinned Hawk hunting…in M’Finda Garden (photo courtesy Daniel Tainow)

From the MTA:

Good afternoon all,

The following is an update on the work taking place this week at the Forsyth worksite.

Weekly Look Ahead – Week of 1/27/2020 – 2/2/2020

• Con Edison
  • Gas pipe coating crews will be working on the coating of the installed gas pipe and house connections in the sidewalk. Temporary sidewalk closures will be required for this work.

• EE Cruz
  • Work will continue to be performed on the temporary sewer bypass and test trenching ahead of S.O.E work.
  • Subcontractor (MFM) will be removing an abandoned gas main as necessary in the intersection of Forsyth St. and Rivington St.
  • Subcontractor (MFM) will be installing new gas main and steam main piping in the north section of Forsyth St. to connect to the intersection with Rivington St.
  • Subcontractor (MFM) will be back filling gas main in the southern section of Forsyth St. Temporary sidewalk closures will be required for this work.

Above schedule is to our best knowledge as of now and is subject to change. ConEd schedule is based on the information communicated to EEC/MTA by ConEd. ConEd controls its schedule. Changes in Con Edison schedule will impact EE Cruz’s Scheduled Work.

ABC NEWS

“The manager of the Harry and Jeanette Weinberg Building dropped off space heaters for residents on Tuesday, but when families plugged them in, the electricity went out.

Residents say the water has been cold since Jan. 9 — almost two weeks. That’s when the heat went out too.

“Horrible, it’s just very bad, it’s just something you would not want to experience,” resident Francesca Piper said. “It’s to a point where you have a mental breakdown, you can’t function right.”

Most of the tenants in the building are deaf.

Neighbors stood outside Tuesday night, signing with each other, to discuss how even mundane tasks like showering have become impossible.”

Council Member Chin (from Twitter): “We’ve been working with residents of 174 & 184 Forsyth get back heat and hot water. Not only has the management company been dragging its feet on this, we’ve had to call them out to provide special fire alarms for the buildings’ majority deaf residents”

“One resident said her smoke alarms didn’t work even after putting out a kitchen fire. For a child to say, “We’re getting used to it since it’s been so long” shows how people with disabilities are treated as an afterthought. Building ownership’s neglect is life-threatening.”

From Neighbors to Save Rivington House:

Former SDR Community Coalition Partner Rivington House Goes Out.

Not With A Bang, But With A Bureaucratic Whimper

“The Public Health and Health Planning Council (subcommittee) PHHPC yesterday approved the Certificate of Need (CON) application for a Behavioral Health Facility run by Mount Sinai /Beth Israel. It will go to the full PHHPC committee for almost certain passage. The PHHPC has two consumer advocate positions. One was only recently filled. Many are industry insiders. Some, we felt, understood the difficulties low-income communities are placed in when there are no knowledgeable experts to consult with.

Neighbors to Save Rivington House wrote this response and spoke at the hearing yesterday. This was cobbled together to express some of what this struggle has meant. We did it without an without an independent expert on the behavioral health CON process.  The Department of Health never showed up to provide guidance at either local Forums organized by local elected representatives and advocates opposed to the downsizing of Mount Sinai /Beth Israel and Neighbors to Save Rivington House.

Rivington House staff and residents were our partners, colleagues, friends.

We lost a state of the art infectious disease skilled nursing care center that NYS taxpayers funded. All the equipment was destroyed by Slate Property to make way for luxury housing (that thanks to us, never got built). We are experiencing infectious epidemics with little in the way of sites with knowledgeable staffing – the coronavirus just the latest but certainly not the last.

The question of the Allure Group and the Attorney General’s Settlement, given their history here and elsewhere, their competence and trustworthiness to provide decent nursing home care are still to be worked out.”

SDR  Community Coalition:

Mount Sinai will be Sara Roosevelt Park Community neighbors. They have offered to come to meeting to listen and answer questions. We will welcome them in and expect them to join the ethos of our community.

From: The Atlantic JANUARY 16, 2020