Dear friends,
The National Weather Center closed its station on Cape Cod at the end of the March and plans to raze the building this month. The erosion of the coastline accelerated dramatically with last year’s record storms. They are abandoning the station before it gets swallowed up by the Atlantic Ocean.
At times, 6ft of land was lost in a single day, forcing the National Weather Service to order a hasty retreat.
“We’d know for a long time there was erosion but the pace of it caught everyone by surprise,” said Andy Nash, meteorologist in charge at the National Weather Service’s Boston office. “We felt we had maybe another 10 years but then we started losing a foot of a bluff a week and realized we didn’t have years, we had just a few months. We were a couple of storms from a very big problem.”
This is just another grim reminder that climate catastrophe is upon us. Fire season is coming in the western states and drought and high temperatures promise to make it a doozy. I could go on, but I won’t. Everybody loves someone in California.
Let’s be constructive. We need to pass the NYS Climate Community and Investment Act (CCIA). This piece of legislation is designed to make corporations pay for their greenhouse gas emissions so that we can use those funds to invest in infrastructure to protect frontline communities, facilitate green transportation and manufacturing, and provide a just transition for folks who will lose their jobs in the sectors of the economy that must be scaled back.
My state senator, Kevin Parker, told a group of us from NY Renews that organizational memos are influential with legislators. I have taken that to heart.
Please review the materials linked to this doc and then, tell me what you think about sending an organizational memo in support of the CCIA from us, Work from home for justice.
A friend sent me this excellent, short video, which explains the regenerative potential of composting. Waste management is a critical sector of our urban economy and composting is not just a feel-good activity. It’s a system that nurtures a much larger system. The system.
Watch the video. It will make you hopeful AND determined.
Contact your city council member and urge them to increase funding for composting in NYC. Here’s a ready-made email (or write a postcard or make a call!).
The NY Working Families Party has announced its ranked endorsement and commitment to electing a progressive mayor: Scott Stringer, Dianne Morales, and Maya Wiley (in that order). I encourage you to compare their climate plans. Stringer does indeed appear to be “ready on day one”; Morales has vision and complexity; Wiley’s plan is the least coherent and developed.
with hope and determination,
L