Hi friends,
The climate news continues to be dire, and ignoring it does not help with the existential dread.
A heavy overnight rainstorm caused massive mudslides and flooding in the Brazilian city of Petrópolis yesterday. Around 100 people have been killed in the catastrophe and it is likely that the toll will be much higher. A similar event in 2011 killed more than 900 people.
Whenever I read about huge ‘natural’ disasters and the tremendous human and economic costs they exact, it is harder to understand the people who argue that we cannot afford to invest in resilience and renewable energy. We are paying either way, and so it would seem plain enough to pay up on the front end to try to avert disaster.
Sign the petition to FEMA and State Governments: Prioritize disaster preparedness and relief for Black and brown communities.
Park Williams [a climate hydrologist at UCLA who conducted a new study] used 29 models to create a hypothetical world with no human-caused warming then compared it to what happened in real life — the scientifically accepted way to check if an extreme weather event is due to climate change. He found that 42% of the drought conditions are directly from human-caused warming. Without climate change, he said, the megadrought would have ended early on because 2005 and 2006 would have been wet enough to break it.
Every year, my sister reports to me on ‘fire season’ in New Mexico, which gets longer and drier and more terrifying. Her go-bag is ready, but where will she —and everyone — go? Seriously.
NOAA issued its updated Sea Level Rise Technical Report: There is more severe flooding in our future as the average sea level rise along the US coastline is projected to be more than 10 inches by 2050,
as much as the rise measured over the last 100 years (1920 - 2020).
The Biden Administration, while admittedly having a lot on its plate, has been unable to deliver on its climate promises. With the failure of the Build Back Better bill, the huge climate investments are not forthcoming. At the same time, more stringent environmental regulations are harder to roll out than to roll back.
This seems like a good time to remind everyone to direct our activation energy to the state and local levels.
Sign up to lobby legislators for climate investments with NY Renews!
Call your legislators about NYS legislation to invest in more renewable energy! There is a call script from Sane Energy Project.
Mayor Adams wants to save money by pulling back on the expansion of the city’s compost program, which was held up by the pandemic. This is another short-sighted money-saving effort — in this case, just over $18 million — that misses the big picture.
New Yorkers produce about 4,000 tons of compostable waste daily.
The current system for disposing of New York City’s organic waste is problem-plagued, environmentally unsound and costly to city taxpayers.
I recommend reading Eric A. Goldstein’s excellent piece, “NYC Must Enact a Universal Food Waste Composting Law” for a comprehensive overview of the costs of not managing our organic waste sensibly.
Let the mayor and your city council member know that we can’t afford to not to adopt a mandatory curbside composting collection program for all residents. The action is ready-made!
We have to tend the soil, both literally and metaphorically. You may recall that our city council passed local legislation to ban gas hook-ups in new buildings. The implementation begins in two years.
I was heartened to learn that NYCHA is running a small study to test air quality in the public housing apartments with and without gas-burning kitchens. Participating residents will all get induction stoves (either at the beginning of the study, for the experimental group, or at the end, for the control group), as well as a $500 stipend and induction cooking lessons.
The findings of the study will inform a policy campaign to ease the burdens of moving from gas to electric-powered cooking for landlords, renters, homeowners and developers, while prioritizing communities most vulnerable to climate change, air pollution and high energy bills.
We’ve got to keep on moving forward.
This being Thursday, I need to remind you to reign in another of our mayor’s lesser ideas; he has called for rollbacks of bail reform as part of his public safety initiative. Truly, he should know better. Investing in communities is the best way to make them safe.
Contact your legislators about bail reform and new legislation to provide drug treatment in lieu of incarceration. This action is ready-made!
Call on Governor Hochul to protect bail reform. This petition is from Citizen Action!
And, because I can’t give up on Congress, I want to write again in favor of the innovative End Child Poverty Act, introduced by Representatives Rashida Tlaib and Mondaire Jones.
The universal design, which eliminates the need for means-testing, would dramatically reduce child poverty. The main feature of the bill is a monthly child allowance of roughly $400, to be paid out by the Social Security administration. Because children would be enrolled at birth, there would be no annual paper work.
Passage of the bill would cut child poverty by two-thirds.
Support the passage of the End Child Poverty Act.
Have a great day!
with love,
L