Climate Change
Streetsblog Basics
Battle of the Weatherpeople
It's not just the weather that's in an uproar these days, it's the weatherpeople, too. After Heidi Cullen, host of the Weather Channel program "The Climate Code," wrote on her blog that she thought forecasters who deny manmade climate change were uneducated on the issue and should perhaps have their American Meteorological Society credentials revoked, she came under attack for smothering scientific debate, both on her own blog and elsewhere. On the website of the US Senate Committee on Environment and Public Works Marc Morano wrote:
January 19, 2007
McKibben on Climate Change: “We Don’t Have a Movement”
If the melting of Greenland can't make the American people pay attention to global warming, can anything? Environmentalist Bill McKibben, whose The End of Nature was one of the first books to raise the alarm on climate change for a general audience in 1989, is hoping that "Step It Up 2007," a day of rallies planned for April 14, will at least get things started.
January 17, 2007
PLANYC 2030 Community Leader Meetings
Mayor Bloomberg's Office of Long-Term Planning & Sustainability is running a series of meetings with community groups. Though the meeting times are posted publicly on the PLANYC 2030 web site, no locations are listed and word has it these borough-wide "Community Leader" meetings are going to be pretty strictly invitation-only.
January 16, 2007
Uncool New York: NYC Lags in Combatting Climate Change
Chris Smith has an outstanding story in this week's New York Magazine pointing out that New York City has fallen behind other world cities in addressing climate change and challenging the Bloomberg Administration to do more. An excerpt:
January 16, 2007
New York City is the New Baltimore
A couple of articles related to global warming got my attention recently. First, the Washington Post had an article about plant species common to North Carolina now finding their homes in the District of Columbia and environs. The article quotes the curator of the United States Botanical Garden as saying, "You could say D.C. is the new North Carolina." The article included a map (at right) that shows how the true that statement is.
December 23, 2006
Holiday Book Recommendations Open Thread
Some of us at Streetsblog headquarters were talking about putting together a sidebar listing of recommended books to reinforce the commentary you find on the blog. I put together a few brief recommendations of five of my favorites, but we're also interested in learning what you've all been reading and what you'd suggest to others, so treat this as an open thread on livable streets-related books now that we're in the midst of the holiday gift-buying season.
December 18, 2006
Futurama 2030 Speech: News Round-Up
Map from the city's PlaNYC web site. See more maps at Gothamist.
December 13, 2006
Futurama 2030: Bloomberg Outlines Ambitious 10-Point Agenda
Only a couple of hundred yards from the rusting remains of the 1964 World's Fair, Mayor Michael Bloomberg laid out his own vision for the future of New York City this morning. In a speech entitled "New York City 2030: Accepting the Challenge," the mayor introduced a broad plan for creating a sustainable city "making room for 900,000 new residents, upgrading aging infrastructure, cleaning up pollution, and coping with the effects of global climate change."
December 12, 2006