New York Students to Survey Neighborhood Trees

New York City high school students will survey neighborhood trees next week as part of a program to teach students to think about the urban environment.

The students hail from the NYC iSchool. The iSchool program is geared to engage students in meaningful work in real world situations and provide the in-house classroom structure to support that development.

NYC Reduces GHG Emissions by Almost Five Percent in One Year

In conjunction with Climate Week NYC Mayor Michael Bloomberg announced that NYC was well on its way to meeting the commitments of the four-year-old PLaNYC.

Mayor Bloomberg said that, “We cut City government’s greenhouse gas emissions 4.6 percent during the 12 months ending June 30th, compared to the previous fiscal year. That keeps us on course to hitting our 2017 goal."

Eco Art by Christopher Rodrigues @ NYC's RARE Gallery

New York City's RARE Gallery is pleased to announce ". . . all of you on the good Earth," an exhibition of Planets, a series of otherworldly photo-collaged digital images by British/Canadian artist Christopher Rodrigues. The show, which runs from June 30 to August 12, marks Rodrigues' solo debut at RARE.

The exhibition's title directly references the Apollo 8 crew's 1968 Christmas Eve address that was broadcast live from the Command Module during lunar orbit as the Earth came into view over the Moon's horizon. Much like the televised images beamed back to Earth during the mission, Rodrigues' focus is on a planetary view of nature, where the entire solar system is home to isolated, Eden-like environments, inherently sick places, and those made uninhabitable because of human interference.

Bicycling from Canada to New York City...Almost

May is Bike Month across America with many cities hosting events. New York City hosts many rides and activities. This is just one New York biking story. The bike pictured above is the bike that took the following journey.

My bicycle trip to New York City from Ottawa, Canada was supposed to start in Ottawa. It didn't. The bicycle trip was my 40th birthday present to myself and as I didn't think I'd be able to get my bicycle over the border I had my son drive me down to Ogdensberg, sans bike.

Since I wasn't bringing my own bike, I needed to find one in New York State. I could have picked one up at Wal-Mart in Watertown but I wanted my bicycle to have character, to have a history. Bike's from Wal-Mart have neither.

What I needed was a second hand bike that had its own character. It didn't have to be 40 years old like me. I didn't want it to be 40 years old like me. As the bike was going to be my best friend until we pedaled into Manhattan together it needed human qualities that only a bike with a history could provide.

There was no bicycle to be found in Pulaski. There were bikers however - not bicycle bikers but real bikers - and over the course of a few beers we mapped out my route to New York City. The next morning I said goodbye to my son, and started walking down the road. I had heard that there was a yard sale "a couple of miles down the road" with lots of bikes. Surely one of them would have the character and strength I needed for my ride into the Big Apple.

Williamstown is where I finally found my bike. I had walked into town just as the late June skies opened up. Fortunately the skies opened as I was passing the one bar in town and so I sought refuge and a cold beverage. The one patron at the bar couldn't believe that I had walked from Pulaski to there.
"That's 25 miles," he said incredulously. I shrugged, mileage didn't matter to me, I was on a quest. I told Mr. Incredulous my story and why I was walking. I had to find that one particular bike. An hour later and the barfly had sold me his 10 year old Huffy for $50. He had stopped riding it after his eighth heart attack two years before. My bicycle trip had officially begun.

As most of the day was behind me I only managed to make it to Rome that night, just as the skies opened again. But it was a good start - I didn't over-exert myself and I got a good night's sleep.
The next couple of days consisted of pedaling up some hill (in my mind it was a mountain) for 20 minutes then racing down the other side of that hill (in my mind it was a mountain) in 20 seconds. There was no time to catch my breath - 20 minutes up a hill, 20 seconds down - repeated ad nauseum.

Beaten from yet another day of little progress - I had expected to average between 14-20 miles per hour and I had been averaging closer to seven owing to the hills (in my mind they were mountains) - I checked into a rundown little motel in the middle of nowhere.

The elderly owner shook his head at me when I told him what I was doing. He wasn't impressed. "A couple of years ago we had this 80-year-old guy on a bike spend the night here. And he was coming from California," he said shaking his head in disdain for me. The old guy wanted to charge me $107 for my room. Until then I had been paying between $30-40 per night on the road.

"There's another motel 20 or so miles down the road," he offered with a wicked smile. We both knew I didn't have another 20 miles of cycling in me and it was now 9PM. I paid his rate and cursed both old men under my breath before falling asleep in my $107 bed which was as comfortable as the backseat of a '78 Camaro.

Fittingly, it was the Fourth of July when I crossed the George Washington Bridge into Manhattan. I quickly found Broadway and started to cycle down America's Main Street towards Greenwich Village and the end of my journey. My body was beaten up after five days of riding over the Adirondacks and the Catskills but I had a grin from ear-to-ear. I was 40 and I had just completed the longest bicycle ride of my life.

Special Delivery - NYC's largest green roof courtesy of USPS

Manhattan's largest green roof is perched atop the Morgan mail processing facility. The USPS facility on West 28th Street between 9th and 10th Avenues is not just NYC's largest green roof it is also one of the largest in the nation at 2.5 acres in area.

“The Postal Service is taking the lead when it comes to making a positive impact on the environment,” said Tom Samra, vice president, Facilities said at yesterday's launch. “We’re proud to dedicate our first green roof, and we are pleased to showcase this environmental oasis today in New York City.”

Green roofs are noted for the ability to reduce the energy load of the buildings they sit atop.The Morgan green roof will help the USPS meet its energy reduction target for the facility of 30 percent by 2015. Contaminants in storm water runoff that empties into city sewers will be reduced by 75 percent in the summer months, dropping to 35 percent during winter.

When built in 1933 the roof of the historic landmark was originally expected to serve as an extra mail processing station. Able to support 200 pounds per square foot the roof was deemed strong enough to withstand the added load incumbent with a green roof. Not only is the project environmentally friendly it is financially sound. Another benefit of a green roof is that it extends the life of a roof. In the case of the Morgan site the life expectancy of the roof - 50 years - is twice as long as that of a conventional roof.

Sam Pulcrano, vice president, Sustainability stated that the roof provides employees with a beautiful outdoor environment. Sitting seven stories above midtown Manhattan, the 2.2 million square foot roof offers breathtaking vistas. Landscaped with native plants and trees the postal park comes furnished with 14 certified-sustainable Brazilian wood benches and maintenance-free grass.

Sky-high accomplishments aside the USPS has also expanded its recycling program at NYC outlets. Since adding mixed paper and cardboard the post office is recycling 400 tons of materials per month. With more than 2700 tons recycled that is nearly three times the amount recycled prior to last October.

In the last 12 months, the Postal Service also has expanded its recycling program in New York City to include mixed paper and cardboard, resulting in nearly 400 tons of materials recycled each month. Since last October post offices in New York City have recycled 2,770 tons of mixed paper and cardboard, an increase of 1,861 tons, or nearly triple what was recycled in the same period the previous year.

In New York The Answer is Blowing in the Wind

Converting rooftop water towers that dot the Manhattan skyline into wind energy sources is still a few years away. But wind energy is already sailing into the New York marketplace and in places that you least expect it.

City institutions including Brooklyn Brewery and Whole Foods are taking the lead in green energy procurement. Both purchase wind power from the local arm of global wind energy giant Iberdrola. By signing up with Community Energy they and others are on the leading edge of energy self sufficiency in America.

Chelsea Piers, the largest sports and entertainment complex in the country uses 100-percent wind power.The environmental offsets of using wind energy are the equivalent of reducing 13,600 metric tons of CO2 emissions.

"We were surprised to learn that the incremental cost of purchasing 100 percent green power was actually quite small," said Chelsea Piers Chairman Roland W. Betts. "We also made a considerable investment converting to high-efficiency light fixtures and new control systems but we believe it will pay for itself in a few years."

Brooklyn Brewery obtains 100 percent of its energy from wind. The brewery pays Con Ed Solutions for the 285,000 kilowatt-hours it uses off the grid annually to be replaced with energy from Community Energy wind farms located in New York.

Each year, Brooklyn Brewery's commitment to clean energy saves the atmosphere from 335,000 pounds of carbon dioxide, 1,500 pounds of sulfur dioxide, and 500 pounds of nitrogen oxide that would otherwise be emitted.

Whole Foods Market uses renewable energy credits from wind farms to offset 100 percent of the electricity used in all of its stores and other facilities in the United States and Canada. The company began doing so in January of 2006.

While we are waiting for that breath of fresh air that is the next generation of wind generation the answer is already blowing in the wind.