From yesterday's New York Times—"President Bush lifted nearly two decades of executive orders banning drilling for oil
and natural gas off the country’s shoreline on Monday while challenging Congress to open up more areas for exploration
Bush announces his plan to
lift the ban on offshore drilling.to address soaring energy prices.  Democrats in Congress, joined by environmentalists, criticized the step and ridiculed it as ineffectual, while most Republicans and industry representatives applauded it as long overdue. The lifting of the moratorium — first announced by Mr. Bush’s father, President George Bush, in 1990 and extended by President Bill Clinton— will have no real impact because a Congressional moratorium on drilling enacted in 1981 and renewed annually remains in force. And there appeared to be no consensus for lifting it in tandem with Mr. Bush’s action."

Business as usual. Bush in effect doesn't support efficiency measures. Democrats are critical--but little more. Industry people are happy. Congress won't be acting any time soon. Anything else I'm missing? 

Now that the presidential race has taken to discussing very important things such as the importance of lapel pins, this seems like a good time to question what we might be missing in the dialogue.  
Our urban Planet.

Randall Crane, Vice-Chair of Urban Planning at UCLA recently wrote a phenomenal opinion piece on the advice he would/will give the presidential candidates when/if they do call him. In his one word: Cities. There seems to be a void in political conversation about the role of urban planning, infrastructure, and spatial practice and policy. Such a simple concept, but in reality, there is very little federal attention payed to the issue of place. Crane eloquently reminds us that, "...our cities are the global agents of change, prosperity, and conflict in a flattening world. They are our families, our fortunes and our failures. More than any other idea or institution, these places made us as we make them and we rise or fall with their fortunes."

He points out that only one candidate has an urban policy platform and it hadn't been discussed until very recently. This is all related to a previous post that I made, discussing the inability of our leaders to harness the concern of Americans about alarming fuel and energy costs to create some sort of proactive changes in our energy supply and consumption. Rather, our lame-duck leader is trying desperately to satisfy the insatiable demands of American consumption, by bullying congress a bit, only so that we will face this problem in another decade! Outrageous and short-sighted.

Just as the finite nature of fossil fuels is real, as are the detrimental environmental effects of burning it, the fact that we are becoming an urban planet, is also true. Again, we have an opportunity to educate people about this process, its current benefits and how we can strengthen the future of it. First we need to talk about it though.

Lots of people are talking about the mass scale over fishing of our oceans. And it's a good thing since 52% of the world’s fisheries are fully exploited, and 24% are overexploited, depleted, or recovering from depletion. And 90% of the ocean's large fish have been fished out. While we certainly seem to have a grasp on what is happening in the deep blue sea, how to change course is less obvious.
Martin Schreibman in his urban aquaculture environment.                Photo: GOOD Magazine

The good people of GOOD Magazine have done a cover story on CUNY's very own Martin Schreibman, who says our oceans have been overfished beyond repair. So the only option is to move the fish to the farm. And those farms should be in the city. He has done some work with the folks over at the Science Barge, who have a small scale Talapia tank in their midst. And as the Founder and Director Emeritus, of the Aquatic Research and Environmental Assessment Center (AREAC) at Brooklyn College, the protoype exists.

You can buy this month's edition of GOOD to get a first take on his article or you can wait for it to be featured online. Either way, check it out. This may be the future of your Friday night fish fry.

Paying $5 a gallon for gas might be a reality in the very near future, people are riding public transportation in places where pick up truck driving was an apparent right, and New York City might be getting a bike share program. While there are not people taking to the streets--well not commuters anyway--we seem to be experiencing a quiet revolution in the way we move ourselves on a daily basis.
Image Source: U.S. Department of Transportation

As a collective, our society has not been too concerned with this issue, from planning suburbs to cars, so the current magnitude of the problem seems alarming. And it has been tough to see the benefits of this transformation. No one feels good about the fact that what Bloomberg's failed congestion pricing plan couldn't accomplish, high gas prices could: less cars on NYC streets. We hear only special interest groups excited about getting more people on mass transit, while it seems that the average American feels disturbed and inconvenienced that they must now take it. People are still circulating emails about how if we boycott a gas company on a certain day, they will get the message.

What is hard to get excited about here is that there are relatively few influential voices saying, "This is actually what we need! Our society needs to be thinking about better planning, better transit, better movement! Sorry you are inconvenienced, but it is for the better." Sure there are people who are saying this, but for the most part we are a small minority and can easily be cast off as elitist urbanites. It is only for issues that I am not going to dwell on here that politicians seem comfortable asking their constituents to sacrifice for the greater good.

How do we borrow from that type of tactic? It seems that people rally around the flag when they believe that their way of life is severely threatened and their actions, or the ones they support, will afford them the opportunity to preserve it. So, perhaps it is just a matter of reminding people that their lifestyle is indeed threatened, partially because it in itself was unsustainable. I think this is becoming painstakingly clear to most people. But we need to hear from leaders--elected, corporate and otherwise--that they support proactive transitions. Less traffic because gas prices are too high is not in itself a victory. But using that as an opportunity to build towards more public transportation infrastructure and educating people about the benefits of it is.

What does that even Mean?
                 The Future of AC

I am not sure if it is because I am concerned with the energy drain, the fact that I spent some formative years growing up in a place that had no AC--man did the public transportation in Budapest smell good in the summer of 97--or if it is my hatred of the frigid temperatures inside buses, offices, and stores, but I am usually skeptical of those who insist on blasting the AC. The NY Times actually had an interesting response from New Yorkers last week who are peeved with Bloomberg for blocking legislation that would fine places of business that keep their doors wide open to allure customers. Regulating energy waste is apparently not part of PlaNYC.

Regardless of my contempt, air conditioning is something that we have become accustomed to. And while I am always curious as to why it needs to be that cold on the 6 train, I also enjoy it sometimes. So, how do we make this vice less sinful?

The good people of Tree Hugger have created a great compilation of the new advances in eco-friendly air conditioning, from hot water-powered to solar powered--which they believe holds the most potential and will be commercially available relatively soon. I look forward to seeing those bad boys at Home Depot. And eventually maybe even on buses. But for now, perhaps we should all call on our Mayor to ask him why we are cooling the sidewalks.

Mayor Bloomberg's plan to close a stretch of 6.9 miles of surface roads to
automobiles for a few hours, for a few weekends in August is getting mixed responses. Transportation Alternatives and the folks who support their work (Like us!) and others who believe that we should reconceptualize how we use streets think this "Summer Streets" experiment could be the very first step of something bigger. Business owners, cab drivers, and others who see this as a damper on their business are not so happy. In different instances and interviews, various people have asked if the mayor is crazy.

What exactly is so crazy though? Perhaps if you are a parking garage business, than you have cause for concern. No cars = no business. But those people will not go bankrupt for 5 hours of missed hourly wages for 3 days, considering that their monthly and yearly customers are certainly still patronizing them. Besides, they will pass the cost off to consumers, who will still pay the rate because parking in NYC is parking in NYC.  

Copenhagen went through a similar process about 30 years ago, when they began to deal with their congestion problems. They closed certain streets to automobiles and turned them into pedestrian promenades. The same cries came from business owners about how their sales will be so hurt. But what actually ended up happening? BUSINESS WAS BOOMING. People strolling around at a leisurely pace are far more likely to stop in and browse in a store and realize that all their lives, they have really been needing that product. If people are making specific plans to go to a store on a certain day, those few hours might be difficult for them. I'm sure they can plan accordingly.

I bet business goes up. Maybe we can find a few businesses that are interested in serving as case studies for our experiment. Want in, leave a comment or email me at cmolnar@hunter.cuny.edu.

The July 7th issue of the New Yorker has a profile piece on a small Danish island that could teach us a thing or two about making our own island more sustainable. Sure, Manhattan and Samso have a slight difference of scale seeing as only 4500 people live on their island, but there are certainly opportunities to glean and green. Specifically, the time scale is impressive.

       A Samso Offshore Windfarm

Samso's creation of a sustainable energy economy--for production, consumption, and profitable returns--is about a decade old. In the late 90s they received electricity from cables from the mainland and heated their homes with oil from tankers. A renewable energy competition with a winning entry that looked at Samso's potential for renewables put them on a track to change this. By 2001, they had halved their consumption of fossil fuels and by 2003, they were exporting electricity. Today they create more energy with renewable sources than they can use.

What is most interesting though, is that they self identify themselves as "regular people...and as a conservative farming community." They are not particularly wealthy, educated or seeking the huge amount of attention they have now garnered. But they are indeed proud--as they should be. New Yorker articles can be cumbersome, but I would recommend this one, as a synopsis won't do it justice.

Elizabeth Kolbert hits the nail on the head in her analysis of the island's symbology. After reminding us of the energy and environmental challenges we face; consumption of 31 billion barrels of oil, six billion tons of coal, 2% annual energy demand increases, 30 billion tons of carbon dioxide released, mass species extinction, etcetera, she has this to say about the small island: "In the context of this challenge, Samso's accomplishments could be seen as trivial. Certainly, in numerical terms they don't amount to much: all the island's avoided emissions of the past ten years are overwhelmed by the CO2 that a single coal-fired power plant will emit in the next three weeks...But it is also in this context that the island's efforts are most significant. Samso transformed its energy system in a single decade. Its experience suggests how the carbon problem, as huge as it is, could be dealt with, if we were willing to try."

Well, folks. There is the million dollar question. Are we willing to try?

The Intervale Green housing development is a project that speaks for itself. Located in the Morrisania section of the Bronx, it is a new complex of affordable housing for low income and formerly homeless families. Just next door is the  Louis Nine House which includes 46 units of housing for young adults just leaving foster care. There will be on site job training and eduction.  

The development took advantage of NYSERDA benefits and consultants from Steven Winter Associates worked to reduce fuel usage for heat and hot water by 85%. Sound good? Come here Andy Padian of Steven Winter Associates speak at Governors Island on August 2nd about how you can achieve efficiency in your home! The savings for this complex are over $600,000 annually. Indoor air quality is of course also taken into account.

One more perk involves closing the digital divide. The entire development will be share an online network and each home gets a computer for their use.  

There are no ponies offered to residents...yet. But this is an exemplary display of bringing sustainability to the next level. 

The Iron Triangle of Willets PoinLast night's meeting in Flushing, Queens to discuss the fate of Willets Point was tense and hot. I think the temperature in the room must have been over 100 degrees at certain points and the emotional energy in that place was certainly upping the anti. 

CISC was present supporting the redevelopment project as New York's first green and sustainable community. But the question of setting eminent domain precedent seemed to be the real concern from those who didn't support the plan. Whether or not those questions were adequately answered is up to the voters on the community board. Therefor, I will say nothing on that. 

In general though, the blight of Willet's Point in terms of its lost economic development opportunities--rather than the contamination of the water table and the creek--seemed to be of more concern to community members and the public at large. There were not so many locals complaining about the lack of kayaking in the area, so much as the eyesore that the point is.

But at CISC, we DO hope that those waters can be restored and people can use them as a means of connecting to their natural environment. We DO want people kayaking in there. Now that the board has given the advisory go ahead, my hope would be that the city goes beyond green architecture and delves into many other green firsts for NYC. First composting neighborhood, first government sponsored green collar training program, first green elementary school, first neighborhood bike share, first mandatory car share at rush hour...ok maybe that one infringes on rights. But you get the point. There are so many opportunities to approach the development plan in a way which will truly affect cultural practices, making them greener practices.

We look forward to seeing the plan move forward.  

        The Antro-Solo of Hungary.

About 15 years ago, the streets of Budapest were still lined with Trabants and Ladas-an homage to their Soviet past. Today, there are fewer of these compressed cardboard cars that took years off one's life. The future might look a bit different though.

A few weeks ago, the Antro Solo was unveiled at the Budapest Museum of Transport. The car is a gas-electric hybrid, with top speeds of 87 mph and solar panels on the roof that store energy in the car's battery for short trips of 15-25km. And the best part, each of the three seats has pedals that also charge the car's battery. These people apparently are used to Budapest traffic, so they figure they might as well get some exercise in there. 

 
I love this car. But we have decided that it looks like a small dust-buster. Soon enough they will all look like this though! The Antro Solo is set to be on the market in 2012 for about $20,000. This car and I share a mother-country, so when I go there this August, I will be certain to check out the museum and get the beat from the street on whether this thing is a go.