EAST NY FARM

One of the most impressive sustainability operations in all of NYC is EAST NY Farms: they have a farmer's market, backyard gardens, a farm, a fair, music programs, youth programs, its incredible. And note the below from their blog. mm

Bill Moyer's Journal (Nov 28) included a great conversation with Michael Pollan about food systems and the way we eat. It also featured the East New York Farmers Market, our new urban farm, Hands and Heart Garden, and market gardeners James and Jeanette Ware. The link is here, http://www.pbs.org/moyers/journal/11282008/watch2.html. The segment about East New York Farms! starts in the second minute of Part II, and continues til about 8min30sec. Watch til the end for some footage of our team of youth leaders harvest for the market!

and check out
http://eastnewyorkfarms.vox.com/profile/

GREEN ACRE A HUB OF ECO-FRIENDLY ENTREPRENEURS GROWS IN BROOKLYN

This joint is right down the road from BC, On Atlantic near Flatbush. Could be a good spot to for BC student internships!


By DAN AVERY
DESK SET: Jennie Nevin founded the co-working co-op Green Spaces, one of several enterprises housed at 33 Flatbush Ave.
April 13, 2009, NY POST

With his long white beard, rotund frame and twinkling eyes, Al Attara could easily pass for a modern-day Santa Claus. But the lifelong New Yorker isn't giving out toys to youngsters -- he's bringing downtown Brooklyn a communal spirit colored in green as the owner of 33 Flatbush Ave., a seven-story building that's becoming an incubator for socially responsible and environmentally minded entrepreneurs.

Attara bought the property, the former Metropolitan Exchange Bank, back in 1978 with the idea of turning it into a professional arts complex. But he soon learned the city had marked the building for urban renewal and could reclaim it at any time -- not an ideal situation for potential tenants. So for decades, the building was mostly a warehouse for the inveterate junkhound's vast collection of salvaged furniture and curios.

continued at
http://www.nypost.com/seven/04132009/jobs/green_acre_164229.htm?page=0

BEYOND GREEN ARCHITECTURE: RESEARCH, INTERSPECIES DWELLING

BC should have a building like this, but for the parrots!



Beehive Building: An Innovative Eco Research Center
by Trey Farmer

University of Sheffield’s new £4.4 million Arthur Willis Environmental Centre will allow researchers to study future climate scenarios and their effects on local biology, including plants and social insects such as ants and bees. The energy-efficient greenhouse gave Bond Bryan Architects and builders William Birch & Sons Ltd an opportunity for some innovative work. The facility has been built to not only blend seamlessly into the surrounding woodlands and sit upon on WWII rubble infill, but also to allow bees to fly in and out!

With the bees traveling freely between the facility and the outdoors, scientists will be able to study their behavioral patterns as they travel to their nearby hives. The Centre is the new home of researchers studying the biology of plants and social insects in the hope of gaining new understanding of the effects of climate change and potentially improving crop production in developing regions. The greenhouse has 16 different control zones to simulate conditions in different climate zones and future climate scenarios.

Professor Lorraine Maltby, Head of the University´s Department of Animal and Plant Sciences stated: “As well as taking great strides to help solve some of the world´s most pressing environmental concerns, the Centre will also help improve the city´s biodiversity, with plants and beneficial insects being protected in the surrounding woodland.”

It is nice to see that the University is keeping its neighborhood in good shape while tackling problems across the channel and beyond.

Consumption dwarfs population as main environmental threat

I seem to recall having this discussion in our seminar! (Not even a real debate.)

"A small portion of the world's people use up most of the earth's resources and produce most of its greenhouse gas emissions, writes Fred Pearce. From Yale Environment 360, part of Guardian Environment Network"

It's the great taboo, I hear many environmentalists say. Population growth is the driving force behind our wrecking of the planet, but we are afraid to discuss it.

It sounds like a no-brainer. More people must inevitably be bad for the environment, taking more resources and causing more pollution, driving the planet ever farther beyond its carrying capacity. But hold on. This is a terribly convenient argument — "over-consumers" in rich countries can blame "over-breeders" in distant lands for the state of the planet. But what are the facts?

The world's population quadrupled to six billion people during the 20th century. It is still rising and may reach 9 billion by 2050. Yet for at least the past century, rising per-capita incomes have outstripped the rising head count several times over. And while incomes don't translate precisely into increased resource use and pollution, the correlation is distressingly strong.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2009/apr/15/consumption-versus-population-environmental-impact

EDIBLE LANDSCAPE VS CANCER CAUSING FRUIT

This is just scary, these fruits absorb so many pesticides that washing them doesn't make them safe to eat. If we planted these fruit trees throughout the city--very doable for some--you wouldnt have to spray them with pesticides, rather humans would share them with others (insects, birds, squirrels, ...) eating what's left.

http://www.treehugger.com/galleries/2009/04/12-fruits-with-the-most-pesticides.php

PSC EARTH DAY EVENT, Apr 22

“Getting up to Speed on LEED:
Greening our CUNY Workplaces”


Wed April 22
6:30-8:30

PSC CUNY 61 Broadway 16th floor

What better way to spend Earth Day then to join us in this special PSC Environmental Health and Safety and Green Team program.

CUNY is currently planning LEED Silver certification for new buildings on 11 CUNY campuses (see list * below). The certification process involves an interesting list of details for making buildings more energy efficient, more sustainable and in general, more environmentally friendly. LEED stands for Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design. The process for certification involves working with the occupants of the new buildings. And those participants are us!


Come join us as our speaker:

Jodi Smits Anderson, AIA, LEED-AP
Director, Sustainability Programs at DASNY

introduces us to the LEED process and gives us the opportunity to participate in a workshop (a charette in architectural terms) for ‘greening’ a sample building. Ms. Smits Anderson has conducted many charettes including one at a recent NYSUT Environmental Health and Safety Conference.


* CUNY is currently planning LEED certification for new buildings at:
BMCC; Baruch; Brooklyn Bronx CC; CCNY; Hunter; JJay; Leh; Medgar; NYCCT; Queens
Come join us, and circulate this announcement to lists of faculty and staff who may be interested.

WHO OWNS CUNY'S BUILDINGS?

Just found out from Brooklyn College Prof. Jean Grassman (Health and Nutrition Science) that The Dormitory Authority of NY State (DASNY) owns all of CUNY's buildings and they've just gone "green." This is intriguing on at least three fronts: 1) the governance structure of CUNY: I have been at CUNY for almost 20 years and I still do not understand large chunks of how CUNY operates: and of course to change the way CUNY operates first one must understand how it works, who controls what etc. (Note my earlier post that CUNY has its own Community Development Corporation!) 2) there are so many "green" efforts at CUNY but they are incredibly disconnected and if we dont figure out how to connect them, the whole project for a sustainableBC is not only NOT gonna go far, but BC and other parts of CUNY will be marginalized as NYC looks for leadership in becoming green and defining sustainability (right now Columbia U. plays the lead role among universities and while this is understandable given some of the great people there, it is not the kind of framework that would come out of a project developed at CUNY: for example, green jobs programs at Columbia means something else entirely than one at CUNY given the incredible differences among student populations). 3) two is enough for now.

NYC Encourages Urban Gardening and Regional Food

This is a good piece about an absolutely outstanding set of proposals put out by MANHATTAN BOROUGH PRESIDENT scott stringer. Stringer's plan actually talks about NYC's "foodshed" , and crucially, using PUBLIC land to grow food for local communities. This is the most advanced document pertaining to sustainability (i.e combined sustainable development that is not capital intensive with environmental justice and participatory democracy) commissioned or written by a public official that I have seen anywhere in the US. And it's doable. mm



Cuba’s experience with urban farming has been exemplary. It has massively increased its food production, cut down on the ecological and economic costs of shipping food to the cities, and opened up green spaces and jobs—all with practically no carbon emissions. The word “revolution” is not inappropriate.

So who's next for an agricultural sea-change? Somewhat surprisingly, it may be New York City.

The strikingly progressive Manhattan borough president, Scott Stringer, has just published a report entitled “Food in the Public Interest: How New York City’s Food Policy Holds the Key to Hunger, Health, Jobs and the Environment.”

http://solveclimate.com/blog/20090304/nyc-encourages-urban-gardening-and-regional-food

PLAN NYC EVALUATION EVENT apr 21

Please join us:

RSVP events@sustainabilitypractice.net or go to http://www.sustainabilitypractice.net/about.html and click on the link at the bottom of the page.

For more information, or to join SPN, visit our website: www.sustainabilitypractice.net

$10.00 donation payable at the door.



Date: April 21, 2009

Time: 6:00 - 8:00 pm
Venue: NYU Stern School of Business Henry Kaufman Management Center, 44 West 4th Street (at Greene Street) - Gardner Commons - 1st Floor

Moderator: Bob Yaro, President, Regional Plan Association.




Panelists: Tom Angotti, Professor of Urban Affairs & Planning and Director, Center for Community Planning & Development, Hunter College/CUNY, Steven Morgan, President, Clean Energy Solutions; Susan Leeds, Center for Market Innovation National Resources Defense Council; Carter Strickland, Senior Policy Advisor for Air and Water, Mayor’s Office Long Term Planning and Sustainability



Panel Description:


Launched on Earth Day, 2007 Mayor Bloomberg’s PlaNYC 2030 promised to address the major environmental sustainability issues facing the city, with 127 initiatives on housing, open space, water, air quality, transportation, brownfields, and the city’s impact on climate change. In its first year, PlaNYC launched 118 of these initiatives, and in 2008 issued a report on progress. Some programs (such as transitioning the city’s taxi fleet to hybrid vehicles) have had great success, and others (such as congestion pricing) have come up against challenges. Part of Mayor Bloomberg’s promise was to hold PlaNYC accountable for results. Two years into PlaNYC 2030, this panel will discuss the status of some of these initiatives, accomplishments, and lessons learned.

Greening of Pittsburgh, lessons for NYC

April 1, 2009
Square Feet
The Greening of Pittsburgh
By CHRISTINE H. O’TOOLE

In a contemporary retelling of Aesop’s fable of the tortoise and the hare, Pittsburgh is finding recession-era advantages in a slow-growth legacy.

The city, which has lost half its population since 1950, had a well-chronicled change of character over the second half of the 20th century: from a center of the steel industry to headquarters for many large corporations to a much more diverse economy that encompasses health care, education, finance and technology.

As it shrank, the city had relatively little new construction compared with many United States cities. But it was in the forefront of the movement to conserve existing structures and clean up the contaminated industrial sites called brownfields, becoming a leader in the field of sustainable building. That is now serving Pittsburgh well during the economic downturn.

Describing the area’s rebuilt economy, the Allegheny County executive, Dan Onorato, said: “It’s clean, it’s shiny, it’s green. Slow, steady growth is our strongest asset.”

The city’s commercial real estate market is relatively healthy. In the fourth quarter of 2008, Pittsburgh earned the top ranking in Moody’s Investors Service’s quarterly “Red-Yellow-Green” report on the state of commercial real estate in 60 major United States cities.

Though the southwestern Pennsylvania metropolitan area is only the 22nd largest in the United States in terms of population, the city employed energy-efficient construction well ahead of larger cities. In 2005, Pittsburgh claimed more LEED-certified square footage — meaning it had met Leadership in Energy and Design standards for energy-saving designs and building techniques — than anywhere else in the United States. As other cities have caught up, Pittsburgh now ranks seventh nationally in the number of buildings with such certification, according to the local Green Building Alliance.

Founded in 1993, the alliance says it is the first nonprofit organization in the nation to encourage green commercial building. “There was no government-driven agenda here,” said Rebecca Flora, former director of the Green Building Alliance and now senior vice president of education and research at the national Green Building Council, a nonprofit organization that oversees the LEED program. “Pittsburgh’s doing green in a weak market city with existing building stock, and it’s done it without government programs.”

A number of century-old landmarks have been revived as energy-efficient buildings in the last decade, and several major projects, both new and retrofits, will open this spring.

Years before national environmental building standards were set in 2000, Pittsburgh began experimenting in sustainability as local architects, engineers and academics debated how to reuse old industrial sites.

“We were working on the Model T of green building," said the architect Bob Kobet of the discussions among early proponents of solar energy, weatherization and nontoxic design.

With innovations that would later become widely accepted, like a rooftop garden and photovoltaic roof panels, the local Green Building Alliance’s first project, in 1998, retrofitted a 100-year-old former soap factory and art gallery as office space for Conservation Consultants Inc. “Nonprofits became the test market,” said Ms. Flora, with local foundations underwriting new designs.

Working with advisers from Carnegie Mellon University and the University of Pittsburgh, the alliance also provided technical advice for more complex renovations for other nonprofit groups.

In 1999, for example, Phipps Conservatory, a Victorian landmark at the entrance to a city park, began planning an energy-efficient expansion to blend with the century-old structure. A local architecture firm, IKM, preserved its signature fritted-glass dome with a $5.2 million below-grade welcome center. A 12,000-square-foot tropical forest exhibit deploys a radical roof venting system and geothermal tubes for passive cooling in a $7.5 million glasshouse. A solid-oxide fuel cell produces electricity from natural gas.

Two other public venues — the Children’s Museum of Pittsburgh and the David L. Lawrence Convention Center — incorporated energy efficiency in ambitious redesigns. The 1.5-million-square-foot convention center, designed by Rafael Viñoly in 1999, was completed in 2003. Its swooping riverfront design uses natural ventilation and illuminates a exhibition hall entirely through its windows and skylights.

The Children’s Museum sought to blend a historic 1897 post office with a 1939 planetarium that had stood vacant since 1991. The solution — a glass lantern shape that appears to float between the grand older structures — reused original materials, like terrazzo, marble and copper. In 2006, the design won awards from the National Trust for Historic Preservation and the American Institute of Architects.

Gary Saulson, director of corporate real estate for the PNC Financial Services Group, the nation’s fifth-largest bank, was a green building skeptic until 1998. Steel girders were already rising along the Monongahela River for Firstside Center, the bank’s 650,000-square-foot operations center, when Ms. Flora met with Mr. Saulson to suggest making the structure a sustainable building.

“At the end of the meeting, I had committed to make Firstside into a green building,” Mr. Saulson said. “It seemed like the right thing to do. As a company, we embrace new ideas and innovation.”

Mr. Saulson says that PNC now has more buildings certified as environmentally friendly than any other company in the world. Fifty-five have achieved LEED certification, and 15 more are in the pipeline, including the new 780,000-square-foot headquarters at Three PNC Plaza in downtown Pittsburgh.

Mr. Saulson said the green investment was cost-effective. He said that suppliers had quickly responded to the demand for sustainable supplies like low volatile-organic-compound paints, energy-efficient window walls and sustainably harvested plywood at a competitive price. “We’re building our branches as LEED-certified buildings for $100,000 less than one of our major competitors is building the same size branch that’s not green,” he said.

As sustainable building gathers national momentum, 41 more LEED projects are expected to open in southwestern Pennsylvania in 2009. Among the largest is the new 1.5-million-square-foot Children’s Hospital of Pittsburgh of the University of Pittsburgh Medical Center, opening May 2 in the Lawrenceville neighborhood. The $625 million campus, which overlooks the Allegheny River, will have two green-certified buildings among a half dozen.

Consol Energy Center, the planned home of the Pittsburgh Penguins beginning in the fall of 2010, intends to be the National Hockey League’s first green arena, with seating for 18,000. The design includes a glass-walled atrium and ventilation that admits natural air.

Twenty miles north of the city in Butler County, the Westinghouse Electric Company hopes to attain LEED status for its 825,000-square-foot Cranberry Woods center. Owned and built by Wells Real Estate Funds, the headquarters and technology center will open the first of three buildings in June.

Federal historic tax credits have aided green renovations at two other city sites. The Union Trust Building, a 1915 downtown structure with a Flemish Gothic exterior and rotunda capped by a stained-glass dome, expects to gain LEED certification for $10 million in energy-saving renovations by its owner, the Mika Realty Group of Los Angeles.

In the city’s densely populated East End, Bakery Square, the former home of a Nabisco plant, is to reopen in 2010 with about 380,000 square feet of mixed-use retail and office space. The $113 million project will be crowned with a 75-kilowatt solar panel array. Though Pittsburgh’s cloudy winters limit sun-generated power, it will provide 1.5 percent of the projected energy use for the site and save $6,000 a year.

“Pittsburgh has a legacy of really beautiful public venues that have become green and accessible,” said Ms Flora of the Green Building Council.

The Big (Green) Apple By Bryan Walsh / New York City

As flat as a pool table and barely a mile wide at its narrowest, the Rockaway Peninsula — a tongue of land that sticks into the Atlantic Ocean at New York City's southeastern corner — is already vulnerable to storm surges and floods. Global warming, with its rising seas and harder rain, will only intensify those threats. That's what has Vincent Sapienza, the city's assistant commissioner for wastewater treatment, so worried. The Rockaway Wastewater Treatment Plant, which processes 25 million gal. (95,000 cu m) of sewage a day, sits next to the beach, and its pumps are below sea level. In a major flood, parts of the plant could be submerged, shutting down sewage treatment. "If you lose these pumps, you're done," says Sapienza, standing in the plant's churning basement. "This is a really vulnerable place."

http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1889165,00.html