Earth Life Mission Log

By Jan Barry

Ramapo College of New Jersey has taken an innovative approach to teaching about global climate change. Last fall, the liberal arts college in Mahwah, NJ directed all incoming students to take a course in World Sustainability. So it was that I found myself teaching one of several classrooms full of newcomers an expanded course that previously was provided to a much smaller cohort of students majoring in environmental studies.

This development came about because student leaders requested that every student have an opportunity to learn about what’s happening in today’s world. As one of my Fall 2019 students noted in the course evaluation, this class “gave me a better understanding of the things that are harming the world and the sustainability issues in different parts of the world.”

Having previously taught Environmental Writing for nearly a decade, after retiring as a newspaper reporter, I told the class at the beginning of the semester that this global topic was a stretch for me so we were going to be learning about world sustainability together. Employing an idea from a deeply experienced environmental studies professor, I directed my 35 students to break into study groups of five, by signing up for a continent or corner of the world. Each study group was assigned to develop a power point presentation on sustainability issues in a part of the world, with particular emphasis on selected countries that each student would study in depth.

One student wrote that this was a highlight of our class: “Having to research a certain country in a continent. By doing this it lets you understand the issues climate change has globally.”  The study group presentations included photos and videos of environmental issues and projects in various countries. These included depressing scenes of overwhelming plastic pollution in the Middle East to an amazing turnaround story in Copenhagen, Denmark. 

During the semester, the college hosted a Climate Conference that featured presentations by several Ramapo College environmental studies professors, students and guests. One of my students wrote of the event: “attending it was such an eye opening experience. Prior to attending, I never had the opportunity to feel so involved in such a significant topic.”

Another student spoke about what he was learning in the World Sustainability course with younger students in his mother’s fifth grade class. “I am glad I was able to talk about this major problem in 2019 to kids because it spreads awareness on something that will affect all of us if nothing is acted on,” he wrote.

Union members at fossil fuel moratorium rally in Newark, NJ (photo/Jan Barry)

By Jan Barry

New Jersey is in the process of planning its future, amid a global climate crisis that state residents have yet to grapple with.

The traffic-jammed corridor of turnpike exits that touts itself as the Garden State has relentlessly paved over farmlands and clear cut forests to build some of humanity’s most densely packed population centers; as its public officials welcomed smog-belching petro-chemical plants and constructed car-and-truck-tangled highways, while shrugging at lung-burning air pollution and toxic contamination of water sources. Residents, meanwhile, turned running around shopping at multiple malls into an Olympic sport.

Now New Jerseyans are suddenly being asked to slow down, take a deep breath and drastically change our lifestyles.

“Scientists in the state say that without comprehensive changes, life in the Garden State will be about adapting to a reality where the Jersey Shore is continually a disaster zone … and inland river flooding brings floodwaters to the Statehouse steps in Trenton,” NJ.com reported last fall. Repeated downbursts of heavy rain during heat waves this summer, punctuated by tornadoes and thunderstorms, flooded local streams and streets across the state.

Governor Murphy’s response to reports of dire weather events getting much worse if greenhouse gasses from power plant and vehicle emissions continue to heat up the planet was to order up an energy master plan for switching out smog-producing fuel to solar, wind and other kinds of clean renewable energy. Like many other states and nations, following the guidance of international climate scientists, the goal is to accomplish this massive energy makeover by 2050.

Meanwhile, the fracked gas industry is pushing to build more than a dozen new pipelines, compressor stations and power plants in New Jersey. Environmental activists say this would dramatically increase emissions from fossil fuels, just as they should be decreased.

“To meet the Administration’s objective of 100% clean energy by 2050 … New Jersey needs to aggressively reduce, not increase, greenhouse gas emissions,” says a report by Empower NJ, a coalition of civic groups that includes the Sierra Club, Food & Water Watch and NJ Industrial Union Council. “This requires annual reduction benchmarks and objectives starting NOW. Approving any new fossil fuel expansion projects will move us further away from achieving necessary GHG targets and make it virtually impossible to fight climate change and achieve the Governor’s 100% clean energy goal.”

The activists’ call to reject new fossil fuel projects “threatens to deepen a rift between the environmental community — that largely backed Gov. Phil Murphy, a Democrat, in his gubernatorial bid — over the administration’s reluctance to halt several new natural gas pipelines in New Jersey as well as four new gas-fired power plants. A huge coalition of environmentalists wants an immediate moratorium on all new fossil-fuel projects,” noted statehouse reporter Tom Johnson in NJSpotlight.com.

“This has nothing to do with facts and figures, but with money and politics,” Jeff Tittel, director of the Sierra Club’s state chapter, said of the Murphy administration’s reluctance to follow the lead of California, New York and several other states in enacting legislation to set a path for promptly reducing fossil fuel use in order to help counter the effects of global climate oscillations.  

At public hearings this summer on the draft energy master plan presented by the Board of Public Utilities, environmental activists called for a moratorium on state permits for proposed fossil fuel projects and a quicker pace of moving utilities, transportation, businesses and homes to non-polluting sources of energy.

“Act like your child’s life depends on it—because it does,” Leslie Stevens, a former AT&T vice president who now teaches at Stevens Institute of Technology and is a volunteer Climate Reality community leader, said at a recent hearing in Newark.

“The reality of what’s happening now could have a devastating effect on our future,” Newark City Council President Mildred Crump said as she joined a rally of environmental activists in front of Seton Hall Law School, where a draft energy plan hearing was held.

Flanked by union members, Kevin Brown, the state director of 32BJ SEIU, said emphatically “we need to end fossil fuels.” His union, he noted, represents more than 13,000 commercial, residential and public school-contracted cleaners, security officers and airport service workers in New Jersey. These workers live and work in communities affected by air pollution. “Many of our members have asthma.”

In testimony before the Board of Public Utilities energy master plan committee, Brown echoed a statement he made earlier this year directed at Congress: “it’s more important than ever that we come together to reduce greenhouse gasses, switch to renewable energies and create strong, union jobs while ensuring a just transition for impacted workers.”  

“Newark is ground zero for climate change,” said Kim Gaddy, environmental justice organizer for the South Ward Environmental Alliance. Port of Newark activities involve 8,000 trucks emitting diesel fumes daily, on top of constant aircraft and car traffic at one of the nation’s busiest airports, amid clouds of smoke from a regional trash incinerator, she stated. “It poisons our children now… We need zero emissions at the port now.” She noted that technology exists to switch trucks and cars to electric battery power.

“The draft plan ignores that we are already facing a climate emergency,” added Paula Rogovin, an organizer of the Don’t Gas the Meadowlands Coalition. Air quality in northern New Jersey was so bad from ground-level ozone this summer that the state issued repeated health warnings, she noted.

In response to the grassroots campaign, state Senator Loretta Weinberg issued a statement to the news media last week announcing that she and Assemblyman John McKeon have “introduced a resolution urging the governor to impose a moratorium on fossil fuel projects in the state. There is no reason to build new fossil-fuel guzzling infrastructure in 2019. We must start taking responsibility for our future today—there is no time to waste.”

For more information:

https://www.njspotlight.com/stories/19/08/08/show-of-force-by-critics-of-draft-energy-master-plan-frustration-grows/

https://www.nj.com/news/2018/10/climate_change_will_make_nj_deadlier_and_it_will_p.html

By Jan Barry

Across the United States, dozens of municipalities have officially set a goal of transitioning to 100 percent renewable energy. These include Atlanta, Georgia; Kansas City, Missouri; and Washington, DC. Nearly a dozen counties in several states have taken this action, as well as the states of Hawaii and California.

Whitemarsh, Pennsylvania is the latest community to sign up for the 100 percent renewable energy campaign, promoted by the Sierra Club. The board of supervisors voted unanimously last night to support a Ready for 100 resolution, local activists Lou Ann Merkle and Michael Gillen reported on Facebook.

“Congratulations to our Whitemarsh Township for joining 100 other U.S. cities and towns resolved to transition to 100% Renewable Energy!” Merkle, an artist and teacher, wrote. “It was exhilarating to work with so many wonderful, skilled colleagues/friends on our Whitemarsh Township Environmental Advisory Board and staff, and in the Montco Ready for 100 leaders group.”

Gillen, a retired history professor and author, lauded Merkle’s skills in presenting the proposed plan to the governing body. “Lou Ann Merkle made the pitch. The unanimous vote for approval by the supervisors was followed (by) cheering and hugs, understanding of work ahead, and hope for the future.”

Despite Facebook’s notable negative impact on American society of enabling nasty concocted rumors, deliberate misinformation, political hack attacks, and creepy personally targeted ads, activists have found it quite useful for organizing local to national campaigns.

The Sierra Club and its state and local chapters have Facebook pages followed by substantial numbers of people. The national Sierra Club Facebook page is currently congratulating Monona, Wisconsin for joining the Ready for 100 campaign. 

“On Monday, March 4, Monona City Council unanimously passed a resolution to commit the City to 100% clean, renewable electricity community-wide by 2040 and for all energy sectors, including heat and transportation, by 2050,” the Sierra Club page announced. “Monona joins Madison, Eau Claire, and Middleton as the 4th #ReadyFor100 city in Wisconsin, and is the 3rd city powered by Madison Gas & Electric to commit to 100% clean, renewable energy!”

And in case you missed it on the missing-in-action mainstream news, the Sierra Club Facebook page reported that New Mexico’s legislature recently passed “a historic bill that will transition all electricity generation 100% carbon-free by 2045! Pending Governor Michelle Lujan Grisham‘s signature on the bill, New Mexico will join California and Hawaii as the 3rd state in the U.S. to set a 100% carbon-free electricity mandate.”

More than 22,000 people liked that post and more than 500 Facebook readers shared it. Besides sharing photos of babies, pets and smiley selfies, many activists throw into the mix notices of campaigning so babies, pets and life on Earth have a better shot at a healthy future.

For more information:

https://www.sierraclub.org/ready-for-100/commitments

 

“Keep It in the Ground,” mixed-media art by Ruth Bauer Neustadter

 

By Jan Barry

Ruth Bauer Neustadter’s latest art show invites viewers to participate in a community discussion about what can be done regarding global environmental crises. In many cases, naming and framing an issue to the public is the first step in effectively addressing the problem. In this case, art viewers are asked to help in the framing.

“Turn the Tide: Paintings which Encourage a Conversation About the Future of Mother Earth” opened last night at the Hackensack (NJ) Performing Arts Center with a spirited crowd of about 50 painters, dancers, poets and environmental activists joining an impromptu performance of reflections on her art’s themes.

“This is the most important issue—the state of Mother Earth,” Neustadter said of the event, encouraging audience members to share their thoughts on viewing the mixed-media pieces in this show. The works on display were made from recycled metal, plastic, wood and paper items in brightly painted arrangements. Titles convey the themes of somewhat abstract works: “Endangered Species,”  “Red Tide,”  “Pipelines, Trains, Oil.”

Addressing the theme of a black and white piece titled “Empty Honeycombs,” four dancers stood in a line near the middle of the room, humming as they slowly, slowly, slowly bent forward and collapsed on the floor. One by one, other audience members offered comments on the long-reported decline of honey bees.

Another dancer celebrated a colorful art piece titled “Mother Earth” with graceful, sweeping movements. “Life, love, mother—Mother Earth,” she said.

I contributed a poem jotted down while contemplating a piece titled “Keep It in the Ground.”

The detritus of dead sea creatures

and decayed vegetation

is sucked out of the ground

and burned to choking smoke

that poisons living creatures

and whacks the balance of Nature

back toward a deadly, prehistoric

time before the creation

of humankind

A man read a friend’s poem, contemplating “Endangered Species”: “When will it end? Maybe when we become endangered—and it may be closer than we think.”

Turning to what can be done, one of the dancers said she has shifted her priorities to addressing environmental justice issues. Two other audience members talked about raising monarch butterflies on milkweed plants in their back yard and inside their home. A member of the Hackensack Environmental Commission talked about a project to rebuild an old greenhouse in a city park and put it back into use.

A woman announced that a citywide litter cleanup campaign called “Slam Dunk the Junk” is scheduled for this weekend, with civic group members gathering at the Hackensack Performing Arts Center, 102 State St., at 9 am on Sunday, postponed due to an expected rain storm on Saturday.

Another woman spoke out about destruction of rainforests due to clearcutting for beef growing operations, encouraging the crowd to support a campaign asking people to cut the amount of beef they eat. “What if everybody ate half as much—that would make a big difference,” she said.

Neustadter’s son Josh commented that, as an environmental researcher, he’s thought a lot about how to replace plastic—which permeates modern society—with something biodegradable. While that vexing problem is being addressed, he said, people “need to do more with less,” to reduce the amount of castoff junk that doesn’t biodegrade.

Summing up the evening, a woman said she was excited by “the burst of energy that comes from these paintings” and spread through the audience.

For more information: https://www.hacpac.org/art-gallery/

 

 

By Jan Barry

Colleges can be learning-by-doing communities, as well as collections of professorial lecturing classrooms. Students get a chance to try something out, as part of student government, clubs and course projects. This spring, students at Ramapo College tackled environmental issues in a variety of hands-on ways. Several of these efforts at the state college in Mahwah, NJ and elsewhere were reported by student-reporters in my Environmental Writing class.

“In the Fall 2017 semester, a senior communications capstone group of four highly motivated and passionate students set out to create and execute a year-long project to raise awareness and educate the student body, faculty and staff at Ramapo College of New Jersey of the environmental and sustainable initiatives going on at the college,” wrote Chris Bernstein, a graduating senior.

Describing the learning process, he added: “I had no idea what kind of sustainable initiatives were going on within the school. I had seen the solar panels begin to be put up in the commuter parking lot, but that’s about it. As my group and I set out to begin this campaign, I began to learn just how much was going on in the efforts to label Ramapo as a zero-waste campus and to educate students, faculty and staff on how to live sustainably.”

Among the things he learned is that a number of other students were active in a campus group called Ramapo Green that organized environmental awareness events and promoted sustainability ideas via various media.

“Ysabella Langdon, a senior Visual Communication Design major, is making strides in sustainability as the Community Manager of both Ramapo Green and Brooklyn-based Package Free Shop,” observed a profile story by a fellow student environmental-activist, Lily Makhlouf. “Ysabella manages media for Ramapo Green and 1STEP, Ramapo College’s student environmental club. In the Spring of 2017, she co-founded Ramapo’s Garden Club, seeing a need for more student involvement in the campus gardens.  When she’s not busy organizing and planning for Ramapo Green, she’s managing communication with customers at Package Free, in addition to running her own business…. Redo Lab, a design innovation lab that aims to invent and redesign products, [such as] compostable heating and cooling packs that are handmade using herbs and other natural ingredients.”

Movement to reduce plastic waste

Among her many contributions to campus public education on environmental issues, Langdon wrote how-to articles on maintaining a “Zero Waste Kitchen at College” and “Reducing Plastic Waste” through doing bulk shopping with non-plastic containers.

Fellow senior Kathryn Brennan wrote about her own efforts to say “Goodbye Plastic!”

“Plastic is used in so many day to day products that it can be hard to live a green life without using some type of plastic,” Brennan noted. “I have personally made it my mission this year to live a plastic-free life. I quickly learned how hard it is to live a plastic-free life. I realized I started my day with a toothbrush made of plastic. Then I realized my deodorant is in a plastic container. Throughout the rest of my day I noticed that a majority of the products in my life are plastic. I have slowly but surely began living a plastic-free life. Here are some tips if you would like to start living a plastic-free life….

“For about a week I kept track of everything plastic that I used. By keeping track and documenting the plastic I used I was able to start a plan to be plastic free. I started my plan by figuring out how I was going to replace my plastic products….”

Another group of students focused on reducing the use of Styrofoam packaging on campus. “In a room filled with student government leaders and student environmental leaders, a bill was passed unanimously by the Ramapo College Student Government Association (SGA) on January 29 to ban the purchase and usage of Styrofoam products within its organization,” Lily Makhlouf reported on our class website, Ramapo Lookout. “The success of Bill 2018-01, introduced and proposed by SGA Senator Ryan Greff, signals a great step forward for Ramapo College’s ongoing efforts to properly regulate and reduce campus waste.”

She added the perspective of the bill’s student sponsor: “When asked why he chose to push forward with this bill, Greff, a finance major, stated, ‘I was inspired to regulate the use of the material due to the long term economic impacts from the disposal of Styrofoam. This could eventually cause the cost of living to be higher for people, including graduated Ramapo College students. Furthermore, Styrofoam presents a big danger to plant and animal life. I spent a great deal of time in the outdoors as an Eagle Scout in the Boy Scouts of America. As a result, I grew to appreciate nature. Therefore, I thought it was best to stop SGA’s monetary transactions and uses that would go to supporting the Styrofoam industry.’ ”

Reassessing focus of environmental impact statements

Meanwhile, a group of seniors majoring in environmental studies set out to learn how to prepare an environmental impact statement to shed light on a long-delayed, major industrial waste cleanup in the nearby community of Pompton Lakes. The latest in a series of annual “capstone” projects for environmental studies seniors, professors guide the group in doing research and writing a report that the students prepare, often working in teams. Much of the work is done outside the classroom.

Students were challenged by professors and visiting speakers to reevaluate the way things have been done and suggest potential improvements. Here’s a thought-provoking assessment that one of the seniors, Andrew Herrera, came up with.

“Environmental impact statements have developed an almost codified rubric of different impacts that are supposed to be researched before a development can begin. Different environmental assessments may include additional topics particular to their project, but this group of impacts generally applies to most statements. These impacts, or indicators, typically include physical, ecological, and socioeconomic effects such as air quality, biodiversity, and local economy. My indicator, however, looked at organizational impacts, which is not a widely recognized one,” Herrera wrote.

“Although I began this assessment unsure of exactly what significance my indicator held for the overall state of the community of Pompton Lakes, my findings have taught me how important the ‘organizational’ impacts of any project can be. For one, I have learned that the citizens of Pompton Lakes are severely disadvantaged by a lack of communication and support from the EPA and the DEP. DuPont and its spinoff, Chemours, which is now overseeing the site, have consistently proven to be opposed to open and timely correspondence with the community about their factory’s contamination of the water in Pompton Lakes…”

“Organizational impacts should be included in every environmental impact statement,” Herrera concluded from his research. “They figure into the most critical aspects of development: social harmony, civic engagement, and honest government. As such, organizational impacts hold larger implications for a community than what is dictated by a typical environmental assessment. They can determine whether the residents even have the proper mechanisms in place to ensure active public participation in determining the fate of their community.”

These and many other encouraging accounts of what students on one campus learned about how to address environmental issues are presented in the 2018 edition of Environmental Writing posted on the Ramapo Lookout website, at http://ramapolookout.blogspot.com/2018/

 

 

Poster collage:  Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health magazine Spring 2018

By Jan Barry

So what does cutting out eating a cheeseburger once a week have to do with combating global climate change? That’s the question researchers at Johns Hopkins University set out to answer. The public education campaign they came up with is called Meatless Monday.

This initiative was launched in Baltimore in 2003 with a focus on improving Americans’ health.

“During the First and Second World Wars, Americans observed one meatless day per week to feed the troops. Decades later, former advertising executive Sid Lerner recalled this effort during a conversation with Robert Lawrence, MD, founding director of the Center for a Livable Future. The two were discussing a Surgeon General report urging Americans to reduce saturated fat intake by 15 percent, and Lerner realized that skipping meat one day a week would meet the suggested reduction,” Hopkins Bloomberg Public Health magazine notes in “Appetite for Reduction” in the Spring 2018 issue.

Further research found a vital link between what people eat and the increasingly worrisome expansion of greenhouse gases fueling global climate change, including, as it turns out, methane from the mushrooming millions of beef cattle raised on crops grown on razed woodlands in places like the Amazon.

The Meatless Monday campaign was expanded to reach out to “citizens around the world with a simple call to action that benefits our personal health and, through collective action, the health of the planet,’ Dr. Lawrence stated.

The “breaking news” announcers in the news media hardly noticed. Neither did government officials.

“Unfortunately, the connection of meat consumption to climate change is not garnering the serious attention it deserves,” Roni Neff  of Johns Hopkins’ Center for a Livable Future said in a presentation at the U.N. climate change conference in Paris in 2015. “Much of the talk at COP21 is focused on government policies in energy and transportation, but we can’t get from here to there without also changing diets.”

According to research at Johns Hopkins that Neff cited, “livestock production contributes nearly 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions—more than the entire transportation sector. The biggest contributor is a digestive process unique to ruminant animals—particularly cattle and goats—that releases methane. Methane, or CH4, is the second most prevalent greenhouse gas emitted in the U.S. from human activities,”  the Johns Hopkins Magazine, Hub, reported in its December 15, 2015 issue, in an article titled “In Paris, Johns Hopkins team touts Meatless Monday as important part of climate conversation.”

“Manure from livestock, feed crop production, and deforestation for pastures and crops also add up, compounding the environmental impact of raising animals for food. And wasted food is ‘akin to discarding all the embodied [greenhouse gas] emissions involved in its production,’ the Johns Hopkins article continued. “On top of that, decomposing food in landfills releases more methane, the researchers said.”

Given this emerging information, the Johns Hopkins report added, “studies suggest that if everyone goes meatless one day a week by 2050, the impact would be the same as removing 273 million passenger cars from the road a year, or of closing down 341 coal-fired power plants.”

Under the radar of talking heads on TV and cable news programs, the Meatless Monday campaign has spread widely to college campuses, grassroots community organizations and, beginning last month, the New York-Presbyterian hospital system.

“NewYork-Presbyterian’s Meatless Monday initiative, a collaboration between the Department of Food & Nutrition, NYPBeHealthy, NYPgreen and The Monday Campaigns, aims to educate Hospital employees, students, patients and visitors on the benefits of consuming less meat,” the health care organization announced February 26.

“Meat production accounts for nearly 15 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions, making it a major driver of climate change,” the announcement continued. “In addition to reducing one’s environmental footprint, consuming less meat may help individuals lower their risk of chronic diseases including heart disease, certain cancers, obesity and type 2 diabetes. Through Meatless Monday, NewYork-Presbyterian joins a global movement with a simple message: ‘Once a week, cut out meat.’ Staff will learn how making the meatless choice can improve their health and the health of the planet.”

In the New York City exurban town of Bedford, a community-wide Meatless Monday campaign was launched February 5, aiming to enlist residents, restaurants, businesses and schools.

“Bedford 2020 is working with the Meatless Monday national organization who finds that Monday holds a unique opportunity for a fresh start to the week, and it’s the day we are likely to start new, lasting habits,” the local environmental networking group states in a brochure. “But if you give up meat another day, we will still count it in our greenhouse gas reduction numbers.”

Nor is this a faddish East Coast thing.

“On Monday, University of Iowa students may have noticed something different at the dining halls. As part of the theme semester ‘Climate for Change,’ the University of Iowa Student Government and Office of Sustainability came together to create Meatless Mondays,” The Daily Iowan reported February 6.

“With the idea of cutting out the most popular protein choice, many people have expressed concerns … about proper nutrition for students. ‘Plant-based diets are nutritionally sufficient and may also reduce the risk for many chronic illnesses,’ [student government senator Abigail] Simon said. ‘We aren’t encouraging students to become vegetarians or vegans but rather encourage them to make more sustainable food decisions when eating.’ ”

A week later, the University of Florida newspaper reported that “Sodexo, the provider for Seminole Dining, has started discounts on vegetarian meals as part of Meatless Monday.” Anticipating a blowback of negative comments, Deputy Campus Editor Morgan Dobbins wrote:  “Meat is Florida’s top agricultural export, bringing in hundreds of millions of dollars each year. So why is eating less meat important? Cows are known as one of the major producers of greenhouse gases, producing four times more greenhouse gases than fish or chicken….

“So maybe you don’t care if most of Florida’s major cities go under water due to global warming and rising sea levels, or maybe you could care less about destroying the ocean, as long as you can have your burger or salmon, but let’s take a look at your health,” Dobbins continued.

“So maybe you read this as another PETA-crazy trying to take away your beloved bacon or hamburger, but maybe you also read this as a wake-up call to just how detrimental overconsumption of meat can be on our health, environment and sustainability as a race.”

For more information: www.meatlessmonday.com/

 

 

 

By Jan Barry

Creating a green community put Greensburg, Kansas back on the map. Destroyed by a tornado in 2007 that killed 13 people and razed most of the homes and businesses, the prairie town of 750-some battered survivors transformed itself into a deliberately planned center of environmental and energy sustainability.

“Six years after the tornado, Greensburg is the world’s leading community in LEED-certified buildings per capita, “ USA Today reported in April 2013. “The town is home to a half-dozen LEED-platinum certified buildings, including the new City Hall and the new 48,500-square-foot Kiowa County Memorial Hospital. Renewable energy powers the entire community, and the streetlights are all LED. … Today the wind that nearly destroyed Greensburg is what keeps the town’s lights on. Turbines can be seen catching the wind throughout residential neighborhoods and the business community. The energy needs of the larger Greensburg community are met by a wind farm just south of town.”

One of the biggest businesses in town, a John Deere tractor dealership, rebuilt to LEED-platinum standards and expanded to provide “small wind” turbines to provide renewable energy for area farms and homes.

Greensburg’s Sustainable Comprehensive Master Plan won awards from the American Society of Landscape Architects and the Kansas Chapter of the American Planning Association. It’s also a prime exhibit in a new handbook, How Green Is My Town? 50 Ways Local Communities Can Lead the Way on Climate Change, Sustainability and Environmental Health, available on https://www.howgreenismytown.org/

“The adoption of a comprehensive environmental policy is the first step in creating a truly green town,” notes the summary of the ‘How Green Is My Town’ handbook, created by Grassroots Environmental Education, a nonprofit organization based in Port Washington, NY. “An effective policy announces the town’s commitment to action, and sets out its goals and implementation strategies, as well as providing a focus for the efforts of employees and departments, community groups, business organizations and individual activists.

“A model policy,” it continues, “recognizes that issues of climate change, sustainability, environmental health and economic well-being are inextricably linked, and promotes the concept that success in addressing these issues depends on the cooperative efforts of all sectors of the community.”

A check list of 50 actions is included, ranging from doing an energy audit of municipal buildings to including the business community in environmental and energy sustainability planning.

 

 

By Jan Barry

When folk singer Pete Seeger and some friends launched the Clearwater sloop nearly 50 years ago, the Hudson River was a fish-killing open sewer from industries and municipalities along most of its majestic sweep from the Adirondack Mountains past Catskills views immortalized by the Hudson River school of painters. Raw sewage sloshed with the tides lapping against former swimming beaches below the towering Palisades cliffs in New Jersey, decimating a declining shad fishing industry. It sloshed and bobbed amid the ocean liner piers framed by Manhattan’s postcard scenic skyscrapers. The massive flow of pollution continued into New York Bay, sloshing in wind-tossed waves rocking Staten Island ferries, churning past the Statue of Liberty and out to sea, slimming the striped bass fishing areas off Coney Island’s amusement park and ocean-view beaches.

But then, the sight of a full-sail sloop tacking up and down the tainted river with a crew of excited kids and adults picked up at docks from Albany to Jersey City sparked outbursts of activism that produced cleanups of major sources of pollution.

The inspiration for this hearty environmental activism was a beanpole-thin, blue-jeaned guy who tramped around with a banjo singing old-fashioned folk songs. For decades, Pete Seeger energized hand-clapping, standing-room-only audiences of all ages in jam-packed high school auditoriums from White Plains to Montclair, in throngs at the annual Clearwater Festival/Great Hudson River Revival in Croton Point Park, and in a star-studded crowd at a 90th birthday bash cum Clearwater fundraiser in Madison Square Garden. Seeger’s career as the pied piper of environmental activism was capped by leading a television-watching nation in singing “This Land Is Your Land” at the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. during the first inauguration celebration for President Obama.

“I’m more optimistic than I’ve ever been before,” Seeger said at an Earth Day fair at Columbia University’s Teachers College in April 2009, where he was the keynote speaker. His optimism was fueled by the computer-generated “information revolution,” he said, which has sped up the process of exchanging good ideas. “I now speak with people I never used to speak with—some on the left, some on the right. I think, I believe, we will see more miraculous things happen,” Seeger said. And then he launched into his trademark patter of story-telling songs with an activism hook. Among these chestnuts was Seeger’s infectious channeling of Martin Luther King Jr. and the hymn-based anthems of the civil rights movement. The refrain of a favorite tune goes:

Don’t say it can’t be done
The battle’s just begun

Another of Seeger’s infectious songs was inspired by a zero waste campaign in Berkeley, California, which led to this memorable lyric:

If it can’t be reduced, reused, repaired
Rebuilt, refurbished, refinished, resold
Recycled or composted
Then it should be restricted, redesigned
Or removed from production

Cheerfully singing even as his health declined, Pete Seeger died at 94 in January 2014. A World War II army veteran, he was an ardent peace activist as well as environmentalist. In his view, the two issues were connected. When the Clearwater campaign began, a major polluter was the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, which flushed raw sewage into the Hudson River at its picturesque, historic site in the Hudson Highlands. In his war protest songs, Seeger prodded the Pentagon to clean up its contamination acts—bombing, shelling, napalming and use of Agent Orange and other chemical warfare—in Vietnam. Among other accomplishments, the innovative Clearwater campaign provided potent, popular incentive for Congress and President Richard Nixon to pass the 1972 Clean Water Act, which forced West Point and Hudson River cities, including New York City, to build upgraded sewage treatment facilities.

Singing and sailing up and down the Hudson, Pete Seeger encouraged people to enjoy working to change things for the better. He invited diverse people—rural people, city people, young people, older folks—to join him in an exciting project: Build and launch a replica of a 19th-century river sloop. Take volunteer crews and groups of school kids and community leaders out on the river and show them the pollution and where it’s coming from. Raise funds to hire scientific experts to testify at public hearings. Mobilize crowds of well-informed citizens to attend and speak at public meetings. Organize festivals where musicians, activists and audiences energize each other.

At Clearwater Festivals, concertgoers happily tramp through mud and rain to hear a Woodstock-style weekend of musical acts—including Arlo Guthrie, Richie Havens, Taj Mahal,  the Hudson River Ramblers—and to check out the wares at scores of tents set up by activist organizations, handicraft makers and solar energy merchants. At a Clearwater Festival a few years ago, a group of New York City high school students proudly showed their newly learned skills in boat building and offered tours on the river in hand-made wood reproductions of classic sailboat tenders. Nearby, a spritely, eighty-ish Pete Seeger slipped into a rain-drenched tent with a banjo and joined in a round of sea shanties with a motley crew of bearded old salts, one of whom was wearing a battered Vietnam Veterans Against the War cap. With a tip of his hat to the activist vet, Pete Seeger was off to his next networking gathering, joining a stage full of folk song luminaries and belting out some more of his favorite tunes.

Behind the scenes, the famous folk singer also oversaw a continuous array of outreach expansions of evermore extensive Clearwater campaigns. These included, in recent years, its Next Generation Legacy Project and the Clearwater Center for Environmental Leadership, a youth education camping program in Beacon, NY, the riverside town where Pete Seeger lived with his wife, Toshi, his partner in organizing and in life since their marriage in 1943. Toshi Seeger died at 91 in 2013. Under their leadership, the Clearwater festivals, sloop sail rides and other outreach activities challenged people in the Hudson Valley to find solutions to seemingly intractable pollution.

The group’s stance in opposing a license renewal for the Indian Point nuclear power plant–its cooling towers and radiation chambers sucking in millions of gallons of Hudson River water and fish looming just upriver from the music festival site—sparked an investigative project by environmental students at Ramapo College of New Jersey, for instance. The student report concluded that an energetic energy conservation program combined with increased wind and solar power could replace the aging nuclear power plant and negate its potential dangers of radioactive contamination of the river and the region. Riding an increasingly popular environmental wave, New York Governor Andrew Cuomo successfully pressed last year for the closing of Indian Point’s two reactors by 2021. “The plant has grappled with 40 safety and operational events and unit shutdowns in the past five years,” The New York Times dryly noted.

Despite all the activism stirred up by Clearwater campaigns, there’s still a New York State advisory warning about eating fish from the Hudson River. But a major source of contamination was greatly reduced when General Electric dredged tons of PCBs from a heavily polluted stretch of the river north of Albany, a reluctant clean up done due to a decades-long battle by environmentalists. Manna Jo Greene, Clearwater’s environmental director during much of that battle, noted the campaign to clean up hazardous PCB pollution was “a classic grassroots effort, achieved in large part due to the tireless and scientifically-based work of past and present Clearwater staff members and volunteers, our collaborative partners in the Friends of the Clean Hudson Coalition, and the hundreds of thousands of people who wrote letters, signed petitions and cared enough to take action.”

Pete Seeger’s obituary in The New York Times channeled the spirit of this down to earth folk singer: “Through the years, Mr. Seeger remained determinedly optimistic. ‘The key to the future of the world,’ he said in 1994, ‘is finding the optimistic stories and letting them be known.’ ”

 

This essay originally appeared in Narrative Northeast (www.narrativenortheast.com/)

By Jan Barry

One town’s action plan addressing climate change and other environmental issues began nearly a decade ago in a community event at the high school on a wintry Saturday morning. The “Bedford Environmental Summit” was called by the town’s garden club and its energy advisory panel. One thousand people showed up.

The latest step in moving the town environmental action plan along is the Bedford 2020 Climate Action Summit scheduled for Saturday, Feb. 3, 2018 at Fox Lane High School in Bedford, NY. Even for people who can’t attend this event, the innovative eco-group has provided lots of useful information on its Facebook page and website.

The civic group’s mission “is to lead, organize and promote a community wide effort to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 20% by 2020 and to create a sustainable community that conserves its natural resources,” the local environmental organization states on its website, which features a cornucopia of community activities information and organizing tips.

The Bedford 2020 Coalition has plugged into and in some cases energized a network of likeminded organizations in Westchester County and elsewhere in the Hudson Valley region. Notable residents of the New York City exurban commuter town have included Donald Trump and a movie marque-ful of famous actors and actresses. Organizers of the environmental action group, however, are “over 90 community volunteers, many of whom are professionals and experts with deep experience and credentials in our action areas.”

One of the most useful items on the Bedford 2020 website is a “Summit in a Box,” which provides an online manual for creating a community environmental action plan.

“Global warming and environmental issues are the central challenge of our times. The goal of the Bedford Environmental Summit (BES) was to find a way to educate our community about the most pressing environmental issues of the day, to create a ‘community of advocates’ who would take actions to solve these problems on a local level,” the executive summary for the manual states. “We believe that the BES is a worthy model for any community or organization whose goal is to encourage grass roots, local actions to mitigate the challenges presented by greenhouse gas emissions and diminishing natural resources.”

The first step in Bedford was holding the community event at the high school in January 2009, which drew 1000 people in a town of 17,000 residents. More than 240 volunteers, including 88 students, organized the event, which offered 85 speakers presenting key information on 28 topics. In the hallways, 78 Expo tables with information on environmental issues and organizations were set up and a locavore breakfast and lunch were provided, the organizing manual noted.

The community summit led to creation of the nonprofit Bedford 2020 Coalition, “whose mandate is to implement over 70 projects recommended in BEAP’s Climate Action Plan to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 20% by 2020; the creation of a ‘sustainable school district’ and many individual and collaborative projects emanating from the networking that occurred at the Summit,” the manual summary continued.

“The key elements to the success of the BES were an effective public/private partnership in co-sponsoring the event; a comprehensive and appealing program of lectures, workshops and Expo exhibits that provided multiple points of entry for individuals in the community to get engaged; extensive community involvement in the form of local organizations who were enlisted as ‘partners’ to assist in the planning and implementation of the Summit; and the focus by Summit organizers on ‘what happens next’ to motivate participants to think beyond the day of the Summit.”

What happened next were volunteer-organized programs to involve residents in energy conservation and installing solar panels on homes and businesses, composting food waste, reducing use of chemical fertilizers and pesticides on lawns, boosting recycling of plastic, metal, glass and paper products, switching to a hybrid or electric car, and participating in Meatless Mondays to help reduce the amount of fossil fuel that goes into feeding and transporting beef cattle for hamburgers, chili con carne and steaks. Restaurants throughout town signed on as partners.

Local actions over the next several years helped create a county-wide network that by 2017 enlisted Westchester County and 20 town governments in Sustainable Westchester, “a consortium of local governments that facilitates green initiatives like Solarize Westchester, Community Choice Aggregation and the Municipal Solar Buyers Group.” A New York state program enables municipalities to choose getting 100 per cent of their electricity from solar, wind and hydro and “save money by negotiating bulk pricing for their supply.” The Town of Bedford is one of the municipalities participating in the state program.

“Bedford 2020 harnesses the power of community and drives action. This year, we have inspired thousands of people to reduce waste, increase efficiency, take on big green solutions and address climate change,” the group’s leaders stated in an October 2017 progress report. “Together we are reducing greenhouse gas emissions and protecting natural resources in Bedford and beyond.”

In an addendum to the progress report, the elected town supervisor, Chris Burdick, states: “We are proud that our Town has pledged a commitment to the Paris Climate Accord goals, with Bedford 2020 leading the way.”

 

For more information:

http://bedford2020.org/climatesummit2018/

 

By Jan Barry

Stepping from behind the camera, documentary filmmaker James Redford invites viewers to join him on a cross-country trip to explore notable milestones in the renewable energy transformation of America.

Redford, the son of actor and environmental activist Robert Redford and an accomplished documentary director on a variety of topical issues, debuted as an on-camera host before a national audience whenHappening: A Clean Energy Revolution opened recently on HBO. That attracted the serious attention of cable TV program reviewers.

“Cities like Buffalo, NY, a former manufacturing hub, are being revitalized by the clean energy revolution,” Broadway World reported in the no-nonsense style of business news reports. “There, Redford visits the site of the largest solar panel manufacturing plant in the western world, which will employ more people than the former steel plants that once sustained the community. …

“Even big business recognizes the benefits,” the Broadway World report continued. “All of Apple’s U.S. facilities are now 100% renewable-powered. During a visit to an Apple data center [in Oregon], Redford learns that the company built its own solar farm in order to control its energy source.”

Summarizing another newsworthy story that Redford films in Texas, Broadway World informs its readers that “Dale Ross, the conservative mayor of Georgetown, Tex., also maintains that clean energy is cost-effective, and goes beyond partisan politics. Offered a lucrative long-term deal by wind and solar companies, Georgetown became the second U.S. city to run on 100% renewable energy. Soon, solar energy will be as affordable as, or more affordable than, fossil fuels in 47 states, according to Emily Kirsch, a CEO who funds solar startups. Kirsch stresses that the clean energy industry can ‘democratize energy production and consumption,’ and already employs more people than Google, Apple, Facebook and Twitter combined.”

A reviewer on the Bill Moyers program, documentary filmmaker Titi Yu, was impressed. In an interview with Redford, she said “it was very effective to have you in the film” talking with clean energy innovators across the nation, including civic activists in Nevada who convinced the state legislature and Republican governor to enact clean energy bills into law.

Redford replied: “I just decided to open up my own process of discovery. I decided to take everyone along on the ride. I think there is an inherent resistance to the topic of clean energy and renewable energy. It sounds kind of boring. I thought, well, maybe this might make it a little interesting. Also, I didn’t major in science or technology so I thought if I can understand this, so can everyone else.”

“You started the journey in your own home,” Yu continued, citing a scene in Redford’s house in northern California, where he decides to install solar panels on the roof. “You tracked your own power line to an ugly power plant that was across the bay from a wind farm. I thought it really brought it home how we all have a stake in this green energy revolution and there are many things we can all do, starting with ourselves.”

Redford expands on that point in his directors’ statement on the documentary website. “During the journey of making ‘happening’, I met many inspiring citizens, business leaders and politicians leading the clean energy revolution, but the most significant journey involved my own heart and mind,” he wrote. “At the start of ‘Happening’, I was feeling pretty cynical about the value of political engagement. Three years later, I have witnessed first-hand the enduring value of politically engaged citizenry.

“In spite of the turbulent political divides we are currently enduring,” he continued, “I feel more hopeful today than ever about our ability as Americans to combat climate change, and I am excited to share this with audiences so that they may feel this way as well.”

For more information:

happeningthemovie.com/

www.broadwayworld.com/bwwtv/article/Documentary-HAPPENING-A-CLEAN-ENERGY-REVOLUTION-Debuts-on-HBO-1211-20171208

billmoyers.com/story/much-needed-hope-planet-earth-happening-clean-energy-revolution/