“C. J. J. P!” roared more than 400 climate activists in Albany’s Capitol building on March 28th.
The noise was deafening, the halls and stairways ringing, as the crowd streamed past the chambers of the Senate, the Assembly and Governor Hochul’s office. The Day of Action was coordinated by New York Renews, a coalition of over 300 climate justice and allied groups, with the specific goal of reminding New York’s lawmakers—particularly Governor Hochul and the Assembly—to pass the Climate, Jobs, and Justice Package. This collection of bills would finally fund the Climate Leadership and Community Protection Act, and give New York State a chance to fulfil its obligations of reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 40% below 1990 levels by 2030, and by 85% by 2050.
CCAA members have written about the importance of funding this package in two previous newsletters, but our elected officials must be constantly reminded that these bills are critically important.
Many staunch allies of the bills were on hand to lend their support, including Syracuse’s very own Senator Rachel May, who addressed the crowd passionately.
But even a full day of yelling, singing, blowing whistles and waving banners won’t change the minds of assembly members with competing priorities and funding by special interests. The only way to get the CJJP bills through is to keep reminding them of what we, the voting public, need.
Governor Hochul has indicated that the budget will be delayed again this year, but we don’t have much time and we must keep the pressure up.
Senator Rachel May. Photo: Ken Schles
While the Senate will likely vote for the CJJP, the Assembly and the Governor’s Office still to be persuaded. Every single phone call and email helps!
“Think Global, Act Hochul.” Photo: Ken Schles
Please, call or email Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie, your Assembly member (you can find out who that is here) and Governor Hochul. The message is simple:
“Hello, my name is____ and I live in____. I am asking you to prioritize the Climate, Jobs, and Justice Package in full in this year’s budget. Please do not delay. Thank you.”
P.S. There’s also a special interest bill (Senate bill S6030, Assembly bill A6039), courtesy of our dear friends in the fossil fuel industry, which would change the way businesses would be required to calculate methane emissions. We DO NOT want these bills to weaken existing climate law.
Calling on Senate Majority Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins (212-298-5585 or 914-423-4031 or 518-455-2585), and Assembly Speaker Carl Heastie (518-455-3791) to reject these bills would be good too!
Last week the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) issued the sixth and last of its technical reports, reporting its scientific findings about the pace and impact of Climate Change. It was important for many reasons, including that it was the culmination and synthesis of reports over a five-year period and delivered very important warnings for the future of all of us, everywhere, all more or less at the same time. (With apologies to the Oscar winning film). The IPCC is most authoritative scientific body studying climate change. It is by nature conservative in its findings. Worryingly, it probably still is.
Its conclusions are that impacts from climate change are happening more quickly and having more detrimental effects earlier than previously understood. That a 2 C degree rise in global average temperature will be far more catastrophic than previously believed, and that even 1.5C will be very disruptive. This is what the headlines said, and the headlines were correct.
However, the Report also says that humans have the technology, the policies, and the understanding to avoid the worst effects if they are implemented quickly, broadly and deeply in the next 15 years. The time between now and 2035 is crucial and any delay in that implementation makes it increasingly hard for the natural world and humanity itself to continue as it is now, let alone recover from the damage already done.
This is a very sobering warning about our choice of futures for our children and grandchildren, who will suffer worst if we delay . A great deal is being done in New York State to make those changes and secure that future for them. We live in a state with one of the most ambitious plans to fight climate change. The message from the IPCC report is that it will require exactly that ambition to avoid the worst effects from climate disruption. Nevertheless even here we see pushback from industries and politicians urging us to ignore the warnings, reject the changes, or to go slowly and cautiously.
The stakes are too high, the risks too great to give up, or to despair. There is a chance to help address the problem, but the urgency is now there for all to see. Act on your climate concerns. Vote your climate concerns. Share your climate concerns.
Finally, this current newsletter has an article written by CCAA member Gavin Landless, entitled “What Should New York’s Future Be? “ It describes a large rally New York Renews recently held in Albany supporting a measure called the Climate Jobs and Justice Program. Renew’s demand is for Governor Hochul and the Assembly to support the measure (the Senate seems poised to do so, led in part by our extraordinarily effective Senator Rachel May). In essence the CJJP, as it’s known, would provide a funding mechanism for implementing the jobs and climate justice elements of the State’s Climate Action Plan. At the end of Gavin’s report is an opportunity to lend your voices to the effort by sending a message to the Governor and the Assembly Speaker. I urge you to do so. It is an important step in both sharing and acting on your climate concerns.
The broader message is that there is no time to lose in supporting the State’s Climate Action Plan and its goals for renewable energy and a rapid transition away from fossil fuel. Doing so not only addresses the climate crisis, but supports a transition to a new economy, one with far less air pollution, the creation and deployment of new technologies and whole new industries, resulting in the creation of new jobs, and the lowering and stabilizing of energy prices. Those are the benefits for all of us, but especially for our children and grandchildren.
In this issue, I want to focus on schools and libraries. Most of us attended public schools, some here in central New York. Some of us also attended schools, colleges or universities as well. All of us live in school districts and some have children (or grandchildren) in school now. I encourage you to learn what your school district and your alma mater, local or far away, is doing in response to climate change. Does it have a sustainability plan or a resilience plan? Is it electrifying its transportation system, installing renewable energy systems such as solar panels, heat pumps, etc.? You can easily contact a member of the school board, administrator, or business official and ask those questions, and you have every right to do so.
When you contact your school district you can ask about the climate change curriculum in in your local school. Find out how the school is implementing the state curriculum on climate. For those who attended colleges and universities many of the same issues apply, especially for SUNY colleges and universities which are subject to the CLCPA’s climate goals. As a concerned alum, find out what those institutions are doing, both with their facilities, their research and messaging. All of this is a great way to leverage and amplify your concerns, and hence your power to impact climate change.
Libraries are also wonderful resources for spreading climate awareness. Does your library have programming about renewable energy and climate? Are there books and periodicals in the library that address those issues? Libraries and schools are not remote and inaccessible institutions. They are civically minded community-based organizations. You will find them open to inquiries, and likely welcoming to input from the community.
I will conclude with a point I mentioned last month. Climate concern should broaden to include enthusiasm and support for efforts by the State (and of course towns, villages, schools and libraries) to shift the electrical grid completely to renewable energy by 2040, and to rapidly phase out burning fossil fuels throughout the economy. There is already determined pushback by the industries most affected. Perhaps many of you have seen letters to the editor, advertising, news stories, or even opinions of academics calling into question the need, for example, to phase out gas stoves, the efficacy of heat pumps, the environmental impact of mining rare earth minerals, etc. Please be a little skeptical and consider the sources when you see these. As Upton Sinclair observed: “It is hard to make a man understand something when his salary depends on not understanding it”.
I will end with a marvelous quote by Alice Walker that Kim shared with me:
“Activism is my rent for being on the planet.”
Are Plastics and Breast Cancer Related?
Submitted by Dr. Kim Cameron, Coordinator, Beyond Plastics Onondaga Cortland counties.
Editor’s Note: This article is a follow up to the March Newsletter’s article on the impact of plastic on the environment. This represents a more personal impact.
An extensive report on the connection between plastic and health was recently published: The Minderoo-Monaco Commission on Plastics and Human Health (https://tinyurl.com/4abewc5e)
Here are a few excerpts from the report:
Plastics are complex, highly heterogeneous, synthetic chemical materials. Over 98% of plastics are produced from fossil carbon- coal, oil and gas. Plastics are comprised of a carbon-based polymer backbone and thousands of additional chemicals that are incorporated into polymers to convey specific properties such as color, flexibility, stability, water repellence, flame retardation, and ultraviolet resistance. Many of these added chemicals are highly toxic. They include carcinogens, neurotoxicants and endocrine disruptors such as phthalates, bisphenols, per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), brominated flame retardants, and organophosphate flame retardants. They are integral components of plastic and are responsible for many of plastics’ harms to human health and the environment.
During use and also in disposal, plastics release toxic chemicals including additives and residual monomers into the environment and into people. National biomonitoring surveys in the USA document population-wide exposures to these chemicals. Plastic additives disrupt endocrine function and increase risk for premature births, neurodevelopmental disorders, male reproductive birth defects, infertility, obesity, cardiovascular disease, renal disease, and cancers. Chemical-laden MNPs (micro and nano-plastic particles) formed through the environmental degradation of plastic waste can enter living organisms, including humans. Emerging, albeit still incomplete evidence indicates that MNPs may cause toxicity due to their physical and toxicological effects as well as by acting as vectors that transport toxic chemicals and bacterial pathogens into tissues and cells…
Infants in the womb and young children are two populations at particularly high risk of plastic-related health effects. Because of the exquisite sensitivity of early development to hazardous chemicals and children’s unique patterns of exposure, plastic-associated exposures are linked to increased risks of prematurity, stillbirth, low birth weight, birth defects of the reproductive organs, neurodevelopmental impairment, impaired lung growth, and childhood cancer. Early-life exposures to plastic-associated chemicals also increase the risk of multiple non-communicable diseases later in life.
These words did not resonate with me about myself until recently. I discovered this very startling statistic: approximately one in eight women WILL get breast cancer at some time in their lives in America. One in eight! Breast cancer incidence is also increasing 0.5% annually (https://tinyurl.com/yej5f9he). Furthermore, America is close to the top of the incidence rate worldwide (figure: https://www.komen.org/breast-cancer/facts-stistics/breast-cancer-statistics)
As a former owner of a bottle redemption center, this topic is near and dear to my heart. My wife and I always had a concern for the environment and we felt that recycling was an integral part in reducing our reliance on virgin materials and natural resources. Although it was a messy business, we pursued the adventure and tried to make it a cleaner and convenient service for the community.
The “Bottle Bill” (NYS Returnable Container Law) was implemented in 1983 and amended in 1998 and 2009. The original bill set a $0.05 deposit on beer, malt beverages, carbonated soft drinks, wine coolers and mineral water. The amendments added bottled water, increased the handling fee for redemption centers from $0.01 to $0.035 and split the un-claimed deposit money to 80% NYS and 20% distributors.
The current proposed bill sponsored by Senator Rachel May and dubbed “The Bigger, Better Bottle Bill” (Senate Bill S237, 2023-24 Session) is currently in the Senate Finance Committee. After 40 years this bill will raise the deposit to $0.10 and add wine, liquor, other carbonated and non-carbonated beverages not already included. The deposit increase is expected to enhance returns.
A Siena College poll shows that 71% of those polled support the bill. Opposition to the bill is coming from liquor store owners due to the space required for the storage of the empties. The bill was not included in Governor Hochul’s 2023-2024 budget which will make a more difficult path with negotiations in the legislature.
The bill is credited with reducing litter and removing large volumes of materials from the waste stream and landfills. The beauty of this legislation is that government is not involved in the recycling of these materials. It is up to consumers and distributors to sort and transport these materials, not municipal garbage collection. Sorting is an expensive, labor-intensive process that is removed from the equation for municipalities.
Yes, unsightly litter and huge landfills are addressed by this bill but where does the concern for climate change enter into the picture? As far as aluminum is concerned it takes less than 5% of the energy to reuse than from the aluminum ore! To put that in perspective, according to the NYDEC “one aluminum can saves enough energy to keep a 100-watt bulb burning for almost four hours or run your television for three hours”. This alone is a win for combating atmospheric carbon addition.
Although the market for plastic is depressed, the potential for reuse is enhanced by the fact that there is almost a pure stream of plastic uncontaminated by all the other formulations. If we can conquer the recycling issue for plastic and glass, we will come a long way in reducing the energy required to produce these containers from virgin materials.
(Sources: Syracuse.com Don Cazentre 2/24/23; Bottlebill.org)
What Public Transportation Can Be
Submitted by Yvonne Chu, CCAA President
Photo provided by Yvonne Chu
I grew up in a car-centric city in Southern California and I had many misconceptions that public transit would be unsafe, difficult to navigate, and unreliable. But through the experience of using public transit in major U.S. cities (New York City, Chicago, Washington DC, Denver, etc.) and European cities (London, Paris, Barcelona, Munich, etc.), I have found that it is easier to use than I thought and a more pleasant experience than I thought. These positive experiences, plus considering the reduction of Greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions, have made me consider changing my main mode of transportation from my personal vehicle for public transportation for my daily commute.
Recently, I was on a 10-day trip in Italy with my family (a group of 9 people in total) and took public transportation everywhere we went. We traveled between Rome, Florence, Pisa, and Venice using only public transportation in the form of buses, trains, and boats. At first I was concerned that traveling with such a large group would be cumbersome but that thought was quickly diminished when we all were able to squeeze on a tiny bus with our luggage and another 5+ passengers while zipping through narrow one-way roads on our first day in Florence. Throughout our 10-day trip, we never waited for longer than 10 minutes for a bus to arrive, we did not need to walk for more than five minutes to get to the nearest bus stop, and the bus, more or less, took us directly to where we needed to go.
When looking at the option of renting a vehicle, booking a taxi, or paying for public transportation, there were benefits to taking public transit that made it an obvious choice. Overall, the public transit option was cheaper because of the number of people we were trying to move. Other benefits included the fact that we did not have to learn the rules of the road in a foreign country where we did not speak the local language, and, instead of arguing over which direction we need to turn or criticizing someone’s driving, we could instead leave it up to the professional who drives the locomotive day in and day out, while we stare out the windows and point out interesting monuments and historical sites.
Coming back to Syracuse with a fresh and positive public transportation experience, I am considering ditching my car for my daily commute, taking one personal vehicle off the road. With GHG emissions from transportation being the largest contributor of U.S. GHG emissions at ~27 percent of the total, finding ways to reduce the number of vehicles on the road will play an important role in helping us meet U.S. climate goals of reducing GHG pollution by 50 percent from 2005 levels by 2030. Currently, Centro and the Syracuse Metropolitan Transportation Council have a survey (https://smtcmpo.org/centroett/) open to the public to better understand the needs and expectations around public transit.
Although I am no longer as concerned as I was about the safety of public transportation or the ability for me to navigate my way around Syracuse, I am still thinking about the reliability of the bus system in Syracuse as this reporter from the Central Current has recounted in a recent article (https://centralcurrent.org/riding-the-bus-i-tried-navigating-syracuse-without-a-car-heres-how-it-went/) , and hope that improvements to the public transit in the City become just as easy and pleasant as I have experienced in other cities.
School District Budget and Board Election: Vote 2023
Submitted by Dr. Sonia Kragh, CCAA Treasurer, Member of DeWitt Advisory Conservation Commission and the Sierra Club.
Four legal notices of the budget vote and board election (March 28 on)
School Board nominating petitions (Deadline April 17th)
Voter submitted petitions (Deadline April 17th)
Submission of Property Tax Report Card by the school district to the Board of Education (Deadline April 21st)
Public Hearing on Budget 7-14 Days before the vote which is May 16th. This may include an opportunity to hear school board candidates speak.
Public copies of Budget and School Board Candidates made available May 2-16, including on day of voting.
May 16th school district budget and board election vote.
Below is a link to the Jamesville DeWitt School District website with the calendar of the meetings related to the budget and school board election process.
·March 1: Tax Cap reported as draft to State Education Department
·March 13: Regular Meeting (Instruction)
·March 14: Finance Committee
·March 27: Regular Meeting (Revenue)
·March 28: Finance Committee
·March 31: Legal Notice of Budget vote (45 days prior)
·
April
·April TBD: Finance Committee (Subject to change based on State Aid)
·April TBD: Public Forum (Subject to change based on State Aid)
·April 17: Regular Meeting (PPS); Adopt Budget & Property Tax Report Card; Nomination petitions due (April 21 is last day BOE may adopt budget)
May
·May 2: Budget Statement w/ attachments made available
·May 8: Budget Hearing & Regular Meeting
·May 9: Mail Budget Notice to District Residents
·May 16: Budget Vote
What are action items for CCAA members?
1.Review the School District Calendar related to budget/finance now to make sure that the district is in compliance.
2.Check the school calendar to make sure that the vote is on the calendar, and in the highlights that go to student voters and parents. I contact the Town of Dewitt to ask them to post the vote on the town Sign Board.
3.Attend the Budget Hearing and possibly preliminary meetings to ask questions and effect changes before things finalize.
4.Contact Board Member Candidates and review meeting minutes if up for reelection, related to candidate’s thoughts and actions regarding Climate Change, Sustainability, both for the school infrastructure and education.
5.Pay particular attention to petitions added to fund school buses. There is a lot of money out there to transition to electric, which is now mandated by the NYS Board of Education to start by 2027. Language for purchasing buses should ideally be phrased for voters to approve only the monies to cover the difference between incremental costs of fossil fuel vs electric buses, with schools applying for grants and other funding. (For example, diesel costs $200K, Electric costs $400 K, voters still need to approve $200 K but the grant picks up the incremental difference to make the transition).
Happy to discuss at the April and May member meetings!
CLIMATE CONNECTIONS: Our Shared Future
April 1 to May 20, 2023
Submitted by Rose Viviano
JOIN US AT THE OPENING RECEPTION – SATURDAY, APRIL 1st from 6-8pm
Three local artists, Christine Chin of Ithaca, and Carrie Drake and Anita Welych of Syracuse, explore the natural environment and the consequences
of climate change through their art.
Christine uses NOAA data to create her Stuffed Storms fabric sculptures, which are a visual record of the Atlantic Tropical Storm seasons. Her work also explores local impacts through her Invasive Species Cyanotypes using a camera-less photographic printing process dating back to the 1840s to document invasive species in the Finger Lakes Region. Since 2010 Anita has been researching declining North American bird populations in what scientists are calling a “mass extinction event.” Her work, Dwindle, seeks to visually represent scientific meta-data of bird populations during the
periods between 1966-1974 and 2016-2018.
Continuing to explore local impacts, Carrie will invite the public into an interactive component of her art, asking us all to reflect on our shared responsibility for addressing the climate crisis. Participants are invited to color one of four images of Syracuse parks, which will be overlapped and displayed in the gallery. She also worked with community knitters and students from the Montessori School of Syracuse to visually document change in Syracuse temperatures by facilitating a “tempestry project” – a collaborative fiber arts project that presents global warming data in visual form through knitted or crocheted artwork.
April is a great time of year to think about home gardening and clean up. Here are a few tips to make your own soil and save purchasing from the Dollar Store and nurseries and even the grocery store.
oCardboard makes a very comfortable kneeling pad, better than the foam ones out there!
oConsider sharing seeds for plantings with friends and neighbors. Save ones from best blooms (I save zinnias as well as common milkweed )or produce (I save herb seeds) that perform the best, to winter over for next year.
oShare perennial plants that need to be divided– I think about my friends, every time I look at them.
Example: I like Trader Joe’s tomatoes on the vine. I put a few seeds from one of the tomatoes on a paper towel, cover it with single use (reused) plastic in the sun to form a mini “greenhouse”, and have had 100% germination.
oPlant seeds indoors using recycled single use clam shell plastic. Poke holes in the bottom for drainage (a BBQ skewer works great for this), fill with soil of choice, and put in your seed starts from paper towel method, or start from scratch. The cover from the clamshell makes it a greenhouse to hold in moisture and heat. Watch that it doesn’t get too moist, or you may get fungus.
oPlant tubers to start using soil in a shallow cardboard box with recycled single use plastic under it to prevent leaking (or can reuse fabric mulch).
oHave a thicker clear plastic carry bag looking for another purpose? Poke holes in the base, put in reused fabric mulch or cardboard on the bottom, add any kind of soil, cut up a potato that is sprouting, and bury it 1-2 inches and grow a bag of potatoes. You can watch the process through the clear container – great for kids! I just dump out the whole container then sift through it to harvest. I replant the still growing plant and get a second harvest in the fall. I do this with pots too.
oWhen you clean up leaf litter and other dead foliage from annuals/perennials, either leave it to compost right there (will help retain moisture, prevent weeds, and enhance nutritional value to the soil), or move it all into a pile to gradually decompose into soil during the growing season. That compost pile can be put on beds or pots during the year as needed.
More tips to come! Feel free to submit your comments and ideas to Sonia Kragh at sykragh@yahoo.com, and put CCAA Sustainability in the Subject Line.
April 1 – May 20, 2023
Climate Connections : Our Shared Future
Art exhibit at Art Rage Gallery, 508 Hawley Ave., Syracuse, NY
April 21, 2023
Nineteenth Annual Symposium on Energy in the 21st Century
Preparing for Climate Change With Renewable Energy
FOR MORE INFORMATION AND TO REGISTER:
www.energy21symposium
April 22, 2023
Downtown Syracuse Earth Day Cleanup
A fun, family-friendly event happening at four different locations throughout the morning. Volunteers will receive breakfast snacks and a lunch voucher. Volunteers will be given gloves, trash bags and t-shirts! For more information and/or volunteer, use this form.
Highlights include paper shredding, battery disposal, metal recycling, info on how to help with climate change and lobby for sustainability.. Good food available, too!
April 29, 2023
Earth Day Fest
Canal Landing Park, Fayetteville, NY
10 am – 3pm
Celebrate Earth Day by learning about EV cars from EV owners, gardening tips, renewable energy, recycling and more. There will be children activities, music by Joe Driscoll, and a food truck! If you wish to volunteer or sponsor a booth, visitwww.TownofManlius.org
Boston University gets it done with a beautiful fossil free Science andTechnology Building. At 19 stories tall and over 345,000 gross square feet, the BU Center for Computing & Data Sciences models when sustainability infuses design. And with geothermal wells, state-of-the-art shading, and unusually thick windows, among other features, it will also be the University’s most sustainable, energy-efficient building ever. The building, will be 100 percent free of fossil fuels, an effort that aligns with the University’s broader Climate Action Plan, which aims to reduce BU’s carbon emissions to zero by 2040.
A luxurious three-row electric SUV from Kia is previewed. A $2.5 billion federal program will help get more charging to communities and local travel corridors, over years. And what’s the greatest safety concern related to EVs? This and more, here at Green Car Reports.
APPLE GOES GREEN! Changes to iOS16.1
Apple releasediOS 16for iPhones in September and the first major update is here! iOS 16.1 doesn’t just bring a bunch offeatures that weren’t in the first release, it’s also the first release of iPadOS 16, bringing Messages, Mail, and Safari updates that iPhone users have been enjoying for weeks.
Clean Energy Charging: Open Settings > Battery > Battery Health and Charging to find the toggle. Apple describes the feature this way: In your region, iPhone will try to reduce your carbon footprint by selectively charging when lower carbon emission electricity is available. iPhone learns from your daily charging routine so it can reach full charge before you need to use it.
Attend the next Monthly CCAA Meeting When: Tuesday, April 11, 6:00 p.m. Each month, CCAA invites you to join us, in-person or over Zoom. Come meet people who are committed to working towards fossil-free communities. The meetings are held on the second Tuesday of every month, 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. The room opens at 5:45 p.m. for socializing. The April meeting will include a presentation on how the New York State Legislature works.
GreeningUSA Newsletter To subscribe to a comprehensive list of climate change and sustainability events, and to publicize an event you are organizing, email GreeningUSA: info@GreeningUSA.org.
Feel like saving the world? Why not donate a few dollars to CCAA? Maybe it won’t be quite enough to save the whole planet, but it will help keep us going, and that’s the next best thing! We appreciate your support.
CCAA Internships and Other Volunteering Opportunities If you are interested in volunteering with CCAA in any capacity, please contact us at newsletter@climatechange-action.com or call 315-308-0846. Don’t worry about your skill level. We are all learning. We need people who can:
Within NY Renews, the Youth Committee is a space mostly for high school and college age individuals. We’re moving towards bi-weekly trainings followed by community organizing to support our campaigns. Joining the youth committee is a great opportunity to level up your organizing, learn about campaigning, and get involved in the climate justice movement.
We meet every other week with additional time on projects for those interested. If you are interested, please fill out the sign-up form so we can get more info about your interests and experiences (it’s not competitive). We would love to hear from you!
We encourage you to follow our social media accounts to support CCAA and stay up to date on other environmental news.
