E is for Environment and Education: A Call to Action!
By Roseann Lorefice
Photo by Maximilian Simson on Unsplash
On May 17th, voters across New York State will go to the polls in their respective school districts to voice their support for school budgets… or not! School budgets are one of the last bastions where voters can directly express themselves, and it is imperative that informed voters speak out with concerns related to their child’s health and the environment and school infrastructure.
Of particular concern is the issue of school buses. Most districts have a fleet of diesel or gasoline buses and are seeking to replace them. It is a line item vote for buses based on fossil fuels. For example, the North Syracuse Central School District’s Proposition #2 would award $1.9 million to purchase 12 new gasoline buses and 5 additional maintenance vehicles. It is time to vote no and start a conversation for the conversion to electric school buses.
In doing so, many issues emerge: the higher cost of these buses, the acquisition and installation of charging stations, the need to upgrade districts’ facilities, etc. But the overriding issues are our children’s health and our carbon footprint.
Research has shown that diesel buses contribute substantially to air pollution, which in turn has serious health consequences for children. This includes childhood asthma, the risk of serious heart and lung issues, impingement of cognitive ability and cardiovascular disease later in life. As the World Health Organization has noted, children are particularly vulnerable to these adverse effects because they breathe more rapidly and absorb more pollution. They live closer to the ground where pollution concentration is greater and absorb toxins at a time where their brains and bodies are still developing.
The issues raised have not gone unnoticed. Governor Hochul has strongly promoted a five-year proposal where ongoing bus replacement must transition to electric buses by 2027 with full fleet replacement accomplished by 2035. The recently passed New York State budget has included this, and furthermore directed NYSERDA to help districts with this transition and identify possible barriers that can be resolved early on. The November 2021 election had strong voter support that passed an amendment to the New York State Constitution acknowledging every citizen’s right to clear air and clean water. Our children are citizens too.
The time to act is now. As you approach school budget vote day on March 17th, be aware of the positions of the candidates seeking office to the school board. Where do they stand on this and other environmental issues? Are they willing to start the conversation to transition their district’s buses? Are they willing to get involved in searching for the means to accomplish this effort?
There are a variety of resources to get going. Grant money is available on both a federal and state level to convert bus fleets (see “The Biden-Harris Action Plan for Schools” later in this newsletter). Some districts have explored the idea of leasing electric buses from some large bus dealers.
The noted health benefits are not the only positives in this scenario. Districts would experience lower maintenance costs and the district’s carbon footprint would be significantly lowered. This is not a simple issue but it is imperative that the conversation be started and pursued.
CCAA’s recommendations:
Mark your calendar to vote on May 17th
Participate in pre-voting information sessions in your district to know what candidates stand for
On May 17th, vote NO on diesel and gasoline buses
Enough Lion Around! Partying for the Planet at the Zoo
By Ken Johnson, Membership & Education Committees
Photo by Mariola Grobelska on Unsplash
On Saturday April 23rd, CCAA had a great day at Rosamond Gifford Zoo, marking Earth Day for 2022, and helping celebrate Party for the Planet with many other environmental organizations.
With the help of Jan Kublick, Kim Cameron, and Sonia Kragh, we distributed over fifty carbon-reducing bingo games to the children, many World Health Organization and UN IPCC fact sheets on global warming impacts on North America to their parents, twenty sets of membership materials, fifteen CCAA newsletters, and even some new member sign-ups on site.
Grateful thanks to all involved in this fun event: the organizers, other organizations, the wonderful zoo staff, and of course everyone who came out to enjoy the party!
Photos: Gavin Landless
Then on Saturday April 30th, CCAA had a table at EarthFest, at the grounds of the Fayetteville Free Library. Tabling opposite an impressive array of about thirty electric vehicles, Ken Johnson, Peter Michael, Pete Wirth and Gavin Landless spoke to visitors and handed out information on electric vehicles, CCAA’s Carbon Challenge and more. Thanks to everyone who stopped by to say hello!
We have also been invited by the owner of Blink Fitness to participate with a table at their Health Outreach Fest at Blink Fitness on May 4th, which we are really looking forward to. This event will take place at their center in Wegman’s Plaza, in the Town of Onondaga.
The Biden-Harris Action Plan for Schools
By Roseann Lorefice
Photo by CDC on Unsplash
Are you aware that the Biden administration has a plan for building better school infrastructure that not only fosters smart environmental actions but also contributes to student safety, belonging and health?
In an initiative labeled The Biden-Harris Action Plan for Building Better School Infrastructure, there are funds available to help schools with energy updates. The plan activates multiple federal agencies in supporting solutions for energy efficiency retrofits, electric school buses and resilient design.
Today, many school districts rely on outdated heating, ventilation and air conditioning (HVAC) systems that make classrooms less comfortable and may pose health hazards for both students and teachers. Dirty diesel buses pose additional health risks for students on board and the neighborhoods they travel through and exhaust from idling buses can pollute the air around the school. Reducing this pollution will especially help in low income communities and communities of color that have long faced underinvestment and the burden of high pollution.
The action plan is expected to result in significant savings on energy bills, freeing up that money for student learning instead.
So, what does the plan do?
Promotes investment in more efficient energy-saving school buildings.
Focuses on repairing, upgrading or replacing ventilation systems; purchasing air filters and portable air cleaning devices; and fixing doors and windows, all with the goal of keeping schools open and healthy for in-person learning.
Provides a toolkit to help schools access available funding, technical assistance and planning tools.
Accelerates the transition to alternative-fuel and electric buses and help schools promote walking and biking to school.
Increase targeted support for rural, tribal and Puerto Rico schools.
This is billed as an all-out government agency effort. Many agencies are involved in promoting and supporting these endeavors.
The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), partnering with the Department of Energy (DOE), is developing targeted technical assistance programs that assist school districts in implementing alternative-fuel and electric buses effectively into their fleets.
The Department of Transportation (DOT) is providing state and local governments with guidance to access funds to support projects that keep students safely walking and biking to school.
The United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) is committing to loan and grant programs to support electric school bus acquisition, charging station infrastructures and energy efficient investment at schools, and broadband and distance learning in rural school districts.
The DOE together with the Bureau of Indian Education (BIE) is working to improve the state of federally operated schools, while the Working Group on Puerto Rico has gone on record as prioritizing school reconstruction on the island.
All of this will build on ongoing efforts to support students by reducing lead exposure (Biden-Harris Lead Pipe and Paint Action Plan) and the Justice40 Initiative, with the goal of implementing and delivering 40% of the benefits of federal climate and clean energy investments to disadvantaged communities.
One way the federal plan is pushed to the individual states is through support of the Carbon Free and Healthy Schools campaign, which is already established in New York City.
How Much Carbon Dioxide does my Car Emit Anyway?
By Gavin Landless
Photo by Matt Boitor on Unsplash
Like most simple questions, the answer is not so straight forward, but using a little chemistry, a little math and a little approximation, we can have a decent stab at it.So put your lab coat on, and come for a ride.
In an ideal situation, a perfectly efficient car would burn 100% of a pure hydrocarbon fuel, and exhaust nothing but water and CO2.Unfortunately none of that really happens.For a start, our atmosphere is not 100% oxygen, so the combustion engine has to suck in other gases, to the detriment of efficiency.And secondly, gasoline itself is a complex mixture of various hydrocarbons, and additives.It can’t combust too quickly, or that makes the engine knock and causes all kinds of problems, but it can’t be too difficult to ignite either, so oxygen-containing chemicals like ethanol are commonly added.Other chemicals are also mixed in to make gasoline more stable, minimize corrosion, and so on.This is partly why a whole lot more than water and CO2 come out of the tailpipe when gasoline is burned.That’s Bad News Bears, but incidental to the main question here.
Given that there’s no defined standard formula for gasoline, it’s clear that we will need to simplify things quite a bit.The bulk of typical gasoline is made up of a mixture of hydrocarbons with between four and twelve carbon atoms per molecule, known as C4-C12.Within that range, octane is a pretty good molecule to use.Octane has the chemical formula C8H18 and it looks something like this:
Graphic: chem.purdue.edu
There are more wiggly versions like isooctane, but don’t worry about them. Let’s go back to our simple imaginative world of the perfect car in a perfectly oxygenated lab environment, burning octane perfectly efficiently. That ideal chemical reaction would follow this recipe:
For every two octane molecules, add 25 oxygen molecules and burn thoroughly until you get sixteen carbon dioxide molecules and eighteen water molecules.
2 C8H18 + 25 O2→ 16 CO2 + 18 H20
If you check the number of carbon, hydrogen and oxygen atoms on each side of that formula you’ll find that everything balances. So the theory is good.
But now we need to turn this formula into weight so we can get a better sense of what those numbers mean. And for that we need the trusty periodic table. Or at least, the first little bit of it:
Graphic: adapted from www.thoughtco.com
Stay with me here. We’re getting close!
Rounding to whole numbers, we can see that every Hydrogen (H) atom has a mass of 1, every Carbon (C) atom has a mass of 12, and every Oxygen (O) atom has a mass of 16. So a molecule of octane (C8H18) weighs 114, a molecule of oxygen (O2) weighs 32, a molecule of carbon dioxide (CO2) weighs 44, and a molecule of water (H2O) weighs 18. If we plug those into our combustion formula (feel free to crunch the numbers yourself), we find that one serving of octane fuel needs 3.5 servings (by weight) of oxygen, which produces 3.1 servings of CO2 and 1.4 servings of water. A serving can be as much as you want. It’s the ratios that matter.
How can this be? Normally when stuff burns we think of it as getting lighter. Wood turning to ash, and so on. But that’s because we’re not paying attention to the gases. The reality is that the engine sucks in a huge amount of oxygen, uses that for combustion, and releases an almost-as-huge amount of carbon dioxide as a result. The gasoline weighs only about a third of the CO2 that is ultimately produced from it.
As a final step, let’s put this on the road.
My car, a 2013 Hyundai Accent, gets about 40 miles to the gallon if I drive it gently. A few months ago, I took a trip to Louisiana and back, which happened to put about 4000 miles on the clock. That means I used about 100 gallons of fuel. Because a gallon of gasoline weighs about 6.3 pounds, every gallon of fuel burned produces 6.3 x 3.1, or about 19.6 pounds of CO2. 19.6 pounds multiplied by 100 is 1,960 pounds of CO2 for that trip. Put another way, for every 4400 miles I drive my car, I add roughly a ton of CO2 into the atmosphere that was not there before.
So remember that, the next time you’re at the pump: For every gallon you pour in, you’ll be pouring out nearly 20 pounds of CO2 later. That is how much carbon dioxide our gasoline cars emit.
And that’s why rapid electrification of our transportation sector is so urgently needed.
Revitalization of the Southwest Side of Onondaga Lake
By Dan LeVine
Photo by Dan LeVine
Last summer I had the opportunity to experience first-hand the revitalized southwest side of Onondaga Lake. I was pleasantly surprised as I entered the newest area that extends the trail by the State Fair Orange Lot all the way to a newly built 1,000 foot bridge completed in December 2020, leading you to Hiawatha Boulevard. Near Honeywell’s Onondaga Lake Visitors Center, there were people launching kayaks at the boat launch, people fishing along the banks, people walking, running and biking—a sight that was non-existent several years ago. As I began my walk, I was able to experience the restored habitat that has made a home to native species, including butterflies and birds, down to the snails, caterpillars and even little snakes on the path I was walking along.
As I walked near the calm wetland area that had been built up with one of several installed rock berms, I was not disappointed. As I looked, there were two loons swimming along and suddenly disappearing as they dived on their hunt for fish, mallard ducks slowly swimming by and even a blue heron enjoying the sunny quiet calm. My walk led me to the top of the newly built bridge. I was taking in the view of the lake, noticing a huge fish in the lake and a group of birds on another long rock berm jutting into the water, when a bald eagle flew overhead. What a remarkable sight and a highlight of my first visit. Well worth it and a testament of the efforts to clean up and restore the lake and its surrounding areas.
When I returned this spring, there was an abundance of red-winged blackbirds, swallows, sandpipers and even some diving ducks called greater scaups. On a particularly overcast day, I was surprised to see a belted kingfisher resting in the trees along the water. Since it was a gloomy day, not many people were around and that may be why I was able to see this interesting bird. The wide array of birds that are thriving in this restored habitat is amazing. According to lakecleanup.com, approximately 167,000 native plants were planted in this area alone to contribute to this success.
In the face of climate change, the Onondaga Lake Cleanup and restoration of sustainable habitat is a great example of revitalization for the betterment of our planet, specifically impacting our lake, surrounding areas, and quality of life. As people buzz by on I-690 in their vehicles, one may not realize the transformation that has happened nearby. Everyone young and old should take some time to explore and enjoy the benefits of this success. A new experience, surely to be enjoyed each time you visit. Next time… a walk in the direction of the orange lot to see new discoveries and enjoy the fruits of a restored balance with nature!
Share Your Climate Concerns
By Jan Kublick
Photo by Gautier Salles on Unsplash
Last weekend my wife Kim and I helped out at a CCAA table at the Rosamond Gifford Zoo here in Syracuse. It was a busy day with lots of young children and young parents. We answered questions, talked about climate change and CCAA, and met some great people. I could not help but think that the effects of climate change, already bad, will be terrible for the world those young people will grow up in. We shared some of that concern with some parents who were both aware and concerned. We also noted that climate could be more of the messaging at the Zoo. There is not one animal exhibit that could not advance the visitors’ understanding of the impacts of a warming world; a world warming because of the choices that individuals, corporations, states and nations are making every day in face of undeniable evidence of the future harm.
Kim and I are about to start a drive west, ultimately attending our son’s wedding in the Sierras, then returning via the Grand Canyon, Utah, and up to Wyoming’s Grand Tetons and Yellowstone. It is the first long drive west we will have taken together, and the first one during manifest climate change conditions: severe storms in the Midwest, drought, fire and smoke—all risks and concerns that were not part of the itinerary until recently. We will bring along an emergency weather radio, apps that report air quality, and try to be alert to those risks. It is the reality of climate change now, and a foretaste of far worse to come if we collectively, and individually, fail to make changes and support politics and policies to meet it.
Kim and I will also look for evidence of, and for awareness of, climate disruption, and for climate information at state and national parks, museums, nature and visitor centers. We will post some notes and maybe pictures from the road.
Please share your climate concerns. Please get engaged in trying to change the future for our children and grandchildren. Remember to vote in the school board elections on May 17th with climate in mind.
Attend your School District’s Public Hearing before the Budget and Board Vote
Many school districts have a public hearing before the public vote for board members and the budget.Keep an eye on your postal mail to find out when yours is.Attend if you can, and speak up about the need to electrify the school bus fleet.
Vote on your School District’s Board of Education and 2022-2023 Budget!
When: May 17th
Where: Check you mail or check your school district’s website.
You do not need to have a child in the school district in order to vote. As a resident within your school district you can have your say about how the local taxes are being spent. Vote no on new fossil fuel school buses!
Comment on the CLCPA Draft Scoping Plan
NY Renews continues to provide a weekly commenting tool and suggested talking points, so commenting on the Climate Action Council’s Draft Scoping Plan could not be easier.
The fight continues to stop a private company from using the fossil fuel-burning Greenidge Generation power plant on the shore of Seneca Lake to mine cryptocurrency. Opponents are now asking Senators Schumer and Gillibrand to weigh in after Governor Hochul delayed a decision by three months – until after the June primary for governor.
The U.S. Postal Service signed a contract to buy almost 150,000 gas-powered postal delivery trucks and sidestepped mandatory environmental reviews, according to lawsuits filed by sixteen states, including New York, and a number of environmental organizations. The gas-powered trucks would get a measly 14.7 mpg, and only if the driver keeps the air conditioning off. If the purchase goes through, many of them could be in service for 30 years.
Scientists call for cap on production to end plastic pollution
Source: Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU)
An international group of experts are arguing that a global treaty is needed to cap plastic production.No other measures will keep pace with the release of plastic into our environment.Decreased production would also help tackle climate change and increase the value of recycled plastics.
Attend the next Monthly CCAA Meeting When: Tuesday, May 10th, 6:00 – 7:00 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. Register here.
Where: Pompey Town Hall, 8354 U.S. Route 20, Manlius, NY
The Town of Pompey, HeatSmart Pompey, and HeatSmart CNY are working together to educate local homeowners about new developments in heating and cooling technologies, and available grants and rebates for insulation and heat pumps for all income levels. Together we can make our homes and buildings more comfortable, cost-effective, and better for the climate!
GreeningUSA Newsletter
To subscribe to a comprehensive list of climate change and sustainability events, and to publicize an event you are organizing, email GreeningUSA:
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.
*Monthly Quiz Please email your answer to newsletter@climatechange-action.com within 14 days of this newsletter’s publication date to be entered into a random drawing for a small prize (typically under $5 value). For fairness, no more than one entry per reader, please. CCAA will respond to the randomly selected winners by reply email in order to send out prizes. CCAA may recognize winners by first name only in the next newsletter, so please let us know if you do not want a mention. Strictly no other personal information will ever be shared or used for any other reason. CCAA reserves the right to not select winners or distribute prizes in the event of any difficulties, or if the quiz stops being fun. CCAA’s only goals are to encourage readership, build the community and hear directly from like-minded individuals. No purchase necessary because this newsletter is free to you. Thank you!
Newsletter Committee Staff Writers: Dan LeVine, Ally Farnand Publishing and Design: Yvonne Chu, Annalena Davis Editor: Gavin Landless
