Steve Cohen, Executive Director, Columbia University’s Earth Institute

New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s recent announcement that he would seek a third term as mayor brings back the issue of term limits and its connection to good government and long-term planning. I am against term limits anywhere, including the American presidency. The 22nd amendment was an anti-democratic, anti-government mistake, just as the term limit mandate in New York is a bad idea. The argument against term limits is simple and has two parts:

1) People should be able to vote for anyone they want (this is a concept known as democracy).
2) Term limits extend an elected official’s “lame duck” period from about a year to four.  read more »

One of the simplest things we can do to improve our productivity and economic well being is to increase the efficiency of our use of energy. We are so wasteful that there is an enormous amount of low hanging fruit. As New York state begins to get serious about this, we should look west to California, for a place that really knows how to make the most out of a kilowatt.

Since 1981, I've taught public management at Columbia, and I am not one of those people who believe that government is incompetent and only the private sector is efficient and effective. Some work is best performed by government, some by nonprofits and some by the private sector.  read more »

At the end of June, when parts of Iowa were underwater, I wrote that the United States needed to develop a rainy day fund and do more to routinize emergency response and reconstruction. In that piece I mentioned that, according to the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration: "The U.S. has sustained 78 weather-related disasters over the past 28 years in which overall damages/costs reached or exceeded $1 billion. The total normalized losses for the 78 events exceed $600 billion."              

Now, we are all horrified by the impact of Hurricane Ike on the Gulf Coast and on Houston, the nation’s fourth-largest city. The financial impact of this latest disaster is still being calculated, and even though the impact was not as great as it could have been or as devastating as some predicted, the financial cost will be huge.  read more »

In speaking about his support for the military "surge" in Iraq, John Mc Cain said that he would rather lose the Presidency than lose the war. It's too bad he hasn't followed the same principled approach on energy. The New York Times lead editorial this past Sunday reiterated a point I have made a number of times on this site. We cannot drill enough oil and gas to solve our energy crisis. There are too many people on this planet and we use more and more fuel every day. John McCain has missed an historic opportunity to develop an American consensus about renewable energy, instead taking on the expedient, poll-driven mantra of "drill, drill, drill: here and now".  read more »

On January 5th of this year, Alaska Governor and Vice Presidential candidate Sarah Palin wrote an op-ed in the New York Times opposing listing polar bears on the endangered species list. Her argument was well reasoned and thoughtful, although in the end, unsatisfactory. In her piece Governor Palin noted her support for policies that helped preserve polar bears:

"We have a ban on most hunting - only Alaska Native subsistence families can hunt polar bears - and measures to protect denning areas and prevent harassment of the bears. We are also participating in international efforts aimed at preserving polar bear populations worldwide.

 read more »

Last week Mayor Michael Bloomberg proposed that New York City engage in a serious effort to develop alternative energy sources, and in return for his trouble he faced skepticism and even ridicule from a cynical media. Cartoons were drawn with King Kong trying to swat a windmill off the top of the Empire State Building. Still, even the tabloids could not dismiss the idea entirely. Bloomberg commands respect, and $4 a gallon gasoline has everyone looking for alternatives.

New York City has been built by people who dreamed large and were able to project into the future. Imagine the city without Central, Van Cortland or Prospect Parks.  read more »

The Presidential nominating conventions are now approaching, first the Democrats' and then the Republicans'. The President hangs out at the Olympics, stomps his feet over the Russian invasion of Georgia and then makes another pass at gutting the Endangered Species Act by reducing the time and scientific analysis needed to assess the environmental impact of federal projects. The energy and climate issue have provided some environmental content to this campaign, but the folks running the country still don't see the stake we have in environmental sustainability.

What does an extinct frog have to do with human well-being? What does the environment have to do with economic wealth? Can't our technology solve any environmental problem we make? The short answer, as we learned nearly half a century ago from Rachael Carson and Barry Commoner, is that everything is connected to everything else.  read more »

Watching the wonderful spectacle of the Olympics this year, one finds the world outside the sports arenas constantly intruding. Russia manages to invade Georgia, human rights activists try to communicate their message to the world and oh yeah, breathing in Beijing remains a challenge. All of these issues are important, but as you might expect, I'm going to focus on breathing today.

I have the honor of participating in a program at Columbia's School of International and Public Affairs where we provide management training for senior government officials from Guangdong Province in China. Guangdong is an industrial province with about 80 million residents and a large number of guest workers, and is at the heart of China's massive effort to develop economically.  read more »

The energy issue has become central in the presidential campaign and we see little to suggest that either candidate will engage in a real discussion about the real choices we have. The fact is that the era of fossil fuels is coming to an end. There are too many people and too much need for energy for this to continue for very long. How long? More than a decade and less than a century. Why should we care? Because we probably can think of better things to do with petrochemicals than burning them for fuels. Because we shouldn’t be handing this problem to our children to solve.  read more »

If we are to make this planet more sustainable, all of us--individuals, families, schools, nonprofits, and especially corporations--will need to change our behavior. This does not mean that we must live grim lives where we stay at home freezing in the dark. It does mean that we need to pay attention to the resources we consume and we need to switch as quickly as we can to renewable resources. This is going to require changes in public policy and increases in the funding for scientific research and development. It is also going to require the private sector do more to incorporate sustainability principles into best management practices.  read more »

Over the past weekend we got to hear President Bush, Senator McCain and then Senator Obama all supporting drilling for oil off our coasts. Both Bush and McCain maintain that the way to reduce gasoline prices is to develop more supplies of oil. They argue, and polling shows people believe, that drilling for more oil will lower prices. Although Obama is not crazy about drilling in fragile environments, he's willing to allow some drilling in exchange for a bill that would promote alternative energy.

For a brief moment I admired the artfulness and subtly of Obama's perspective-a little carefully controlled drilling can't do much harm, as long as our policy encourages renewable energy.  read more »

As summer heats up, our thoughts return to garbage--specifically New York City's garbage. As I've mentioned before, it would be hard to invent a more environmentally damaging, or more expensive system of waste management, than the one we use. To reiterate--in New York City we collect the garbage that residents place on the curb and then dump it on the floor of huge warehouses that tend to be located in low-income neighborhoods. We then scoop it up and load it on to trailer trucks and ship it far away--mostly to landfills (dumps), or waste-to-energy plants (incinerators). In the old days, when we had more vacant land in the city, we dumped the garbage in our own landfills.  read more »

In the early 1980's a water engineer once described the Hudson River to me as "the biggest and fastest flushing toilet in the world". Until the North River sewage treatment plant opened in 1986 for what was called "advanced preliminary treatment" we dumped all of the west side's raw sewage straight into the Hudson. No wonder Riverside Drive is about ¼ mile from the river--up on a bluff with railroad tracks and later a park and highway between the fancy apartments and the river. No wonder the most expensive residential avenues in Manhattan, 5th Avenue and Park Avenue, were traditionally those furthest from the East and Hudson Rivers.  read more »

One of the central elements of Mayor Bloomberg's plan for a sustainable New York City is to improve mass transit and get people out of their cars and into busses and subways. In addition to better and more frequent transit service, the city also needs to ensure that the price of mass transit is kept under control. In the aftermath of the defeat of congestion pricing, we see that mass transit in this region is under greater financial stress than at any time since the fiscal crisis of the mid 1970's.

State and local tax collections are in decline, and the MTA bears the burden of the Pataki philosophy of borrowing to fund transit infrastructure.  read more »

Last Thursday, former Vice President Al Gore joined the many voices that have been calling for a crash program-a "moon-shot" national effort to get us off of fossil fuels. Senator Obama applauded the speech saying "For decades, Al Gore has challenged the skeptics in Washington on climate change and awakened the conscience of a nation to the urgency of this threat."

At the moment, neither Senator Obama nor Senator McCain are taking as aggressive a position as Gore is taking. The energy industry doesn't know how to deal with this newest energy crisis. At the heart of the discussion is the impact of our current energy practices on our economic well-being and on national security.  read more »

Over the weekend I had the pleasure of reading Peter Applebome's wonderful piece in the New York Times about the new River Pool at Beacon a swimming "pool" in the Hudson River that Pete Seeger and some friends dedicated last week.

Many people know the story of Pete Seeger, who brought American folk music to the hit parade with the Weavers in the 1950's and was then blacklisted and banned from TV for refusing to cooperate with the communist-hunting House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC). When brought before the committee in the mid 1950's, he asserted that testifying against his will was a violation of the first amendment's protection of free speech and refused the protection offered by the 5th amendment protection against self-incrimination.  read more »

New York City produces a lot of garbage. Over 36,000 tons of solid waste is produced every day by the city's 8,300,000 residents and millions of workers and visitors. While New York still has not developed an effective waste management system, and the Bloomberg Administration made some unfortunate changes in recycling rules in their first term, there seems to be a growing awareness that we have a major problem on our hands. The solution to our waste problem has four key dimensions:

1. Waste reduction.
2. Better waste transport.
3. Better waste disposal.
4. Increased recycling.

A small, but symbolically important part of the recycling puzzle is recycling waste in public spaces.  read more »

I made the mistake of watching some of the T.V. coverage of the Presidential campaign last night—I guess that's what happens when the Yankees have the night off and I'm too tired to do anything else. Listening to the commentary is mind numbing and most of it ranges from misleading to out and out inaccurate.

As I watched these candidates move around in the security and media bubble of the modern Presidential campaign I was thinking that they must feel as if they've been abducted by aliens. Poor Barack Obama-he's going to travel to Iraq so he mentioned that while he was there he might listen to what the military folks have to say.  read more »

On March 17, 2008, Lieutenant Governor and former State Senator David Paterson was suddenly placed in the center of Albany's storm and assumed the Office of Governor. While it may seem premature, we decided to review the environmental record of his first 100 days. New York State's League of Conservation Voters is known for their thoughtful representation of the electorate's interest, so we asked them for their view of our accidental governor's environmental record. Marcia Bystryn, president of the New York League of Conservation Voters observed that:

"In the course of his first 100 days, Governor Paterson has shown that he can work effectively with the Legislature and that he understands the importance of an environmental agenda.  read more »

I'm on vacation this week, enjoying the sun, surf and sand here in Long Beach New York, where we've had a small summer home since 1987. I'm on the West End of town, where the biggest problem over the last few years has been the proliferation of second and third cars and the difficulty of parking on the narrow and crowded streets: Until this summer. This summer the big news is the price of gasoline. In the last year and a half, the price of gasoline has doubled. In January, 2007 gasoline was less than $2.20 a gallon, today it is well over $4.  read more »

According to the June 25, 2008 edition of the DesMoines Register, many of the people who have lost their homes and farms in the recent flooding there do not have federal flood insurance:

"David Maurstab, an assistant administrator of the Federal Emergency Management Agency whose duties include overseeing the flood insurance program, conceded Tuesday that few Iowans have purchased coverage. FEMA reported that as of September 2007 there were 10,649 policies in force statewide.

"That is troubling to all of us," Maurstab said. "We have a remarkably low number of insureds in the affected areas."

The state of Iowa is in excellent fiscal condition and has a $620 million reserve fund that the state government appears reluctant to send on emergency relief.  read more »

There is a small town America that is idealized in myth and literature, but even in the internet age thrives outside our largest cities. In these places community spirit and what used to be called civic virtue (or values) is nurtured through local schools, churches, little league, scouts and a wide variety of community based organizations. The force of economic power is as present in these places as in large cities, and I do not want to leave the impression that all is light and joy in these places, but community is always present and taken for granted.

Here in New York City community must be nurtured in the face of big anonymous institutions and the speed and intensity that is always present and taken for granted.  read more »

In 1990, the first Bush Administration banned off shore oil exploration and yesterday the current President Bush decided to ask Congress to end the ban. This is the same policy now being pushed by Senator John McCain in his effort to show he cares about rising gasoline prices. According to Sheryl Stolberg in The New York Times on June 18:

The Congressional moratorium was first enacted in 1982, and has been renewed every year since. It prohibits oil and gas leasing on most of the outer continental shelf, 3 miles to 200 miles offshore. Since 1990, it has been supplemented by the first President Bush’s executive order, which directed the  read more »

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The good news is that more and more people want to reduce their ecological footprint- the impact that we all have on this fragile and interconnected planet. The bad news is that some companies care much more about looking green than being green. Companies have learned that people care about the environment and are willing to pay for green goods and services. Advertisers and marketing folks are busy painting the world green. Some of this is real and useful and some of this can be silly or even deceptive. Fortunately consumer groups and the Federal Trade Commission have started to pay attention to corporate claims of sustainability.  read more »

When congestion pricing was defeated earlier in the spring, it looked dead forever, but it’s becoming clear that the idea may make a comeback. The reason for the revival is actually the reason Mayor Bloomberg proposed it- we need the money for mass transit, and we need to reduce the volume of vehicles in lower Manhattan. As time goes by, it becomes clearer that the main reason for the fee is to raise money. The absence of the fee is contributing to a fiscal crisis for the city’s mass transit system.

The New York City region has the best mass transit system in the county, but the system that is in danger of going through the same decline it went through during the fiscal crisis of the 1970. It is an understatement to say that this would be a disaster for the city’s environment and economy.

According to a joint press release of the Straphangers Campaign and the U.S. Public Interest Research Group: “Public transportation in metropolitan New York saved 1.8 billion gallons of oil in 2006, a savings that amounted to $4.6 billion for the region. By taking cars off the road and reducing congestion, transit also prevented emission of 13,973,040 metric tons of global warming pollution.”

A decade of increased deficit financing of mass transit during the Pataki years has culminated in the long-predicted mass transit fiscal crisis. Mass transit has been underfunded for many years, and the lack of funding has finally caught up with us. As the Straphanger campaign release notes: “With the projected income from congestion pricing gone, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority faces a $17.5 billion deficit in its proposed $29.5 billion five-year capital program.”

Governor Patterson recognizes the problem and has brought back Richard Ravitch, the guy who rebuilt the mass transit system in the 1980’s, to do it again. Ravitch is heading a newly formed Commission on Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) Financing. According to the Governor’s office:  read more »

While most of the people in New York City live in apartment buildings most of the land in New York City sits under single family homes. While New York is nearly completely built up, there are places within the city where there is enough land to grow some crops. While we are certainly surrounded by concrete and asphalt, the natural world is never far away in New York City.  From small plots to multi-acre urban farms, New York City’s community gardens turn abandoned lots into urban oases, feed city residents, and provide community spaces for birthdays, barbeques, and informal get-togethers.
 
In addition to benefits such as fostering community and offering green spaces in neighborhoods lacking sufficient park land, community gardens also have a positive impact on the environment.  Unpaved garden surfaces absorb rainwater and reduce stress on the city’s sewage system, and many gardens partner with schools to provide outdoor classrooms for ecology and biology lessons.  

Community gardens help cool the city and reduce the urban heat island effect, caused when the city’s dark surfaces trap heat and make it hotter than surrounding areas.  Green spaces offered by community gardens can even reduce the amount of energy used to cool buildings. According to the EPA’s website, “Widespread planting in a city can decrease local surface and air temperatures. Strategic planting…directly cools the interior of homes and buildings, decreasing air conditioning costs and peak energy demand.”

While most of our food travels an average of 1,019 miles by the time it reaches grocery shelves, community gardens are a source of fresh, affordable produce for city residents which can be transported to the dinner table without the use of fossil fuels.  read more »

Now that the Democratic Party’s Presidential nominating process has ended, it is time to compare the records and positions of the two remaining major party candidates. For a Republican, Senator John McCain has shown some signs that he understands the issues of sustainability. He and Senator Joseph Lieberman have sponsored climate change bills that have almost been enacted. He is making noises like he might select the environment as the issue to show people that he is not George W. Bush. However, the League of Conservation Voters, a group that monitors Congress’ environmental records gave him a score of 0 percent in 2007 and 24 percent life time. In contrast, Senator Barak Obama Sen. Obama scored 67% in 2007 and 86% lifetime. Most of Obama’s decline last year was due to missed votes related to his campaign schedule. The average score for Members of Congress in 2007 was 53%.  read more »

Perhaps the most eminent climate scientist at Columbia University is Wallace S. Broecker, who everyone around here calls Wally. He and science writer Robert Kunzig have just published a wonderful and easy to read book entitled: “Fixing Climate: What Past Climate Changes Reveal About the Current Threat—And How to Counter It”. Both Wally and our engineering colleague Klaus Lackner concede that we have already emitted too much carbon dioxide (CO2) to prevent global warming and we will need to learn how to capture the excess carbon dioxide now in the atmosphere and keep new CO2 from being released when we burn fossil fuels. We need to learn how to capture greenhouse gasses and then learn how to store them underground.

I’ve been reading a lot lately about the “myth” of climate change from some folks who consider the science of climate to be some kind of environmental conspiracy. The fact of climate change is just that, a scientific fact. I think the problem starts when people who do not understand economics or politics propose solutions to the climate problem that are unrealistic or infeasible. Wally and Klaus have proposed a solution which is both realistic and feasible—although difficult to achieve. These are two very practical guys who understand we are not going to shut down the world’s economy to save the planet. We need to figure out a path to sustainability that relies on technology and enlightened self interest to preserve the planet.  read more »

Growing population, drought, the use of biofuels and increased consumption have contributed to a growing world food crisis. The most vulnerable among us here in New York and poor people around the world are most affected by rising food prices and shortages. At the same time, we also see a growing awareness of where our food comes from and the environmental impact of food production. One result of that has been increased use of organic foods and increased use of locally grown foods. The movement toward organic foods and locally grown and marketed organic and non-organic foods is easy to see in our supermarkets and in the sidewalk greenmarkets located in many of the city’s neighborhoods.

Organic produce sales doubled from roughly $3 billion in 2002 to $6 billion in 2006, according to the Organic Trade Association. That figure is expected to jump to $8.1 billion by 2010. Just over 6% of all produce sales now fall into the organic category, up from 2.5% a decade ago. Organic food offers benefits to the environment, local communities and public health. It does not rely on synthetic or petroleum-based pesticides or fertilizers, resulting in less water and soil contamination due to run-off. Buying organic at local farmers market, reduces your carbon footprint. (Check out this article from EcoStreet on ways to reduce your food miles.) In addition:  read more »

I have a summer place on the West End of Long Beach, New York, that my wife and I bought in 1987. Long Beach is an urban beach—about an hour from the city and at the end of a branch of the Long Island Railroad. My small house is really a bungalow that is on a 60 by 40-foot piece of land a half block from the bay and a block and a half from the ocean. The house was built around 100 years ago and I’ve been wondering if will be around 100 years from now. The Army Corps of Engineers wants to build a huge dune on the beach to protect the island from the next storm surge, but the folks here rejected the idea and are willing to take their chances. I’m not sure how I feel about it. Barrier islands like this are truly wonderful places to enjoy, but it’s a little crazy to think we can avoid destructive storms forever.

New York City is blessed by a location right by the ocean and close to mountains. When I was growing up in Brooklyn, we had Riis Park, Brighton Beach, Manhattan Beach, and Coney Island. Later we discovered the beaches from the Rockaways to Atlantic Beach-Long Beach, from Jones Beach to Fire Island, from the Hamptons all the way to Montauk. To say nothing of the Jersey Shore from Bradley Beach to Ship Bottom on the beautiful Long Beach Island. If you love the ocean, New York City is near some of the world’s most beautiful beaches. Summer is a time for slowing down the pace or at least changing the scenery. For me, summer means the ocean, the boardwalk and the beach.  read more »

This week is graduation week here at Columbia and the campus has been hosting huge crowds of happy graduates and proud parents. I am reminded that in post-industrial New York City, education is a big business.  read more »

In a recent speech, Senator John McCain reiterated his support for mandatory caps on greenhouse gasses and for a cap and trade policy for carbon dioxide. He also criticized President Bush’s lack of leadership on global warming. It is good news to see some consensus among all the Presidential candidates on the issue of global warming and a definite step forward.

Two other elements of McCain’s climate and energy policy are a little less positive. First is his support for the suspension of the gasoline tax for the summer. I’m with Mike Bloomberg on this—the tax suspension is one of the most idiotic proposals of this endless presidential campaign. If you want to reduce production of greenhouse gasses you should not be lowering the price of gasoline. If you want to keep our aging highway bridges from falling down you might not want to defund the highway trust fund. Second is McCain’s support of nuclear power. He is not alone in pushing nuclear power. While no one argues, as they did in the 1950’s, that nuclear generated electricity would be too cheap to meter, many scientists are attracted to nuclear energy’s carbon free properties. This includes a number of my colleague’s here at Columbia University.  read more »

Earlier this week, New York Times reporter Felicity Barringer filed an excellent story on San Francisco’s successful waste management strategy.

The story discussed San Francisco Mayor Gavin Newsom’s zeal for keeping garbage out of landfills. Currently, his city keeps 70 percent of its disposable garbage out of landfills.

You might think that would be enough, but it’s not. He is about to propose legislation to mandate recycling of cans, bottles, paper, yard waste and food scraps. If you don’t recycle, the city won’t pick up the rest of your garbage.

How much of New York City’s waste is kept out of landfills? About 30 percent. Of course, that puts us ahead of Boston at 16 percent and Houston at less than 3 percent.  read more »

A couple of weeks ago I wrote about the pandering Presidential politics of Clinton, McCain and Obama. McCain pandered on the gas tax and Hillary and Barack pandered on trade.  read more »