New York City’s New Mayor’s Environmental Agenda
In less than a month, Eric Adams will be the Mayor of New York City, and I hope his environmental priorities will focus on work under the control of the city government. Many key elements of the green agenda require his support-such as congestion charging and renewable energy, but public transportation and public utility regulation is controlled by the state. Other sustainability policies require federal initiatives. Mayors should try to influence because they cannot control state and federal policies. But New York City is the largest local government in the United States, and I hope that the elected mayor Adams and his team will focus on the projects he controls. The predecessor of the new mayor attached great importance to the Earth Day statement, but was not very interested in continuing to follow up. I would rather talk less and do more in the city hall. The New York City government controls garbage collection and treatment, water supply, sewage treatment, parks, streets, and its own vehicles, procurement, and 4,000 municipal buildings. The city also controls land use, zoning, and building codes (the subject of an upcoming article). Our new mayor should focus his environmental agenda on areas under municipal control.
Rubbish
Let us once again quote the immortal Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia (Fiorello LaGuardia), starting with rubbish, his famous saying “There is no democratic or republican way to pick up rubbish.” But as we have learned in the past few years, if the garbage is not transported by truck, there are many rats that can do this job. We need to carefully separate food waste from other waste, expand the use of rat-proof brown and orange cans, and send all urban food waste to anaerobic digesters (a mechanized form of composting). Private porters who collect commercial waste should be required to collect food waste separately, and new food waste treatment facilities should be established where we can put them—in or outside the city—and quickly constructed. The market for recycled materials is unstable, but New York City should be creative in collecting and marketing recycled materials. Let us find private partners who want to enter the fertilizer business with us. Let us not only collect plastics, but also reuse them. We spent a lot of money on “tips” for dumping garbage; let’s use this money to build real recycling facilities.
according to Washington post Reporter Tik Root cited a recent study by the National Academy of Sciences, the United States is the world’s most serious plastic pollution country:
“According to analysis, the United States contributed more to this flood than any other country, producing about 287 pounds of plastic per person. Overall, the United States generated 42 million tons of plastic waste in 2016—almost twice that of China. More than the entire European Union combined…Most plastics are made from fossil fuels, and some It may take hundreds of years to decompose. Researchers estimate that between 1.13 million and 2.24 million tons of plastic waste leaks into the environment in the United States each year. Approximately 8 million tons of plastics eventually flow into the ocean each year. According to the current trajectory, this number may climb to 53 million tons by the end of this decade. ”
New York City throws away a lot of plastic and food, so instead of trying to solve the entire garbage problem, we have to set some priorities and focus on the part of the garbage stream first.
Water supply
There is a large supply of clean water in the northern part of New York City. Thanks to Mike Bloomberg’s restart of the multi-billion-dollar, long-delayed third water tunnel project, we have a reliable way to deliver clean water to the city. The Water Authority and the Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) should be allowed to continue their excellent work, but we need to focus on the missing link in our water supply system: the pipes that carry city water to our buildings. Some of these pipes are very old, and the problem occurred between the city’s water supply and our taps. Lead and other toxic substances will eventually enter our water after leaving the control of the city. We need to incentivize building owners to measure the quality of building water and replace pipes and connectors when needed. The municipal government shall conduct harmless treatment of the water supply of municipal buildings and schools. The city can fund private costs by allowing deductions from property taxes and water bills. The city should also extend DEP’s water inspection plan from the street to our buildings.
Sewage treatment and flood control
Due to the construction of modern sewage treatment plants, the waters around New York City have been improved in the past half a century, but some of these factories are old and need to be upgraded. When our sewers, they all discharge untreated sewage into the water. , Which combines street and household trash, overflows during strong storms. We need to expand the urban green space to provide convenience facilities and reduce the impervious surface of the city to absorb excess water. But as we learned this summer, we also need to invest in a reservoir system to prevent our sewage treatment plant from being overwhelmed and to prevent our basement from being flooded. This will be expensive and will require us to create new sources of income to fund the investment needs of this new climate.Michael Kimmelman (Michael Kimmelman) in New York Times Need leadership and continuous follow-up. Community participation needs to be accelerated, and a deeper understanding of the shape of the proposed project must be clearly communicated, modified, and constructed. The Donghe Park project he described in the article will now be completed in 2026; it should have already been completed. We need to accelerate the planning and construction of infrastructure in New York City.
garden
The next priority should be to invest in New York’s chronically underfunded park system. We should expand the park and increase their capital budget to prevent their structure from collapsing. The middle level of Riverside Park is collapsing onto the train tracks on which it was built. The situation at the top level is even worse. The stairs in many parks are crumbling. New parks are needed where houses replace factories, and people are now supporting their families. The park reduces the heat island effect caused by climate change, improves air quality, absorbs carbon dioxide, and makes people happy. Although funding for education, police, and the homeless comes first, the park needs to get more than one cent from every dollar of taxpayers. Parks are an essential city service, but they are often overlooked in the budgeting process and considered a decoration. Four years ago, the then Mayor Ed Koch and the Central Park Conservation Association established a public-private park cooperation model. Yes, few other communities can generate cash like the Conservation Society, but Friends of the High Line showed that it can be done elsewhere, and Mayor Adams should let some of his new donor partners focus on parks that need help outside of Manhattan.
Decarbonized city operations
Efforts are being made to make the city’s own buildings more energy-efficient and use renewable energy to power them. This is not as priority as it needs to be. We need to obtain federal and state infrastructure funding and combine it with urban resources to achieve this goal. If they do not do it themselves, the city cannot ask private developers to decarbonize. In order for the renewable energy target to be meaningful, the city government must prove its commitment. Except for our municipal building, all vehicles in the city, from garbage trucks to police cars, should be electrified. New York and other big cities in the world should unite and use their purchasing power to create a market for electric garbage and fire trucks. Just as no one thinks that electric cars will always be viable before they drive a Tesla, these other vehicles can also be powered by electricity. In the short term, although new electric trucks are under development, every car a city buys should be electric. Federal infrastructure funds should be used to build charging stations and invest in energy efficiency and renewable energy.
Just as the federal government has begun to use its huge purchasing power to promote renewable energy and energy efficiency, New York City should do the same. When it signs a contract with a social service facility, it should let the supplier know that if they use renewable energy and their fleet is electric, their bids will earn points. No matter what the city buys, it should express its preference for green production processes and environmentally sustainable supply chains. If Wal-Mart can do it, so can New York.
The priorities I mentioned are all actionable and controlled by the city. We have formulated an eight-year sustainable development plan, carbon target and policy statement. At the same time, the quality of life in this city has declined. Crime, abandoned shops, garbage, rats, homelessness, and homeless people are all on the rise. This is a city full of vitality and creativity. Our new mayor should challenge the participation of the people of New York. (“Don’t ask what your city can do for you, but what you can do for your city.”) In terms of the house environment, let us hire the best scientists, economists, businessmen, engineers, managers and Community activists work together to improve the practical issues of the environmental quality of our cities. Let us do it quietly and reduce news incidents, but with focus, hard work and determination.Maybe our new mayor will make our environment action Speak for the next eight years. This will be a refreshing change.
