TL;DR:

The Green New Deal panel offered a refreshing perspective on the current efforts in New York, at the city and state level, to both combat climate change and ensure the green economy marks a positive turning point in the injustice faced by marginalized communities. The new orientation of the economy in response to climate change can be characterized by three R’s: Regulation, Restitution, and Revolution. The most galvanizing part of the talk was the idea of a federal job guarantee, which would work through the new economic ideas of Modern Monetary Theory. What can you do? Start by calling your legislators about the GND legislation I mention and link to below.

Here are all the links to what I talk about:

Huffington Post article on NYC’s GND

NYS Senate Climate and Community Protection Act

New York Times article on MMT

Green New Deal Review (Full Version):

As I was leaving the Green New Deal panel, I must admit a bit of academic jealousy because Physics Department colloquia have never been so engaging and inspiring. Part of the display was simply the realization of how many moving parts it takes to achieve comprehensive legislative reform. On the panel were a city councilmember, activists on the state and global level, and an academic focusing on national policy. These people play a diverse set of roles in the way we are governed and represented, but they were all united on the new narrative of threat- the immediacy of the climate crisis. In contrast with the capitalistic fearmongering preferred by the Bloomberg administration, which focused on slow growth and the expectation of a business-related population surge, this new guard is taking a social and environmental stance. The panel’s description of the solid progressive majority in Albany and the comprehensiveness of New York City’s Climate Mobilization Act shows there is a path forward for our state to set an example in climate resiliency and a new energy economy. Throughout the discussion, words like “justice” and “equity” were emphasized over “growth” and “development.”          These sentiments found their implementations in what I’ll call the three R’s of climate action: regulation, restitution, and revolution.

Most of the regulatory policy came from Councilman Constantinides, which is not surprising considering his status as a local policymaker whose job it is to hammer out the nitty-gritty of who must pay for what. His description of previous NYC climate legislation and the upcoming Climate Protection Act include such impositions on corporate behavior as mandating that cost-benefit analyses include the social (i.e., health and environmental) costs of building projects, forcing the biggest buildings in the city to cut emissions by 40% within five years, and ordering other buildings to install green roofs and solar panels. These measures, by the councilman’s own account, do not sit well with the real estate lobby, which has been countering the legislation in the Council Hall. The nuance in this type of legislation is in the enforcement, a point raised by Leslie Cagan during her talk. In New York City, this means following through on promises to not give any loopholes to big buildings, but also to understand how to expand the plan to include smaller buildings, where costs more easily affect residents and small businesses. Although this aspect of the panel involved the least novel ideas, it was the most surprising. It was amazing to realize that, right in front of our eyes, a group of legislators was preparing to pass sweeping regulations on one of the biggest businesses in the city without the measures being significantly defanged. In Nassau County, you don’t see local leaders or state representatives with as much passion for progressive causes: most are moderated by the wealth of the suburbs, the insular nature of their neighborhoods, and the greater population of conservative voters. Seeing a man who possesses all the makings of a perfectly average local politician speak with such conviction and expertise about the impact and importance of this legislation was inspiring.

While most of the concrete legislation being planned has focused on these regulatory measures, the panel focused more on the potential of new policies to address the climate crisis proactively. This is where restitution plays a key role. Annel Hernandez emphasized 4 areas of work for “environmental justice.” These are extreme heat and community preparedness, air quality, green infrastructure, and energy efficiency. Because the federal government is slow to adopt change, both in general and at the moment, Hernandez placed great weight on state legislation and individual communities’ roles in implementing the aforementioned “just transition.” We have addressed issues of resource allocation, affordability, and neoliberal policies’ detrimental impact on the poor, but the conversation on the panel took on a broader perspective. It was alarming to note the concrete evidence of environmental racism and historic scars left on communities where highways, landfills, and fossil fuel-burning power plants have been located. Khalil, a Community Board member from the Rockaways, noted the higher rates of asthma in his community, where low-flying planes pollute the air. All of this evidence, as well as the accepted knowledge of historic poverty and discrimination against communities of color and other disadvantaged populations, led the speakers on the panel to advocate for investment in these communities that have either been most impacted by manmade pollution or will be in the most danger from the current extreme weather events associated with a warming climate. Costantinides and Hernandez both sagely noted the necessity for coastal resiliency against rising sea levels and extreme flooding. How telling that Lower Manhattan received a climate resiliency plan, but northern Queens, home of the largest housing project in the nation, and Hunts Point, both a low-income neighborhood and also the site of NYC’s food distribution center, did not.

The need for equity and justice forces the creation of the third R- revolution. The only way to move beyond regulation and achieve these optimistic goals is to radically adapt the economy and the attitudes of the public and government to the reality of the climate crisis. The centerpiece to the revolution is to abandon the slow-plodding policy of allowing technology to incentivize the free market to adopt clean energy on its own. Such a strategy has failed for over twenty years- a fact brought to light by the fact that petroleum companies were found to have acknowledged the threat of climate change, but denied it in order to get a monopoly on new, clean energy solutions. Andres Bernal presented a new solution: a systematic change in the economy. Instead of treating climate change as solely an environmental or technological problem, we need to acknowledge it for what it is: a threat to every aspect of our way of life. In response, it is necessary to take this opportunity to shift our government spending into overdrive, much like the response to World War II. Bernal cited the departure from the gold standard, and how the United States used the move to finance the conflict, as a paradigm for supplying the money for a federal job guarantee at a living wage. Why a jobs guarantee? It provides for the labor needed to transition from a fossil fuel-based society to a green one, but also helps to address other issues we currently face: stagnating wages, under-utilization of the available workforce, and historic socioeconomic discrimination against minorities. Truly revelatory was Bernal’s statement that we have come to see the current state of economics as a science rather than a flawed model for how states should conduct business. I found his argument that the government can spend as much as needed to keep the economy at full capacity without inflation highly convincing. We always question how to pay for universal healthcare or free college. What is never mentioned in these conversations is that, right now, we are not able to pay for the Social Security, Medicare, and the military without debt! It is therefore not unnatural to suggest that the US should engage in new spending that will not find its match in taxpayer dollars. The basis for all these ideas are found in Modern Monetary Theory (MMT for the Bloomberg-reading nerds). If you remember what you learned in macroeconomics and feel like this is upside-down and inside out, I’ve linked to an article introducing the idea above this post.

When I was in high school, I was very attuned to the issue of climate change and the political processes associated with it. I followed the UN’s COP sessions and even spent a semester working on a Nigerian climate resiliency plan for a research class. But I must confess that after Trump was elected, I became disillusioned with our country’s ability to address the crisis in any substantial manner. I stopped paying attention and grew accustomed to the idea that climate change would simply take millions by surprise when it was too late. This panel left me extremely optimistic because, while I was discouraged, these people had been getting to work. Local solutions with community involvement are the precursors to change at the state and regional level, which will cascade upward to the federal government. And as for accusations from railing against a social justice mentality and the dangers of socialism- I’m over it. The inequality is too severe, the threat of disaster too large, to spend time quibbling about the essential goodness of capitalism. It’s time to act. If you live in New York City, call your councilperson and urge them to pass Int 1253. Log on to the New York State Senate’s website and follow the NY Climate and Community Protection Act; if your state senator is on the Environmental Conservation Committee, call them and voice your support. The resolution of this global crisis must start locally, and New Yorkers are poised to the lead the way, if only we’ll take up the mantle history has provided us.

All the information I use in this blog comes from this timeline written by Amy Plitt for Curbed NY and from this amazing piece written by Michael Kimmelman. I highly recommend a slow scroll-through of the NYT article- the graphics are fantastic and the writing is very well done.

When I was 14, I visited the High Line for the first time. Lifting my gaze from the sloping benches, modern art sculptures, and gawking tourists, I saw them. A hulking group of towers looming over the near skyline, their metal skeletons still visible above their incomplete glassy exteriors. At that moment, I did not recognize them for what they were, but I wondered about their purpose and when they would ever be completed.

Last week, I saw in the New York Times that the strangest of those buildings, an Escherian honeycomb called “Vessel,” was completed and open to the public. In fact, the whole complex was now sheathed in glass and accepting offers from prospective tenants who wished for a luxury lifestyle on the banks of the Hudson. What was this project, and how could such a lavish and ostentatious neighborhood simply be created atop a train depot? It turns out the story of Hudson Yards demonstrates how Bloomberg’s use of zoning helped bring to life his vision for the city.

According to Curbed NY, Hudson Yards was originally part of the Bloomberg administration’s bid for the 2012 Olympics. It was to house a massive stadium that would become the New York Jets’ home and would also include retail and housing. In the end, all the plans were rejected, save for the zoning changes, which quietly passed in 2009. All around the future site of Hudson Yards, Bloomberg served up prime real estate to build the High Line and its surrounding towers. Soon, the rights to the air above the LIRR train depot were bought and the project seen today began to take shape.

This neighborhood was created out of nothing by Bloomberg and capital. The former mayor pushed for a vision of New York he believed was the most important development the city has seen in a long time. Through the rezoning of the depot and the surrounding area, the entire character of this part of the city was irrevocably changed. Who determined what became of this fallow ground? Certainly not New Yorkers. The air rights being sold to private developers meant that private capital determined how the towers looked and how the requirement for 50% open space was met. They created a space-age offshoot, a Jetson village with none of the show’s domicile joviality . Reading the descriptions of the apartments on Hudson Yards’ website is an exercise in disgust. At a moment when New York is in perhaps its worst housing crisis, does the city really need another four massive towers advertised as the finest in luxury living? New York is not Dubai. Though it is indeed a temple to capitalism, it is also an organic space, where people have flocked to participate in the dance of business and created a culture of urban interactions. Contriving this space into pretentious Instagram bait, claiming public access to an area shadowed by private dwellings, and even creating separate entrances for premium and subsidized tenants are all decisions not made in the best interest of New York.

According to New York Times architectural critic Michael Kimmelman, Hudson Yards implies “the peak ambitions of city life [are] consuming luxury goods and enjoying a smooth, seductive, mindless materialism.” There was very little public opposition to the rezoning of Hudson Yards. Distracted by the previous plans for a stadium and the failed Olympic bid, as well as the fact that no existing neighborhood was being razed, Bloomberg skated through the process of wasting an opportunity to create an equitable space that better prepared New York for the economic problems that began in 2008 and still linger today.

This story has a more subtle connection to zoning and power because of how little opposition there was, but the truth is that rezoning created the opportunity for private capital to swoop in and impose this behemoth upon New York.