The Biodiversity Handbook varied from the other readings and our discussions in that contrary to how we talked about the city’s growing depreciation of nature, this book actually manages to portray New York in a biodiverse light. The first chapters talked about the abundance of plants and animals that thrive throughout the five boroughs, but doesn’t fail to mention that despite these existing species, there is more that can and should be done. As we mentioned in class, our relationship with nature parallels the extent to which we are willing to preserve remaining New York wildlife. The handbook seconds that statement and encourages a personal urban biodiversity experience, because it says that people are more likely to take action for biodiversity after having direct contact with nature.
I was surprised to read the section that talked about all the benefits that biodiversity provides us with. I was familiar with the food, medicine, wood, and other products benefits, however, I overlooked the fact that biodiversity aids in producing cooler communities, stormwater control, and natural water storage. I was also surprised to read about the 2007 study by the Center for Urban Forest Research Forest which concluded that New York City trees intercept almost 890 million gallons of rainwater each year, preventing it from entering storm sewers and saving the City an estimated $35 million annually in stormwater management costs. Additionally, the cooling effect of all those trees also reduces energy consumption by $6.9 million. These are numbers that I’m sure were not very well publicized, but if they were, could have swayed a lot more people to go green.
Another interesting point that I got out of the reading was that New Yorkers are all familiar with the concepts of air and water pollution, but noise and light pollution are never seriously taken into consideration. I didn’t know that artificial night lighting interfered with animal navigation, reproduction, and courtship as well as plant germination and flowering, whereas noise pollution affects animals’ ability to communicate and avoid predators. New York is known to be the city that never sleeps, so I don’t know what can possibly be done to minimize these kinds of pollution, but it’s definitely worth looking into.
